Levy an equality before a childless tax

This Sunday I spent an hour talking all things Full Stop which is the longest running childless podcast. I felt proud of what we do and lucky. We celebrated the success of our newsletter and gawped at the stats. Amazing… go us!

Then I popped onto Twitter to update our followers and was stunned by what I saw.

The Times newspaper published an article featuring Professor Paul Morland from St Anthony’s College in Oxford who asked if the childless should be taxed to encourage population growth. It’s a wordy riff on ‘here, have my kids’. To spare you from reading the original and paying into Murdoch’s empire…here’s the pitch from Morland:

“Create a “pro-natal” culture, including a national day to celebrate parenthood and a telegram from the Queen whenever a family has a third child. Public figures can lead the way with words and actions (the prime minister, with his seven known offspring, has a track record in this regard).”

I’ve read this several times which is rare, since this sort of stuff goes onto mute very fast, but the words keep translating in my head as…

“Mansplaining academic with three adult children insults women by insisting they will be birth vessels after watching too much dystopian television in an attempt to make us like America. Make them pay, breach their privacy with a different tax code, and maybe dunk them in a well.”

My first reaction was to drive across the divide from Cambridge to Oxford and dump the large folder of bills, the box of medicines and pregnancy tests from my failed IVF cycles on Morland’s desk. Maybe he has the answers that countless GPs didn’t (or God, Mother Nature and other strangers).

It’s sinister.

Then I remembered Brexit, fuel prices and the cost of living crisis. Morland, father of three, clearly forgot this in his theorizing (or The Times editor) in a eulogy to Boris Johnson, father of seven known children (which merely adds weight to my theory that if I met Mother Nature we’d have strong words since just because some people can be parents, doesn’t mean they ought).

No matter, I could have picked up my broomstick like those witches before me who were burned at the stake. We’ve got form.

I had to check that we were not regressing further backward to 1913 when another womanising Prime Minister, Lloyd George was in power and The Times (again) disdainfully reported that his house was almost blown up by the suffrage movement. Dammed women eh?

How tragic this all is, not just to people who identify as childless and childfree but people who identify as parents also.

Isn’t it demeaning to parents who are considered stupid enough to be sold Johnson’s ‘advice’ and a telegram from the Queen? I don’t believe I know of any parents who’d be screaming through labour, ‘I want my effing telegram’. It doesn’t compel me to try for round seven at an overpriced IVF clinic either. And you know, if we had a woman in Number 10 with kids from different fathers…well, that’s never going to happen.

It struck me in writing this that I do have a box in a loft and a invoices that show a £30k+ spend on my efforts to be a parent. Failed IVF, miscarriage and stillbirths are still not spoken about enough but they are known. Jody Day wrote of 50 Ways Not To Be A Mother several years ago. When we met at Fertility Fest in 2018 she thought it might be 80, and as the world burns, there’s undoubtedly more. These include not meeting someone one would want to be a parent with, being single, widowed, mental or physical illness, hereditary conditions, addiction, poverty, housing… so many social, health and welfare issues that are sometimes unique but fall under ‘outside the zone of control’ even if Morland seeks to control this by leving a tax. All on people who already pay a tax.

We live in a pronatal culture that celebrates parents on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, with Grandparents Day for extra bullshit. Each Hallmark holiday sees The Full Stop, and numerous groups come together to support those who are childless-not-by-choice because there’s no counter-balance to this. No Government-funded support service and scant, specific health support. Barely any IVF on the NHS to solve the unexplained, which has barely exceeded a 28% success rate in 43 years. That’s not a critique of the NHS, but twelve years of chronic underfunding. If Morland thinks the childless are cash cows, I really do need to fire up the broomstick and share those bills. Time and time again, the community of childlessness has turned to its collective wisdom to set up networks to support itself.

Daily we are reminded that parenthood is the cultural peak of conformity. I don’t doubt it’s bloody hard work; friends attest to this. Yet in the urge to encourage procreation, society forgets the other members of a club that nobody wants to join.

In case Morland stumbles on this, let’s make that clear. Nobody wants to join this club called childless (unless it’s by choice, again there’s that clonky language that puts some 1 in 6 people in one large ducking well). That’s not said to create a divide or worse, the head tilt of pity, but simply that if some of us can quietly move to a place of vague acceptance, then so must everyone else. Charging at us with hurtful words, crass fixes and suggestions to adopt these poor tax-benefit kids reflect badly on those who suggest them. It created a maelstrom of feelings that threaten to make us feel pointless and unworthy when we contribute a lot to society, more than tax. If you’re in any doubt then here’s Gateway Women’s role model gallery.

