Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

The Mommy Crush

A couple of years ago my husband and I went to see one of our favorite bands in concert, where they introduced their hot new drummer. I fell in love instantly, despite being old enough (just about) to be his mother.

It wasn’t the first time I’d developed a crush on a rock star, but this was different. I wasn’t overcome with the urge to tear off his sweaty shirt or ride off into the night on the back of his motorcycle; I wanted to take him home and make him a nice dinner. I wanted to sit around the kitchen table and hear stories of his tour. I wanted to be able to tell everyone how proud I was of my son. I was experiencing my first Mommy Crush.

It was a weird experience and it started happening more often. Whenever I saw a cute boy, any sexual desire turned off, and I just wanted to mother him! For me it was one of those big life turning points, when you realize you’ve graduated to a new stage in life.

The problem was, I already new I was never going to get that chance, and a whole new set of emotions came over me. I’d already moved past longing for a baby, but now I had to deal with the idea that I’d never have a child that I could nurture and whose natural talents I could encourage. I would never be the cool mom of a grown child I could be proud of. (I rationalized that I’d never have to bail my grown child out of jail or shoehorn him out of the house when he turned 30 and still didn’t have a job, but it really didn’t help.)

But I’m wondering, is it just me or is the Mommy Crush a common phenomenon? Have you had a Mommy Crush? Or am I just weird?

Are you a Savvy Auntie?

Even though we don’t have children of our own, many of us have nieces and nephews or godchildren in our lives. In the past few years, I’ve come to realize how important my role as aunt is. I am a trusted adult with life experience, but I am not the dreaded parent. I am an ear to talk to, but I’m not the rule-maker. Best of all, because I won’t later have to be the disciplinarian, I am free to be fun and silly and maybe even a little bit bad (for example, going out for ice cream within the “You’ll ruin your dinner” timeslot.) I love being an aunt and my only regret is that I’m not geographically closer to my nieces and nephews.

I came across this website, Savvy Aunties, recently. It’s got lots of great information for aunts (and uncles, of course). It’s also a hang-out for childless aunties, and I found a few interesting articles for us there, such as this article about how parenthood is now regarded as a lifestyle choice, and some hot discussions on the forums, like this thread about insensitive things people say.

On the subject of being an aunt, my good friend, past guest blogger, and aunt-extraordinaire, Kathleen Guthrie, wrote this article, How to Be the World’s Best Aunt Ever.

Enjoy, Aunties and don’t forget to drop subtle hints to your loved ones that July 25th is Auntie’s Day!

Hello, My Name is….

I always try to make the posts on this blog relevant to the main topic of life without baby, but some days I’m just blank. Wednesday was one of those blank days, so I wrote about natural treatments for insect bites instead. I thought twice about even posting such a random thing, but guess what? It was the most popular post of the week!! At first I was dismayed, but after some thought I realized something important: we don’t always want to talk about not having children.

For those of us who are childless-not-by-choice, the constant conversation can wear on us, but for all of us, being childless is not what defines us. Imagine walking into a party, striding up to a stranger and saying. “Hi, my name is [your name] and I don’t have children.” Although some might see it as a great pick-up line, most people would say something like, “oh, that’s nice,” and excuse themselves as quickly as possible, because if that’s all someone has to say about themselves, odds are they’re not going to very interesting.

Not having children is not all we are, so I thought it might be fun to introduce ourselves, with some interesting tidbits–break the ice, so to speak. I’ll start and you can jump in with your own personal trivia. I’ll also open up a Discussion thread on the forums in case you don’t feel like introducing yourself out in public. So here goes:

Hi, my name is Lisa and I’m a writer, runner, and gardener. I can recite the alphabet backwards and was once my county orienteering champion, which means I’m a handy with a map and compass. I love to experiment with cooking, especially spicy ethnic food, such as Indian, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian. I love to travel, and my favorite U.S. cities are New York, New Orleans, and Seattle. The most amazing things I’ve ever seen are Machu Picchu at sunrise, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, and a herd of elephants walking 20 feet from my car in South Africa. I love to dance, but am not good at it, and I’m learning to play the bagpipes–and I’m really not good at that. I love my cat, I couldn’t have mail ordered a better mother than the one I have, and my husband can make me laugh until I snort. If I could have any food from anywhere in the world right now, I’d have a freshly baked New York bagel—everything with cream cheese and lox. If I could be anywhere in the world right now, I’d be hiking down from a mountain in the English Lake District, just about to take off my hiking boots and dip my feet in a cool stream. I don’t own a TV, a microwave, or a dishwasher. And yes, I have no children either.

Number of women without children soars, study finds

Number of women without children soars, study finds.

I found this article very interesting, especially as a great discussion on this exact topic ensued here a couple of days ago.

While I’m not exactly happy to hear that our numbers are swelling (because I’m concerned that at least some of this is due to rising infertility rates) I’m always glad to see the discussion being had “out there” in the public eye. The more we talk about this, the sooner being a woman (or a man) without children will become less of a taboo subject.

Off Topic: Insect Bites and Lemon Juice

I don’t usually blog off-topic, but this is seasonally useful, so I thought I’d share.

I just discovered today that rubbing lemon juice on insect bites helps relieve the itching and apparently the swelling too. I managed to get about a dozen bites this weekend and was looking for a natural remedy. I’ve been rubbing lemon juice on them every couple of hours and the itch has gone away. Amazing!

