Translator: Nicoletta Pedrana Reviewer: Michele Gianella
Can people be happy, even without kids?
Of course!
Everybody's free
to live their life and time as they please.
Reproduction is not an obligation,
nor is it an accident, since the advent of birth control.
People can choose not to have children and still live a bright, fulfilling life:
my body, my choice.
The answer is also no.
It's difficult to be happy without kids
if we wanted them in the first place, but couldn't have them.
Some people manage to adopt, a rather arduous path,
and thus manage to overcome biology
and become parents.
But there are some who can’t, won’t, or fail to adopt
And then live the rest of their lives without kids, even if they wanted them.
Most of the time, people come to terms with it,
channeling elsewhere all the love and care
they would have given to their children.
But the pain, the regret still remains.
So the answer to the question, can people be happy even if they don’t have kids?
can both be yes and no.
Yes, if ours was the choice of not having kids;
No , if it wasn't.
On average, according to statistics
people want on average two kids.
You ask, How many children you want? and the average answer will be two.
But how many kids do people actually have?
Thanks to that oddity
that makes kids statistically fractionable,
the answer to this question in Italy is, one kid point twenty-five.
They call it demographic winter .
Fertility rate decline.
This impacts on the whole society, for - How many children should we have?
Any country that wants to keep its population stable, over time,
should have a fertility rate
of two - technically, two point one.
When sooner or later the two parents will die,
their two children are there to replace:
this is why we also speak of “replacement rate ”.
This impacts the equilibrium of the social security scheme,
as working age people
pay for pensions for the elderly with their social contributions.
So in Italy, instead of two, we have one kid point twenty-five.
Why on earth don't we have the number of children we wish for?
That's because of job insecurity and measles salaries, one might say.
This is definitely true.
Contracts and salary terms
are often inadequate, sometimes even bleak:
and that’s a non-negligible obstacle to having kids
at least in developed countries.
If you happen to know La Repubblica degli Stagisti,
you know I've been fighting for fair pay for a very long time now.
There's a catch, though: even in Switzerland -
with its thriving labor market, full employment,
and generous average wages -
even in Switzerland people would like to have two kids,
and then end up having fewer kids.
One point forty-eight.
They're quite far from the replacement rate, too.
The only European country that managed, investing on natality for decades,
to reach the famous two,
is France.
Every other country is in full demographic winter.
So what, then?
Should we push people to have more children?
Force them?
Blame those without children?
Of course not:
My body, My choice.
If people do not want kids,
they have every right not to have them.
We must let them be.
Nobody should ever have children out of sense of duty.
What we could and should do, though,
is allow people who want to have children to actually have them.
This is my grandmother Carmen.
The picture was taken in the 50s,
and portrays her with my grandfather Gigio and the majority of their children.
Their 15 children!
All born between 1930 and 1958;
The first one, when grandma was nineteen;M
the last one when she was almost 49.
No, my grandmother did not work -
out of the home, I mean.
Those were different times .
My mother, in the late 70s / early 80s,
had two children.
I only had one daughter, unfortunately.
What about her?
Who knows whether she'll want children - and if so, who knows how many.
Who knows if she will.
Who knows when she'll have them.
Right.
When?
The fact is, women can have kids during their so-called “fertile window ”
from the first menstruation to menopause:
between 15 and 49 years, more or less.
Of course, way more important that being physically ready
is being mentally ready to have a child:
feeling psychologically ready to take care of another human being.
Truth is, we only have children
under the right conditions.
And that's why we wait.
Wait for what?
First, the economic conditions: a roof over our head,
enough income to support ourselves and the children-to-be.
Second, the professional conditions: having a more-or-less steady job
and not being afraid to lose it because of having a child.
Third, the practical conditions: childcare facilities
for when we go back to work, available kindergartens
school timetables matching our working hours,
chances of part-time work.
All of this combined has an effect.
The average age of first-time mothers
has increased in Italy by almost 3.5 years over the last 25 years.
In 1995, it was 28
In 2020, 31.4.
The highest childbearing age in Europe.
And the average age of first-time fathers
has also risen significantly over the last few decades.
Young people who may even feel ready to start a family
look at those conditions, assess them,
and then say: let's hold off for now.
Women too, despite the ticking of the biological clock,
say: let's wait.
Sometimes they aren't aware of it.
But they do it.
They wait.
But is it ok to wait?
The answer is quite simple:
It is, if it's a free choice:
I might want to wait because I don't feel ready.
Because I haven't yet found the right person
to start a family with.
Because I first want to travel around the world.
