Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday: Facebook (again)

Last night I didn’t feel like writing a post for this morning. The weather turned chilly again (and no, my east coast friends, I am not whining that it was only 60 degrees yesterday, merely commenting) so I lit a fire and pulled my chair up to it. I got out my laptop and thought about writing, but quickly drifted onto Facebook, which spiraled into a connect-the-dots search of all the names and faces I thought I’d forgotten.

 

For all its pitfalls (endless baby photos, gushing stories of kids’ antics) I find Facebook fascinating. It’s the ultimate voyeuristic thrill. I get to peer into the lives of people I once knew, without having to actually reignite whatever relationship might once have existed. And yes, as the dorky kid in high school, I get a certain satisfaction from seeing that some of the prettiest, coolest, most popular kids never amounted to much after all, and that the people I find most interesting now are some of the ones who had the toughest time in school. My nerdy friend, who never had a girlfriend, became an award-winning documentary filmmaker and travels the world with his beautiful partner; my friend from preschool who turned Goth, became a brilliant artist; and the weirdest kid in school became a theatre actor and someone I’d enjoy being friends with now. Life is a funny old thing and you can’t predict which way it’s going to go.

 

The one thing that does give me the willies on Facebook, is seeing some of those former classmates with kids. The guy with the cruel streak, the pot head, the former heart throb destined for fame and fortune – all grinning from the entrance of Disney World with their wives and numerous offspring. These are people who weren’t responsible enough to take care of a pencil, let alone another human being. But there they are, being parents.

 

And I’m also surprised at the number of people I knew in school who don’t have kids and I can’t help but wonder why. Was it by choice or do we have more in common now than we ever did back then.

 

So, it’s more of a Reflective Wednesday for me, but as that doesn’t have the same ring to it as Whiny Wednesday, I’m opening the floor to you.

Well-Behaved Women

I’ve been going through a bit of a renaissance recently. I’ve dropped a few pounds and been exercising fairly regularly, things are going well in general, and I’ve found myself with a new shot of self-confidence.

This has resulted in my buying a pair of kick-ass red boots, chopping off my hair into a funky little bob, and adding rocket red streaks to the front. I’ve also been digging around in the back of my closet (and the Goodwill bag I recently filled) and experimenting with putting together some old favorite clothes in new ways – interesting tops over summer dresses over leggings, with the aforementioned funky boots. I’m having fun and enjoying letting the new me out in public.

After seeing the Expressing Motherhood show, it occurred to me how different this experience would be if I had children, in particular teenage daughters. Imagine: “Mom! (shriek!) You’re not going out in THAT are you?!” or, “Oh, Mother, what HAVE you done to your hair?” or that old chestnut, “Mom, don’t you think you’re a bit OLD to dress that way?”

Oh, the humiliation, not just for the teenage daughter, but for me, for being pointed out as mutton dressed as lamb, or for just being an embarrassment. Because moms are expected to behave a certain way, to dress a certain way, to be respectable and good role models for their daughters. (I realize that many aren’t and several come to mind, but being good is what they’re supposed to do.)

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has a wonderful quote that has made its way into popular culture lately. She said, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” I’m not exactly planning on making it into the history books for my misbehaving, but I’m enjoying the freedom of having no one to embarrass but myself.

It Got Me Thinking…About “Cheroes”

By Kathleen Guthrie

I’ve long been seeking a role model (a hero), a female mentor who can advise me in life and business (a shero), an experienced guide who can help me make the most of my childfree existence in our mommy-centric society (a “chero,” if you will). I have not yet found someone with whom I can meet for weekly pep talks over tea and scones, but in the world at large, I am finding more and more cheroes who inspire me.

Julie Taymor is one such woman. Most people know her as the creative genius behind the Broadway spectacular The Lion King. This year, a new generation will get to know her as the producer, cowriter, and director of the new musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, with music by U2’s Bono and the Edge. In a career that has spanned 25 years, she’s picked up Tony Awards, an Emmy, an Oscar nomination, and legions of accolades and critical acclaim for her work in theater, film, and opera.

And this was possible because she wasn’t busy picking up toys, picking up kids from school, or picking clumps of stewed peas out of her hair. In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, she states it quite simply:

Julie: We didn’t have children…We sort of tried…It didn’t happen, and probably it’s okay.

