Kids (Not) Welcome July 20, 2010

I’m in the middle of booking our summer vacation, so I’m partly excited to be escaping and partly frazzled from searching site after site coordinating flights, multiple accommodations, car rental, and ferries, and trying to match them with my husband’s and my calendars. But we’re going, and that’s all that matters.

We want to mix some city sight-seeing with a few days in a cottage, away from everything, somewhere where we can pad to the kitchen for coffee in our PJs and sit on our own balcony looking out at a view and not much else.

I found some great places, but there were a couple that were absolutely ideal, except for one thing: Kids Welcome! Any place that had “family-friendly” or “babysitting service” listed in their amenities was immediately struck off the list.

Part of my decision may be because “peacefulness” and “kids” don’t generally go together. I don’t want to risk showing up and finding someone else’s family playing Frisbee outside my window. I want to spend my vacation with my husband; I don’t want to spend it with other people’s kids. And because I don’t have kids of my own, I don’t have to. Peace and quiet, here we come.

Magazine for Non-Moms II July 19, 2010

Last week a great discussion ensued about the lack of magazines for women who don’t have children. A number of people bemoaned the fact that women’s magazines are either focused on fashion and dating or kids, and that many of us have stopped reading them because we can’t relate to the stories.

So, let’s play make-believe. Let’s pretend we have unlimited resources to start a magazine aimed at women who don’t have (or don’t want to talk solely about) children. What would it contain? What kinds of stories would interest you? What issues do you want to read about? What are subjects would you like to see covered?

And finally, what would you call the magazine?

Have fun with this. You never know, Oprah could be watching.

The Childfree and Selfish Discussion July 17, 2010

This article, Is Being Childfree By Choice Selfish? first appeared in REDBOOK and was reposted on MSN. Obviously, we’re not going to have the “selfish” discussion here. We all have our reasons for not having children, and most of have at least one good comeback in our arsenal in case someone actually plays the “selfish” card with us. But there were some interesting points in this article.

One woman who has never wanted kids said this:

“When someone asks me if I have kids, I often feel almost apologetic when I say no, like I have to provide a ‘good enough’ reason or they’ll take pity on me and assume I can’t have children,” said Rebecca. “But I just don’t have the gene for wanting a child, and I don’t think having a child would improve our relationship. I usually tell people that we’ve chosen to go the dog-and-cat route and leave it at that.”

Apologetic? She’s clearly a woman who has thought through this and made an intelligent decision, but now she feels she must apologize for that? Haven’t we all done that to some degree?

The article goes on to quote Laura Carroll, author Families of Two: Interviews with Happily Married Couples without Children by Choice, who says:

 “I have been watching the childfree for over 10 years now, and I can say that they are not a homogeneous group. They come from all socioeconomical backgrounds and life experiences. They are no more selfish than parents who have kids for their own reasons. They so often contribute to the lives of kids (e.g., have occupations that revolve around children), to their communities, and our world. We need to realize and fully accept as a society that having children is an option, not a given. We also need to realize and accept that not everyone has the call to have parenthood be the central focus of their lives. There are many ways to lead fulfilling lives that make a difference, and raising children is one way, not the way, as many, many people out there will attest!”

Yes!! Finally!  I was happily thinking that the conversation about being childfree  is being brought into the mainstream. But this is how the article ends:

What do you think of the decision not to have children? Is it selfish? Or are couples who choose to be kid-free just self-aware enough to know that, for whatever reason, they’re not parent material? Are you childfree by choice?

So, in the end this article–originally printed in REDBOOK, the magazine for everywoman– isn’t addressing everywoman after all; it’s asking people with children for their opinions on the childless. Until a mainstream magazine publishes an article called, “Are parents selfish?” we aren’t really having a dialogue about this subject.

Friends with Kids July 15, 2010

Sometimes it’s hard to spend time with friends who have children, especially if that’s all they want to talk about, but here’s an interesting twist that I read in an article recently. The author says:

Right after you have a baby, you avoid childless friends like the plague…at least I did. I’m not sure why. Maybe I feared that I’d feel jealous of their freedom or maybe I was afraid they couldn’t relate.

Interesting. Sound familiar? How many friends with new babies have you taken a wide berth around? She goes on:

That was a mistake because once I started reconnecting with those friends I realized that they are the best cure for parenting overload. And no, it’s not because they can drink more wine. My parent friends are actually heavier drinkers than my kidless friends (wonder why that is?). It’s because they know how to talk about things outside of kids. They actually read the “New York Times” beyond the homepage, see movies in theaters, listen to the latest music, and have travel plans beyond going to Hawaii and Tahoe.

Aha!! Could it be that the very reason we avoid people with children is the exact same reason, they crave our company? Could it be that your friend would love to talk about anything but her kids, but just can’t remember how? Maybe all she needs is a little nudge from you to remember that she still has something to say about politics/photography/gardening/travel?

