Talk:Voluntary childlessness/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Requested move 22 August 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus is against proposed move. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 21:17, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

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Voluntary childlessness → Childfreeness – I am offering four reasons for this new move request:

(1) The term "childfree" and its variants are more commonly used in books than "voluntary childlessness" and it's variants. See Google Ngram: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=childfreeness%2Cvoluntary+childlessness%2Cchildfree%2Cvoluntarily+childless&year_start=1960&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3

(2) The term "childfree" and its variants are more commonly used in research (see Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=childfree+OR+childfreeness&btnG=) than "voluntary childlessness" and its variants (see Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=%22voluntary+childlessness%22+OR+%22voluntarily+childless%22&btnG=)

(3) The term "childfree" and its variants are commonly used by journalists, for example: Time (cover story from August 2013: https://time.com/241/having-it-all-without-having-children/), Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/12/work-life-balance-child-free/), and Los Angeles Times (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-06-18/childfree-lonely-community-auntie-children).

(4) The term "childfree" is the term used by individuals who choose not to have children. For example, it is the term used in the day recognizing this population (International Childfree Day), the annual convention focused on this population (https://childfreeconvention.com/), and a magazine devoted to this population (https://childfreehappilyeverafter.com.au/childfreemag2/).

Previous move requests raised concerns of non-neutrality. Although the suffix "free" may have positive connotations, "childfree" is now the dominant term used to describe individuals who do not want to have children. It is no less neutral than, for example Black Lives Matter, which is not interpreted as making a non-neutral claim that Black lives matter, but simply as the widely-accepted name of a specific movement. Likewise, renaming this entry "childfree" should not be interpreted as making a non-neutral claim about the value of having or not having children, but simply an entry about the widely-used name of a reproductive decision. Zpneal (talk) 17:14, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose: The rationale is mostly talking about the word "childfree", but the proposed title is "childfreeness", which is a different word. "Childfreeness" seems rather awkward and is almost never used. The current title seems adequate and neutral, so I don't really see a need to change it. "Childfree" also seems potentially non-neutral and somewhat of a neologism. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:23, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per BarrelProof as childfreeness seems to be an awkward and relatively uncommon neologism. Additionally, the term childfree(ness) may be viewed as having an ideological component (or at least an ideological connotation) that voluntary childlessness doesn't. Graham11 (talk) 01:55, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• I think nominator has made good case for "childfree" being used in reliable sources. Is "childfreeness" used in reliable sources as well? Is there another noun phrase like "childfree movement" that might also fit? @Graham11: @Barrelproof: do you have examples of recent reliable sources avoiding "childfree" or using another term? Fredlesaltique (talk) 02:46, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fredlesaltique: Hey folks, please double check signatures, don’t just type display names. I’m not part of this discussion. Graham^talk/mail/e 03:07, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fredlesaltique: Is "childfreeness" used in reliable sources as well? Comparatively very rarely, it appears.

do you have examples of recent reliable sources avoiding "childfree" or using another term? Sure, just looking at the first Google Books result for "childless", for instance, we have How to Be Childless: A History and Philosophy of Life Without Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), by Rachel Chrastil, a American historian and Provost of Xavier University. She discusses her choice of terminology in the book's introduction:

Conversations about childlessness can be fraught with difficulty because through them we are making ethical claims about personal issues as well as ideas about family, work, and the purpose of life. It can be hard to get beyond our differences. Mutual suspicions of selfishness get tied up with mundane family guilt. Some people have a hard time even hearing the word childless. They hear "infertility" instead of "voluntary childlessness." They hear "unmarried women" rather than "women without children." In the past, they heard "nun" or "witch" or "prostitute."

It's still difficult to assign the appropriate term: "childfree" can be too aggressive; "childless," too much a lack. "Nulliparous" is technically accurate but frankly unappealing. I've defaulted to "childless," since that is the defining characteristic of the people I'm interested in, but with the caveat that I don't view the absence of children as a deficit to be overcome.