Oprah: Yes. Because you wouldn’t be able to do all this with the intensity that you’re doing it with.

Julie: No. I wouldn’t.

“Probably it’s okay.” I love that. I can live with that right now. While I’m not yet firmly “okay” with my childfree status, I’m starting to imagine the possibilities. And the next time some well-meaning stay-at-home mom asks, “But, what will you do if you don’t have kids?” I think I’ll tell her about my chero.

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She’s mostly at peace with her decision to be childfree.

Go Forth and Multiply…Like Rabbits

A happy (if slightly belated) Chinese New Year to you! In this year of the rabbit, we should look forward to a placid, unhurried year, where we can expect to be carefree and happy without too many annoyances.

Unless you happen to be childfree in Singapore.

According to CNN, Singapore’s prime minister is urging citizens to follow the example of the rabbit and reproduce.

“In his annual Chinese New Year message Wednesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that Singapore’s fertility rate fell to an all-time low of 1.16 percent in 2010 and urged couples to have more babies.”

As if the childless and childfree don’t have enough pressure from family, friends, and society to get onboard and reproduce, now the government is adding their two cents. As if getting out there and “having more babies” is just so simple.

I understand the socio-economic reasons behind this push, but the reality just isn’t so straightforward.

So much for the carefree and unhurried year ahead.

Actresses Without Children Can’t Play Mothers

I saw this article posted online recently where British actress, Anne Reid (best known for her role the long-running soap Coronation Street) was quoted as saying that actresses who don’t have children lack the authenticity to play mothers on screen. Her explanation: “I think you kind of have to have been there. Because it’s a gut thing, isn’t it?”

I huffed and puffed appropriately of course, but then I took a step back and thought about it. I don’t know what it’s like to be a mother. I don’t know how the relationship between a mother and child feels. I know it’s unique and I can guess how it feels, but I really have no experience to tap into. I don’t think I’d play a very convincing mother, so maybe Reid is right.

Then I remembered: I’m not an actress. Duh! Of course I wouldn’t be very good.

So, Annette Bening isn’t gay, but you wouldn’t know if after watching The Kids are Alright. Helen Mirren is neither a mother nor a royal, but she had us convinced of both in her role in The Queen. Hilary Swank isn’t a boxer, Ellen Page isn’t a pregnant teen, Judy Garland had never been tossed over the rainbow by a tornado, and I’m pretty sure that Kathy Bates has never been so enamored by an author that she’s resorted to kidnap and torture. They are actresses; playing characters unlike themselves is what they do.

Anne Reid is clearly a talented actress and has won a major award for playing a mother, but she’s also played a host of other roles in her 50-year career, including a woman with Alzheimer’s. Were you not convincing in that role, Anne, because you’ve never had Alzheimer’s?

Didn’t think so. I rest my case.

Expressing Motherhood Report

As I mentioned last Thursday, I went to see my friend Holly in her show Expressing Motherhood last weekend. I got myself dolled up, drove to Hollywood, circled the dodgy neighborhood until I found parking, and took a seat in the 4th row.

I decided I was going to get past my hang-ups and do this for my friend, but about ten minutes before the show, I suddenly thought, “Oh, God. What am I doing here?” The audience was about 95% women, and I’d guess from the conversations going on around me, about 95% of them were mothers. And there I sat, on my own, wondering what the hell I had been thinking. But then the lights went down and I had no choice but to sit it out.

For the next two hours 13 mothers told stories and sang songs, but here’s what was really interesting. To me, they weren’t 13 mothers, they we simply 13 women who just happened to be mothers. Granted, some of the stories, particularly the funny ones, were about the ups and downs of raising kids, but I was able to laugh just as easily as the mothers in the audience.

There were stories about relocating to a safer friendlier city, about becoming a 30-something widow, and about the funny side of living with Stage 4 Breast Cancer (and yes there really is a funny side!) One woman talked about reconnecting with the Chinese heritage that her father had eschewed in the name of Westernization, and another talked about the effects of her husband’s job loss.

I could relate to all of their stories in some way, or at least see the humor or pathos (although I’ll admit that during one particular story, the only dry eye in the house was mine, but that may have been because I’d steeled myself for the show and perhaps closed myself off a bit. Or maybe I’m just hard-hearted. Whatever.) The point is that yes, I was a lone non-mom in a sea of mothers, but we were all (or at least 95% of us) were women, and 100% of us were human beings, and we can all relate to that. Being a mom, or a non-mom, is only a part of who we are.

