Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Happy Auntie’s Day!

By Kathleen Guthrie

We suffer through Mother’s Day. We hide out on Father’s Day. We barely disguise our envy as grandparents essentially get appreciated on two holidays…until now.

Melanie Notkin, the brilliant and delightful founder of Savvy Auntie, has designated July 24 “Auntie’s Day,” an opportunity for nieces and nephews to thank, honor, and acknowledge Aunties By Relation (ABR), Aunties By Choice (ABC), and godmothers. A special website, www.AuntiesDay.com, offers unique ideas for how to celebrate this blessed occasion. Visit Twitter and Facebookfor special promotions.

“Many women without children of their own give tirelessly to children all over the world,” Notkin says. “I hope at the very least they feel acknowledged for their incredibly valuable role in the American Family Village.”

Cheers to you, aunties of the world! Enjoy your special day!

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is “Aunt Kath” to six wonderful young humans.

It’s a zoo out there

Last weekend, Mr. Fab and I visited the Oregon Zoo. It was a beautiful day and we visited the elephants, marveled at the lions, and had a very cool, fun time hanging out in the bat house. I saw Naked Mole Rats, almost saw the critically endangered Amur Leopard, and learned why tigers have white spots on the backs of their ears. When it got too hot, we stopped in a café for a cool drink and snack, and when we’d seen enough zoo we took the MAX back to our hotel and had a pleasant afternoon nap.

If you’re still trying to reconcile the idea that you’ll never be a mother, the zoo is a hard place to visit. Kids far outnumber adults and it can be an emotional minefield with all the cute doe-eyed babies peering at you from their strollers at every turn.

On the other hand, if you’re starting to come to terms with being childfree and looking for some benefits of not having kids, I can strongly recommend a visit to the zoo. For every sweet cherub, you’ll find a red-faced bawling toddler, or a demanding preteen tapping on the glass of the chimpanzee enclosure right next to the sign that says; “Don’t tap on the glass.” Most of the parents at the zoo looked fried, as if they’d rather be anywhere else, and I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit smug, because Mr. Fab and I chose to be there, and chose exactly when we wanted to go home.

When you’re ready to look for the silver lining of being childfree, trust me, you’ll find plenty of examples, including the joy of an adult trip to the zoo.

Circumstantially Infertile

Thanks to Robin for posting this link on the LWB Facebook page.

In the Huffington Post’s new “Women” section this week, Savvy Auntie, Melanie Notkin writes about the grief and lack of empathy that comes with being “circumstantially infertile.”

Melanie always wanted to have children, but just never met the right person. She talks openly about the insensitive and sometimes cruel things people have said to her. She also makes the case that, just because someone doesn’t have children, doesn’t mean they don’t like kids or aren’t maternal.

Melanie is the author of the fun book, Savvy Auntie, that I reviewed last month, and creator of SavvyAuntie.com. I also had the pleasure of interviewing her recently. More about that soon.

Whiny Wednesday: Casey Anthony

It’s 5:30 a.m. and I am writing this posting while hurtling down the interstate to catch an early flight (it’s ok, I’m not driving.) I can count the hours of sleep I got last night on one hand, and I just had McDonald’s oatmeal for breakfast. You’d think that would be all I’d need for a good Whiny Wednesday, but no, I also have Casey Anthony on my mind.

If you’re tuning in from elsewhere in the world and haven’t been subjected to the media frenzy surrounding this case, you can catch up with the story here. Even though a jury found Ms. Anthony not guilty of the murder of her two-year old daughter Caylee, the court of public opinion decided long ago that Casey was responsible, somehow, for the little girl’s death.

Regardless of the trial’s outcome, no one can claim that Casey Anthony was a responsible mother. It saddens me to think of all the good and loving families Caylee could have been born into, and it makes me hopping mad to think that, at 25 years old, Casey Anthony will have ample opportunity for a second chance at motherhood and that, knowing how unfairly life works, she could be given another young life to care for.

Finding the Silver Lining

When human cloning becomes safe and legal, I’m cloning my mum and renting her out.

During our weekly phone conversation this weekend, the subject of my childlessness came up and I told her that I was glad I’d made the choice I did, to get off the baby crazy train and start living my life again. She understood. (Reason #1 to clone her.)

I joked that Mr. Fab and I are now free to sleep in on Sundays, travel, and more or less do what we want to do when we want to do it.

My mum said something very profound. She said that, before my father died (25 years ago) she couldn’t have ever imagined how she’d survive as a widow. And yet she did. She found the silver lining in being alone. She went back to school; she traveled overseas for the first time; she learned to fix things around the house; and she could please herself what she had for dinner. (Reason #2)

It wasn’t that her life was better without my dad; it was just different, and she kept reminding herself of the positive side of things “because you have to,” she said.

