Childfreeness, parenthood and adulthood

This article discusses voluntary childlessness and reaching adulthood in Sweden,focusing on childfree women and men with intellectual disabilities (IDs). Thearticle is based on interviews with 19 childfree individuals, four of whom had IDs.It focuses on motives for voluntary childlessness, with three types of motivesbeing mentioned only by the interviewees with IDs; namely the difficulties ofparenthood and of building relations with children, the risk of heredity and themaliciousness of children. The interviews have been analysed with relevance topower axes of gender, age and abilities, and these three motives may be seen asresults of the interviewees’ ascribed position as intellectually disabled and of thesegregation in society between able and disabled individuals. The article alsoincludes a discussion about how to achieve ‘adult status’ when parenthood isruled out. Other issues in everyday life seem more important than parenthood,according to the individuals with IDs