My So-Called Selfish Life is about the choice to be childless, but it is also about so much more. It is about reproductive autonomy, bodily autonomy, human rights, family, identity, the list goes on and on. It’s a film that libraries need to add to their collections for there is truly nothing like it. The documentary can offer powerful opportunities for discussion and thoughtfulness around the choice to be a parent, or not.
Given the power and importance of this film, I was honored to have a chance to interview its director Therese Shechter about her experience making this film and filmmaking in general.
What inspired you to make this film?
The film was inspired by a 2009 cover story in Macleans (Canada’s national news magazine) exploring the sociological trend of people choosing not to have kids. It was written by the late journalist Anne Kingston, who was a close friend and my favorite feminist sounding board. Although Anne wrote about many controversial issues in her career, it was this article that generated the most hate mail she’d ever received. As a childfree person myself, this seemed to me a private and personal decision, and both Anne and I were struck by the judgment being thrown around.
I began the project in 2015 by posting a simple survey on Facebook asking people about their experiences not having children. In the first week the survey received over 1,900 responses–the only thing I’ve ever done that’s gone viral on social media. People really wanted to talk about this.
Were you nervous about making a film that is so personal?
I don’t get particularly nervous about sharing my personal stories in my documentaries. I think my strength as a filmmaker comes from my ability to name, explore and confront the prickly, unspoken realities of women’s existence, and to do it with a lot of humor and authenticity.
And because I’m confronting these kinds of issues, there will always be someone unhappy with something in my films. I don’t think about it too much. I just do it!
There wasn’t much out there that explored both personal and political aspects of the choice to not have children, and even less about how happy and fulfilled those of us who chose that life were. I thought there should be. Ultimately, my personal story is a way for me to guide my audience through the film and through some often challenging ideas - so the humor, the authenticity, and the personal storytelling really help break down some walls, or prevent them from being put up.
What have responses been to the film?
The responses have been so positive and lovely. I get the nicest emails from people, as well as lots of Instagram stories, about the film and what it means to them. I’ve lived with this film and its ideas for so long now, I forget the power of hearing the information for the first time. Several childfree people wrote that watching the film with their parents inspired a deep understanding that hadn’t seemed possible before.
Also, the film has been screening in childless support groups for people who want kids and can’t have them, and who society treats as broken. It’s an eye-opening and thought-provoking film for all sorts of people, including parents with only one child who are constantly asked when they are going to have another.
Some of the most moving responses have come from college students, who I thought might be too young to care about the parenthood question. It turned out that not only were they deeply engaged with the film, they were thrilled to learn that becoming a parent was not their only option. This was new information for many of them; they could choose to take another path.
How do you define reproductive rights? What about women’s rights? Human rights?
Women’s rights are human rights. Human rights are women’s rights. You can’t control your life if you can’t control reproduction. They’re all interconnected. As I say in the film: “When women attain greater access to education, good jobs, and reproductive health care, they have fewer children.” Reproductive freedom means being able to choose if and when to have children, and to make those choices safely, free of stigma and judgment.
The film provides an alternative way of looking at the issues of reproductive rights and control of women’s bodies. We look at pronatalism in the film. We look at the history of forced sterilization, and forced childbearing in the U.S. under slavery.
I was very lucky to have a group of advisors on the film who were invaluable in crafting a beautiful, powerful final product that looks at these issues deeply with rich context.
I love the relationship between you and your mother. I think there is stereotypical thinking that assumes women who don’t want to be mothers had negative experiences with their mothers, but your film counters that. Why did you choose to share your mother’s story, of pregnancy, and your relationship in general, in the film?
I Was A Teenage Feminist, and in it I describe her as “the first feminist I ever knew,” even if she didn’t use the term herself.
Including my mother seemed like an obvious choice. We never celebrated Mother’s Day growing up. My mother hated the idea that women were only worth celebrating if they reproduced. She gave me the freedom and space to think about what I wanted, and I wanted to share her ideas with the world.
What are the most significant stereotypes about child-free women that you wanted to address with the film? How does countering these stereotypes benefit all women and all individuals with uteruses?
To counter stereotypes, I led with people’s experiences rather than with the stereotypes we wanted to counter. I started with the responses from the survey and the hundreds of conversations that came out of that.
One of the biggest stereotypes is that we’re bitter and unhappy. That motherhood is the only true path to happiness. Dudes on Twitter (who by the way all seem to have some kind of connection to Elon Musk) are constantly telling the childfree people that they will live lonely, empty lives. It’s a tragic lack of imagination that they can’t think of a single fulfilling thing we might do with our lives that’s not connected to motherhood. There are constant questions like, “what will women do in their 40s?” as if motherhood is the only fulfilling answer to that question.
Then, of course, the idea that we’re ‘selfish’ for not having children. In fact, that word gets thrown at any woman who doesn’t self-sacrifice, but rather makes choices that are best for her life. It's a "crisis" that we refuse to selflessly hand our wombs over to the state for their own purposes.
Finally, the Biological Clock. There is no scientific evidence for this phenomenon, just a lot of pop culture buy-in for an idea that a newspaper columnist made up in the 1970s His article was about a “composite woman”, an imaginary woman–and it stuck.
How should/can libraries and educators use this film?
The film intersects with so many subjects and issues. It can be used to go in so many different directions and can open conversations in new and fresh ways. Three key areas are:
Reproductive justice and the importance of bodily autonomy. Today, we can see how critically important it is to talk about this need for reproductive autonomy–whether we want children or not. This is a fresh way to do it, and it’s a conversation we need to keep having
Environmental studies where it can inspire some nuanced conversations about how to approach population and sustainability.
Workplace equity issues for people who don’t have children. And more…
The film is useful for students. It’s useful for adult communities. It also opens up discussions about chosen families. The film creates possibilities for viewers to consider new ways for living our lives, creating families, and choosing our destinies, whether you want children or not. Although the film is ostensibly about choosing to not have children, the message of self-determination and self-invention extends to any life choices that’s outside the narrow paths presented to us.
Also, the film is entertaining! We created an entertaining film by design. Aside from just learning from it, students will enjoy watching it. There are lots of TV clips in there, and people who are snarky and funny, and it's just an enjoyable experience. When people are being entertained, I think they pay more attention. And, it’s empowering. We hear this over and over from audiences. That is important.
We have a great discussion guide and an outline of our impact goals, and both are free to download.
What’s next for you as a filmmaker?
Right now, I’m working really hard at getting this film out audiences all over the world. We recently did a screening with the American Public Health Association and screenings at Harvard and NYU. We’re working on getting it to more schools, conferences, libraries, nonprofits, as well as international distribution. I’m also working on a spinoff book about being child-free and an oral history/archive project about the child-free movement of the 1970s.
For my next film, I’m considering something about the way our society treats older women and the mythology around menopause. After films about virginity and motherhood, it seems like a natural thing to tackle next, so we’ll see.