Childfree Celebrities: Famous Hollywood Edition: Actors and Musicians– Women’s History Month

March 27, 2013 by amywnk 18 Comments

Cropped screenshot of Marilyn Monroe from the trailer for the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Time for another fun list of childfree celebrities. We could list many famous women who do not have kids but these women have something to say about being childfree and proud!

This time we celebrate our favorite actresses,

Greta Garbo (Photo credit: aclbraga)

comediennes, TV personalities and musicians:

Oprah Winfrey – Media guru

Dolly Parton – Actress, singer-songwriter

Betty White – Actress

Janeane Garofalo – Comedian, actress and political activist

Eva Mendes – Actress

Tallulah Bankhead – Actress of the stage and screen

Paulette Goddard – Actress and Broadway performer

Stockard Channing – Actress

Sarah Brightman – English classical soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer

Shirley Manson – Scottish singer and actress, lead singer of rock band Garbage

Claudette Colbert – French-born American-based actress

Lauren Hutton – American model and actress

Mary Chapin Carpenter – American folk and country musician and winner of five Grammy Awards

Mary Pickford – Actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Daphne Zuniga – Actress

Ginger Rogers – Actress, dancer, and singer

Cameron Diaz – Actress, model

Kathy Griffin – Comedian, actress “It seems like kids don’t have the rights they need. For example a prison sentence for a child molester is so so incredibly low and yet in a way, kids are running the world (in many ways) it revolves around these kids but I don’t feel like we’re really protecting them. I want to really protect kids. I want to give them rights they need, I don’t want to give them the right to annoy me in a restaurant, I want to give them the right not to get molested.”

Caitlin Moran – British TV Personality “No one has ever claimed for a moment that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer, and crippled by it.”

Christine McVie – Singer Fleetwood Mac

Nanci Griffith – Singer, guitarist and songwriter

Bo Derek – Actress, model and animal welfare activist

Bonnie Raitt – American blues singer-songwriter

Jean Arthur – Actress and major film star during the 1930s-40s

Julie Christie – Actress and Academy Award winner, starred in Doctor Zhivago

Lily Tomlin – Actress, comedian and writer

Jaqueline Bisset – Actress

Lara Flint Boyle – Actress

Mae West – Actress and sex symbol

Jean Harlow – Actress and sex symbol

Helen Mirren – Award-winning actress

Marisa Tomei – Actress

Dusty Springfield – British pop singer

Janet Jackson – Singer, songwriter and actress

Billie Holiday – American jazz singer and songwriter

Katharine Hepburn – Actress and winner of four academy awards

Marilyn Monroe – Icon, actress, singer and model

Liza Minnelli – Actress and singer

Janis Joplin – Singer and songwriter

Stevie Nicks – Singer, member of Fleetwood Mac

Portia de Rossi – Actress

Bessie Smith – Blues singer of the 1920s and 30s

Debbie Harry – lead singer of Blondie

Pam Grier – Actress

Gloria Gaynor – Singer

Mary Pickford – Actress and co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Bettie Page – Pin-up girl

Ashley Judd – Actress, women’s rights activist “Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it.”

Zooey Deschanel – On kids from a Marie Claire interview: “Don’t hold your breath waiting for Deschanel to announce a pregnancy, either. “That’s never been my focus,” she said of having children. “I like kids, and I like being around kids, but it was never an ambition, something, like, I need. I like working. That’s what I like doing. I like to work.”

Ava Gardner – Actress

Greta Garbo – Actress

Ellen Degeneres – Television host, actress and stand-up comedian

Margaret Cho – Actress, comedian, women’s rights activist and LGBT rights activist

Maria Callas – Soprano opera singer

Leah Dunham – Writer, director, actress

Kim Cattrall – Actress

Jo Frost – British nanny and television personality, better known as Supernanny

Julia Child – American chef, tv personality and author.

Rachel Ray – TV Chef

Quite an accomplished list! Did we miss anyone WNKies?

