Sarah Benesch | The Life We’re Taught to Want
Growing up in the counterculture of the 1960s, Sarah felt alienated when her peers embraced the traditional path of marriage and family, while she pursued a life of scholarship. Pulled by the strength of pronatalism, she briefly experimented with marriage only to realize that path was not for her. In her book, Pronatalism: Discourses and Counterdiscourses, Sarah examines the pronatalist tropes that shape women’s lives, from the “biological clock” to “having it all.” Now retired, Sarah enjoys her life as a "nother" and the stimulation and community bonds of her Brooklyn neighborhood.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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Sarah Benesch (00:00):
I really enjoyed my PhD program. I did really well, and then I got hired right away. It was such a dream. When I applied for that job, 200 people applied for the job and they hadn't hired anyone in that English department in 10 years because there had been a hiring freeze and they chose me, and that was incredible. But nobody throws you a party. You don't get a shower for that. Or even for when you finish your dissertation, no one would ever say, What was it like writing a dissertation? How long did it take you? What did you write about? People don't ask you those questions as a woman. You don't get presents. It's just a hoop that you jump through. And I don't think I had brought it really into focus until I wrote the book, how painful that was.
Nandita Bajaj (00:51):
That was today's guest, Sarah Benesch. Hi everyone, and thank you for joining me. My name is Nandita Bajaj and I'm the host of Beyond Pronatalism: Finding Fulfillment With or Without Kids, an interview series in which through intimate conversations with people from diverse backgrounds, I explore how they are courageously and creatively navigating pronatalism, the often unspoken pressures to have children, whether from family, friends, or the culture at large. Each episode features a personal story, born out of liberated and informed choice, about redefining what family means, including being childfree or childless, having biological kids, adopting or fostering children or animals, or creating close-knit communities of friends and loved ones. Hi, and welcome to Beyond Pronatalism, Sarah. It is lovely having you on the podcast today.
Sarah Benesch (01:48):
Great to be here. Thank you, Nandita.
Nandita Bajaj (01:50):
Yes, it's my pleasure. And Sarah, I'm excited today to be delving into both your personal life story, but also a recent book that you got published last year in 2025 called Pronatalism: Discourses and Counterdiscourses, a topic that suits this podcast very, very well. And you described that book both as a personal memoir, but also an academic research project where you explore a lot of discourses around pronatalism, especially through the lens of language and how these come to become normalized within culture. So before we get into all of that, I'd love for you to do a brief introduction.
Sarah Benesch (02:37):
So I'm Sarah Benesch. I live in Brooklyn, New York. I'm 72 years old, and I grew up mainly in Washington DC during the 1960s, and that was very influential for me because that was a really tumultuous time politically. And I think that time did influence my decision not to have children. I was very involved in the anti-war movement, the civil rights and women's movements, and they were all swirling around at that time, particularly in Washington DC. You feel it, it's just in your face. And we would go to demonstrations routinely on the weekends and there would be bomb scares at my public high school in Washington, and it was just part of the fabric of my growing up, very political. And also I wanted to mention that I grew up in a very unhappy family, so it was not a good role model for me to procreate.
(03:31):
It was something to be avoided. It didn't encourage reproduction or growing our family. And so I spent a lot of years in therapy trying to sort all of that out. And I got a PhD in applied linguistics and I became an English professor and I was bright and curious and that was really my path. And I've spent my professional life studying the politics of language and teaching courses such as sociology of language and gender and language. I'm retired now, but as you mentioned, I did publish this book last year on pronatalism.
Nandita Bajaj (04:04):
Wonderful. Yes, it's very interesting how you talk about the political activism that you were involved in growing up in your very kind of informative years. And I wonder, combined with the family life that was sending you certain messages and your political involvement, to what degree your decision to not have children was informed by some of these messages. Could you talk a little bit about the kinds of messages you were receiving during those years?
Sarah Benesch (04:42):
Yeah, so that's a really interesting question because I feel like there's four possible areas of influence when it comes to women having children, and the first would be your immediate family. And as I mentioned, I got absolutely no encouragement from my immediate family to have children. And a bit to the contrary, my mother was very involved in Planned Parenthood, and that was kind of a message too. I mean, a positive message in a sense. Birth control is a good thing, abortion is a good thing. And I should say, I have two sisters and neither of them had children. So that tells you something about the family we grew up in. But then in my extended family, on the other hand, all my cousins were getting married. And so there was this sense of like, Oh, how did they know how to do that? How did they know how to pick an appropriate partner? I had absolutely no clue.
