Fifty shades of freedom. Voluntary childlessness as women's ultimate liberation

Freedom is an often mentioned motive for remaining childfree. However, there is a lack of systematic approaches attempting to disentangle the situated meaning of freedom in voluntary childless women's lives. This article draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 21 Swedish childfree women in order to further research how they understand and define freedom. The analysis identifies two different discourses of freedom relevant for the construction of the childfree position. The first discourse includes positive experiences of freedom aspects that the childfree women enjoyed in their everyday lives. This discourse also defines freedom as part of a deep-rooted identity that also involves other life choices, besides rejecting motherhood. The second discourse comprises negative opinions about children as risk, motherhood as time-consuming and parents as “trapped”. The article contextualizes these discourses within the contemporary Swedish welfare society.