by Corinne Maier
McClelland & Stewart
126pp.

Review by Heather Christie

“Wanting to reproduce yourself at any cost is to aspire to the pinnacle of banality.” Thus begins Corinne Maier’s 126 page rant on why we should not desire to squeeze a few batches of progeny out from between our fertile loins.

In theory, I think she’s got a point; far too often I’m surrounded by women gushing about their all-too mediocre children and the asinine tricks they’re up to (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule2 ) as if these parasites are the holiest of cows. These women fail to take care of themselves and even their most basic needs, allowing the rugrats to run them ragged, and ultimately throw their hopes, dreams, and aspirations to the dogs, preferring instead a life of martyrdom and resentment whilst neurotically tending to their young ones, because it’s—naturally—the most meaningful activity on the planet. Maier rages that we as a society put far too much value on the raising of children when, if we’re being honest with ourselves, it’s the least enjoyable way to spend 18+ years of one’s life.

When the book dropped last week, Maier was interviewed on CBC Radio 1’s Q, and was picked apart mercilessly—after the interview was over and she had hung up the phone, mind you–by a panel of so-called “experts.” Her concession that parenting “can sometimes be fun, I guess” really lit a fire under the panelists’ sense of the natural order. And I see where they’re coming from; publicly admitting the joylessness of parenting could be viewed as akin to cannibalism. Parents are expected to sacrifice all for the fruits of their sexual labour, and enjoy it too, goddamnit!

Not surprisingly, when it was first published in France in 2007, No Kids was one controversial little volume. As Maier explains, France is caught in the midst of a cultural moment that idolizes the child, fertility, and reproduction in general. Just as it is unfashionable to strike a child, so too is it equally outmoded to admit that rearing kids is not all milk and honey.

In her defense, there are a lot of benefits to preferring not to have children. As Clifford Owen writes in a recent Globe and Mail article , citing a recently released study by the University of Oregon, each child born in a developed country carries a carbon footprint that is twenty times greater than that of his/her parents. Yikes! But what support for Maier’s argument.

Unfortunately, while compelling, the legitimate argument in No Kids gets lost in the palaver of Maier’s seemingly intentionally inflammatory statements. Deploying statements like “the child is a vicious, innately cruel dwarf” lifted from French novelist Michel Houellebecq serves only to infuriate Maier’s opposition, rather than allowing her message to get through to the “natalist” sheep she accuses of blindly desiring children.

While much of the book is tongue-and-cheek, it’s hard to finish reading without pitying this miserable woman’s children. Perhaps she should have taken her own advice at an earlier stage in life.