National Alliance for Optional Parenthood


The National Organization for Non-Parents was started in Palo Alto, California, by Ellen Peck and Shirley Radl in 1972. N.O.N was formed to advance the notion that people could choose not to have children—to be childfree. Changing its name to the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood, it continued into the early 1980s both as a support group for those making the decision to be childfree and an advocacy group fighting pronatalism. According to its bylaws, the purpose of the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood was to educate the public on non-parenthood as a valid lifestyle option, support those who choose not to have children, promote awareness of the overpopulation problem, and assist other groups that advanced the goals of the organization.
N.O.N.'s offices were located in Reisterstown, Maryland; then Baltimore, Maryland; and, ultimately, in Washington, D.C.
The organization's most widely distributed publication was "Am I Parent Material?"
NON designated August 1 as Non-Parents' Day, and forty years later, in 2013, Laura Carroll, a childfree author and writer on the childfree choice, spearheaded bringing back this "Day" on August 1 of each year as International Childfree Day, an "annual recognition of amazing childfree people and their lives, and as a wonderful way to foster the acceptance of the childfree choice in today’s society".
Some of the early works on non-parenthood/being childfree include:
More recent works include: