Human Matters with Sami Parker: The rise of child-free adults

In the latest episode of Human Matters, Live Action's Sami Parker delves into the rise of childless adults, heading to social media and Reddit to explore the 'child-free by choice' trend, and what's driving it.

Key Takeaways:

• Episode 3 of Human Matters with Sami Parker tackles the issue of adults who are child-free by choice.

• Parker explains that this choice is driven by radical individualism, which sees personal comfort as morally supreme.

• She says that this thinking will leave society lonely and fragile. Instead, we need to advocate for a culture that welcomes children.

The Details:

Why Women Don't Want Kids Anymore

Human Matters is a show powered by Live Action and hosted by Parker, who dives into some of society's most important trends and topics. In episode three, she discusses the rising prevalence of child-free adults, noting that the percentage of adults who never want to be parents has doubled in the last 10 years.

To start, she shares a personal anecdote as well as some social media and Reddit posts to highlight an overarching and pervasive dislike of children and decision by many to remain childless forever. These views, she says, are part of an ideology called radical individualism.

"A few people with this ideology is nothing to fear," she says. "Millions of people who hold this ideology will create a devastatingly lonely, fragile, and dying society. And I’m not being dramatic. It’s already happening and I’ll help you to identify it."

Zoom In:

Parker explains radical individualism is "the belief that the individual person’s feelings and self-preservation matter more than any group, including one's community and one’s family."

"Radical individualism places your personal comfort as morally supreme. So, if anything threatens your personal comfort, it is an actual injustice against you," she explains. "To boil it down, discomfort is something that you have a right not to experience — at any cost."

Under this worldview, children are viewed as an inconvenience, since parents have a responsibility to put the care of their children above their own comfort. "Children, under this ideology, are the ultimate attack against your rights and autonomy."

Parker ends by clarifying that people who are child-free by choice can still make good friends.

"They can still be present family members because sacrifice is seen as something you can choose to do for others," she says. "And since we are all created by the same Good Creator, there is a part of our hearts that desires to do good and to love well. To sacrifice for others. So I’m not saying people with this worldview can’t be selfless."

She ends:

We need to advocate for a culture that welcomes children, that welcomes the inconvenient, that encourages parents to know the community is there to help them. We need a culture of people who rightly understand love to be deeply connected to sacrificing for others.

Watch the whole video here.