I might want to focus all my energies
on my job, or my passion,
with no distractions.
These are personal, intimate,
undisputable,
sensible choices.
On the other hand, waiting is not ok if it hurts us.
If one wish she has a child right now, but right now isn't an option.
Because our co-workers who become mothers
are systematically demoted, if not fired.
Because there's an endless waiting list for childcare centers in our neighborhood,
and private childcare costs a fortune.
Because the implicit, constant message from the world out there is,
Wait. Wait for a permanent job.
Buy a house, in the meanwhile.
Wait! Why the hurry?
Why the hurry.
Women, I said before,
have a "fertile window", from first menstruation to menopause.
to bear children
Which is theoretically true:
However , science also says
that a woman's fertility is at her peak in her twenties,
and already declines significantly around 35, 37 years of age.
The chances for a sexually active woman, who doesn 't take contraceptions,
of getting pregnant
are actually close to zero even several years prior menopause.
It's quite the paradox.
Humanity took great strides with evolution,
but the female reproductive system is almost the same
as 200, even 2000 years ago.
Women are well educated now, just as men are.
They work, even more than men.
They marry later on in life, if at all.
Our body hasn't adjusted to this new context, though.
Basically, the fertile window hasn't moved forward.
That's why, Why the hurry?
is a hoax, a trick.
One may think, at 30, to have plenty of time.
But we do not have that much time, in fact.
Thinking about starting a family later on in life
may lead – not always, but it may – to several challenges.
It's more likely that people will have to rely on reproductive medicine,
for which
the rate of success -
is just around thirty percent,
and drastically lower if the woman is over forty.
One is more likely to suffer miscarriages,
or conceive children with health issues.
Sometimes, couples' intimacy
is deeply impacted by on-command intercourse,
regrettably necessary when you're trying to conceive.
And here's another sad truth:
women don't have any idea of it, until it happens to them.
When we're 20, 30 years old,
we don't care about fertility
but the other way around:
using birth control to avoid getting pregnant.
But when it comes to actually getting pregnant,
we're unprepared.
We've been trying for three months and we’ re not pregnant yet!
What's happening?
I too was unprepared
I had no clue how harder it would be
to get pregnant at 38, instead of 28.
I had no clue
the quality of women’s oocytes deteriorated with age .
Little did I know, out of the four children I wanted,
I would only have one.
One amazing daughter. But one.
The truth is, starting a family later on in life
is one of the key factors
that broadens the gap between wanted and actual children.
Then it's time to step up and say, Why wait?
It's time for a great social battle
to claim the right to have children
when we want them and not almost out of time,
forced as we are to postpone because of the workplace pressures,
work-life balance struggles,
because we feel we are fighting the system.
A cultural revolution to reaffirm that it takes two to have children,
at least in most cases.
We need equal parenting.
Equal maternity and paternity leaves.
Mothers and fathers should be equally involved in parenting,
and this should be publicly acknowledged, especially by the labor market.
Despite the appearance, this is a political battle as well.
For being able to have kids
is the opposite of being able to not have them.
So if we believe, as I fervently do,
in reproductive and sexual rights;
if we're appalled by child marriage;
If we're horrified to learn that there are still places in the world
where when girls get their first period
they're forced to quit school,
for their fate is sealed then,
and they only have to do their job: get married and bear children.
If we support planned parenthood,
so that anywhere in the world
men and women may have access to safe and affordable contraception.
If even today, in our progressive and secular countries,
we find ourselves needing to fight again
for the right to legal and safe abortion,
another pillar of reproductive and sexual rights.
My body, my choice.
Then it's time that here and now,
from our economically developed countries, struck by the demographic winter,
we start a battle for these rights .
focused on the significance of freely choosing
the moment and number of the children we want.
aren’t merely reduced
to a protest against early, or overly abundant pregnancies,
in developing countries.
There's also another way to frame these rights:
the opposite one.
I want to have kids at 25, at 28, at 30 years old.
I don't want to wait.
And it shouldn't be this hard, it shouldn't be that challenging.
This issue concerns everybody.
Men too,
even if they can have children at more or less any age -
but sure, not with the same partner.
The path to social change
works like this: we take strides forward together,
even if the focus of the battle doesn't concern us personally.
Because it concerns us as a society.
As human beings trying and build a better world.
A future world where the question,
Why did you wait so long, before having children?
won't be answered but, Because I freely chose so.
Knowing all there is to know.
Without undue pressure.
Because maybe I didn't want them before,
and later on, I did.
A fairer world
where people can have children,
if and when they want to;
and if they're lucky enough,
without having to wait.
(Applause)