The introduction goes on to point out how the Google Books Ngram Viewer shows usage of childfree being a tiny fraction of usage of childless.

Is there another noun phrase like "childfree movement" that might also fit? Childfree, which entered widespread use over the past couple decades, is a term that is largely used by a modern social movement that views parenthood as impinging on their freedom. As Chrastil puts it,

The "childfree" (as they now styled themselves) viewed parenting as an all-or-nothing proposition. They defined parenting as a zero-sum game, only available by giving up on something else, and that something else was almost always called "freedom." Having children, they reported, would come at the cost of just about everything they cared about: a job, a good marriage, financial solvency, even competence. ...

Furthermore, American child-free advocates began to argue that childlessness was not only an acceptable path but also a better choice than parenthood.

This article, however, is not limited to this liberal social movement that began in the late 20th century (and that started emphasizing the term childfree in the 2000s). The article already discusses voluntary childlessness in the mid-20th century and its scope includes voluntary childlessness throughout history. Accordingly, "another noun phrase like 'childfree movement'" would be undesirable as it would limit the article's scope.

The nominator compares the term childfreeness to Black Lives Matter, but the reality is this would be equivalent to titling an article about opposition to anti-black racism "Black Lives Matter". While opponents of anti-black racism obviously hold that the lives of black people matter in some sense, the term Black Lives Matter refers to a specific 21st-century movement in the United States (and other countries in America's cultural sphere of influence). The term, as it is typically understood, doesn't encompass all activism in opposition to anti-black racism in all times and places. Similarly, while anyone who is voluntarily childless could be said to be free of children in some sense, using the term to title this article would be inappropriate as the term refers primarily to a specific 21st-century movement and not to the concept generally. Graham (talk) 05:57, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The Chrastil book is a helpful resource, but its relevance here is not clear. Chrastil is discussing all forms of not-having-children, including being childless (wanting but not having children) and being childfree (not wanting children). There is already an entry for this broad phenomenon at Childlessness. This entry is describing the much narrower and specific phenomenon of being childfree. As noted in the original nomination, research and media discussing this more specific phenomenon tend to use the term "childfree". Zpneal (talk) 13:22, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that most major dictionaries include childfree (meaning that it is in standard use) as being without children by choice or "especially by choice": Oxford (UK), Cambridge (UK), Collins (UK), MacMillan (US/UK), American Heritage (US). Exceptions are Merriam Webster (US; does not mention by choice) and Macquarie (Australia; no entry) Fredlesaltique (talk) 03:04, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

There is also a difference in scope between an article about the more general concept of voluntary childlessness and the recent "childfree" social movement that was identified as a trend in 2014 by Psychology Today. For example, Arthur Schopenhauer lived in the 1700s when the term "childfree" hadn't been invented yet, but he was an advocate of voluntary childlessness. Although the term "childfree" has apparently been dated to pre-1901 by Merriam-Webster, it was not a widely used term until much more recently. I think the current title is better, since it covers the entire phenomenon rather than just its most recent incarnation as a millennial and 21st century social trend. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:37, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The above comment can be partially viewed as amplifying Graham's remark that "the term childfree(ness) may be viewed as having an ideological component (or at least an ideological connotation) that voluntary childlessness doesn't." This ideological component implies a difference in scope that I believe is undesirable. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:07, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - Although childfree is in use, childfreeness is a neologism, and I agree it is awkward. A Google-Ngram shows more useage of childlessness and virtual no useage of childfreeness [1]. Netherzone (talk) 03:48, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the opposition point that "childfreeness" is both awkward and a rarely-used neologism. The term "childfree" is the more widely-used variant, and from the sources noted in the nomination, much more widely used than either "voluntary childlessness" or "voluntarily childless." I had (perhaps mistakenly) believed the entry title needed to be a noun. However, if using an adjective as the title is permitted, I would be happy to amend my move request to "childfree." Zpneal (talk) 12:15, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Adding another reason - The wikipedia category for articles relating to childfree/voluntarily childless content (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Childfree) is already called `childfree'. Zpneal (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Graham: do you have examples of other reliable sources that distinguish between "voluntary childlessness" or use other terms in place of "childfree"? If I understand correctly, your point is that "childfree" is only used for the modern movement. Fredlesaltique (talk) 11:53, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Notes

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Non sequitur

However, some childfree people explicitly reject antinatalism; they may even like the children of others, but just do not want any themselves.

