For decades women have been valued for our reproductive capabilities. It’s easy to get caught up in the societal expectation of career, marriage, then kids. However, thanks to multiple waves of feminism and women’s movements, we know that the conventional path does not have to be taken.
These famous ladies have spoken out about not wanting kids and are helping smash the dutiful stigma.
In January, Miley Cyrus shot down tabloid reports that claimed she and husband Liam Hemsworth were expecting their first child, and now she’s shooting down future reports on the topic by stating she doesn’t plan to have any kids at all. The 26-year-old explains how the current state of the world has affected her outlook on raising a family, in a new Elle cover.
“We’re getting handed a piece-of-s— planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child,” she said. “Until I feel like my kid would live on an earth with fish in the water, I’m not bringing in another person to deal with that.” – Miley Cyrus
“I don’t have this sort of checklist of things that have to be done, and … if they’re not checked, then I’ve failed some part of my feminism or my being a woman or my worth and my value as a woman…I’ve mothered many things. And I don’t think it’s fair to put that pressure on someone.” – Jennifer Aniston
“There is a pressure on women to be mothers, and if they are not, then they’re deemed damaged goods. Maybe my purpose on this planet isn’t to procreate. Maybe I have other things I’m supposed to do?” – Jennifer Aniston
“It’s so much more work to have children. To have lives besides your own that you are responsible for – I didn’t take that on. That did make things easier for me. A baby – that’s all day, every day for eighteen years. Not having a baby might really make things easier, but that doesn’t make it an easy decision. I like protecting people, but I was never drawn to being a mother.” – Cameron Diaz
“We’d probably be great parents. But it’s a human being, and unless you think you have excellent skills and have a drive or yearning in you to do that, the amount of work that that is and responsibility – I wouldn’t want to screw them up.” – Ellen DeGeneres
“If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.” – Oprah Winfrey
“It was not my destiny. I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn’t care what people thought…it was only boring old men [who would ask me]. And whenever they went, ‘What? No children? Well, you’d better get on with it, old girl,’ I’d say, ‘No! Fuck off!’” – Helen Mirren
“We both don’t want kids… I don’t know whether it’s my experience [being raised by a single, teenage mum] as a kid, but I know how crazy my life is and how all over the place it is, and you have to be selfish to do what I do.” – Ricki-Lee Coulter
“I’m not sure I could have [balanced having children with my career]. There’s something in me that’s focused and single-minded and if I was going to do that, I’m not sure I could have done this.” – Julia Gillard
“I grew up in a big old family with eight kids younger than me and several of my brothers and sisters came to live with me early on in my life. I’ve loved their kids just like they’re my grandkids, and now I’ve got great-grand-kids!…they call me ‘Aunt Granny.’ Now I’m GeeGee, which is great-granny. I often think it just wasn’t meant for me to have kids, so everybody’s kids can be mine.” – Dolly Parton
“I try not to listen to the shoulds or coulds, and try to get beyond expectations, peer pressure, or trying to please – and just listen. I believe all the answers are ultimately within us. When I answered those questions regarding having children, I realised that so much of the pressure I was feeling was from outside sources, and I knew I wasn’t ready to take that step into motherhood.” – Kim Cattrall
“Motherhood has never been an ambition. I don’t think like that.” – Renee Zellweger
“The fact is that I have chosen not to have children because I believe the children who are already here are really mine, too. I do not need to go making ‘my own’ babies when there are so many orphaned or abandoned children who need love, attention, time, and care.” – Ashley Judd
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