Childfree Celebrities: Artist Edition – Women’s History Month (whynokids.com)
Childfree Celebrities: Famous Authors Edition – Women’s History Month (whynokids.com)

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Why No Kids? Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrities without kids, celebrity no kids, celebrity without kids

Childfree Celebrities: Famous Authors Edition – Women’s History Month

March 18, 2013 by amywnk 3 Comments

Cover of The Second Sex

As a children’s author I once wrote a post about Dr. Suess and other famous kiddie-lit authors that didn’t have kids.

You can read it here.

Notable female childfree children’s authors include: Margaret Wise Brown, famous for “Good Night Moon,” Beatrix Potter of “Peter’s Rabbit” fame, and Louisa May Alcott, author of “Little Women.”

Here is a list of other famous female writers, authors and journalists who made their mark on the world with their words and not their offspring. It’s quite an impressive club:

Elizabeth Gilbert – Author, “Eat Pray Love”

Marie Colvin – Award-winning American journalist for the British newspaper The Sunday Times

Dorothy Parker – American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Anaïs Nin – Author

Melanie Notkin – Founder of SavvyAuntie.com, Author of “Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids” (Morrow/HarperCollins 2011)

Rachel Carson – Conservationist and author of “Silent Spring”

The Joy Luck Club (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anita Brookner – British novelist and art historian

Amy Tan – American writer best known for her book “The Joy Luck Club”

Harper Lee – Author, “To Kill a Mockingbird”

Marian Keyes – Author

Maeve Binchy – Novelist

Virginia Woolf – Author

Hilary Mantel – Novelist

Simone de Beauvoir – Author, “The Second Sex”

Charlotte Bronte – Author, “Jane Eyre”

Edith Wharton – Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist

Jane Austen – Author, “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility”

Isek Dineson – (pen name Karen Blixen) author of “Out of Africa”

Gloria Steinem – American feminist, journalist and political activist

WNKies do you know any other women that should be added to this list?

On Being Childless, Childfree, and True (gloriabowman.com)

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Nulliparity, Why No Kids? Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrities without kids, celebrity without kids, child-free celebrities, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, GloriaSteinem, Joy Luck Club, Margaret Wise Brown, Second Sex

Childfree Celebrities: Artist Edition – Women’s History Month

March 15, 2013 by amywnk 4 Comments

Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait, 1940. See discussion of her works below. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I’m an artist and a woman and I’m a little annoyed that there isn’t an Artist’s History Month. I will celebrate Women’s History Month and bemoan the fact that it’s during crappy mud season, but hey, women are used to getting the shaft. Let’s make a pledge to have Women’s History Month last all year. Let’s celebrate our freedom to make choices and use our voices. We are still questioned about our childfree status and told we can’t “have it all” (which to many means career and children and a happy life). My career, happy marriage, and childfree lifestyle is everything,

and my art is my legacy. Here is a list of fabulous female artists (fine arts) who chose to have it all – just not kids! This month I will be including women from other fields who are my childfree (s)heroes!

Georgia O’Keeffe – Painter

Frida Kahlo – Painter

Mary Cassatt – Painter

Lee Krasner – Painter

Zaha Hadid – Architect “I have not sacrificed my private life. It was not an issue for me. It wasn’t a choice. I don’t think one has to get married. Nor are you obliged to have children if you don’t want them. I didn’t think Oh dear, I can’t have kids – it was never like that, it was not a sacrifice. If I had been with the right person and I’d had kids I’m sure I could have managed”

Tracey Emin – Artist. Emin once said that being childless is difficult because “you’re treated like a witch.”

Cath Kidson – Designer

Coco Chanel – Designer

Edith Head – Costume Designer

Jessie Wilcox Smith – Illustrator

Kate Greenaway – Illustrator

Beatrice Wood – Artist

Hey WNKers: Can you think of others?

Women’s History Month Spotlight: Frida Kahlo (947thewave.cbslocal.com)
Fox marks Women’s History Month with lingering shots of boobs (metro.co.uk)

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Why No Kids? Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrities without kids, celebrity no kids, child-free celebrities, Frida, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt, Tracey Emin

Another One Bites the Dust: Kim Kardashian No Longer Childfree

January 29, 2013 by amywnk 2 Comments

Kim Kardashian – BlackBerry Porsche P’9981 (Photo credit: Hollywood_PR)

Just over a year ago Kim Kardashian accepted her role as doting auntie. She was content not having her own kids. We celebrated here at WNK.