What this implies (ie that one would expect that antinatalists don't like children) doesn't make much sense. Liking (or respecting children) is rather the reason why one would not want to create more of them and thereby expose them to harm, or pain, without their consent. 31.17.172.28 (talk) 15:41, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Um… no. That’s not how logic works. But okay. Dronebogus (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The pet rooster

Is the image of a woman talking to her pet rooster really the best image to represent voluntary childlessness? Fephisto (talk) 04:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

From what I have read, some people prefer pets to children. Pick another picture if you want. Nerd271 (talk) 16:44, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Absence of criticism section

Should there be a criticism section? I say this in relation to the article being voluntary childlessness and thus a choice. Perhaps criticism in relation to ideological aspects like antinatalism, a view that does have note of criticism in its article. Zilch-nada (talk) 11:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Moral reason

There is no mention of the most important reason to be child free,IMO, that it is immoral to impose a life of struggles and pain onto another being. 50.206.145.234 (talk) 21:58, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Celebrities

I'm not sure if we need a large section on celebrities who pursue this lifestyle. Nerd271 (talk) 00:11, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

100% agree. Why is this wiki entry so long? 18.10.77.197 (talk) 20:52, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, and what's up with all the really strange, unnecessary pictures? It's like it's purposefully edited to make this lifestyle look as kooky and crazy as possible. Fephisto (talk) 16:23, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Page Changes

My main goal was to try to be bold and clean up some of the accretion here. The article goes on for quite a while and it's difficult to read. Importantly, a lot of the lists had items that were listed multiple times and were very redundant, so I tried to recategorize them and bundle them together a bit more. Finally, a lot of the pictures seemed really haphazard or looked so weird that I wonder whether they were an attempt to discredit the page, so I tried to limit it to one per section.

I think the statistics section could really be condensed into general view instead of a "country by country" or "region by region" view, as there's a lot of unnecessary overlap with the "Aging of..." articles.

As for the third section, it has a lot of overlap with the first section, but I don't quite know how to handle it. It might be best to try to merge the first and third sections into one somehow. For example, the "Selfish" issue/ethical reasons/religion seems like parts of a good lede for the "Philosophical" reasons section. Something like that maybe?

Fephisto (talk) 21:31, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fephisto: Please keep working on this article. I could use some attention. Nerd271 (talk) 20:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Fephisto: I copied the page over into my sandbox. If you want to help rewrite this article, please go there. Nerd271 (talk) 23:03, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade: In case you have not noticed, Fephisto and I rewrote this page. We both agreed that the previous (major) version was much worse because it was more like an outline than an article. We did it on my sand box. Like everyone else, you are welcome to improve this page. Drive-by templating is ill-advised. Nerd271 (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

NPOV

This article has a fair amount of weasel wording problems, but also a lot of issue with overall tone. The photo captions certainly are an issue; they should just describe the image, not use it to say "Oh look and that proves...". Similarly, a good deal of the rest of this article seems to be advocating this position, rather than simply describing the fact that it is and has historically been controversial, why, and presenting referenced facts about it so that the reader can learn about it and make up their own mind. While I personally agree that it's perfectly fine for someone to decide not to have children, the article shouldn't be pushing that, or any, position. It should present actual facts (environmental impact and so on), of course, but in a neutral way, and if "some say" something, it needs to be specified who "some" is and why their thoughts are of particular significance. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:13, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Public opinion polls do not generally state the identities of the interviewees for obvious reasons. And since this is still a controversial topic, of course certain things are going to be vague. Moreover, we have both sections explaining why some want to be childfree and why some criticize this lifestyle choice. I don't see a problem here, except that more information could be added. Nerd271 (talk) 14:18, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