This particular show has closed now, but another show with a new set of performers will be coming soon, and I may even go back.

Whiny Wednesday: On Being [Childless]

I could whine about the hassle of moving, but that would be too easy. The memory of the blowout on Highway 5 is fading, the numerous cock-ups (such as packing my computer, but leaving the keyboard and mouse behind) are being resolved, and Felicity (my cat) survived the trauma and even came out from under the bedding today. But I do have something on my mind.

I’ve been thinking about being “bitter and childless.” It’s a horrible expression, but the two words so often get put together. I don’t think of myself as being bitter about my childlessness, but sometimes I hear a bitter edge in my posts here. Or more to the point, I can see how someone might interpret what I post as bitterness. That’s not what I’m about here.

By the same token, I don’t exactly celebrate my childlessness either. I’m not glad I don’t have kids; but I’m no longer sad either. Yes, sometimes when I see harassed mothers I think that I had a narrow escape, but I’m not really relieved by my escape. I’m not sad and not glad; I just am.

Maybe I should change today’s title from Whiny Wednesday to Waffle-y Wednesday, but there, that’s what’s on my mind today.

You?

Fathers Work Longer Hours Than Childless Men

According to this recent article from the Institute of Leadership and Management, fathers work longer hours than childless men. It states that:

One in three fathers work more than 48 hours a week compared to just 25% of men without children, according to a report by think-tank Demos.

The article doesn’t offer any explanation for this trend, so I’m tossing out a few theories of my own:

Maybe fathers, with numerous dependents, feel more pressure to do whatever it takes to stay employed. Maybe they have more distractions during the workday so need to work longer hours to get their jobs done. And there’s the other (perhaps cynical) theory that fathers spend more time at work so they have to spend less time at home being fathers.

I’d be very interested to hear your theories on this, too.

What I do find interesting is that I’d be willing to bet these statistics don’t apply to mothers, and that a similar study would show that it’s the childless women that put in the longer hours. If that’s the case, however, I suspect that says less about the parent/childless divide and more about the inequities of shared parenting.

What do you think?



A Fresh Start

Tomorrow I am relocating to the opposite end of the state and I’m suffering from a bit of mover’s melancholy. This week I went to my local farmer’s market and bought my favorite things for the last time, I ran with the friends I will never see again, and I stood in my garden looking at the flowers that will surely die without me.

Ok, so that’s a bit dramatic and in actual fact, our move is only temporary and really just a change of base camps. We’ve been living in two places for almost a year now, based in the south and traveling to the north for work, and all we’re doing is moving my office and the cat, and reversing the travel direction. But still, I already miss my home.

Despite this, I think the move will be good for us. It’s going to be another fresh start.  We’ve had several fresh starts in the past few years – particularly at the various milestones of our infertility journey – and this is another one of those. Getting the book out into the world was another milestone, a kind of release of the story, a letting go, and it seems to warrant some symbolic marking of the end of one thing and the beginning of something else. The move will accomplish that.

I’m a big fan of fresh starts. I think sometimes we get bogged down with our norm and keep trying to solve the same old issues over and over, when sometimes we just need to get off the tracks and do something else for a while. Even a small change in the daily routine can mix things up a bit and give us a new perspective.

So, despite my sadness at leaving the familiar behind, I’m very much looking forward to my fresh start.

Valentine’s Week Blog Tour

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and I’m planning a trip. I won’t be heading off somewhere tropical with my sweetheart, though; instead, I’m taking a virtual tour of some of my favorite childless/childfree/non-mom/cool women blogs.

For the whole week of February 14th, I’ll be popping up on other people blogs for interviews, Q&A’s, and podcasts. I’ll be talking about the pros and cons of the childfree life as well as some of difficulties of coming to terms with that life. There’ll be contests and prizes and who knows what other fun stuff.

The idea is to connect as many related blogs as possible and introduce readers of all the blogs to each other’s. No idea if it’s going to work, but I’m looking forward to the adventure.

Right now I’m compiling a list of stops, so if you have a favorite blog (and yes, nominating your own blog is perfectly okay) post a link in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.

Now I just need to figure out how to get bumper stickers to show off all the places I’ve been.