I’m not sure I’ll ever say that I’m glad I didn’t have children. I can’t say that my life is better because of it, but it is very different to the life I’d planned, and most of the time, I can find the silver lining. Thanks to my mother’s hard-earned wisdom, I’m reminded to keep looking for the silver lining, because it’s almost always there.

It Got Me Thinking…About Baseball and Babies

By Kathleen Guthrie

I thought it was some kind of spoof. While watching our San Francisco Giants lose to the San Diego Padres, we caught a vague ad about a “World Championship Baby!” Huh?

 

I went online the next morning to learn more and discovered that, yes indeed, there is a contest to recognize a baby who was conceived around 7:54 pm on November 1, when the Giants beat the Rangers to clinch last year’s World Series. The winning baby, expected to arrive on August 1, will receive a named brick at AT&T Park, a gift card for $2,010, and an “official certificate signed by the Giants.” Meanwhile, fans can browse an online gallery of moms-to-be and their ultrasound images.

 

This whole thing makes my skin crawl. Maybe I’m envious and oversensitive. I can’t say, however, that I’ll feel any better if the geniuses in marketing try to make it up to me by having a “Childfree Women Free!” Day next season.

 

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Kinder-soccer is still her favorite spectator sport.

Destiny’s plans for a childfree life

One of the many things I love about the internet is the ability to take a peek at happenings all over the world, hear different points of view, and experience the sensibility of different cultures. Take this article, Leading a good life without kids, for example, that appeared recently in Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror.

As I began reading the story of Lathika, I wondered if I was reading a fairy tale.

“Lathika played with her doll, Fiona.  She loved “Playing House” and dreamed of growing up, getting married and having a family of her own one day” felt like a tame way of expressing the desire for motherhood.

When I read, “The years went by and Lathika did not mind the pain and discomfort of regular tests for her fertility for she was now desperate to have a child,” I scratched my head and started wondering what was wrong with Lathika. I have never spoken to anyone who “didn’t mind” the pain and discomfort of fertility treatments. I wondered if Lathika was some kind of Zen master (mistress?) who calmly took whatever life dealt her, or if the author of the piece was just clueless about the emotional frustration of infertility. I also wondered if perhaps Sri Lankan culture forced Lathika to put on a brave face and keep her real feelings to herself. That I could understand.

I read on about Lathika’s attempts to fill the void in her life with creative pursuits and volunteer work, and the calmness of the writing began to wash over me. I nodded my head at the quote, “Your children are not your own,” because I’ve always had that thought about the role of parents in the lives of the human beings in their care (more about this in another post, I think.)

By the end of the piece, I was touched by the message. Although I still wasn’t convinced that “we leave Lathika happy and fulfilled” in her new childfree life, I found myself catching my breath at the idea that “destiny had planned a different life path for her.”

We have an idea about what life is supposed to be like for us. We grow up, fall in love, have children, create a life for ourselves, and live to see our grandchildren become adults and create their own lives. But we all know that life isn’t as clean cut as that.

Maybe destiny has planned a different life path for us, too. Perhaps we can’t see what that path is yet, but like Lathika, I feel strangely comforted by the idea that a different, maybe even better life could be ahead for me because I don’t have children.

It Got Me Thinking…About Lies

Guest post by Kathleen Guthrie

After years of living with cracked tiles, a door that popped open at awkward moments, faucets that never completely turned off, and circa-1970 nonslip floor stickers, we finally remodeled our decrepit shower. The gentleman who did the work did an excellent job. His sales rep, hmmm, not so much: “It will be easy! It will be clean! We can do it all in a day!” I’m still finding dust and debris in odd places, and “Joe” (I’m not using his real name, ’cuz that’s not cool) was here for an exhausting 10.5 hours the first day, then returned for another 2.5 hours the next morning.

About three hours into it, Joe said to me in exasperation, “I don’t know why they tell customers we can do it in a day. These things always take at least a day and a half or two.”

Wouldn’t it have been a lot easier if the sales rep has just been honest? We could have planned ahead for two days of showering at the gym. Instead of having to cancel at the last minute, I could have scheduled meetings on different days. It certainly would have been easier on Joe, who had to bump other service calls and muck up other people’s busy lives.

And that got me thinking about other big lies I’ve heard in my life. A whopper came when I was a teenager and was experiencing debilitating menstrual cramps. My doctor, a very sweet man, said to me, “This is good. It will prepare you for childbirth so that labor pains will be a breeze.” I held onto his promise for the next 30 years while waiting to have my baby and experience the miracle of pain-free birthing. It’s not his fault that I didn’t get to have children. But I look back and wish someone had been straight with me, saying something like: “Don’t plan your dreams around the possibility of being a mom, because it might not happen. And these agonizing cramps? Yeah, they suck and life isn’t fair. Fill this prescription for pain killers and get over yourself.”

