Why the women of Fleetwood Mac chose to never have children

8 August 2024, 14:23

They shared an unusually close bond.

Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie were notably the only female members of lauded soft rock legends Fleetwood Mac.

Life being in a male-dominated band would usually have its issues, especially living life on the road when you're surrounded by men not only within the band but with every other role in the music industry too.

So they obviously relied on each other heavily as confidants and shared a unique relationship due to their female perspective and understanding.

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The pair were also responsible for a series of the band's biggest hits including 'Little Lies', 'Dreams', 'Everywhere', 'Don't Stop', 'Hold Me', 'Gypsy, 'Rhiannon', 'Landslide' and countless more.

Aside from their songwriting talents however, Stevie and Christine shared more in common as women in so far as they both made the decision to not have children.

But why? Here's what Nicks and McVie both said in the past about their decision to remain childless, and what one of their ex-partners said about it.

Why did Stevie Nicks never have children?

Fleetwood Mac's original witchy woman Stevie Nicks has discussed her decision to not have children on many occasions.

In 1979, she dated the Eagles' singer Don Henley for roughly two years on-and-off, eventually falling pregnant.

Nicks terminated the pregnancy however, later claiming that Fleetwood Mac couldn't have continued if she hadn't made that decision.

"If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac,” she said in an interview with the Guardian in 2020.

"There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly. And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs… I would have had to walk away."

"And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy"

"I thought: you know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission."

In 2001, she addressed her inability to be both a career musician and a mother in an interview with US news network ABC News.

"I couldn’t have really done both. Now, many women can do both. I’m not saying it can’t be done," she admitted.

"But for me, I knew that if I had a baby, I would have to take care of that baby, and I wouldn’t have been happy with a nanny taking care of my baby and walking into the room and having my child run across the room to another woman."

"I am very jealous and I would have hated that. So under those circumstances, if I couldn’t be a great mom, then I decided it would be better not to, and to go ahead and do what I do, write my songs, try to help people that way."

Why did Christine McVie never have children?

Similarly to Stevie, Fleetwood Mac's keyboardist extraordinaire and key songwriter Christine McVie also decided against starting a family.

She attributed the decision to being in a successful touring band, but also not finding the right partner at the right time, despite being married to the band's bass player John McVie for eight years.

"There were never any children [for me]. There was always a career in the way," McVie admitted in an interview with the Guardian in 2013.

"It was a case of one or the other, and Stevie would say the same. The lads went off and had children but for Stevie and I it was a bit difficult to do that."

"So that was never able to happen. And I never found the right man. Not through want of trying," the keyboardist added,

"It would certainly be difficult for a chap to swallow if his wife or girlfriend is dashing off without being at home to cook his supper for him."

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Would Stevie Nicks have started a family if it weren't for Fleetwood Mac?

Despite her aversion to having children herself, Stevie Nicks confessed it would've been a different story had she not joined Fleetwood Mac with her then-lover Lindsey Buckingham.

She admitted that if they hadn't both signed up for the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, they'd have settled down, got married, and would've had children together.

"I think, in Lindsey’s heart, he thinks if we hadn’t joined Fleetwood Mac, we would still have become famous," she told Q Magazine in 2008.

"We probably would have gotten married and probably would have had kids and probably would have lived in San Francisco, his hometown, and our lives would have been very different and we probably would have never done drugs."

What did Lindsay Buckingham say about Stevie Nicks' decision to not have children?

Fleetwood Mac guitarist has openly talked about his and Stevie Nicks' previous romantic relationship and how it impacted their professional relationship over the years.

“There were a number of years where I wasn’t over her. It is possible that she has never been completely over me either," Buckingham admitted in an interview with The Times in 2021.

Though Lindsey did say he thinks the fact they took different paths in terms of starting a family may have impacted Stevie's insistence on ejecting him from the band, after he was sacked from Fleetwood Mac in 2018.

"I met the love of my life late and that gave me a whole other take on the world. Stevie did not have children."

"She went down a different route and has placed more importance on her professional life,” Lindsey said.

“It’s hard for me to know what her mentality is towards me, but I know what mine is to her because I’ve been married for 21 years and I have three children and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me."