(05:33):
And there was a sense of like, I guess I'm supposed to do that, but I don't really want to do that." And I was pretty confused about that. And there were a lot of weddings that I attended. And then peers, I kind of expected that my peers. We were part of the counterculture and there was the generation gap, 60s terms. And I just thought, Well, we're not going to do that. We're going to lead different kinds of lives. We're going to get degrees and have lovers and travel and get involved in the arts and do politics. Little by little, they started to get married and I felt a sort of sense of betrayal like, Wait, where are you going? Weren't we going to do all this other stuff? And then some did actually as single women adopt children, but they seemed to have this desire for family that I did not have, which was pretty alienating.
(06:25):
I was the outlier. So I guess in terms of the wider social world, I've always been interested in the language that encourages us to do certain things. So pronatalism is an ideology and I'm interested in the language, the discourses that promote that ideology. So in the book, I look at things like 'biological clock' and 'having it all' a 'maternal instinct', and these are the discourses that promote the ideology of pronatalism.
Nandita Bajaj (06:55):
Yes. And I'd love to hear also more about the feeling of alienation that you were experiencing where on the one hand you are experiencing a sense of liberation, the possibility of women to choose radically different pathways. And yet as you're noticing in your extended family and friend circles, more and more people and women are choosing still kind of traditionally defined pathways of marriage and children, even for those who don't get married, they still see children as a dominant part of their life path. What did the alienation look like for you and how did you navigate that?
Sarah Benesch (07:33):
It was incredibly confusing because like I said, I always knew how to get an education and I loved learning and I loved reading and I loved writing and I really enjoyed my PhD program. I did really well. And then I got hired right away in New York City, the City University of New York. It was such a dream. When I applied for that job, 200 people applied for the job and they hadn't hired anyone in that English department in 10 years because there had been a hiring freeze and they chose me and that was incredible. But nobody throws you a party. You don't get a shower for that. Or even for when you finish your dissertation, you don't get presents. It's just a hoop that you jump through. And I don't think I had brought it really into focus until I wrote the book, how painful that was.
(08:22):
At those weddings I would go to like, Oh, do you have a boyfriend? But no one would ever say, What was it like writing a dissertation? How long did it take you? What did you write about? People don't ask you those questions as a woman. And so it was very confusing. And I did end up getting married because I thought that I should. And I made a pretty bad choice. I married a colleague. He was almost 10 years older and it was a pretty bad marriage and neither of us really wanted kids, but I felt at the time that I needed to talk to him about it because I was 36 when I got married, which seemed ancient to me because all my friends were already married. So I finally got him to talk about it and it was a very shaky marriage and we ended up getting divorced and I was just very grateful that I hadn't had a child with him because I'd still being involved with him to this day.
Nandita Bajaj (09:15):
Yes. And at what point did you realize that you didn't want children? Was there a turning point in your life where it became so clear that you simply weren't going to do that?
Sarah Benesch (09:29):
It's a great question. And I think Molly was very helpful in helping me answer that question. She said, It's a decision you make again and again and again. It's a process. And it was for me too. I was always like, Oh, I guess I'll do that eventually once I finish the PhD and get a job, get tenure and retire. I don't know. It's like when do you do it? It never seemed to be the right time. So I wouldn't say there was an aha moment for me. It just was kind of like, I guess I need to do this. I don't know how to do this. I couldn't even envision doing it in the life that I had, running a program, teaching courses, getting tenure, publishing, going to conferences, running a household. I just couldn't even imagine how that would be possible. I suppose if I had had a partner who was really gung-ho about it, but I chose someone who wasn't, so kind of answered my own question.
Nandita Bajaj (10:23):
And it also to me sounds like you're quite satisfied with the life you are building for yourself with all of these incredible accomplishments, completing your PhD and getting this really highly coveted job and running this program and managing a lot of other responsibilities. And yet it seems like it's more of a nagging thing in the back of your head that this is something also that you have to do. As you discuss in your book, there are so many narratives around pronatalism that keep reminding us, don't forget, you also have to do this. And I'd love to explore some of those tools of language that are used to keep that nagging message alive, even for those of us who have seemingly found our pathway.