In the pandemic, we witnessed parents battling with homework, schooling and Zoom calls; it was awful for them. I can’t begin to imagine how that must have been, I have huge respect. On the other side, there’s me and many I know working in rooms that should have been kid’s bedrooms. Denise was a guest on our podcast in Summer 2020; she spoke of standing on her balcony and realising she was the only person living alone in her area. That was awful to listen to, but not a new story. Morland isn’t uncovering some crock of gold; it’s a turd yet to be polished.

Ageing Well Without Children is the only charity that tackles ageing without a family and was founded through the community - do you see a theme here? AWWOC could have told any political party or reseacher what the future held; it didn’t need a pandemic or the BMJ to say how big this problem was.

In fact, there’s a thing, why didn’t Morland consult any one of the support groups first? The more I read into his cold summary; the more sinister it becomes. What next, ship us non-breeders on a plane and have the perfect families take our homes? Levy a tax that’s so unequal we have to leave?

My fixes are too easy; I’d never want to give this government any help to haul themselves out of the murky well they are dunking into, but one would have thought a better world in which to bring up children would be a start. In the U.K, The Big Issue reported that Anthony Lyman stopped eating to feed his children and that there are 38% more people homeless since 2010. The same magazine said that MPs were three times as likely to own a second home.

Tax comes from people. But some avoid it. If you buy coffee from Caffe Nero, then you’re buying into a company that has been tax-avoiding since 2007. The Ethical Consumer ran a report and updated its tax dodgers list in March 2022. We could all benefit from reading it since the solution is found in the likes of these organisations and could be forced by boycotts; in the Rothermere family who own the Daily Mail group, and doubtless many who shore up political parties and by stealth, our lives. Indirectly, it could be argued, by using these companies we’re supporting Morland’s theories.

We have a planet in crisis. I read online that the war in Ukraine will kill us all as it stops world leaders from paying attention to a dying planet.

A 2017 study in Environmental Research, recommended that people have fewer children to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It also suggested avoiding air travel and having plant-free diets making Boris very off-trend. I’m sure there’s a pun on BloJo there — you can fill in the gaps.

At Fertility Fest in 2019, Birthstrike spoke about not having children until the climate crisis was resolved (a warning that this link isn’t an easy read for childless-not-by-choice). It’s not clear if fewer people is an answer to our climate crisis as it’s impossible to say how much carbon future generations will create. But where is the discussion on the crimes that lead to the spaces left by a mishandled pandemic and an Orwellian immigration policy?

If a telegram and parenting tips from an (alledged) womanising Etonian is a reason to bring a child into an overheating world, then by all means, try to tax me. But only if I can place the money with Friends of the Earth and others, so it benefits everyone, including future childless friends, as the birth rates are falling.

For every act of pronatalism that’s reported loudly in mainstream media, there are many other stories from the childless-not-by-choice community that are unheard. Morland’s words aren’t new. They are a bastardisation of past attempts to devalue those who choose not to have children and those who cannot be parents. We are reminded on the daily that life events that may seem small to some — getting out of bed after sleepless hours grieiving a life long grief — are never heard. Where are the days that honour our strength? We have to turn inwards again, to World Childless Week, as there’s nothing from any government. No Hallmark for us.

It’s relentless, draining, and divides us from parental units because of choices or events beyond our control.

There are some positives in the unity of social media, for Morland and The Times, in error, created a rare example of an inequality reaching out to horrify many. Some may benefit from it; but in a plot twist in years to come, their grandchildren may not since those birth rates are predicted to fall. It’s assumed that the Full Stop and others like us, do work for our generation of childlessness but we’re creating a structure for the future.

It’s bittersweet, for this challenge to our validation and worth happens daily, from LinkedIn to networking events, in estranged families and lost friendships. Every Christmas, every holiday and mid-March, and early June as we dig deep. I maintain that childlessness should be recognised as a minority group and awarded the same protection as other marginalised groups.

If we did speak out and had the space to be heard and respectfully listened to, we’d learn together — parents, childless and childfree. MPs, professors, and people. Lack of empathy can be called ignorance, but that can be created by silence.

On Twitter, big names came out to support our community. Clair Woodward wrote this article and Kirsty Woodward posted this blog on AWWOC.

In a tweet to Stella Duffy, MBE, I said

‘Without question, the bravest community that so many have never heard of and wish to never join, but if they do, then the energy and love are united, and the depth of compassion is endless.’

I meant every single word. And if it comes to pass that this hyperbole becomes fact, you can be assured I’m marching with you into battle, and I suspect a few parents will be too.

The political and climate crisis views expressed here are my own and not representative of the Full Stop.

Berenice Smith, MA is one-third of The Full Stop, an Ambassador for World Childless Week, and lives in Cambridge. She has been through failed IVF and miscarriages and identifies as being more, not less, for her losses.