People who violate social norms fill other people with disgust and we see them as if they have broken a very Godly rule on how we should fill this earth with children. Men and women without kids were equally despised, proving that there is no gender limit to our disgust toward those who do not procreate.
The question then isn’t whether we hate people who don’t want children, but why we hate them so much. It is because having children is such a powerful, strongly held norm something we’re conditioned to want from our own childhoods that opting out violates the social code.
Those who violate it face backlash just as women face backlash for being too aggressive and men do for being too humble. The moral outrage this violation of the social code causes makes people think of the child-free as less happy. In other words, because most of us have kids, it’s very difficult for us to imagine that everyone doesn’t want them and anyone who doesn’t is probably miserable the suckers.
Having children is obviously a more typical decision, so perhaps people are rightfully surprised when they meet a married adult who, with their partner, has chosen to not have children. That they are also outraged by childfree people is what’s novel about this work.
Not only does this make people with children sound like smug people they who have not yet procreated, but it’s also not great news for the child-free, who will likely feel the need to offer up more reasons why not having kids is just fine.
