Feedback from Child-Free Zone on '60 minutes'

The Australian '60 Minutes' program (on the National Nine Network) interviewed us and other child-free people, as well as some parents, for an item that aired Sunday the 14th of April 2002. The transcript of the piece is below. Enjoy!

INTRO — TARA BROWN: It used to be so simple: a young couple fell in love, got married and a family followed soon after. Well, not any more. These days women are staying longer in the workforce, marrying later and having fewer babies or none at all — not because they can't but because they simply don't want children. "Kids," they say, "who needs them?" At a time when Australia's birthrate has plunged to a record low, that child-free choice has sparked a furious debate. STORY — RACHEL ROBERTS: I don't have a particular affinity with children. I don't get maternal feelings. I clearly don't want to have a child or a family and I'm comfortable with that, you know. I'm happy about it. TARA BROWN: It's a hot and sunny day in Byron Bay but it will be a cold day in hell before 27-year-old Rachel Roberts and her partner, Jim, would ever want a baby. RACHEL ROBERTS: My argument is it can be incredibly liberating for a couple to say no, you know. We just want to spend time with one another. We don't want to bring another person into this dynamic. We can do what we want, when we want to, and it's just two … and a dog. TARA BROWN: If children don't represent the romantic ideal to you, what do they represent? RACHEL ROBERTS: I don't ... for us personally they represent … I don't know, "we've run out of things to say to one another". TARA BROWN: A freelance journalist, Rachel recently penned her views on staying childless. RACHEL ROBERTS: "I've never been surer that I don't want children. My partner feels the same. We don't want to be woken at all hours to attend a screaming infant that knows only the need to suck. We don't want to sacrifice our time and energy taxiing around teenagers who have recently learned to hate us." TARA BROWN: Rachel's article was met by a sack-load of abuse. How do you feel about those reactions that you got? RACHEL ROBERTS: I'd always known that it was an unpopular kind of view, but I didn't realise it was going to be … really didn't realise it was going to be as controversial. TARA BROWN: At 35, sociologist Fiona Stewart knows, with her biological clock ticking, time is running out. And she doesn't give a damn. She never, ever wants kids. FIONA STEWART: If you have a good degree of education and you have a good job, then it's kind of like you can be a complete woman, a whole woman, and you certainly don't need the child to make your life rich and fulfilling. Whereas, if you have very few choices about work, if all that you have open to you is casual jobs that have really crappy pay attached to them, then maybe a baby looks particularly ... it looks much more desirable. TARA BROWN: For the majority of Australians who still choose to have children, do you accept that they might find that offensive, that you are suggesting they're only having children because the rest of their life is so crappy? FIONA STEWART: Not at all. If they ... you know, it's about horses for courses and it's about child-free people, men and women, respecting families' choice to have children. But it's also about families respecting child-free men and women in the world. I don't know how to relate to very small children very well and it's something that certainly hasn't been an impediment in my life to date. I can't imagine myself pregnant. I can never imagine myself developing a body which I know is not totally under my control. TARA BROWN: Fiona and Rachel are part of a growing child-free club. Twenty percent of Australian women now choose not to have children. That's one in five who just don't want to be mums and what they're finding is that there are also many men who don't want to be dads. SUSAN MOORE: We get everything from, "Good on you. If I had my time again I'd do the same thing," right down to calling us evil, saying that I'm less of a woman for not having children, all those sorts of things. DAVID MOORE: We're unnatural. We're going against nature. SUSAN MOORE: Unnatural. DAVID MOORE: Yeah, yeah, all that usual sort of stuff. TARA BROWN: When David and Susan Moore married nine years ago, they vowed not to have a family. SUSAN MOORE: Kids are something I've never wanted and I can't see that I'll change my mind. TARA BROWN: Since then they've been criticised, abused and told, that without kids, they lead a life less valuable. Fed up, David and Susan wrote a book, celebrating their child-free choice. What is it about having children you don't like? DAVID MOORE: We prefer to think that we're a bit more environmentally friendly than to just have lots of children and, you know, put a further burden on the planet. Lots and lots of reasons. SUSAN MOORE: For me, I really appreciate the freedom I have in my life. There are so many things I want to do. If I had kids, there's just no way I could fit all of that in. TARA BROWN: With that extra freedom, Susan and David can indulge other passions, like their car. It's the perfect child substitute. It's noisy and it chews up their money. Nothing could convince them that a baby would be better than their supercharged 3 Series BMW. But are they missing out? LISA WILKINSON: I never knew how incredibly wonderful it would be to have children. Couldn't have imagined it. TARA BROWN: Lisa Wilkinson was once the high-flying, high-profile editor of Cleo magazine. But after her second child, Lisa happily sacrificed all that freedom for a life of motherly sacrifice. LISA WILKINSON: It was right decision for me, and if somebody else says that gyms and puppy dogs and, you know, world travel ... actually, it's sounding quite attractive, isn't it? TARA BROWN: Are you one of those mums who looks at people who have decided not to have children and [who] believe others