Discourses of child free later life: A gendered topic

In earlier research on singleness, I talked both to women who had always been single and to those who were single again following marriage or a long term relationship. While some had children, many did not. It appeared that those without children had a double set of accounting to do. They felt required to explain why they were single. Furthermore, they found it hard to respond to questions on whether they had children, with their implicit query ‘why not?’

In this paper I explore the discourses employed by participants in my follow up interviews with these childfree women some thirteen years later, now they are aged 60+ years. I make some comparison with datasets that include transcripts from interviews with men aged 65+ (Arber and Davidson*, Bowling**).

In contrast to some discomfort expressed when younger in the contrast between their life and that of friends with children, a number of participants mentioned talk in older age about younger family members as something of a nuisance that could make for tedious conversation: 'I wish we could talk about something other than their grandchildren', or 'it cuts down their self-awareness as if they can only focus on somebody else'. Something had changed in their balance of accounting meaning some participants positioned themselves as companionable, free and active, and their friends with grandchildren as burdened by a sense of duty that required them to prioritise time caring for them and a narrow conversational focus.

 *85 interviews men over 65 years (UKDA 6011 Arber, S. and Davidson, K., Older Men: their Social Worlds and Healthy Lifestyles, 1999-2002 of whom 15 had no children.

** 80 interviews men and women over 65 years (UKDA 5237, Bowling, A. Adding Quality to Quantity: Quality of Life in Older Age, 2000-2002) of whom 14 had no children.