Earlier this week, Irish comedian Joanne MacNally was quick to dismiss her labelling as a 'Baby Hater' (though that's the title of her new TV show on TV3), saying that she decided to make the documentary because of her own suspicions about parenting.
Adding to the discussion on labels that are automatically given to women simply based on their personal choice not to have a family, is best-selling Irish author Shelia O'Flanagan. Speaking to Independent.ie, she is also highly dismissive of the term, and says that her decision not to have children doesn't mean she hates children.
“People who have small families or big families, that’s the choice they lead and want to lead. You can only judge your life yourself, so I don’t judge other people for their choices and I don’t expect them to judge me,” she said.
“I haven’t had sleepless nights. I haven’t had to get up at whatever hour of the morning to feed children. I have the right life for me.”
It isn't, she says, an act that should automatically be deemed 'selfish' either.
“I like babies, I like children. My thing is that I had enough self-awareness of myself to know that being a mother was not something I wanted to do,” adding that she feels the selfish thing would be to have children, if you didn't want them.
“I knew if I had children I would have done my best, but I knew it wouldn’t have been the right thing for me, or for them.”
“People can be very judgemental about this in particular. Not within my family, but other people would look at me and say that it’s selfish, but I think it would be selfish to have children and not really want them,” she continued.
She said that she also believes that the label of “baby hater” is misrepresentative of people who don’t want children.
“When I was watching the programme, the first thing that went through my mind is the idea that if you don’t want a child of your own, that you are ‘a baby hater’… that’s not true.”
"I like kids. I like seeing them growing up. I like meeting with my nephews at different times in their lives, but at no point did I regret my decision.”
She explained that her decision was something that she and her husband decided together.
“There was a comment in the programme where you can decide to spend your money on children or have handbags and cars. It’s not about that either.”
"... You know what you want yourself."