shouldn't have children — do you think of them as freaks and misfits? LISA WILKINSON: Almost every one of my girlfriends doesn't have children. TARA BROWN: So you're the freak and misfit? LISA WILKINSON: I'm the freak and misfit whose social life has gone down the toilet, yeah. It's always that thing of ringing girlfriends and saying, "Look, I'm so sorry I haven't been in touch but, you know, band practice, swimming lessons," blah, blah, you know, and you get very little time for yourself and what little time you do get for yourself you tend to, you know, want to spend that with your husband or sleeping. I think they bring out the real you. And you have to lose that selfish side of yourself. TARA BROWN: But does that mean those who don't have kids are selfish people? There's a growing argument that not only is it selfish, it's unpatriotic. You see, Australia's birthrate is now one of the lowest in the world: just 1.7 children per couple. But the child-free say that misses the point. DAVID MOORE: Sooner or later, we're going to run out of space on this planet. We've got finite resources. We're demolishing the place like there's no tomorrow. And I feel really strongly that that is entirely based on the fact that there are too many people on the planet. LISA WILKINSON: There are countries, of course, that have real problems with overpopulation, but Australia is not one of those countries. TARA BROWN: Is there a duty to have children to continue to populate Australia? LISA WILKINSON: I'd hate to ever describe children as being a duty. I think those who want to have children should have them and those that shouldn't … don't even go there. TARA BROWN: Of course, there are families bucking the trend. Leading the way is this one very big Tasmanian family of 12. LINDY BOWDEN: They are the best thing. There are no words that describe what they bring into our lives. TARA BROWN: Will this be it? PHIL BOWDEN: I doubt it. TARA BROWN: You're not serious? PHIL BOWDEN: I've been nagging her a bit lately. TARA BROWN: Phil and Lindy Bowden are doing their best to boost Australia's flagging birthrate. For those women who are able to have children but choose not to, how would you describe that decision? LINDY BOWDEN: A bit selfish. TARA BROWN: Why selfish? LINDY BOWDEN: I think they're just ... it's ... it's "Me, me, me". RACHEL ROBERTS: Selfish? To whom? It's not like I've actually produced anything to be selfish to. In fact, I'd say that feeling the way I do, it would be actually incredibly irresponsible for me to have a child because I don't have that kind of desire. So I think it would in fact be selfish for me to have a child. TARA BROWN: As much as Phil and Lindy feel theirs is a selfless choice, it does come at a cost to the taxpayer. You get $35,000 a year from the government simply because you have 10 children at home. LINDY BOWDEN: Yes. TARA BROWN: It sounds like a lot. LINDY BOWDEN: It does sound like a lot. If you put it in a lump sum, it sounds like a very lot. TARA BROWN: It is a lot. LINDY BOWDEN: It is a lot. DAVID MOORE: They're expecting society to pick up the tab, taxpayers to pick up the tab. SUSAN MOORE: Whereas we don't expect anyone to pay for any of our choices. DAVID MOORE: No, nobody pays anything for our choices. You need to be responsible for your choices and I don't see how [by] having 12 children you can be entirely responsible for what's going on. LINDY BOWDEN: Get over it. What do they want everyone to do? Not to have children? Where does that leave them when they get old? Who is going to look after them? If they go to a nursing home, it could be one of my children that is their nurse or their doctor or the person that comes around and empties their bedpan. If I don't have my children, who is going to look after them? DAVID MOORE: If they choose to be nurses and age care workers [then] good on them, but it will be our superannuation fund and our retirement planning that will be paying for their jobs. They're not going to come down to our house and take out our bedpans free of charge. We'll be paying someone to do that. TARA BROWN: But now this debate is about to get even nastier. After years of being told of the discrimination parents often face in the workplace, we now discover that, in fact, it's the childless who reckon they've been getting the raw deal. DAVID MOORE: The correspondence we get is phenomenal on people that are being discriminated against because they don't have children. They're expected to do more. They're expected to work the long hours. They're expected to stay back. I'm not going to say, "No, you can't leave work to pick up your child from day care." Similarly, you shouldn't say, "You can't leave work to pick up your sick dog from the vet," or whatever it might be. LISA WILKINSON: I'm sorry, I can't equate a puppy dog with a child. I know which is the more vulnerable, I know which requires the more care, which requires the more input from those taking care of … I hate to use the word "it" … but there's no argument, there's no competition. TARA BROWN: The child wins. LISA WILKINSON: The child wins every time. Has to. What sort of future are we building if the child is not a priority? TARA BROWN: To have or not to have kids — that's the question more are answering with a resounding, "No, thank you!" But having made the choice, will the day inevitably come when they wake up and cry, "Oh my god, I forgot to have children."? Perhaps you're robbing yourself of a wonderful experience. Does that worry you? DAVID MOORE: No, not at all. They're robbing themselves of the experience of knowing what it's like not to have children. They're going to have an entirely different life to us and they're not going to know what our life is like. TARA BROWN: And you think you've got the better deal? DAVID MOORE: Oh yeah, definitely. SUSAN MOORE: I think the benefits of staying child-free far outweigh the negatives, and that's why we've done it.