I found the tip here, along with 45 other suggestions. I chose lemon juice because it was the only thing I had handy, and was much more convenient than a suggestion I found on another site, which was to eat rattlesnake meat for a week. Don’t you love the internet?

And now back to our scheduled program….

Childless or Childfree?

This is a debate that rages in my head often and I know it’s going on out there in the world, too. Are you childless or childfree?

I used to refer to myself as childfree as my way of stating that I made a conscious decision about my life. The problem is that “childfree” always had the suggestion of a narrow escape, or that I’d been cleansed of something unpleasant, like being germ-free, or living rent-free. Occasionally I come across parents or children that make me feel like I had a lucky escape by not having kids, but usually that’s not how I feel. So, recently I’ve switched to using “childless” instead, but that has the opposite connotation, that I am missing something that makes me less than whole. Again, aside from those odd times when the hormones fare up or one of my triggers is flipped, I consider myself to be a whole and fulfilled woman.

So what do I call myself? I’m looking for a term that suggests no affiliation to any faction, including parenthood.  Something that suggests my independence and my wholeness. Any suggestions? How do you refer to yourself?

Meeting Other Childless People

Last week Sarah posted this comment:

“Do you have any tips on how to find people without kids? I went to a RESOLVE meeting once and made friends with a fellow infertile… who got pregnant the next month.”

I suspect we’ve all had that feeling of being cheated on by someone we hoped would be an ally, at the same time being glad the person got what she really wanted. So how do you find other childless people to spend time with?

Here are a few of the ways I’ve found kindred spirits:

Activities at non-kid-friendly times

I go to an early morning exercise boot camp three days a week. It starts at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. which is a tough time for anyone, but especially for people with very young or school-age kids. Most of the people in the group don’t have children and I’ve been going for long enough that I’ve made a small circle of childless friends. What’s great is that our primary connection is exercise, not childlessness.

Stealing or borrowing other friends’ childless friends

Quite a few of my friendships have come about through mutual friends. I’ve been invited to a dinner or barbecue, made my way around the room, making polite conversation, until I’ve met someone I’ve clicked with and discovered they don’t have children either. I have several childless friends who were introduced to me by mutual friends with children. In some cases the original friend has drifted away and the new friend and I have grown closer.

Groups and clubs

Just getting out and meeting people in general is a really good way to ultimately meet other childless people. Joining a group or club relating to your interests or hobbies means you automatically have something in common. I’ve been in book clubs, running clubs, and various classes. Over time, I’ve attached to certain members of the group, and just because of schedules alone, the childless members have ultimately gravitated to one another.

Childless and child-free groups

I haven’t actually tried this yet, but I’ve considered it. No Kidding! is an international social network for people without children. They have chapters all over the country and arrange social events regularly. If there’s one near you, this seems like a great way to meet people.

Another idea is using Meetup.com. You can sign up and state your interest in meeting other childfree people in your area.

We also have a Groups page on this site. Try starting a group for your local area and see if other people join. Hopefully you’ll find at least one other person who lives close enough to meet in person, and our membership is growing daily.

If anyone else has ideas on how to meet other childless singles or couples, please post them. I know that there are several other members who would love to find people they can connect with in person as well as just here online.

Are you okay?

I’m a little worried about you.

In Tuesday’s post I admitted that I had lost my sense of humor and was looking to find it again. I asked for your best jokes and even offered a fabulous prize! But only one person posted a joke; granted, it made me giggle, but now I’m worried.

Are you okay?

Seriously now, are you okay? Because sometimes we tell everyone that we are okay, and sometimes we even tell ourselves the same thing. Sometimes we mean it, but sometimes it’s a flat out lie. It’s seldom that anyone actually asks us if we are okay (and I don’t mean just the standard “Hi. How are you?”), but when they do it gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves, “Are we really okay?” My good friend asks me this frequently and I’m just as grateful to tell her truthfully that I am as when I need tell her about why I’m not.

So, I’m asking you now, “Are you okay? Are you happy/comfortable/at peace with not having children?”

If your answer to yourself is “no” then ask yourself what you need. Do you need to talk someone or throw something or make a change in your life? Do you need to go to bed and feel sorry for yourself for a day (this is allowed if you promise to get up and do one of the other things as well.)

If your answer is “yes, I’m okay,” what helped you get to that place?

And if you haven’t completely lost your sense of humor in this process, please share a good joke. After all, there really is nothing like a good belly laugh to turn things around.

Adapting to a Childless Life

I recently read Cheaper By The Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth. If you’ve never read it, I recommend it. Don’t be put off by the awful Steve Martin movie version; the book is a classic. In one of the stories, the family with twelve children goes through a string of household help (not surprisingly) because, quote: “People can’t move from a quiet home to a large family.”

I can imagine the shock of moving from a small quiet family into a household of 14, but what about the other way around?

I’m from a family of three children, but my brothers are 11 and 13 years my senior, so in many ways I’m an only child. I have memories of quiet afternoons at home with my mum, or of just making my own entertainment if there were no neighborhood friends to play with. Even now, I enjoy my peaceful life and like nothing better than a quiet evening at home with a good book. If there’s no one to talk to, I talk to myself. I’m seldom bored or lonely.

But I wonder, if I’d grown up in house with a big family, would I feel the lack of children in my house more deeply? Would I crave the noise and chaos, or would the quiet life I have be a welcome rest?

Do you come from a big family? Do you crave that company or have you adapted quite easily to a quieter life?