"Childless" doesn’t mean peripheral

I just got back from a short stint in Pittsburgh. A dear friend of mine recently had a baby, and a few of us gathered there for a small Friendsgiving. It wasn’t a big, orchestrated event. It was more like…falling into their household for a few days and helping wherever help naturally fit. Holding the baby so someone could eat while their food was still warm. Running out for groceries. Talking through the moments that have felt hard for them as they adjust to life as a parent.

A few months earlier, I helped organize a nesting party for the same friend. Not a baby shower with games and ribbons, but a day where people actually came over to do the real work of preparing for a newborn! We built furniture, set up the nursery, sanitized bottles, prepped freezer meals, and stocked their home with things that would (hopefully) make the early weeks less overwhelming. It felt grounding and communal, and it reminded me how much I value this role in my friendships.

That choice feels steady and true for me. But I love children, and I love my friends, and it feels important for kids to grow up inside networks that include people who have the time and emotional space to show up in different ways! Because I’m not raising kids of my own, I can offer attention that is spacious and unhurried. I can be the adult who sits on the floor and plays, because I’m not splitting my energy in a dozen directions.

There’s a cultural myth (courtesy of capitalism) that childless adults are somehow less invested in “family life”. I mean, even the term “childless” reflects a deficit (you’ll notice I stop using the popular term at this point in the post). As if not being a parent means I exist outside the circle where real care happens. But my life and my friendships say otherwise.

Sometimes what a parent needs most is not a babysitter, but an adult who sees them, knows them, and who listens! Someone who shows up out of love, not obligation. I can take a walk, or get on a train, or a plane and spend a few days supporting a friend with kids through the hard weeks without it disrupting an entire household back home. That feels like a gift I am able to give because of the shape of my life!

Part of why this feels natural for me is that my relationships have never followed a traditional path. I’m non-monogamous in a way that isn’t built on hierarchy. I have a partner I’ll be nesting with soon, and they also have another partner. Our lives branch outward instead of narrowing into a single predefined structure. My community includes fellow queer and trans folks, who have built family through intention, tenderness, and consistency.

Living this way has taught me that family can be something you build. It is an ongoing practice, not necessarily a milestone you hit at a certain age. And because my life expands outward in this way, I have the capacity to be part of other people’s families without disappearing into them. I can show kids that adulthood has many shapes. I can model a life where joy and connection don’t depend on parenthood, traditional marriage, or a specific kind of household.

They deserve to see adults who are queer, without children, partnered, single, polyamorous, etc. Adults who travel, or who spend their days making art, or who have relationships that don’t look like the ones they see on TV. When kids grow up around a variety of adults, they gain a more expansive sense of what is possible for them, and they learn that there isn’t only one path toward a meaningful life.

Adults without children show kids that a joyful and grounded adulthood doesn’t have to follow one script. Sometimes the people who have the most time to give are the ones who never became parents themselves. That isn’t a deficit, but rather, a form of abundance.

Raising children inside a community reduces pressure, isolation, and loneliness. It allows for more moments of rest, more perspectives for kids to learn from, and more adults who can step in during the hard weeks. Community care makes parenting feel less like a private burden and more like a shared investment in the next generation.

And let’s be SO for real…parents should not have to do it alone! They deserve support that is steady, loving, and woven into the rhythms of daily life. Support our governments seldom provide us. Childfree adults often have the capacity for that kind of support, not because we are more “noble” or more available by default, but because our lives are shaped differently. Difference creates room. Room creates possibility!

It is a position that allows me to offer something essential. I don’t want my friends to feel like they are doing this alone. I want their children to grow up knowing that the world is full of adults who care about them, who see them, and who will show up for them. And I want adults without children, like me, to know that our place in the village is not secondary. It is needed. It is joyful! It is deeply meaningful.

Community isn’t built through one kind of adult or one kind of family; It is built through the ways we show up for one another!

For each issue, I include three songs I’m into lately:

1. Year of the Optimist by Beach Bunny

2. Outbound by After

3. BIG by Boyish