Holidays: A Chance to Dig Deeper for Kinship and Meaning

This blog post first appeared in the Childfree Magazine on Nov 25, 2022. We encourage readers of this blog to purchase the magazine knowing that 100% of proceeds are going to the National Network of Abortion Funds.

Most of my waking hours are dedicated to spreading awareness about the pervasiveness and oppressiveness of pronatalism, which is the social bias towards biological children. From undermining reproductive rights and the well-being of children to fuelling our unchecked population growth and the resulting cascade of ecological crises, pronatalism and the notion of ‘family’ is at the heart of much injustice and suffering across the globe. When invited to write about pronatalism for the holiday edition of this wonderful magazine, I wondered how I could possibly put a positive twist on the reality of the multiple social and ecological threats we currently face. 

I decided to turn inward for this exercise – a pristine place within myself where I can access joy, gratitude, and reverence for this immaculate planet, and the privilege and power I have been afforded to play a role in preserving it. Beyond having all my basic needs sufficiently met, what I am most grateful for is the freedom of choice, particularly reproductive choice.

My husband and I made the decision over a decade ago to forego parenthood for environmental reasons. We are both minimalists and strive to maintain a low-impact lifestyle - we don’t own a car, we only take essential flights, we eat a plant-based diet, and are generally very conscious about keeping our consumption and waste output to a minimum. 

This lifestyle affords us the time and space in our lives to engage in more meaningful and creative pursuits, such as going on low-carbon local getaways, engaging in enrichment activities with our dog, watching shows of our choice, enjoying quiet reflection time, getting proper rest and exercise, and most importantly devoting one-pointed attention to our professional endeavors, which by design overlap strongly with our personal values.

The holidays are a perfect reminder and a reinforcement for why we choose to live the way we do. Pronatalism and the romanticized notion of family become increasingly sensationalized during the holidays, for they both conveniently feed our cultural and institutional obsession with economic growth. GDP has become the new God and our quest for meaning through mindless consumption that feeds the pyramid scheme of eternal growth has become our new religion. 

Depictions of happy families, in flawlessly decorated homes, passing down charming ancestral traditions over delectable meals is an image so perfectly captured in mass media that for many of us it offers a romantic vision of what the holidays could be. This SNL skit is perhaps a more realistic representation of what the holidays actually turn out to be for many (though even the creators of this skit fell into the pronatalist trap of denigrating adoption as a legitimate option to forming a family). 

Hyperconsumerism is at a fever pitch during the holidays and the institutions that benefit the most from it are also the ones that have reduced people, especially women, to reproductive vessels. The goal is to produce more consumers, and also to feed the many military, corporate, and political institutions that profit from eternal growth by whatever means necessary. Socialization undoubtedly plays a tremendous role in not only our consumptive choices but equally in our reproductive ones.

Though the motivation for the commercialization of ‘happy families’ and holidays is to sell more products, at the heart of these messages is a promise for a more meaningful and fulfilling life, whether it be through having children or consuming cruelly procured products. This proliferation of meaning-making messages in mass media prevents us from an authentic quest for meaning and the potential for connecting with the incredible beauty that Earth represents.

As so many readers of this magazine are already doing, it’s time for us to reimagine new traditions and kinships that are not encumbered by prohibitive and prescriptive societal expectations, which not only undermine reproductive autonomy but are also severely injurious to our planet. Our quest for meaning can be fulfilled in so many ways–through our engagement with the world of ideas in our library, our connection with the non-material world, our reverence for the beauty and wildness of our planet, and authentic relationships with others both within and outside of our own species–the options are numerous, and we must continue to normalize these other ways of being and becoming.

I am looking forward to spending my holidays with my husband and our Thai rescue dog exploring new hiking paths within Ontario, visiting with our families, supporting local plant-based eateries, fundraising for our local animal sanctuary, binge-watching good psychological thrillers, hanging out with our friends, and catching up on our work at a leisurely pace. I wish you a joyful holiday filled with meaning, interconnection, and ‘family,’ whatever that means for you, as well.