Childless By Choice

Childless By Choice Synopsis

In the modern world we are surrounded by choices: Pepsi or Coke, Honda or Ford, red sauce or green. Of course, some choices are more important than others. "Childless By Choice" is a documentary that explores one of the most important choices you will make in your lifetime. Weaving together comic person on the street interviews, whimsical animation, and heartfelt portraits of four sets of couples grappling with whether or not to remain childfree - "Childless By Choice" shows us that deciding whether or not to have children is never an easy task.

The story begins when we meet Bonnie and Max Emadi in their artist's studio. Bonnie, an attorney who loves to spend time in her garage sculpting, admits that growing up she always expected to have children. However, as she got older she realized she wasn't cut out for motherhood. Bonnie explained, "I don't think I would make a wonderful mother, and I don't want to do something I'm not going to be really good at especially when a brand new life is involved." Her husband Max, a licensed clinical social worker who works for the Los Angeles County department of health, is very frank. "I think I'd probably be a great father," Max said. "It's just never been a desire of mine to be one - I mean kids are just not that interesting or amusing to me." While Max and Bonnie are relatively united about their decision to remain childfree - choosing whether or not to have children tore another couple apart.

Chris Simmons got married to Lisa Casablanca when they both were 21. "At 21 I didn't want kids and I knew she didn't either," Chris explained, "But we kinda said, okay, well, we're gonna change as we get older, we're gonna grow a little bit, and we should talk about it when we're 25." As Chris got older, he realized that he did want to have children. However, Lisa was not interested. "One of the biggest reasons she didn't want to have kids was that the majority of the burden of raising the child would fall on her," Chris said.

Realizing that they could not come to a compromise on this issue, the couple split in December of 2001. When Lanell and Stanley Goodman got married, they both knew they wanted to remain childless. "When Lanell and I first got together, the last thing in the world I wanted was children," Stanley explained. "Neither one of us was into raising children. Lanell is an incredibly warm human being but she is not into babies. And having done it once, there's no way I ever wanted to do that again in my life."/ Lois Riess Kerimis was childless by choice in a time and place where such things were unheard of.

After losing her fiancé in the Second World War, Lois decided that she would never have children. "And that was it for me. I said if I get married which I didn't intend to do, I will have no part in creating young people to go out and get killed," Lois explained. Although Lois did end up getting married to a Greek man named Nicolas Kerimis, she never did have children. As the experiences of these four couples demonstrate, the choice whether or not to have children is never easy. Some people claim that children enhance your life. Others claim that children tie you down. However, one thing is certain: children change your life.