Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Healing Bit-by-Bit

I’m ovulating. The fact that my body continues to go through this useless motion is of little consequence, other than the fact that my hormones go wild and I click into nesting mode, cleaning and tidying everything in sight. For someone as disorganized as me, it’s useful to have this happen once a month, and especially so this month.

I am preparing for the Royal Visit, otherwise known as my mother’s annual trip to stay with us for about five weeks. As I work from a home office and we live in a small two-bedroom house, this means I have to convert my office into a guest room, while still leaving a small corner in which I can continue to work.

It’s a nightmare, self-inflicted, but no less horrendous. Yesterday I threw out six bags of papers, today I boxed up everything that I can live without for the next month-and-a-half, and the rest is in a pile in the middle of the floor, awaiting my decision regarding its fate. I’m thinking that if I don’t look at it, it will just go away, but I know that come Wednesday morning, I’ll be stuffing it into a closet, where it will remain, probably forever.

During yesterday’s purge I came across some things: all my notes and test results from my assorted fertility-related doctors, information from two different adoption agencies, and a baby naming book, half filled in.

The whole lot went in the trash.

Not that tossing it didn’t leave a dent in my heart. It did. But it was a small dent and will heal quickly. And this is how it works. This is how we move on, one small step, one event, one reminder, one discarded memento at a time. It’s slow and it’s painful, but bit-by-bit, it works.

Guest Blog: Advice

This morning, a close friend sent me Kyran Pittman’s blog posting “Advice for a Teenage Daughter I Will Never Have.” It got me thinking.

I used to fantasize about how I’d raise my children to be good humans. Along with my DNA, I’d share with them my passion for reading and love of team sports. I’d encourage them to invest a portion of each check from their summer life-guarding and part-time retail jobs, so that after college they’d already have a nest egg that would allow them to pursue careers in the arts, backpack through Asia, get into the housing market, or at least not starve while toiling away as a junior executive’s junior assistant.

I’m a font of wisdom earned from 44 years of life experience. Now, it seems, because I’m not a mother, no one is interested in hearing from me. Do you feel that way? If you had children, what advice would you give them? And since you don’t, what advice are you now taking to heart for yourself?



Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in AAA’s Westways, GRIT, Real Simple, and 805 Living magazines. Read “How to Be the World’s Best Aunt Ever” on eHow.com.

Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?

“Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?”

This is one of those arguments that’s easy to shut down if anyone suggests it as a reason for having children. One peek in your local nursing home, or frankly, on the streets of any major city, will give you all the evidence you need that having children is no guarantee that you’ll be taken care of in your old age. But with all possibility removed, do you have plans for your later years?

I think about this from time-to-time, but I don’t yet have a good solution. My husband is 15 years my senior and so in theory I should outlive him. My family—brothers, nieces and nephews—is on another continent. I have good friends, including a circle of women who are also childless, and some of us have talked about taking care of one another as we age. But I wonder what will actually happen to me

A recent obituary stated that so-and-so (I can’t now remember who it was) had passed away at 93 years old, surrounded by close friends. My husband, being cynical, pointed out that she was wealthy and famous, and therefore drew plenty of close friends hoping for their share of her inheritance. Trying to out-cynic him, I pointed out that that’s usually what happens but with distant relatives coming out of the woodwork for their share of the financial pie. But the point is, that that is how I want to go, surrounded by people who choose to be with me.

So, plan A for my future is to be nice, take care of my friends, and hope that they will take care of me. Plan B is to become rich and famous and buy my friends. Either way, I hope to not grow old alone.

Have you given any thought to what will become of you in your old age? Or do you have a plan all laid out?  I’d be interested to hear.

Childless and Happy. Reason #17: Camp Cards

Since making my “decision” to remain childless, I’ve come across plenty of reasons to feel good about it. Here’s the latest good reason: Camp cards.

While out shopping for several belated birthday cards (you know who you are and I’m really sorry, but they’re now in the mail) I came across an entire section of the card shop devoted to camp cards. Curious, because I love a little campy humor in my greetings cards, I pressed in for a closer look, and recoiled in horror! Wrong kind of camp!  What I faced was half a wall of sappy cards with things like, “Even though you’re away at camp, you’re never far from our hearts,” and “We miss you. Hurry home from camp.”

My first thought was, “You have got to be kidding me. Is there no event that the greetings card industry won’t take advantage off?”

I answered that by making a mental list of all the childless/childfree events and milestones that will NEVER see an appropriate greetings card. “Happy Non-Mom’s Day.” “Sorry to hear about your crappy ovaries.” “Congratulations on your decision to become a social pariah!” (It was a heavy PMS day and I was a little bit cranky, ok?”)

But my parting thought, as I scurried away from the offending section was, “How sad that these cards exist. What a shame that modern day parents need to assuage their guilt for packing their kids off to camp. Thank goodness I’ll never have to buy a card like that.”

It’s a small reason to be glad, but the harder I look, the more good reasons I find.

Good Morning, Australia!

Or should I say, “G’day!”

I’m very pleased to have been invited to write some guest blog posts for the fabulous childless.com. au. This is a really great Australian website that deals with all aspects of life from money to health to pets to my favorite subject: food. What you won’t find is advice on finding a pre-school, dealing with a finicky toddler, or the top ten gifts for your babysitter. Finally, a safe zone.

