Blackstone quoted in Moneyish article on child-free choice

Amy Blackstone, a professor of sociology at the University of Maine, was interviewed by Moneyish for the article, “Why these women chose to be child-free — and why that’s completely fine.” “I love my life as it is,” Blackstone said of her decision not to have kids. “And I feel that parenting is such an important job, and such a hard job, that to ask anyone to do it who is not 100 percent into doing it is not in the best interest of children or of parents — or of really anybody.” Blackstone, a prominent researcher in the child-free movement, grew up assuming she would become a parent — and played a considerable role in socializing herself toward that role, according to the article. But around her mid-30s, as many of her friends were having kids or planning for a family, she realized she wasn’t feeling that same pull toward motherhood, the article states. Blackstone set out to understand what was “wrong” with her, she said, only to discover there was “absolutely nothing wrong with me.” What started as a personal quest transformed into her chosen field of study. She now runs the blog “We’re Not Having a Baby!” with her husband and wrote the forthcoming book “Childfree by Choice.”