Demographic and sociological research commonly distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary childlessness, depending on the recorded intentionality of childless people to have children. Voluntary childlessness,  defined as the self-declared non-intention of having children, is relatively low in European countries. And yet it is has recently attracted academic attention while so-called “childfree” people and movements become public in the media. This paper aims to challenge the “childfree” definition of intended childless people by exploring practices and values of those who do not intend to become parents within the Italian context. This paper presents some of the results of a qualitative research carried out in Italy between 2014 and 2016 among 50 Italian residents over 40 years old who are childless or not officially recognized as parents. This paper will especially analyse the life course, the narratives and the practices of some intended childless men and women to explore the existing relationships between intended childless people and younger generations and propose a more detailed definition of unintended childlessness and “childfree” life-style.