The "who" need not be an individual. If it's results from an opinion poll, it can be specified as (for an example, this is not of course actually the case) "In a 2015 Gallup poll, 60.3% of respondents answered 'Yes' to the question...". Then the "who" is, well, 60.3% of respondents to that poll; we don't need or want to individually list all their names, and of course couldn't anyway. But that's then specified in some way, rather than a nebulous "Some...". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

This has previously been addressed. Saying, "According to this poll,..." again and again is repetitive and tiring. So another editor, Fephisto, decided to change it to more or less where it is now. You are free to bring some of that back. I suppose switching between the two styles for the sake of variety is a good thing. Vigorous writing should not bore the reader to death. This does not mean that we should pursue sensationalism, of course. But there is nothing in this article that could be categorized as such. Nerd271 (talk) 14:49, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, the style could be varied, but "some" without further qualification isn't workable at all, even once. (And I know for me, reading and seeing that is a record scratch, not good style—"Wait, who is this 'Some' who say this, and why do I care what they think?".) But I'm sure there could be some different ways found to word it, so that every "Some" is made specific and contextualized without being unduly repetitive. The weasel words aren't the only issue, though; there's a fair few overall problems in tone. I'll try to collect some of those as well The photo captions were one example, those need trimmed down to just describing the image. A photo caption shouldn't generally be very long. But in the end, if the choice is "boring, repetitive, and neutral" or "exciting, varied, and non-neutral", well, we've got to choose the former. I don't think those are the only two choices, but currently it's more toward the latter, and we've always got to be very careful when trying to write "vigorously" that we don't, in that vigor, cross over the line of POV. Neutrality is more important than "vigor". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:58, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Vigor, conciseness, clarity, and neutrality are all important. We should not write in a formulaic, chore-like, or robot-like manner. (What's the point of having human editors, then?) Since we are presenting people's varying viewpoints here, this means that at times, things might seem subjective, even if we tried our best to remain neutral. This is a lifestyle choice, after all. The top two sections present two classes of opposing opinions. (Again, you are free to present more viewpoints in the second section if you think this is too biased in favor of the childfree/voluntarily childless.) As for the captions, I suspect you may not have seen that many from the news or scientific publications. Some of them amount to a short paragraph. As long as they are relevant to the article and support the body text, and as long as there is enough space, there is no problem here. Nerd271 (talk) 15:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

As to captions, that may be true for news and science publications, as they have no policies against original research or synthesis. For articles, though, extrapolating anything about the image beyond what it directly depicts is those things, so captions can't do that. I'm definitely seeing a lot of other problems too, though. I've done a spot check of sources (a comprehensive check would be longer, so there certainly may be more issues than these), and found at least a few: Citation of the claim In line with policies of family-friendliness, governments and employers typically offer support for parents, even though people without children might have to care for invalid, disabled, or elderly dependents, commitments that entail significant financial and emotional costs is sourced to [2], which does not so far as I can tell in any way discuss the issues of adult caregiving in connection or contrast with childlessness, so that's SYNTH. The source would have to explicitly make a connection between them in order for the article to. This claim, The "life" aspect of the work-life balance is often taken to mean parenting. Non-parents, including the childfree, are thus assumed to be career-focused and willing to work extra time, which is not necessarily the case. What they do with their free time is not considered as important., is stated as fact, but is sourced to [3], an editorial (note the "Commentary" tag.) Editorials can be used as a source for what their author's opinion is, but not for factual statements. There's also this source, [4], which is used for several claims—but while being published by the New York Free Press probably makes it reasonably good reliability-wise, I don't know if the book actually supports those claims or not, because book cites need page numbers, not just a citation to the book as a whole. And that's on a spot check of a couple paragraphs—so if there's more sourcing issues like those, there's a lot to be done. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:05, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

