In the ARD report “Rabiat” people have their say who voluntarily do without offspring.
Frankfurt – “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”: Even the guys thought that was funny back then during the Sponti period, even if not everyone is convinced to this day that equality should be a matter of course. In the meantime, apparently, more and more women would vary the saying and replace “man” with “child”.
That’s where the fun ends, however: Anyone who admits to friends and family or even publicly that they can be happy without children often has to expect at least alienation, if not hostility. “Rabiat” author Katja Döhne wanted to find out why people choose not to have children, but first she tells us about herself: She is 37, at an age when people say the biological clock is ticking pretty loudly; nevertheless, she has not yet found a conclusive answer to her own childhood question. For now she enjoys nieces, nephews and a cute little dog.
“Rabiat: Live better without children” – Personal reference in ARD reportage
This introduction may be irritating at first, but it is part of the concept: in the contributions to the report series “Rabiat”, which has been produced on behalf of Radio Bremen since 2018, the authors, all members of Y -collective, the respective substances consciously subjective. That’s why Döhne also films herself several times in between, in order to give an insight into her own inner life in front of the camera on her smartphone.
The attraction of the “rabid” approach lies in the personal connection: Here, an editorial assignment is not simply carried out; Döhne deals with a topic that moves her personally. She also conducts many conversations: not from a journalistic distance, but with closeness to those affected, for example to a young woman who knows at the age of 22 that she never wants to have children; that’s why she wants to be sterilized. Döhne accompanies her to a gynecologist, the two drive two and a half hours because most gynecological facilities refuse to carry out such operations on women under 30; the patients could regret the step after a few years. The fulfillment of a desire to have children through artificial insemination is still possible, as the doctor explains.
“Rabiat: Live better without children” – view of the environment is neglected
What is not only neglected in this part of the report is the view of the environment: How do parents react when their children reveal to them that they will never be grandparents? How is society reacting? Döhne touches on this aspect in a conversation with a sterilized man who reports on the reactions in a digital network. However, reports of experiences that can be read elsewhere describe a hostile lack of understanding, which of course stands in stark contrast to everyday life: In hardly any other European country are children perceived as such annoying troublemakers as in Germany.
“Rabiat: Better life without children”
Monday, August 22, 2022, on ARD from 11:35 p.m
Although they are considered to be the future, they traditionally have nothing to do with it in the present. Nevertheless, those who want to remain childless are classified as selfish. There are perfectly understandable reasons for this. Döhne, for example, fears that her friendships could suffer if she has a child. It is said that 20 percent of parents regret having children, the appropriate catchphrase is “Regretting motherhood”; and the author has also found a key witness for this.
“Rabiat: Better life without children” – selection is debatable
The selection of the people with whom Döhne exchanged views is debatable: because some will polarize the audience. This applies above all to those who represent antinatalism, a very lively movement, especially in the USA, which would like to abolish births in general: some because the earth is already overpopulated and it is no longer a question of the size of the ecological one footprint, as the publicist Verena Brunschweiger puts it, but also the number of feet; and the others, represented here by the philosopher Karim Akerma, because every birth is a death sentence.
No wonder the author finds Akerma’s thoughts rather bleak: only plants would exist on earth, which would correspond to his idea of a perfect world. After all, Döhne deals with the content of the birth opponent. The exalted, extroverted Brunschweiger, on the other hand, is allowed to use the stage that Döhne offers her unchallenged. Her desire to provoke is well known: she once described the federal government’s corona measures as “epidemic hysteria” and “fascistoid”. (Tilman P. Gangloff)
Some women do not want to have children because of the climate crisis. What is a private matter for most people becomes a socio-political issue.
