Without Children
The Long History of Not Being a Mother
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Narrated by:
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Marguerite Gavin
About this listen
A historian of gender explores the complicated relationship between womanhood and motherhood
In an era of falling births, it’s often said that millennials invented the idea of not having kids. But history is full of women without children: some who chose childless lives, others who wanted children but never had them, and still others—the vast majority, then and now—who fell somewhere in between. Modern women considering how and if children fit into their lives are products of their political, ecological, and cultural moment. But history also tells them that they are not alone.
Drawing on deep research and her own experience as a woman without children, historian Peggy O’Donnell shows that many of the reasons women are not having children today are ones they share with women in the past: a lack of support, their jobs or finances, environmental concerns, infertility, and the desire to live different kinds of lives.
Understanding this history—how normal it has always been to not have children and how hard society has worked to make it seem abnormal—is key, she writes, to rebuilding kinship between mothers and non-mothers and to building a better world for us all.
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The Trouble with White Women
- A Counterhistory of Feminism
- By: Kyla Schuller, Brittney Cooper - foreword
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Mela Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their White feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves. In The Trouble with White Women, Schuller brings to life the 200-year counter-history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against White feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice.
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Reframes the past by today’s standards
- By Dianne on 02-21-23
By: Kyla Schuller, and others
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The Feminine Mystique
- By: Betty Friedan
- Narrated by: Parker Posey
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The book that changed the consciousness of a country - and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic - these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name", that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since.
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A landmark book of its time and relevant now
- By Anthony on 01-23-15
By: Betty Friedan
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All the Rage
- Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership
- By: Darcy Lockman
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The inequity of domestic life is one of the most profound and perplexing conundrums of our time. In an era of seemingly unprecedented feminist activism, enlightenment, and change, data shows that one area of gender inequality stubbornly remains: the unequal amount of parental work that falls on women, no matter their class or professional status.
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Must read for men
- By Brooks Rainey Pearson on 06-12-19
By: Darcy Lockman
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Coming Apart
- The State of White America, 1960–2010
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity.
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Brilliant & Flawed
- By Douglas C. Bates on 05-15-12
By: Charles Murray
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The Feminine Mistake
- By: Leslie Bennetts
- Narrated by: Leslie Bennetts
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Abridged
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Women are constantly being told that it's simply too difficult to balance work and family, so if they don't really "have to" work, it's better for their families if they stay home. Not only is this untrue, Leslie Bennetts says, but the arguments in favor of stay-at-home motherhood fail to consider the surprising benefits of work and the unexpected toll of giving it up. It's time, she says, to get the message across: combining work and family really is the best choice for most women.
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couldn't get into it.
- By diana prince on 09-21-15
By: Leslie Bennetts
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One Child
- The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment
- By: Mei Fong
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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When Communist Party leaders adopted the one-child policy in 1980, they hoped curbing birthrates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China closes the book on the policy after more than three decades, it faces a population grown too old and too male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong has spent years documenting the policy's repercussions on every sector of Chinese society.
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Best Book Club Discussion Ever!!
- By Rachael W. Schettenhelm on 05-01-17
By: Mei Fong
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No Stopping Us Now
- The Adventures of Older Women in American History
- By: Gail Collins
- Narrated by: Gail Collins, Tanya Eby
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In her lively social history of American women and aging, acclaimed New York Times columnist Gail Collins illustrates the ways in which age is an arbitrary concept that has swung back and forth over the centuries. From Plymouth Rock (when a woman was considered marriageable if "civil and under fifty years of age"), to a few generations later, when they were quietly retired to elderdom once they had passed the optimum age for reproduction, to recent decades, American attitudes towards age have been a moving target.
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amazing
- By Elaine Sharon Davis on 06-09-20
By: Gail Collins
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The Book of Gutsy Women
- By: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton
- Narrated by: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them - women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.
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More encyclopedia than book
- By Fountain of Chris on 10-09-19
By: Hillary Rodham Clinton, and others
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Unnatural Selection
- Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
- By: Mara Hvistendahl
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't seem terribly grim, but in 10 years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have 24 million more men than women. The prognosis for China's neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females "missing" from its population. And gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia....
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Interesting idea but...
- By Seth P Dow on 07-30-15
By: Mara Hvistendahl
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The Marketing of Evil
- How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: David Kupelian
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.
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This should be recommended reading.
- By E. Giuetti on 08-01-17
By: David Kupelian
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Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
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Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
What listeners say about Without Children
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Erin L. H.
- 01-11-24
I felt seen
There was little repetition, which I see often in certain types of nonfiction, but the topic was fascinating. As a woman who lives in a part of the US that is very family-centric, I have felt on the outside for most of my adult life. This book added a feeling of belonging for me to other women who are child free - that the stigmas and assumptions by others and even that have been internalized by me are not unique. I really valued this book.
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- Calluna Vulgaris
- 04-27-23
Childless, Childfree, or Without Children?
I read this book along with the audiobook, which helped me get through it—that is not a reflection of the audiobook or the substance, it just helps my brain to focus. O’Donnell Heffington does a good job providing a surface-level look at the history of childfree women and couples. It is western-centric, so if you’re seeking more data on Asian cultures—I was shocked there was no commentary on China’s two-child laws—this won’t give you much. However, for a book written during COVID-19? I’m impressed.
As someone who will be having a voluntary salpingectomy in seven days, this book arrived at the perfect time. 3.75 stars. Recommend, for sure—for mothers and the childfree alike.
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- Sara Bale
- 05-23-24
women strong community
This brilliant historian shares what it's like to be a mom, struggles of infertility and choosing not to have children. She makes our stories and histories feel like support and connection through centuries of women like us to today. Her solution for us is community with each other.
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