AbstractsPsychology

Stigma towards people who choose to never have children lingers in the form of cultural discourses reproduced in everyday conversations. To temper this stigma, voluntarily childless individuals have come together in online communities, transcending the obstacles of time and space, to communicate with each other about an array of experiences that are tied to being childfree. Using a feminist poststructural lens to question assumptions about static and inherent identities, this research pieces together three complex and often contradictory processes that members of childfree LiveJournal communities participate in: (a) becoming childfree, (b) negotiating childfreedom, and (c) enacting childfreedom. These processes are not discrete or fixed, but rather overlapping and fluid. Together, these processes paint a picture of how individuals construct childfree identities online. Through interviews, archives of public community posts, and my own experiences of never wanting children, this research demonstrates that "childfree" is not something that a person is, but rather something that a person does. While childfree people work to resist pronatalist discourses, they also utilize strategies that position themselves within the status quo, creating a contradiction in terms of identity. This research advocates for a new way of looking at childfreedom, as separate from voluntary childlessness. Ultimately, this research calls for a greater understanding of why and how some voluntarily childless individuals come to identify as "childfree," as well as a greater understanding of how voluntarily childless and childfree people come together and communicate in group contexts.