Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Happy 100th Post!

Yesterday marked the 100th post on this blog. Wow! I had no idea I had 100 things to say about being childess. Turns out I have 100’s more, and you have plenty of things of your own to say. This blog gets more than 300 hits a week, and the main LWB site forums have been ablaze lately. Discussions are firing up, groups are forming, and friends are being made. It’s very exciting to be able to have these conversations with like-minded people.

So thank you for showing up, thank you for sticking around, and thank you for supporting one another and me. Onwards to the next 100 and beyond!

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.

Childlessness is such a serious matter

“That’s not funny.”

I don’t know about you, but I find myself thinking this, if not always saying it out loud, a lot more than I used to. I know I used to have a great sense of humor, I can remember being funny at one point in my life. (I’m sure that was me.) But these days, everything is just so serious.

Some days, when I’m writing my blog posts, I find myself thinking, “Why does this childless thing always have to be so serious?” But if I do write something fun and silly, like yesterday’s post, I’m always wondering if it’s going to sound flippant. I have my own set of trigger subjects that I just don’t find funny, and I know they’re not the same triggers as for others, but I don’t want to risk upsetting someone with an off-hand remark, when what we’re doing here is trying to pull one another through, and be supportive.

But all this seriousness is giving me wrinkles, and there’s no better exercise than a good belly laugh. And I could use one right now.

So, I have a challenge for this week. I need some new jokes to tell and my repertoire is pretty old. So, please share your favorite joke with me. I’m ready to laugh and I would love to have some new jokes to tell amongst the group of 12 people I barely know, that I’m having dinner with on Saturday (so, please, keep them on the clean side.)

I have one last copy of Carrie Friedman’s excellent (and very funny) book, Pregnant Pause to give away to the teller of the funniest joke, (as judged by me), so let’s hear ‘em!

The Cost of Children

According to an article in this morning’s LA Times, the cost of raising a child has increased by 22% since 1960. The grand total for raising one child from birth to age 17 is now $222, 360.

For one child.

Before college.

So, the question is, what are you going to do with your spare quarter-million dollars?

Unfortunately, mine isn’t sitting around waiting to be spent, but if it were, I’d be writing tomorrow’s post from the coast of Madagascar, next week’s from the top of a camel in the Sahara, and the following week’s from the Great Wall of China. A quick word or two posted from the base camp of Everest, and then I’d probably have to come home for a while, if only to do laundry. I could use a new car to be honest, and I probably ought to save part of it for a down-payment on a house, but as I’d once anticipated having four children, I have the best part of a million dollars to spend all on myself.

Yes, this is a silly fantasy, but just for a moment, play along with me. How would you spend the $222,360 you saved by not having children?

Seeing the World Through Childless Glasses

I saw this Cathy cartoon in this morning’s LA Times and at first it made me laugh with the intended joke, as well as the gentle dig at support groups. But then I whipped out my childless glasses and took another look. As Cathy would say, “Ack!”

I’m looking at the expression on Cathy’s face and wondering what’s going on in her mind. If you follow Cathy at all, you’ll know that she too is childless, although it’s never really mentioned, and it’s not clear (at least to me) if this is a choice or a circumstance for her. Either way, she discovers that she has even less in common with her newfound friend, and that she’s more alone than she thought she was.

Yes, it’s a cartoon, yes, I know I’m reading far too much into it, but childlessness is a filter I bring along with me in life now and, whether I like it or not, it tints everything I see.