Peggy Heffington

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’m a professor of History at the University of Chicago, where I teach and write about women, gender, and the environment in modern US history. I’m the author of Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother, which is a history of non-motherhood/not having kids in the last two centuries or so in the US.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer, though I didn’t know what kind. I remember doing a presentation in high school where I said I wanted to be a travel writer, which, in retrospect, still sounds like a good idea. But I became a historian because I love to write, and because (I think) some of the
best, weirdest, most interesting stories can be found in the lives of people in the past.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
I read! This is the advice my students always hate, but when I’m looking for ideas or inspiration, I read widely: novels, non-fiction, historical scholarship that sounds interesting but maybe only tangentially related to what I think I want to work on. I find there’s often some underlying throughline - my interest is piqued by those books for a reason, right —which only becomes clear after spending a lot of time going down rabbit holes. I also find I work best when the history I’m researching and writing about is connected in some way to things I care about in my own life. I messed this up with my dissertation: I picked a topic that was Very Important and Interesting in its own right, but it wasn’t something I felt a personal connection to, so my interest flagged. Doing histories of things I care about now lets my personal and professional lives exist on the same plane.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
The novelist Emma Straub described her writing process this way: “Tea cat internet internet tea cat cat cat email work work work work work cat tea email. Approximately.” Replace “cat” with “dog” and “tea” with “coffee” (and throw in some scrolling Instagram and filling random online shopping carts), and you have my writing routine. I’m not disciplined about anything except “butt in seat” time: on days I’m devoting to writing, I’m going to be sitting with my computer for basically the full workday, 6-8 hours or so. I figure if I sit there long enough, something will get written. Will I also have bought new pants? Probably.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
I think there are two kinds of writers: people who like writing, and people who like having written. That is, people who like the process of sitting with their thoughts and their computer and writing the thing (but might find the process of talking about it/promoting it to be painful or terrifying), and people who like talking about and promoting the thing once it’s written (but who maybe find the process of writing painful). I am definitely in the first camp. I really enjoy the process of writing, because it helps me clarify my thoughts. I’m less confident about the other piece, the “having written” piece - it’s terrifying to have your ideas and words out there in the world. It’s wonderful too! Connecting with readers has been lovely and rewarding. But it’s also unexpectedly vulnerable, and sometimes I’ve found myself wishing I was back in my office with my laptop.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
Not really, though it’s been wonderful to see so many people connect with the book and with the women in it whose stories I tell.
 

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
I don’t really share much about my story in the book, which was an intentional choice. I never say why I don’t have kids, or even that I don’t want them, and I could fall into any chapter of the book (each chapter discusses a reason that women in the present and in the past have not had children) or none of them. Readers have extrapolated a lot from the book about me and my story, and I think in part that’s because of a lack of stories about people without kids and a hunger for people to relate to. But I wrote the book less to tell my story, and more to speak on behalf of a generation (or at least, part of a generation!) for whom the decision to parent or not to parent feels more fraught (I think!) than it ever has. And it’s been great to see how deeply that’s resonated with women, regardless of their parental status.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
I’m not sure I really have a take here that’s particularly interesting.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
In general I hope the publishing world continues to seek out and publish stories about the full variety of human experiences, trusting that there are readers out there who will be excited to see themselves in book form - or who are willing to spend time with stories that don’t look like their own.
 

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I’m trying my hand at fiction at the moment, about halfway through a draft of a novel that sort of came out of nowhere. I flip between feeling silly and like it’s a waste of time (I’m a historian, not a novelist!) and enjoying the experience of using a new creative muscle. I’m also in the early stages of a history of midwives and women healers, which hopefully will have all kinds of fun less-told stories from the recent and deeper past. I’m also toying with the idea of selling baked goods at the local farmers' market. So, we’ll see what the future holds.