Childless 39-year-old artist Louise Ashcroft wants a family. She does not have kids for many reasons: the cost of sperm (she’s in a same sex relationship); the fact that her partner doesn’t want kids; and fears that parenting would be too difficult. Instead, she is exploring beyond-nuclear forms of family-making and kinship. In October 2022, Louise led a discussion at Künstlerhaus Bremen where participants shared their mixed thoughts and feelings on childlessness. You can share your thoughts too, by answering the questions below and submitting them to the artist. Your answers will be discussed anonymously during an online contribution by the artist published here in June 2023.

Questions:

1. Did you choose to be childfree, or is it more complicated?

2. What are your reasons for being childfree?

3. Have you faced any prejudice because you don’t have kids?

4. Children are seen as the future, so childless people can feel excluded from the future. Do you think you might regret it? And... if you don’t have kids, who will look after you when you get old?

5. Sophie Lewis’s new book Abolish the Family (Verso, 2022) is a critique of the “privatised” nuclear family structure that Western capitalism idealises. Do you think that the way we do family needs reform? Is it fair for parents or children? Is it the only “natural” way?

6. How could we reinvent and reform family. Do you have any ideas about what could change? For example, co-parenting, or beyond-nuclear versions of family. Be as inventive as you like!

By submitting the questionnaire here you're agreeing for your answers to be part of the contribution published later. For answers submitted in German the Künstlerhaus team will translate them for the artist. The final contribution by Louise Ashcroft discussing the results will be in English.

Many thanks for taking part,

Louise Ashcroft and Künstlerhaus Bremen

This contribution is part of The Palliative Turn.