This environmental activist made headlines with her surprising decision.
A few years ago my writers' group, which happened to consist of six non-mothers (we dubbed it the Child-free Ladies’ Mind Workers Union Local #1), got into a discussion of our reasons for not having children. Anne-Marie, a poet, said that she had been influenced back in her college days by a speech she heard about, some graduate of a ritzy college vowing not to have children. “That was me,” I told her. It was a little unnerving to discover that my action 40 years ago had personal consequences in her life.It was in 1969 that I gave that speech she remembered, at my commencement from Mills College (although we have a name in common, I'm no relation to the college's founders). I titled my speech "The Future Is a Cruel Hoax." The subject was overpopulation and the ecological crisis. I said that in light of all the damage human beings were doing to the planet, “the most humane thing for me to do would be to have no children at all.”
My saying that made big news. The morning after my graduation I woke up to find that I'd become a celebrity. My photo and remarks were on the front page of the Oakland Tribune and going out over wire services all over the country and the world. There were items about it in the New York Times and all the major newsmagazines. For weeks afterwards I was caught up in a maelstrom of media attention. Suddenly I had to deal with reporters and interviewers and invitations to give more speeches and appear on panels throughout the US. I rose to the occasion pretty well, considering that I was a mere 20 years old and an introvert at heart.
Although I had spent my college years—the late 1960s—in a cushy situation on the quiet campus of a women’s college, I was part of a generation that felt revolutionary. It helped that Mills was situated just down the freeway from the University of California. As graduation approached we’d watched the US National Guard helicopters pass over, carrying troops to occupy Berkeley during the People’s Park riots. Some mighty changes seemed to be coming down, and it was the job of the young to make them good.