We can rephrase the captions to better match the body text, if necessary. We are talking about opinions here. So it is perfectly fine to use opinion or commentary articles. This is like the Reception section for an article about a movie. Nerd271 (talk) 19:57, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

It is fine to use opinion articles as a source of opinions, which means to attribute the opinion to its holder and present it as such. But we cannot use opinion articles and present what they say as fact, "in Wikipedia's voice" so to speak. So, we can certainly use an opinion article, and present it as "John Doe, in the Example Times, stated that Foo is A and Bar is B, because C and D", and that's fine to source from an editorial, because we make it clear that it's Doe's opinion. But we cannot use that to source "Foo is A and Bar is B, because C and D". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:20, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I just want to say that this was what we originally had to work with when we slowly started picking away at this. So, before chastising us too much, please take a look at where it's come from.

I still don't quote like quite how the Statistics and Research section pans out either, given how it has the same issue of bullet-point-schizophrenia only the bullet points are hidden as different 'sections' that are frequently just a single sentence stating a poll for that region. In other words, that section still needs to be written out like an article.

     The photo captions certainly are an issue; they should just describe the image, not use it to say "Oh look and that proves...".

Oh man, check out that link I posted above. I'd be in favor of getting rid of all the images minus the graphs, fwiw. It's boring and clinical (the sleeping person with tie-dye dreams is fun, and don't get me started on the absolute riot that a Schopenhauer painting is), but this IS an encyclopedia.

     and if "some say" something, it needs to be specified who "some" is and why their thoughts are of particular significance.

Could you provide a list of such statements in the article? Your guys' discussion is a little too abstract for me, so it'd help to have some concrete examples we can look at here. At the very least, then we could go through and correct them.

     I've done a spot check of sources (a comprehensive check would be longer, so there certainly may be more issues than these), and found at least a few:

It took all my attention just to get rid of the repetition and Nerd271 helped changed it from the bullet point list monstrosity you see in that link to an actual article. I think I complained somewhere else (on your talk page, Nerd271?) that I didn't even get to the point of doublechecking all the sources. It's just too much work for me to bother with, and I'm sorry to say, but just between the two of you, I'm getting rather sick of reading and re-reading this article. It took all I had to just get rid of all the repeated sentences. I agree there are issues with the sources. Why don't you go through them more thoroughly for us?

Fephisto (talk) 02:04, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Certainly not my intent to "chastise" anyone. Article improvement is an iterative process, and certainly what's here now is better than that massive bullet list you linked to before. I do think we probably could do with something like the regional stuff the old version had, though; it's very unlikely that either the experience or prevalence of "voluntary childlessness" is much similar between the UK and Pakistan, so it probably would be good to have some idea of the differences that apply in that sense, rather than a lot of blanket statements that make it seem like this is essentially a globally similar phenomenon.

As to "some", for a few examples: Some have argued that the conscientiousness of childfree environmentalists... (who has argued that?), The decision not to have children has been derided as "unnatural"... (who derided it that way?), Some women have argued that revealing their decision to not have children was akin to coming out as gay (who are some examples of those women?), and so on from there. It's not just "some", but weasel wording in general—"it's said", "some believe", "it is believed", "it is held", and so on. By whom? All of that is weasel wording.

As to checking the sources, I'll try to get through those as I can, may make a separate section for that, but just checking a few certainly showed issues with it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh, and really, I don't think taking out all the photos is the answer. The one of the woman beating away the stork with an umbrella really is, I think, encyclopedic, in that it is historic and shows that this is not some new phenomenon. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Nerd271 and Fephisto, planned to start this sooner, but had some rather unexpected things come up. I think that's sorted, and I think Fephisto is correct that a comprehensive analysis of sources would be a very good starting point. It would be rather large to put onto this talk page, so I've started it up at Talk:Voluntary childlessness/Source analysis; would like to get your thoughts if anything else would be useful to add to the table. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:34, 22 June 2024 (UTC)