In the past, married couples in America had two choices: Have a child like everybody else or be shunned (or, worse, pitied) by the community. But today, regardless of where you live, you can connect with thousands of others who feel the same way. Type child-free into Google and more than 300 million pages appear, including Childfree by Choice, Childfree Clique, Childfree.net, Child-free.com, HappyChildfree.com, and TheChildfreeLife.com. They have regular meet-ups, dinners, white-water-rafting trips, roller-derby nights, and glassblowing classes—and no one needs a babysitter.

Founded in 1984, No Kidding! is one of the oldest of these organizations. It now has 49 chapters in three countries and has expanded its reach in the South and the Midwest. But membership is actually falling in some urban places, like New York City, where there are so many child-free couples that support groups are moot. Laura Ciaccio, 33, No Kidding!'s national media spokesperson, met her husband, Vincent, when both were freshmen at Iona College, in Westchester County, New York. They've been married since 2005. Unlike Nancy and me, the Ciaccios have always known they didn't want to conceive. Once, when she was briefly left alone with a toddler at a barbecue, Laura recalls, she was in a "constant state of heightened nervousness—that would probably be my life if I had a baby." Vincent had a vasectomy at 23, and if you think that's a tad premature, the couple had already agreed four years earlier that they didn't want children. "As a lifestyle choice, it's better-suited to our personalities," Vincent says. "There's not a single aspect of parenthood that I crave." On February 16, Vincent celebrated the 10th anniversary of the procedure, which he calls "the perpetual Valentine's Day gift."