There is a social gathering of ten married couples. A couple who has five children ask another couple if they have children. When the couple proclaim that they are childfree, the couple with the five children look puzzled and shocked, asking, "Why you don't have any children?" The childfull couple adds that ,"You are missing OUT on SUCH MUCH!" It is assumed that when a couple gets married and/or become fully committal, they will have children. In the days when contraceptive methods were not so advanced, having sexual relations inevitably led to having children. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, there were vast improvements and more varieties in contraceptive technologies which resulted in couples choosing to have small families or no children at all.

In spite of advanced and more reliable contraceptive methods, people are inculcated from childhood that when they marry, they must children by parents, relatives, peers, society, and organized religions. Religions exhort that people should have as many children as possible. However, people choosing to be less adherent to religious doctrine and following their own wishes, people are taking their own reproductive choice into their own hands. Still people are told to have children because "they add so much to the familial dynamic."

A study done by Anne Landers in the 1970s stated that over 70% of the couples surveyed stated that if they had to do all over again, they would not have become parents. Let face it, children are expensive and it costs near a million dollars to support children from infancy through college. Children dramatically reduces a couple's freedom and changes their lifestyle.

Many couples prefer not to have their lifestyle encumbered by children and elect to remain childfree. Studies show that childfree couples are happier and have more fulfilling relationships and sexual lives than couples who have children. Studies furthermore substantiate that there is a correlation between the number of children in the family and the stress levels of the family. These same studies show that childfree couples are the happiest while parents with a brood of children are the unhappiest.

There are many reasons why couples elect to remain childfree. They are on a career fast track and believe that having children would derail their career plans. Many couples prefer to have a very free and uninhibited lifestyle and having children would interfere with that. In high school, I had a religious teacher who stated that she never wanted to have children because she and her husband loved to go out and travel a lot and she believed that having children would put a damper on her plans. Other childfree couples realize that having children involves planning and a lot of responsibility in raising them and they do not want that.

Many childfree couples think long and hard before deciding not to have children. The mantra of childfree couples is that every child should be wanted and loved, adding that if a couple does not want children, do not have them. Many couples, who have children, do so because of parental, societal, and religious pressure. They are told that married couples must have children in order to be fulfilled and happy. They are further told that children add so much to family life. These couples did not want children at all. This is obvious when you go to stores and shopping malls when you see parents screaming constantly at their children.

Most people, it is obvious,neither wanted nor enjoy their children, hoping that they grow up as quickly as possible and leave home. They are just perfunctory parents. There was a magazine article which a couple of parents stated that they could not wait to get away from their children to spend time with themselves. Studies show that childfree couples have the most enduring and stable marriages.

Many couples just want one-on-one time together to pursue intellectual and cultural pursuits such as travelling where and whenever they chose, going to fine and expensive restaurants, enjoying expensive vacations to exotic places, and attending Broadway plays. Having children are not the be all and end all to relationships. Many couples have a life and hobbies that do not revolve around children.

There is a societal assumption that if a couple elect not to have children, they are selfish and irresponsible. Not so! Couples who elect not to have children are some of the MOST UNSELFISH and THOUGHTFUL people around. They looked at all the options, seeing the pros and cons of having children and how it would affect their lifestyle and they also considered whether or not they would be good parents for their children. They take into consideration how children would affect them emotionally, psychologically, and financially. Childfree couples are also some of the MOST RESPONSIBLE of all couples in that they believe that children should be wanted and that people should not be having children for the sake of having children.

The issue of having children is not an option for everyone. The majority of people mindlessly have children which has deleterious effects on them and particularly the children. Children often alienate couples causing stress within the families. The majority of couples argue over the issue of children. Furthermore, studies show that couples who have children find it very difficult to be just a couple after the children have left home. These couples placed emphasis on their children, putting themselves in second place so it is hard for them to reconnect why they have an empty nest house.

Childfree couples do not have this problem at all as they have been connected to each other all the time. It takes courage in a pronatalist society for a couple to be childfree and to live one's life as they choose. Childfree couples know that there is life besides and outside of children and how to make their lives fulfilling by having hobbies, friends, and other intellectual and cultural activities.