“There are good artists who have children. Of course there are. They are called men”, said Tracy Emin in an interview with the Guardian back in 2014. This line still lands because the expectation it points to persists. Motherhood remains the default setting of womanhood, and women who step outside it are still treated as exceptions. Emin’s current exhibition, ‘A Second Life’, foregrounds the life she has chosen not to live.
In my experience, saying “I don’t want children” as a woman rarely ends the conversation. It invites reassurance, doubt and the insistence that the decision is temporary. In discussions surrounding her abortions, Emin has made clear that motherhood would have compromised her work. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in ‘The Second Sex’, “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, a reminder that the roles attached to womanhood are constructed rather than inevitable. The script of womanhood may be socially built, but it still tends to write motherhood as the final chapter.
Men are rarely forced to choose between art and family in the same way as their dedication to career is assumed
Emin’s 2026 ‘A Second Life’ resists this script, building on a career defined by raw self-exposure, from her famous ‘My Bed’ onwards. Spanning decades of work, the exhibition traces Emin’s life through trauma, illness and survival. It illustrates ‘a second life’ shaped by experience, not convention. Following major surgery and near-death, her work turns to the body as lived, not idealised, marked by her “what you see is what you get” honesty.
Choosing a life outside of motherhood is often framed as radical, but its reality is practical. Art may not be a child, but it still demands constant attention and zero sleep. Traditional models of parenthood do not easily accommodate artistic careers’ reliance on time and total commitment. Men are rarely forced to choose between art and family in the same way as their dedication to career is assumed. Refusing motherhood then becomes both a practical and political decision.
Emin is not alone in this refusal. Marina Abramović has been equally direct, stating that having children would have been a disaster for her work. Georgia O’Keeffe, Stevie Nicks, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt. All women who have said no to motherhood in the pursuit of art. What links these artists is not simply their choice, but the way that choice is still read as deviation from the norm.
Cultural narratives reinforce this perception. The ‘spinster’, the ‘career bitch’, the emotionally incomplete figure. Tropes that persist across popular culture, from Bridget Jones to Sex in the City to Tradwife content on Insta, where fulfilment is often tied to conventional family structures. As Adrienne Rich argues, motherhood operates as an institution, shaped by social expectation as much as choice.
There is no suggestion that her life is lacking because she remains childless. What we see is a life shaped by the pursuit of art
The expectation is, however, beginning to shift. More people are delaying or rejecting parenthood altogether, questioning whether it is necessary for a complete and fulfilled life. Though they are not fully accepted yet, alternatives to the heteronormative nuclear family model are becoming more visible in the UK. Let’s seriously start talking about raising a kid with your best mate or co-parenting with friends.
What Emin’s ‘A Second Life’ exhibition offers is about possibility. There is no sense of absence in Emin’s work. There is no suggestion that her life is lacking because she remains childless. What we see is a life shaped by the pursuit of art. “I wasn’t afraid of dying”, she says, “I’m more afraid of living”, capturing the intensity of an ongoing choice to choose a life on her own terms.
And yet, the fact that this still feels radical says a lot. The association between womanhood and motherhood remains deeply embedded in our society through the media we consume, the conversations we have, and the baby dolls we buy young girls.
We need to question why we still treat motherhood as the default in the first place. Until a woman’s decision not to have children is treated as ordinary, the act of refusing will continue to be treated like a scandal when it’s really just a choice.