Sarah Benesch (11:19):
Yes. I think a really current simple example is childless cat ladies. So the shaming of women who make this choice as pathetic and lonely just keeps reminding you that you took the wrong path. The vice president even said that these women should not be allowed to vote because they have no stake in the future of the country. So the only way that you can be a citizen as a woman is to produce children. How do you bear up in the face of that pretty vicious message? So if we take biological clock, for example, and that was one that was kind of ringing in my ear because I did get married at 36. We are taught through that discourse to think of our lives as a second by second countdown to infertility.
Nandita Bajaj (12:10):
Yes.
Sarah Benesch (12:10):
And oddly enough, biological clock was never intended to refer to fertility at all. It really is a scientific term that refers to circadian rhythms, the 24-hour cycle of digestion, sleeping and so on. But it was co-opted in the 1970s when middle class white women had gotten college degrees and they were entering the workforce. And there was a kind of panic, a racial panic that set in. And the panic was now they're going to compete with men in the workforce and they're not going to have the men's children. So now what? So now you have to get the women back in the home, get them out of the workforce. And so we have this discourse of biological clock, like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And there was a Washington Post editorial, I think it was 1978 by Roger Cohen, and he seems to be the first one to have used it in this way. And he said, Women are not like men. Women have this biological clock and it's ticking and do your thing, girls.
Nandita Bajaj (13:19):
Right. Meanwhile, as you recognize, it's a term that's used for all biological beings. Everything about us is aging, not just the parts of our body that have been commodified, which is our eggs, our uterus. So it's not that it's an illegitimate term, it's just been co-opted inaccurately as a pronatalist propagandist term.
Sarah Benesch (13:44):
Exactly.
Nandita Bajaj (13:45):
So you obviously were being confronted with that in your late 30s.
Sarah Benesch (13:51):
I mean, I do also reveal that I had a relationship when I was 40 and I did get pregnant, so all that worry about the timeline was misguided. I mean, it was soon after my divorce and I met someone who was like 20 years younger than my ex-husband and we were having a good time. And all my life I was very religious about my birth control. And then for some reason I just thought, Well, I probably can't become pregnant, which is so illogical and not like me. And I just threw caution to the wind and boom, I became pregnant. I was like, Oh man, that was easy. And I didn't have much of a discussion with him. I mean, I pretty much knew that that was not going to last. It was a sort of rebound relationship. And I did though talk to my mother and I said that I told her I was pregnant and what did she think about me having a kid, it would be her chance to be a grandparent.
(14:47):
And she goes, Well, don't do it for me. And she also added, which I didn't put in the book, Having kids ties you down, you lose your freedom. And that's not why I did it, but I think if they would've said, Oh, we're overjoyed. We want a grandchild. We'll do whatever you need. I don't know if even then I would've done it because I was on this trajectory, this academic career that I really loved, and I wasn't really in a position to raise a child at that point or any point. So that was the discussion that I had, not with my partner, then partner, but with my mother. And I did elect to have an abortion at that time, which I wanted to be very frank about because I don't think it's something shameful.
Nandita Bajaj (15:28):
Right. Yeah. Which is another aspect of pronatalism, the stigmatization of abortion, as we've talked about on this podcast with a number of people who've had it, who had so deeply internalized the shame that they couldn't even accept for themselves that they'd done it. They were living with the shame because culture has done such a solid job in shaming and guilting us into keeping our pregnancies and having children. And then you also unpack terms like maternal instinct and having it all. And I'd love for you to provide your own version of why these terms have been used as exploitative tools toward women.
Sarah Benesch (16:12):
Maternal instinct like biological clock obviously posits the biological. So this is your biological destiny. So maternal instinct means not only do you have the ability to have children, but you're biologically programmed to mother. Well, okay, if that were true, why is there infanticide? Why is there abortion? Why is there birth control? And it's absolutely untrue that all women want to mother. There's a continuum. Some really, really want to and some really, really don't want to. And then there's all the stuff in the middle. So using that biological framework, then you feel like, Oh, how come I don't have a maternal instinct? And it's interesting because I have very recently, since the book was published, been working with some young refugees and more than one friend has said to me, Oh, you really do have a maternal instinct as if this volunteer work I'm doing with young refugees is some deep seated, buried desire to mother. I'm not mothering them, I'm helping them. But this push to put women in that role as if you're somehow destined, and maybe even at 72, you're going to find the mother in you.
Nandita Bajaj (17:23):
That's such a good example because one can say, Well, to different degrees, we all have the capacity to care and nurture. And these could be nurturing of ideas, of creative projects, of animals, of other people, other relationships, but this huge focus on mothering and the maternal instinct was obviously created as a tool to convince us that it is part of our destiny. And you also mention in the book the kinds of terms that are used to describe people who do not have children, whether it's childlessness, involuntary childlessness, infertility, they depict something is missing.
Sarah Benesch (18:07):
Yeah. So I mean, the two main terms that are used are childless and childfree. So childless obviously, as you just said, is some kind of lack. And childfree, I mean, there are two problems with that. One is why do you have to refer to child when you're talking about someone who doesn't have a child? And childfree to me sounds a little celebratory. I'm childfree. I don't take care of those brats. And I wasn't comfortable with either of those. And I also wanted a noun, similarly to ms., right? So we have mr. and we have ms., and neither of them refers to marital status. And so I wanted something like that. So I came up with a term, whether it'll take hold or not, I don't know, and the word is 'nother'. So if somebody says, Are you a mother? You can say, No, I'm a 'nother'. It was just my attempt to come up with a noun rather than having an adjective because it's like childfree woman, childless woman. These are adjective phrases. And I was like, No.
Nandita Bajaj (19:07):
Yeah, no, I appreciate the distinction. And also the need to move away from the child-centric nature of both of the other terms. We are so much more than our reproductive status. So this term also captures, I think, the different possibilities for what individuals and couples may choose to do in their lives other than non-parenting. And you discussed that in the 'having it all' narrative. I'd love for you to explore that a little bit.
Sarah Benesch (19:36):
So having it all, I mean, ironically, is having very limited choices. It's like marriage, children, and a job that doesn't interfere with either of those. It's not like a big job, right? A little job. And it's a neoliberal discourse, meaning that you're supposed to figure it all out on your own and don't expect any support. So I have images in the book of these women juggling baby, frying pan and computer or briefcase and gamely happily doing it without asking for any help or workplace changes or spousal help. It's the woman by herself, you're on your own and be a good sport about it. It's pretty shocking. One of the things that I was really surprised at was that Hillary Clinton, when she was running for the President of the United States, was asked whether she could have it all because she was about to become a grandmother.
(20:33):
So not only is it when you're a mother and you're running for the presidency and you're about to be a grandmother, you can never escape it. So often what I'll call mothers and mothers are pitted against each other. And so I think that mothers are treated very poorly. They're told to have children, but then they're not given social services. They're not helped in the difficulties of raising children. And I think that if we had more solidarity, it would be better for both sides. I have a lot of empathy for my friends with children and grandchildren. There are a lot of challenges and it's sort of like trad wives versus childless cat ladies in the current discourse. And it's sad that these are terms that are used to describe as if they're two different sides. And one of the things I talk about though is for women to talk about things other than children.
(21:25):
Now I'm at a grandmother's age and my friends are grandmothers. And as in the past when I would go to yoga classes or wherever, women would be talking about their children, the schools, the nannies, the babysitters, the whatever, on and on and on and on and on. And now it's the grandchildren. And I recently started a group for women of a certain age who are not mothers. And one of them, she had gone on a trip to Machu Picchu, it's a gorgeous area, and there was one couple, every time they would have dinner, they were just talking about their grandchildren. And finally she said, Would you just look around and see where we are? Can you just stop talking about your grandchildren? And I think it's helpful to have the sensitivity on both sides because I also have friends who have kids who said, I don't want to be talking about my kids all the time. It's so boring to always be talking about that. So for both sides to be aware that we have a lot more in common than we're led to believe we're not in opposing camps, not a war.
Nandita Bajaj (22:26):
Yes, exactly. And there's another part in the book that I feel remains largely unexplored in academia that is female academics who do not have children. And it's often seen as academia is fundamentally failing them because it's not allowing them to do it all. There's not a lot of talk about the recognition of women who have chosen to not have children as agents of that choice, but rather as victims of an unfair system that doesn't support real motherhood. So yeah, can you share a few experiences and also your own theory around that?
