'I don’t have children. It wasn’t deliberately planned that way, just the forces of circumstances (and perhaps, in our case, medical incompetence and neglect). But I certainly don’t regret not having offspring now. There are enough people in the world as it is, after all; and enough strained intergenerational parent/adult child relationships to go around. It’s also less responsibility for me, with the bonus that I can get to feel good about it by dressing it up as concern for the distribution of the planet’s dwindling resources. Besides, the urge to replicate one’s genes is an impulse I have never fully understood. If it happened, it happened: it didn’t.
There still exists, however, considerable familial and societal pressure to reproduce, particularly for women. This is wrong. It should be a choice freely undertaken. Personally, I’m quite fond of the ‘childless cat ladies’, certainly more so than the Mumsnet ‘baby mamas’. I’m not sure if the feeling is reciprocated.
Ever the antinatalist, Beckett called all parents criminals, and even non-poetry lovers can quote Philip Larkin’s famous ‘This Be The Verse’ by heart. Both were childless, by choice. Today they would be referred to as ‘happily child free’. Or unhappily, as the case may be – though not necessarily because they were ‘without issue’. To each his, or her, own.'
Desmond Traynor’s essay-pamphlet ‘The Most Natural Thing in the World’ was published by Beir Bua Press in 2022, and is accessible at:
‘A highly original essay from a master stylist. With brutal honesty Desmond Traynor weaves the enthralling story of his personal experience with philosophical musings on the ethics of reproduction. Provocative, profound, and ultimately very balanced.’
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a writer and critic.
‘Desmond Traynor’s ‘The Most Natural Thing in the World’ is a sweeping, personal, at times grippingly candid examination of perhaps the most fundamental decision a human being will ever make: whether or not to beget new life.’
Rob Doyle is a writer, whose most recent book is Autobibliography.
‘Reflecting on his own experience of family, Desmond Traynor has written a moving, clear-eyed examination of why society pressures women and men to reproduce. It is erudite, provocative and necessary.’
Patrick Chapman, author of The Following Year.