Next time a friend with kids calls and you think how much you really don’t want to see her because all she’ll do is talk about her kids, consider taking her up on the offer anyway. Maybe that’s exactly what she doesn’t want to talk about, which is why she’s calling you.

Happy 100th Post!

Yesterday marked the 100th post on this blog. Wow! I had no idea I had 100 things to say about being childess. Turns out I have 100’s more, and you have plenty of things of your own to say. This blog gets more than 300 hits a week, and the main LWB site forums have been ablaze lately. Discussions are firing up, groups are forming, and friends are being made. It’s very exciting to be able to have these conversations with like-minded people.

So thank you for showing up, thank you for sticking around, and thank you for supporting one another and me. Onwards to the next 100 and beyond!

Cameron Diaz: Happily Not Having It All July 14, 2010

Here’s a refreshing celebrity point-of view–the idea that “having it all” just isn’t practical and that “giving life is easier than giving love.” Granted, for some of us, the latter isn’t exactly true, but if only everyone gave this much thought to the parenthood decision.

Cameron Diaz: Happily Not Having It All – Expertise – SavvyAuntie.com.

Are Women With More Education Less Likely to Have Children? July 13, 2010

The Pew Research Center recently put out an interesting report on women without children. According to their findings:

Nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s. While childlessness has risen for all racial and ethnic groups, and most education levels, it has fallen over the past decade for women with advanced degrees.

One-in-five women? I have to say that those figures surprised me. The report goes on to say:

Childlessness is most common among highly educated women. In 2008, 24% of women ages 40-44 with a bachelor’s degree had not had a child. Rates were similar for women with a master’s degree (25%) and those with a doctorate or a professional degree, such as a medical or legal degree (23%).

The report doesn’t give any indication as to why the rates dropped in women with advanced degrees when they were increasing overall. Any thoughts on this?

I thought it would be interesting to conduct our own poll and test our figures against the report’s. What is the highest level of education you have attained?

A Magazine for Non-Moms? July 12, 2010

I recently received my monthly copy of Runner’s World, to which I’ve subscribed for years. This month they had an article about training for a half marathon that featured five real-life runners. For each runner, the article listed their name, age, occupation, running goal, and…the number of children they each had.

What? What does the number of children have to do with how fast they run? I scanned the article again looking for my answer, and found it: Nothing! It was completely irrelevant. What’s more, when I looked at each runner, trying to find the one who was most like me, I saw that they ALL had children?

I tried to figure out what message the author was sending, intentionally or otherwise. That childless people have nothing but free time to train? That childless people don’t run? That only people with children read the magazine? It made no sense.

Then my friend mentioned that she has recently cancelled her longtime subscription to a popular women’s magazine because the articles were all mommy-focused, even though the magazine touts itself as “the total-life guide for every woman.” What a shame that’s every woman but the childless.

Is there anywhere for us to turn? Do you have a favorite magazine that’s geared to women and not just women with children? Let us know.

And attention magazine editors! There is a big audience out here looking for a voice. I’m just saying…

“Getting Over” Infertility July 10, 2010

We’ve talked a lot about how to get over being unable to have children and for those of us who are childless-not-by-choice it’s an ongoing effort.

I came across this article today about Infertility’s Double Whammy, when friends begin having grandchildren. The article gave me little encouragement, but it does fall into the category of forewarned is forearmed. The author warns:

The continuity of fertility can leave you feeling totally excluded from the great human cycle, for ever outside the loop of life. And what makes it especially hurtful is that people blithely assume that you have ‘got over’ your disappointment by the time you have reached the age when your contemporaries are becoming grannies. As a result, those same people can be a lot less sensitive about the fact that infertility is not just an issue in your 30s and 40s, but can also come back to haunt you in your 50s and 60s.

This is something that wasn’t even on my radar. My plan for this is to make sure I’m on a tall ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean or searching for lesser spotted dodos in the Amazon when my friends’ babies start having babies.

Has anyone had this experience of grandbaby envy yet?

The Unreasonable Uproar About Elena Kagan’s Childlessness July 9, 2010

On her blog The Road Less Travelled, loribeth posted a great piece about Elena Kagan and the uproar about her childlessness. It’s a very insightful post with some great comments.

She says:

I’m somewhat sympathetic to the argument that American women desperately need role models who have managed to rise to the top while also having a family. At the same time, reading stuff like:

“To me, if a woman doesn’t have a child, she has only an abstract ability to pass judgment on issues where motherhood is concerned.”

sets my teeth on edge. I would submit that parents pass many, many judgments on behalf of people without children that don’t necessarily serve our needs very well — and yet nobody seems to question their ability to speak for us.

In an NPR article about women in the Supreme Court, Nina Totenberg made a great point:

Before Sotomayor’s appointment to the court, there were six justices in the court’s history who were unmarried and had no children — all of whom were men.

I’d be willing to bet that during their nomination proceedings the topic of their childlessness never came up.