Sarah Benesch (23:10):
I mean, certainly it can be argued that it's not a great system for people who do want to have children. It's a very difficult road. If you get hired, you've got to come up for tenure. Before you come up for tenure, you have to prove that you're tenure worthy and have a certain number of publications. Teaching loads are usually heavy unless you're at the Ivies and the pay is not that great. So let's just acknowledge that yes, there's a reality to that. On the other hand, we can't assume that just because women like me didn't have children, the blame falls on academia's structure. And I do think that the study that I cited, this longitudinal study out of Berkeley, they certainly made that assumption that the reason that women aren't having children in academia is because the deck is stacked against them, not because God forbid they shouldn't want to have children.
(24:03):
That wasn't even considered as an assumption. And the women in my department, we really didn't talk about who also didn't have children. We didn't talk about it, but they have very interesting lives with publications and really good teaching and great observations and so on. So that's an assumption that should be questioned that they do it because of academia's setup, that it kind of prevents women from having children. And certainly the chapter of women writers that I include, all of them wrote about wanting time to read and write and wanting solitude. And I like solitude. I don't like a lot of noise. And people who have children, there's a lot of noise. They may not mind it. I do mind it. And scholars tend to be like that. They like to read and write and be quiet and family life is not conducive to that.
Nandita Bajaj (24:57):
Yeah, that's so well said and such a helpful injection into the pronalist literature that is so deeply missing.
Sarah Benesch (25:07):
And when there are movies about female academics who are not married, they're stricken with diseases or they go crazy. It's like the only one that wasn't like that was the one that was based on Caste by Isabel Wilkerson called Origin. And there you see a scholar and she's reading and writing and she's doing her research and that was like, oh yeah, okay, finally there's a portrait of a scholar, a woman scholar without children that's positive. She's not dying of some dread disease.
Nandita Bajaj (25:36):
Right. Right, yes. So are you single at the moment?
Sarah Benesch (25:41):
I am. I had a really wonderful relationship for 12 years with an artist, an art handler. I dedicate the book to him, Robert. Unfortunately, he passed away, but that was probably the best relationship that I've had. And I had another relationship after that, but yeah, so that didn't deter me, that marriage, but I don't think I would ever get married again.
Nandita Bajaj (26:03):
And what is life like today for you with all the decisions you've made?
Sarah Benesch (26:08):
Oh, great question. I mean, that's the thing that everyone warns you about. Oh, you're really going to regret it when you get older. I belong to a wonderful aging in place organization called Good Neighbors of Park Slope. Park Slope is the neighborhood in Brooklyn where I live, and there's so many activities. I've met so many wonderful people. And I live in a co-op and it's a community and I really enjoy that. I'm on the board and very involved. There's so many things in the arts. I go to plays and I'm a real city person. Where I live, I can walk everywhere and subway, and it's a nice life. I travel, but not too much. I do a lot of volunteer work and it's a good life. It's not a nuclear family life. It's not celebrating holidays with children and doing all that stuff. And there are times when it's difficult because other people are doing that, and then you just have to find the people who are not, which is why I started the group, the We Are Childfree Group as part of Good Neighbors of Park Slope.
Nandita Bajaj (27:06):
Yeah, that's really nice, Sarah. This was such a wonderful interview. I really appreciate the time that you took to join me today, and I hope your book reaches wide audiences. It was wonderful talking with you. Thank you so much.
Sarah Benesch (27:20):
Thank you, Nandita. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was really, really a great interview. Appreciate it.
Nandita Bajaj (27:26):
That's all for this edition of Beyond Pronatalism. To share feedback about the show or a particular episode or to share your own story on the podcast, please get in touch with me using the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform and share it widely. We couldn't do this work without the support of listeners like you and hope that you will consider a one-time or a recurring donation. Thank you so much again for joining me today as we collectively discover and celebrate the many different pathways to fulfillment beyond pronatalism. This podcast is brought to you by Population Balance, the only nonprofit organization advancing the rights and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet by confronting pronatalism and other harmful ideologies. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Nandita Bajaj, with the support of my production team, Josh Wild and Alan Ware.
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