I know many of you have heard “I can make you pregnant!” “This procedure will work!” “It’s the miracle cure that will give you the baby you want!” But I wonder this: Would it have been any easier if someone had told us the truth upfront? Would we have listened and really heard it?

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

Airline bans first class babies

Malaysian Airlines announced this week that they would ban babies from flying first class and that their new fleet of airbus A380s would not be equipped with bassinets in the first class compartment.

According to a related article in the Britain’s The Globe and Mail, a recent poll showed that 70% of first class travelers cited crying babies as the number one annoyance when flying. I think this is true for passengers in all classes, but tossing the babies back into the cheap seats is a bit like the king emptying his chamber pot on the peasants. Nobody wants to spend 10 hours cooped up next to a screaming infant or a belligerent toddler – not even the parents!

I don’t think banning babies from any part of the aircraft (except the cockpit, of course) is the solution. Most parents I’ve seen wrestling with young children on flights want some peace and quiet just as much as the people around them and most are doing the best they can to make that happen.

Wouldn’t a better solution be to create a “kid zone” where children can have a little more flexibility to be children, without being glared at by the other passengers?

I think I will put this out to some of my mom friends and get their opinion. I just don’t think that a baby ban is the solution.

Interview with author, Dr. Ellen Walker

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Ellen Walker, author of Complete Without Kids: An Insider’s Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance. Ellen is childfree by choice, and even though I am childfree by chance, we had plenty to talk about on the subjects of friendship and community, the drive for motherhood, and what to do when life doesn’t go as planned. Here’s our conversation:

Life Without Baby: How did you make the decision to be childfree?

Ellen Walker: I never spent a lot of time thinking about motherhood. I was busy with work, travel, and hobbies, and I always had partners that never wanted a family.

My current husband already had grown children, and I never felt pressure from him, this was the first time I’d really been close to a father-son relationship, and when I’d hear him on the phone, telling his son he loved him, it tugged at my heartstrings. For the first time, I began to question my decision not to have children, and suddenly I wanted a baby of my own.

After many tearful discussions and weeks of writing, talking, and contemplating, I was able to step back and analyze. I realized that if I really wanted children, I would have made it happen before.

LWB: What do you think triggered that urge?

EW: I think it’s a basic biological drive to create a child, especially in a relationship with a man. You have a primitive urge to have his baby. It’s also about not wanting to be left out of a group. When friends are having babies and people are bringing photos of children into work, you have nothing to talk about with them.

LWB: Do you find that most of your friends are also childfree?

EW: Yes. My female friends tend to be 10-20 years older because the women my own age didn’t have time for friends without kids. Their friends went to soccer games and connected because of their kids. I did seek out childfree people, but most came about through chance meetings.

LWB: How important is it to find your own community?

EW: Really important. I never thought about it until I started meeting people and got really excited when they didn’t have children. I began to seek out others. I found a childfree Meetup group and went to a few meetings. It was fun, but I realized that just being childfree does not make someone a good candidate for friendship. Now, I look for people with interests in common, and if they happen to be childfree, I nurture those relationships.

LWB: Do you ever regret your decision?

EW: Sometimes. In a way I feel as if I’ve missed a big life stage. I’ve been career driven for a long time, and I’m feeling as if I’m ready to do something else. Many women my age with children are now focusing on their careers, and I’m ready to retire. I’m trying to figure out the next stage.

If I’d been raising kids, I wouldn’t have had the energy I’ve had for other things. I’m glad I made the choice and pursued my career. I’ve had the opportunity to impact people’s lives and I’ve written a book. I wouldn’t have been able to do those things. Everyone has regrets, but luckily mine are fleeting. Mother’s Day is always hard. I recently wrote an article about it for Psychology Today, asking people to be careful about saying “Happy Mother’s Day” to every woman and to be aware that it can be a very painful day for some women, and not a happy day.

LWB: What advice would you give to someone struggling with being childfree?

EW: Let yourself go through a real grieving process, preferably with a therapist. A dream is something you’d hoped to have as a part of your identity and most likely wanted it your whole life. Losing that dream is like a death, and a formal grieving process has to include acceptance. Only then can you make a decision about where you’re going to put your energy. Then you can create a new dream, picture your future, and figure out how to make that happen.

While writing my book, I interviewed a woman in her 90s. She had never talked about her childlessness. Decades later, she still hadn’t reconciled and come-to-terms with it. She had so many strengths and talents, and had she dealt with her grief and loss, she could have embraced a new life.

LWB: It was a pleasure talking to you about your choices and hearing your insight.

EW: This is a really important issue for women of the world. We are peers for the next generation of women who may experience pressure from mothers to have grandchildren. We need to talk about this topic and be good role models for young women.

LWB: I couldn’t agree more.

To learn more about Ellen Walker, please visit her website, CompleteWithoutKids.com