Along with all this fun stuff you’ll also find articles from other childless and childfree bloggers, including yours truly.

Here’s my first post for them: 10 Tips for Being Happy and Childless.  Hope you enjoy it.

Childless Expectations

 On my morning flight yesterday I sat next to a woman who asked me (after we’d started a conversation) if I had children. When I told her I didn’t, she didn’t pass any comment, ask me any prying questions, or shift away from me in her seat. Instead, we had a long discussion about helicopter parents, parenting as a competitive sport, and the pressures of being a teacher in this age. She offered her opinions and accepted mine without even a sniff of condescension at my lack of hands-on parenting experience. She told me about her children—a psychology student daughter, who doesn’t take any crap from guys, and a son who’s a successful white rap artist. She told me, without gushing, that she was very proud of her children, that she loves them very much, but if she had it to do all over again, she’s not sure she would. This was one of the most refreshing conversations I’ve had on the subject of motherhood in a long time, but it was strangely unnerving. I’ve come to expect certain reactions from people when I tell them I don’t have children; I’ve come to expect that look of skepticism when I give an opinion on parenting. My expectations may have come from experience, but they’ve created my own form of prejudice. I expect mothers to judge me in a certain way, and sometimes, they just don’t.

When a Little Bit of Education Goes a Long Way

A couple of years ago Jose and I went to The Museum of Tolerance here in L.A. My parents grew up in England during the Second World War, so I’m interested in that period of history, and I wanted to learn more about the Holocaust.  MOT is a beautifully designed museum, both the external building, and it’s interior content. But we ended up leaving after only half an hour. Here’s why:

The museum only offers guided tours. You have to travel in a group and stop for the prescribed amount of time at each exhibit and be given all the information either by audio, or by watching a video, or reading. There’s no lingering over especially interesting bits and no jumping forward over areas that don’t grab your attention. For me (and this is a highly rated museum, so this is just my opinion) I felt that I was being force-fed my Holocaust education. The Museum of Tolerance wasn’t very tolerant of my ignorance.

Now, I’m an adult who took a free day from work and chose to visit this museum for my own edification. I have a college education, so I know how to learn under my own power. I wanted to be trusted to take the information and form my own thoughts. I wasn’t given that chance, and so I left, sadly, with my education.

I think that the majority of people out there in the world don’t understand the decision to be childfree and don’t understand how it feels to be childless-not-by-choice. I would say that most of us didn’t understand it either before we had that experience. I believe that we have an obligation to educate, to explain, to show people the other side of the story, but we can’t force-feed that education. The people in the restaurant last week got my back up with their closed minded opinions, but stomping over there and giving them a piece of my mind would have accomplished what? Nothing. Those people didn’t want to be educated, especially not by a complete stranger.

What I can do is work with the people who do mean something to me. When a well meaning (genuinely well-meaning, because there are some actual mean people out there) says something upsetting I have the choice to take the opportunity and explain my side of the story and why I’m upset, or let it go. Getting my hair all on fire and yelling about how insensitive they are isn’t going to help.

We need to talk, educate, explain, show, but only when the audience is willing and only for as long as they’re willing to listen. Bit-by-bit, we can tell our side of the story, and bit-by-bit, we can change the way other people view us.

Tolerance

After last week’s post about the overheard conversation, I’ve been thinking a lot about tolerance and about trying to understand one another. I think that, as a group, we childless women often feel (and often are) misunderstood. We feel that people don’t think before they say things that hurt our feelings, that people with children make assumptions about the type of people we are, that employers assume that, because we don’t have kids, we are the go-to people for extra work. We’re always ready to stand up for one another whenever there’s an injustice done to one of our sisters. I love that about us.

And yet, even among ourselves, we have different frames of reference. There are those of us who are physically unable to have children; those of us who are emotionally unwilling, because of our circumstances; there are those of us who don’t have the opportunity to be parents; those of us who are childless by choice; and those of us who never had the desire for children. And even within those groups, each of us has a different story to tell about how ended up here on this site, looking for other women like us. Each of us looks at our situation through our own personal filters—just like those people out there who look through their own filters and see us differently than we see ourselves, who look at a childless person and see something they cannot understand.

So, I’m writing on a theme this week. It’s a bit of an experiment, so if the wheels fall off by Wednesday, just come back next week and everything should be back to normal. But for this week, I’m writing about tolerance. Stay tuned.

Daring to Be Ourselves

This upcoming book grabbed my attention just by its title alone. Daring to Be Ourselves! Here’s what the Amazon write-up has to say:

“This impressive collection brings together words of wisdom from many of today’s most renowned and influential women, including Maya Angelou, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, Cameron Diaz, Melissa Etheridge, Alice Walker, Eve Ensler, Isabel Allende, Elizabeth Lesser, Jane Goodall, and many others. Together, their voices speak to women of all ages and walks of life, addressing issues like equality, overcoming adversity, finding balance, and being more connected to the earth. Experience the power of their words as they share their passions and struggles, life philosophies, and hopes and dreams for the future. Let them inspire you in your own life to find your voice, speak your truth, and make a difference in the world.”

Oh yes, so now I really want to read it.

But, don’t you think that “Daring to Be Ourselves” could be our tagline? We aren’t being the women that society expects us to be. Some of us can’t have children, some of us won’t have them, but we are still amazing women, still doing great things in our own corners of the world, still being our wonderful selves.

So today, I dare you to be yourself.