“At first I was like, I want six kids. Then I went down to four, then I was down to three, and now I’m like, maybe I won’t have any,” she says glumly. “Maybe I’ll just be a good aunt…at this moment in my life, I feel like maybe I’m not supposed to have kids and all that,” Kim says in a December 6 Glamour Magazine article (source Us Magazine)

All that changed when the reality star started dating Kanye West. Bump watch began immediately. Kanye and Kim and all 8,000 Kardashians recently konfirmed that KK and KW had indeed made a baby. So now we get to hear about it for the next six months. Kongrats!

Am I trying too hard to be the cool Auntie? (Giving gifts to the kids in your Childfree life) (whynokids.com)
Got Milk? Kim Kardashian Tries Kourtney’s Breast Milk As Psoriasis Treatment (radaronline.com)
Kim Kardashian Pregnant Pictures – Kanye West’s Baby (everyjoe.com)

Filed Under: Why No Kids? Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrities without kids, celebrity no kids, celebrity without kids, child-free celebrities, childfree celebrity, Children, Kanye West, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kim, Kim Kardashian, no kids

Pregnant Women are Smug (Officialy)

August 8, 2012 by brianwnk 2 Comments

Check out the video here: Pregnant Women are Smug by Garfunkel and Oates: The Official Video (if it didn’t automatically load above.)

Last year we posted an early version of this Garfunkel and Oates video. But now it’s OFFICIAL, meaning some new lyrics (?), gruesome graphics, high production value and a cast of characters that includes funny girl Arden Myrin from MadTV and Chelsea Lately.

Pregnant Women are Smug (Update)

Garfunkel and Oates at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater

Garfunkel & Oates’ song/video, “Pregnant Women Are Smug” continues to have legs. No surprise!

Here’s what Huff Post had to say:

When they’re not singing about getting older, their love of marijuana or the ever-baffling hand job, Garfunkel & Oates (a.k.a. Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci) are probably somewhere being relentlessly annoyed by mothers-to-be.

OK, probably not. But now we can see exactly what that would look like with this new video for their instant classic, “Pregnant Women Are Smug,” a song about (you guessed it) how irritatingly precious women can be during their nine-month stints. (Huff Post)

And here’s a Jezebel weigh-in for good measure:

Listen, the “miracle of life” is amazing and all that, but hundreds of thousands of women give birth every day. And surely we all know women who act normally when knocked up. But there are the others, the ones who behave in a holier-than-thou, self-satisfied manner, those who comport themselves as though they have suddenly become royalty, and make it clear that they’re doing something incredible and you and your empty uterus are not worthwhile… Should we put women on a pedestal and treat them as untouchable bastions of goodness just because some sperm managed to find an egg? Or are we allowed to make fun of the fact that sometimes, pregnant women are smug? (Jezebel)

Want to lead a “Pregnant Women Are Smug” singalong at your next baby shower? Learn the lyrics at LyricsMania. Here’s the refrain to get you started:

Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it
Because they’re pregnant
Effing son of a gun
You think you’re so deep now, you give me the creeps
Now that you’re pregnant (LyricsMania)

What are we missing? Keep this clever song/video aliiive… 🙂

IFC Greenlights Garfunkel & Oates Series (nerdist.com)
Garfunkel and Oates Make Comedy Songs That Are Actually Funny (lineout.thestranger.com)

Filed Under: Childfreedom, Comedy, Hot Topics, Video Tagged With: Arden Myrin, Celebrities Without Children, celebrities without kids, celebrity no kids, Chelsea Lately, child-free celebrities, Garfunkel, Garfunkel & Oates, Lifestyle Choices, MADtv, Pregnancy, video, YouTube

Photo Essay?: Childfree Celebrities

July 19, 2012 by brianwnk Leave a Comment

Celebrities (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you recognize these faces? Can you tell who’s missing, based on previous Why No Kids stories about childless or child-free celebrities? Are there any celebrities without kids missing? Do you recognize anyone who has recently had a baby?

