Having children is not the only option: NZ women on being childfree

New Zealand’s birth rate has been steadily declining, meaning a growing number of the population are child-free. Three Kiwi women tell Sinead Corcoran Dye why they have rejected societal pressure and chosen not to have children. Plus, Lil O’Brien, Alie Benge and Kathryn van Beek, the editors of Otherhood: Essays on Being Childless, child-free and Child Adjacent - a collection of personal essays from New Zealand writers who don’t have children - tell Stephanie Holmes why the project is so important.

‘The reasons for and experiences around being child-free are so broad’ “We want Otherhood to be a safe space for people to rage, and be sad, or be like ‘I don’t have children and I bloody love it’,” says Lil O’Brien, one of the three editors of new essay collection Otherhood . “We hope that it helps to spark conversations about the joys – and the grief, or even the ambivalence – about having kids. To help break some taboos, to say that everyone’s choice is valid, and also to help make other people aware about the things others experience, or feel.



” The idea for the project came in 2022, when Kate Camp’s Spinoff essay, No Miracle Baby to See Here , was posted on Twitter. It was the final part of her full essay, Why Are There So Many Songs About Rainbows , detailing her experiences with IVF after discovering she had endometriosis. It resonated strongly with O’Brien and fellow NZ writer Kathryn van Beek, both of whom had been through their own unsuc.