Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

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.

Whiny Wednesday: Worst Celebrity Parents

We all have our own personal lists of most despised celebrity parents and our own reasons for that scorn. As it is Whiny Wednesday, it seems like the perfect time to have a rant about the celebrity parents we love to hate.

I’ll get you started with my top three:

Kate Gosselin

Kate Gosselin

Kate Gosselin

Oh, sorry, I have others:

Nadya Suleman (Octo Mom)

The assorted Kardashians (remind me, why are they famous?)

Levi Johnson (somebody stop this man!)

and if she doesn’t get a grip, Angelina Jolie is going to make it on there before long, too.

Your turn….

Celebrity Babies

I don’t make a point of following celebrity news, but it somehow manages to find me anyway. I must say that I’m pleased with the recent slew of celebrity sex tapes because they’re trumping the usual news about celebrity baby. Even so, you can’t make it through the grocery store line without somebody’s pregnant belly poking at you from the cover of a magazine.

Ever since Demi Moore posed naked and pregnant for Vanity Fair, celebrity pregnancy and motherhood have gone from taboo to acceptable, to the mess we have today, where pregnancy bumps and new babies are the latest celebrity accessories. Everybody’s doing it and there’s no escaping the news. The magazine racks at the grocery stores are covered with a who’s who of maternity. One magazine has a regular Bump Watch feature, and People magazine’s online version has an entire page dedicated to celebrity baby news. As if the gossip mags aren’t already doing their best to make us feel inadequate because our hair isn’t smooth, our waists aren’t tiny, and our clothes aren’t chic, now apparently we’re not perfect if we don’t have the most adorable baby in tow.

Well, I’m not buying it. Not until one of these celebrities comes clean about the difficulty she had conceiving with her size 0 body, or that motherhood isn’t just some pretty thing that comes with a designer nursery and a new set of cute clothes.

Another Side of the Motherhood Discussion

My friend Denise writes a wonderfully brave blog (and has also written a stunning memoir) about adoption. She was a teenage mother in the 60s and gave up her son for adoption, then finally tracked him down as a grown man.

I’ve been reluctant to share the blog because it’s always felt like such a delicate subject, especially those of us who never got the chance to have children of our own, but it occurred to me today that she touches on a lot of the same themes we talk about and the issues that we deal with. She writes about loss when you’re not allowed to grieve, about choices you have no choice but to make, about the hurtfulness of people’s attitudes and misconceptions, about hiding, and about being so mad you could spit.  Any of this sound familiar?

I think it’s always interesting to see a topic from multiple points-of-view and as we’re on the subject of tolerance this week, I thought I’d share this. Denise’s blog is a beautiful look at a different facet of this motherhood discussion. If you’re up to it, take a look.

Poll: How Do You Get Your Kid Fix?

Some of us don’t need a kid fix (after my vacation, I’m going to be good for a while, let me tell you), but sometimes we need to spend time with young people. Do you? If so, how do you get your kid fix.

[polldaddy poll=3572957]

Your Amazing Childfree Life

Recently, I had a revelation. I’m not going to have children. Big news, I know, but the real revelation came in the idea that, if I wasn’t going to be a mother, I must be destined for something even greater.

I have several friends who have big dreams. One has a natural ability for spotting new musical talent, another would love to quit her accounting job and become a landscape architect, and at least two others would love to go back to school and earn their degrees. But they all have children and their obligations prevent them from following their hearts. For some, their dreams are on hold for now, but for some, they’re on hold forever.

We don’t have those obligations. Yes, we have bills, partners, jobs, and assorted other things we have to do, but we don’t have other human beings relying on us for food and shelter. In a lot of ways, it’s very freeing.

Several of you have already made a leap in your life and gone back to school or changed careers, but let me ask you: If you could be or do anything you wanted, what would you do? And if you’re not going to have children, are those things now a real possibility?

Dealing With: Do You Have Kids?

Last weekend I was invited to a dinner party along with some people I’d never met before. There were five couples, including us, four of whom had children, so I knew that at some point in the evening, someone would ask the question: Do you have kids?

In the past I would have squirmed and mumbled something apologetic, such as, “Um, no, unfortunately not,” and been given the “ah, poor thing” look. But thanks to you, dear readers, I was armed and dangerous this time.

When the woman asked me, I smiled and said, “I have a cat and a fish.”

She did give me a look, but not the sympathy look. She was utterly bewildered for a moment, repeated “a cat and a fish” with no question mark, and when I didn’t elaborate, she promptly changed the subject.

It was great!! So great that I’m seriously considering keeping photos of both my cat and my goldfish in my wallet so that I can whip them out and proudly show them off next time anyone asks.

So, thank you for all the ideas about how to handle this sticky situation. If you have more suggestions of how to answer the dreaded question, please keep them coming.

Teen Retailer Launches Maternity Line

Even though I don’t have children of my own, I still find I have protective maternal instincts for children in general, and this article fired all those instincts into action.

Forever 21, that hip teen store, has launched a line of maternity wear for pregnant teens.

On the one hand, I think that if ever a group of women needed help to feel good about themselves, pregnant teens are it. But the maternal side of me thinks that making pregnancy attractive to teens by offering cool outfits is completely insane.

If you read the comments under the article you’ll see a number of people who think that this move won’t encourage teen pregnancy. I say baloney. I can clearly remember back in the days before hormones started my actual baby madness that, whenever I walked past a maternity store with stylish outfits draped over neat bumps, I’d daydream about the day I’d get to be pregnant. Those clothes made motherhood look beautiful and fun and desirable. Is this the message we want to send to our teens, that you too can be hip and trendy; all you need to do is get knocked up?

Yikes.

Maybe I’m being cynical, but we’ve all experienced the alluring commercialism of the motherhood industry, all those conferences and stores selling their glorious image of motherhood. And we’re (allegedly) sensible adults. Is this what we want to sell to impressionable teens?

Kids (Not) Welcome

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.

Friends with Kids

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.