Related articles

Celebrities Who Don’t Want Kids – Marie Claire (WhyNoKids?)
“Gallery: Ten Celebrities Give Their Reasons For Being Childless By Choice” (WhyNoKids?)
Ellen DeGeneres and partner Portia de Rossi Don’t… (WhyNoKids?)

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Childfreedom Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrity no kids, celebrity without kids, child-free celebrities, childless celebrities

Dads Are Using Their Kids’ Sporting Events to Get Out of Household Chores

July 17, 2012 by brianwnk 2 Comments

“at least dads are doing something to keep kids from mucking up the house with their dirty fingernails and carelessly-brandished Ring-Pops”

OK. Lets agree to save the anthropological discussion about how men are not meant to be domesticated for another post, or another era maybe? In the meantime, perhaps someone can do a study of mens’ dorm rooms, bachelor pads and fraternity houses so we can conclusively report that MEN ARE DISGUSTING! We are the last beings anyone should want to be responsible for disinfecting! Men will give themselves double diarrhea or watch The View (or give themselves double diarrhea by watching The View) in order to avoid cleaning toilets, so “I have to drive to a swim meet while listening to (childfree) Justin Bieber songs” must absolutely be an acceptable excuse to get out of household chores. No?

Those conducting the report, or commenting about it, don’t necessarily think so:

“men aren’t making much progress in taking over some of the less-glamorous housework. “The fathers we studied,” said Kremer-Sadlik, “are finding ways to create a new ideal of fatherhood, but they are not creating a new ideal with their partners.” He added that some fathers even use sporting events as an excuse to get out of doing housework”

via Dads Are Using Their Kids’ Sporting Events to Get Out of Helping with Household Chores.

Filed Under: Childfreedom, Family, Fatherhood, Hot Topics, Parenting Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, family, Lifestyle Choices, marriage, parenting

Dr. Seuss: “Celebrity No Kids” Funny Follow Up

July 8, 2012 by amywnk 5 Comments

Cover of "Green Eggs and Ham (I Can Read ...

Cover via Amazon

WNK readers were amazed to learn that the guy who wrote the most notable kid’s books of all time, Dr. Seuss, never had kids of his own.

We recently stumbled upon a funny blog post from our friends at “I Kid You Not” waxing in Seussian rhyme about the argument to be or not to be child free:

(From www.choosingkidfree.wordpress.com)

“Except in this version, Sam-I-Am is a chick named Mindy Sue who believes everyone should procreate and green eggs and ham are the little buggers themselves.

I’m Mindy Sue.

That Mindy Sue.
That Mindy Sue.
I do not like that Mindy Sue.

Don’t you want a kid or two?

I do not want one, Mindy Sue.
I do not want a kid or two.

Do you want one in a year?

I do not want one in a year.
I’d rather shove glass up my rear.
I’m happy being childfree.
Now take a hike and let me be.

But don’t you like kids when you fly
Even though they scream and cry?

I do not like them on a plane.
I do not like them on a train.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.

Don’t you like them where you eat?
Don’t you think they’re cute and sweet?

Not where I eat.
Not at the beach.
Not at the park.
Not on an ark.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.

Do you like them at the store?
I’m sure you would if they were yours.

I do not like them at the store.
I don’t want kids.
But wait! There’s more:
I do not like them where I eat.
I do not like them at the beach.
I do not like them on a plane.
I do not like them on a train.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE.

But every little girl and boy
Is a precious gift, a joy!

Holy balls, give me a break
I just don’t think kids are so great.
I like to fly and eat in peace.
Now please go take a flying leap.

http://whynokids.com/uncategorized/dr-suess-didnt-have-kids/
http://americanvision.org/975/dr-seuss-had-no-children-of-his-own/

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Childfreedom, Happy Without Kids, Hot Topics, Why No Kids? Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrity no kids, celebrity without kids, childfree celebrity, childless celebrities, Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss no kids, Hot Topics, Seuss

No Kids for Fiona Apple

June 25, 2012 by amywnk 1 Comment

Former teen prodigy singer-songwriter Fiona Apple doesn’t want kids, still she carries around a curious tome: Raising Happiness,

10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents. Perhaps it’s to deal with the parentalization

Tidal (album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

she experienced in her own childhood.

