Two Is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice is the narrative of one woman's quest to explore the motives and decision-making processes of the childless by choice in North America. Facing the end of her childbearing years in a childless by choice marriage, author Laura S. Scott surveyed 171 voluntarily childless individuals in United States and Canada to determine why and how they came to the decision to remain childfree.
Scott spent over three years traveling North America interviewing childfree couples, sociologists, demographers, historians, and affinity group leaders to learn exactly why more and more couples are remaining childfree by choice.
Two Is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice, Scott’s amusing and introspective narrative of what she came to call the “Childless by Choice Project” reveals the process, the ideals, the rationales, and the reality of what happens when parenthood moves from an assumption to a decision.
Designed to serve the undecided, the childless by choice or by circumstance, and all those who have a stake in how we define “family,” Two Is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice offers an accessible point of entry into the exploration of the childfree marriage—from the inside out.
Two Is Enough is published by Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Here's a short excerpt from the Introduction of Two Is Enough:
“So why did you get married if you didn’t want kids?” asked the new dad, the husband of one of my friends.
Huh? “Love . . . companionship,” I blurted.
His question startled me, rendering me uncharacteristically short of words. I had just spent a year doing research in preparation for what I hoped would be a book and documentary on the childless by choice, but nothing I had read prepared me for this question. He cocked his head and waited for more, his curiosity genuine.
In that moment, I recognized just how strange I must have seemed to him. Here was a person who could not imagine a life without kids trying to understand a person who could not imagine a life with kids. I was struggling to find the words to explain why someone would choose a childless marriage, and “love” and “companionship” were all I could come up with. It was the most honest answer I could give, but it clearly did not satisfy him, leaving me with the very distinct feeling that the underlying question was “Is love enough?”
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UK residents can find the book on Amazon and Canadian Residents can find the book at Chapters Indigo or Amazon.
GoodReads.com has chosen Two Is Enough as the January Book Selection.
If you would like to join the book club and discuss this book along with Laura S. Scott, please click here to join goodreads and then join the TCFL group and make sure to click the join button and wait for approval.
Join Us at a Two is Enough Book Event
April 23--9:00 p.m. at the No Kidding! Convention in Houston, TX (Talk/Book signing)
March 3--4:30 p.m. Hollins University, Green Drawing Room, Roanoke, VA. A Women's History Month Event. (Talk/Q&A)
Check back later for new events!
Or check out the Two Is Enough Facebook page for events, comments, and photos.
Check out our Blog!
Want more stories, news, and commentary on the childless by choice?
Then you need to check out the blog on this website. Just Click Here or click on the "The Blog" on the menu above.
Please leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you!
Or Click Here to suggest a topic for coverage in a future blog post to suggest a topic for coverage in a future blog post or click on the "The Blog" on the menu above.
This month were are talking about The Personality Theory. Are certain personality types predisposed to remain childfree? Join us on the blog to find out!
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Are you Childless by Choice? Share your story!
If you have an interesting story about your decision to remain childless/childfree or you would like to share your experience of living childfree, please Click Here and tell us your story in 600 words or less. Your story may be featured on this web page or in the Childless by Choice Project blog.
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What Readers Are Saying About Two Is Enough:
"I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has made the decision to live their life childless or childfree by choice"--Beth Cholette
"For me, the choice to have children was the best one ultimately and when my daughter came along, I couldn't be happier. But this book did a wonderful job of helping me better relate with the feelings I had when I was choosing not to take heroic efforts to have children or to adopt. It has really given me great insights into the feelings and beliefs of those I know who have remained childless by choice. I know I'll be able to relate better and be a more engaged friend from reading this book."--Dave Lakhani
"Two is Enough made me feel better about my decision. I believe that not only will it help parents understand those who choose not to have children but it is an excellent tool to use if you are deciding whether to take the parent route or not."--review from Viewpoint.com.
"A friend of mine recently gave me Two is Enough for my 35th birthday. How wonderful to know that there are other couples like us out there that do not want children. We are not "selfish" "broken" or "wrong" for not having children, we simply just do not have the desire/need to have children in order to lead a
fulfilling life. Thank you from a childfree by choice couple."--Jennifer
How Should We Refer to
the Voluntarily Childless?
Are we childless, childless by choice, child-free, childfree, or childfree by choice?
It depends... Those who prefer to identify themselves as "childfree" rightly point out that the word "childless" implies an absence, a void, or "less-ness." Childfree is a more positive term and it allows us to make the distinction between the childless by circumstance and the childless by choice.
The difference between the two is mostly self-definition. If you are without children by intention, then you might consider yourself to be "childfree" or "childfree by choice." If you are without a child because of circumstance rather than choice, you might more accurately describe yourself as childless.
I say "might" because I have had the pleasure of meeting couples who wanted children, struggled through infertility, and came to describe themselves as "childfree." I also know couples who are happily without children who prefer to describe themselves as "childless by choice"—myself included. The reason I have chosen to describe myself as such is because "child-free" can imply judgment; that what you are free from is bad for you, based on our common usage of the terms sugar-free or smoke-free. I remove the hyphen from child-free in an attempt to neutralize that association. It's a useful trick when writing about the childfree but useless in conversation.
I think we need to acknowledge that in a pronatalist society, child-free can sometimes be a loaded term. It can imply more than we intend, inviting people to assume motives—like dislike of children—which may not apply to some who are using the term as a way to communicate their well-being. Child-free also implies a type of lifestyle that may not be an accurate description of the lives of some of the childless by choice persons I have interviewed: teachers, childcare workers, and those who choose to welcome other people’s kids into their lives.
Childfree is probably the most widely adopted and politically-correct term in common usage at this time. However, I would recommend journalists ask the person they are interviewing what their preference is and describe them as such. Personally, I would like to see the adoption of the term childfree without the hyphen and without any assumptions about motives or the suggestion that childfree is a lifestyle, a movement, or an effort to advocate a childfree life.
… Laura S. Scott
© Copyright 2006
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