Children Bless Everyone in Society

A "Childless Career Woman" is More than a Statistic

Dear Friends,

Today in Public Discourse, I shared my thoughts on why the global population decline is more than just an economic issue. In my grandparents’ generation, everyone in society contributed to the raising of children, either their own or others. Thanks to many mentors, when I became a so-called “childless career woman”, not by choice but by circumstance, I relished in supporting others to raise children. Sharing publicly at the New York Encounter in February 2025 on a panel about global population decline that I desired children but never had them, has led many people to approach me to share similar experiences.

Here is a piece of what I wrote today:

“As a Catholic woman, I believed my happiness lay in a vocation of marriage and motherhood. Yet, when I called off my plans for marriage in my late thirties—because my former fiancé decided he did not want the responsibility of raising children—it seemed beyond my control that I would become one of the statistics of a childless, successful career woman. What was I to do? How was I to live a happy life? It didn’t help when the advice I sometimes got was that single people, and married but infertile couples, are left doomed by our so-called “choices” to be childless and unhappy.

I learned that people with large families (and today, a family of more than one child could be called large) longed to be surrounded by community. So, I sought out friends with kids—babysitting, going to kids’ movies, and enjoying countless kids’ birthday parties and baptisms. I didn’t need instructions—I just stepped in, held babies, played with toddlers, and relished the hugs and smiles I received. When, at age forty-eight, I married a wonderful man, the fact that I had learned to build intimate relationships with others’ children prepared me to embrace becoming a stepmother and supportive wife.”

In today’s world, however, many people did not have the blessing of a big extended family, which I wrote about in this blog. Many people need guidance on how to raise children. On Tammy Peterson’s podcast recently, I heard a single woman in her twenties lament how hard it is to come from a small family and no church community because it is difficult to find mentors whose lives center on faith and family. Holidays are particularly lonely for single people, and many of them have never experienced a large family meal. An older woman on the podcast wisely encouraged all Christian families to invite single people over for Christmas.”

See Public Discourse for the full article, and I link to the New York Encounter panel with demographers Brad Wilcox and Nick Eberstadt below. I also provide the link to the Tammy Peterson podcast where a young woman shares her need for older women to teach her how to live out her dreams for family life.

I conclude the article with this thought:

“A newborn baby is utterly dependent on parents and community, yet children are the greatest natural resource in the world. Each new life that enters the world represents boundless opportunities. Each child I’ve held and each student I’ve mentored gives me hope for the future. Through loving others’ children as if they were my own, a childless woman like me has rejoiced abundantly by encountering the image of God alive in others.”

Regards,

Margarita Mooney Clayton, Ph.D.

Executive Director, The Scala Foundation

Here’s the episode of the Tammy Peterson podcast where a younger woman asks two older women for advice on motherhood.

Here’s the NY Encounter panel I moderated with Wilcox and Eberstadt on global population decline.