“When it comes to parenting, Fiona confesses that, “No, I’ve never wanted kids. But I do read about parenting a lot. For some reason it’s very interesting to me – I think because I’m just big on self-parenting. But I read this thing in a nautical book about how when ropes get frayed you’d use the whipping cords to fix the ends. The whole thing of the whipping cords is that, if I did have kids, I could either teach them how to stay out of trouble — or how to get out of trouble, which I think is more important. Because no matter how well prepared you are in life, you’re gonna fall down a hole, and if you can fix the frayed ends of things, then you’re better off.”

Apple’s new album, “The Idler Wheel…” is another critical masterpiece. Maybe she is the mother of a beautiful baby after all.

Hey WNKers, do you occasionally peruse parenting books?

Fiona Apple Talks Tragedy, Children, And Her New Album With ‘Interview’ Magazine

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Hot Topics Tagged With: Celebrities Without Children, celebrities without kids, celebrity no kids, child-free celebrities, childfree by choice, Fiona Apple

Why no kids? Childfree celebrities!

May 22, 2012 by virtualDavis 1 Comment

George Clooney, one of the world’s favorite childfree celebrities

“You really don’t plan to have children?”

“No.”

“Really? Like, ever?”

“Like, never.”

“Weird. Why no kids?”

“Childfree celebrities.”

“Oh, you mean like George Clooney?”

“Right. Like George Clooney.”

“Oh, and Patrick Swayze, he was childfree too, right.”

“Right. Though not by choice, I’ve heard. Perhaps childless rather than childfree.”

“So, you want to be like George Clooney, not Patrick Swayze.”

“I’m not a great dancer. Enthusiastic, but not great. Not even good. But see where my hair’s going gray? I am good with that.”

“Right. I can totally see where you’re coming from. So childfree, not childless.”

“At this stage, I qualify as both, I think. Still working on the George Clooney part.”

“Well, good luck with that. He’s such a hunk!”

“Still working on that too…”

Childfree Celebrities Role Models?

As mundane and fictional as the foregoing dialogue may be, it’s not unrealistic. I could have cribbed it from a chance encounter during an urban elevator ride or in a rural grocery checkout line. In the North Country or in the Southwest.

Celebrities are de facto role models (often despite concerted efforts to ditch this mantle), and we rely upon them as credible spokespeople for saving dolphins, building oil pipelines and losing weight.

Recently this has become especially true for celebrities without children, especially celebrities who are childfree by choice. Having a hard time explaining to your mother-in-law why you and your wife have chosen not to have children? No worries, plug in George Clooney.

“Oh, George Clooney’s childfree? I love George Cooney.”

Mission accomplished. Or so it would seem.

Searching for Childfree Celebrities

In recent months Why No Kids? has experienced a dramatic spike among folks looking for information about childfree celebrities. Over the last few months four of the top eight search queries delivering new readers to the WNK blog have been:

celebrities without children
childfree by choice celebrities
childless celebrities
childfree celebrities

Curious. This is good news for AmyWNK who is our resident expert on all topics pop culture and celebrity-hood. But I’m a bumbling dunce when it comes to celebrities. My bride would offer a more colorful description.

In short, I’ve never been particularly fame-centric, childfree celebrities or otherwise.

That said, I’m fascinated with the fact so many others are drawn to celebrities in general, and especially intrigued by the increasing numbers focused on childfree celebrities. Here’s a quick glimpse at some non-WNK coverage:

Kate Walsh, Oprah and Other Childless Stars Speak Out (ABC News)
Ten Celebrities Give Their Reasons For Being Childless By Choice (Mommyish)
Celebrities Without Children – Celebrities Who Don’t Want Kids (Marie Claire)
Rachael Ray and Being Childless By Choice – The Juggle – WSJ. (Wall Street Journal)
Renee Zellweger Calls Children Little Dictators (AmyGrindhouse.com)

Can we infer anything from the this trend? Are more and more people looking for childfree celebrity role models?

Filed Under: Celebrities Without Children, Childfreedom, Why No Kids? Tagged With: Celebrities, Celebrities Without Children, George Clooney, Patrick Swayze, virtualDavis