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Key points
- “Generativity” has many forms beyond biological childbearing.
- A person's reproductive identity can change over the course of their lifetime.
- Increasingly, children are part of many different kinds of families beyond those headed by a married man and woman.
Experiences around parenting, such as deciding if, when, and how to parent, can be important to our identities. In an article explaining the term “reproductive identity,” Aurelie M. Athan of Columbia University argues that “there are few dimensions of the human experience of this magnitude, shared by all peoples and societies.” Adults sometimes think of themselves in terms of their parenting identities, and other people often see them through that lens, too.
Athan wants us to go beyond narrow, stigmatizing, and limiting ideas about reproductive identities. For example, crediting theorists such as Erik Erikson and Dan McAdams, she notes that “generativity” has many forms beyond biological childbearing. People can contribute to the next generation and improve other people’s lives by nurturing, teaching, mentoring, and creating things. “Any attempt at this stance of care and concern for others is considered a positive and growth-producing endeavor,” she said.
Reproductive identity, according to Athan, is best conceptualized as a spectrum. It is nonbinary and multifaceted. The way we think about the place of parenting in our lives can change over time; that means that reproductive identity can be a flexible and dynamic process rather than a fixed status.
The significance of reproductive identity is different for different people. The intensity of the desire to parent or not parent varies. The importance of parenting, relative to other identities, varies too: For some, including some men, it is central, and for others, it just isn’t all that meaningful.
Professor Athan believes that individuals should write their own stories about their reproductive identities, rather than being slotted into standard storylines. For example, people who wanted kids and had them do not always experience the "happily ever after" they may have anticipated. Similarly, people who did want kids and never had them don’t always experience their lives in predictable ways, either.
Reproductive Identity at This Historical Moment
At this moment in history, Athan argues, it is both more imaginable not to have kids and more possible to have kids than it has been in the past. Globally, more people are avoiding unintended pregnancies, having fewer children, or deciding not to have any children at all. As a result:
“For the first time in the history of the human species, 80% of the world lives in a country where the fertility rate is equal to three or fewer children per woman, marking one of the most profound social changes ever recorded.”
At the same time, more people who once would have been involuntarily shut out of parenting now have more opportunities to parent. Advances in reproductive medicine have been important, even as some technologies are prohibitively expensive and the odds of success can be daunting.
Evolving social norms and understandings are also significant. Children are part of many different kinds of families beyond those headed by a married man and woman. Today, fewer people are shocked to learn that a child has two mothers or two fathers (or one, or is being raised by her grandmother, or any number of other possibilities).
Terminology that is Accurate and Respectful
Professor Athan points out that some terms – such as "unwanted," "unintended," "unplanned," and "mistimed" -- are used interchangeably even though they should not be. “They measure different things, elicit vastly different reactions, and are false dichotomies that do not accurately capture people’s realities.” Other terms, such as “barren,” are stigmatizing. They add nothing to our understanding of reproductive identity.
Toward a More Welcoming World for People of All Reproductive Identities
Aurelie Athan would like to see more open-minded understandings of reproductive identities incorporated into school curricula. That way, “youth might intentionally imagine their possible reproductive selves – “what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming” – just as would be expected of other future commitments (e.g., career development).”
Mental health professionals, such as therapists, need to be attuned to their own biases, so that they are not unwittingly imposing them on the people they are trying to help. In medical offices, intake forms may need to be rewritten. In everyday life, strangers need to be careful about the presumptions they are making about other people’s reproductive experiences and desires, and relatives and friends need to be supportive rather than judgmental.
Ultimately, Athan would like reproductive identity to be regarded as “an inalienable human right of all individuals to self-identify as they see fit,” sustained by supportive policies and practices.
