Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday

Mr. Fab and I went away for the weekend. It was practically perfect in every way. We got some rest, went hiking, ate too much, and generally enjoyed the small town and the outdoors.

But I just realized that we didn’t see any kids.

Now that I’m really wracking my brains I remember there was a couple with two toddlers in a burger joint and a woman with two kids at the lighthouse, but other than that it was a very adult weekend.

You’d think this wouldn’t be Whiny Wednesday material, and I suppose it’s not, but I’m having one of those Twilight Zone/Stepford moments where it feels as if there’s something very wrong in paradise.

Regardless, don’t let me get in the way of an otherwise perfect Whiny Wednesday. If you’ve got something on your chest, feel free to get it off here.

 

It Got Me Thinking…About Meeting You, Part 2

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

It’s coming this weekend—the first-ever LWB Meet-Up on Saturday, February 11!

Members of the San Francisco Group will be meeting for a casual lunch, and I hope you’ve taken this opportunity to join or start a regional LWB group (see “Groups” in the left column of the Main page of the Life Without Baby site) and scheduled your own get-together. If this isn’t practical for you, then I hope you’ve called up a childfree friend and asked her out to lunch, just for fun.

I mentioned in an earlier post that it’s my intention to focus on the positive at our lunch. We have the LWB site to share our sadness and whine about our circumstances. On February 11, I hope we can simply be a gathering of women (who happen to be childfree) who want to get to know each other better (and who would enjoy talking about any topic other than their childfree-ness).

So that got me thinking about conversation starters. If you feel stuck, consider going around the table and asking/answering these questions:

What’s the best movie you’ve seen lately?

What book are you currently reading?

Any trips planned this year?

Did your education prepare you for your current job/career path?

Who was/is your mentor? What was her/his best advice to you?

If I were to prepare a special meal for you, what would be on the menu?

Who do you think is the greatest musician/composer/songwriter of our time?

Have fun!

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She recently had a stimulating discussion about the art of hand-written thank you notes (and why it’s still important).

Advice for the Infertile

A woman I know told me recently that she’s been going through fertility treatments and it’s not been going well. She didn’t ask for advice, but I felt I needed to say something encouraging. I mean, I’ve been there, I understand better than most what she’s going through and how she might be feeling. And I knew that she’d confided in me because she wanted to know she wasn’t alone.

But I didn’t know what to say to her.

Oh, I had a whole list of things I knew not to say, like: “You can always adopt,” or “If it’s meant to be it will happen,” so I wasn’t going near any of those. But I couldn’t come up with anything that sounded helpful.

I wanted to say something positive, to keep her spirits up and give her encouragement. I thought about, “Don’t give up hope,” or something similar. But I also know from experience that hope can turn negative when you keep clinging to it. Sometimes, “Don’t give up hope,” is the last thing you want to hear.

So, I considered, “Stay strong.” It’s general, but positive right? But who am I to tell her to keep a stiff upper lip, when I know the value of letting go of those feelings of frustration and just letting it all out.

In the end I told her that if she ever needed an ear, mine would be available. That was the best I could offer, and I hope it’s enough.

What would you have said? How do you strike a balance between what you know from experience and projecting your situation onto someone else? How do you help someone who’s dealing with infertility?

Fabulous Friday

Time for a Fabulous Friday again, I think.

 

Here’s your chance to rave about all that’s good in your life right now – big plans, fun things, or even just life’s sweet spots.

 

I’m off for a weekend at the coast with Mr. Fab. It’s partly work-related, but that work will include wine tasting, eating, and milling around pretty towns. The non-work bits will be all about resting, chilling in a cottage on a clifftop, and taking some beautiful hikes. The weather forecast looks good and we are ready to just spend some quiet time together. I expect to be back on Monday, refreshed and ready to take on the world. Fabulous.

 

So, what’s fabulous in your world this Friday?

Guest Blogger: Identity Theft

By Maybe Lady Liz

There’s a distressing identity theft trend going on in the world of young parents on Facebook. Their accounts are being hacked into and entirely taken over by their babies! People who once used to post about interesting things going on in the world (or, at the very least, some gritty details of last night’s rendezvous) have been reduced to status updates on teething, defecation patterns and (drumroll please…) the miracle of rolling over! I think my friend Jen said it best while scrolling through her list of Friends and seeing mostly toothless, drooling smiles – “When did I become friends with so many babies?”

So, to my dear Facebook friends:

I get that the baby is the joy of your life. As it should be! But you had a life before that kid, and it was full of friends – like me – who still want to know what you’re up to, who you’ve become, whether you think it’s Tebow-time. Facebook is about sharing your life with friends and family. And of course, most of that is going to be centered around your baby now. But don’t ever forget that you were a person before you were a parent, and there are people out there who miss that person. So even if it’s something as lame as your feelings on the latest Kardashian divorce, I want to hear it. We all do. (Well, sort of).

And just a word of warning: If your posts start to become a photo of the baby accompanied by first-person narration from the baby’s point of view (e.g., “I am SO excited Aunt Cassie is taking me to the park today!”), we reserve the right to un-Friend you. It’s for your own good.

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at http://www.MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

Whiny Wednesday: Frustration

Whine #1: Is it really February already? Good grief, this year is going to fly by.

Whine #2: Between Christmas and New Year I sprained my ankle. I was out running my favorite trail (with my mother) and fantasizing about the two half marathons I planned to run later this year. I caught my foot on the edge a stone, twisted my ankle, and hit the ground like an elephant on a banana peel.

After a week on crutches and more than month of rest and TLC, it still hurts, it’s still lumpy, and I still can’t run on it. I’m so frustrated and so ready to get back out there and exercise, but all I can do is go for gentle, leisurely walks.

I want my foot back and I want it now!

It’s Whiny Wednesday. I’ve had two whines today. Feel free to have as many as you need.

It Got Me Thinking…About $25,000

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Two of my close friends are preschool shopping. In both cases, they submitted multiple applications shortly after the births of their children, because public schools are not an option (a topic for another post or a Whiny Wednesday) and getting into San Francisco’s private schools is very competitive. This is insane enough, in my mind, but here’s the kicker: Tuition for one child, for one year, is a whopping $25,000. “But it’s $35,000 in New York City,” one friend told me, as if that would make Californians seem frugal by comparison.

Twenty-five thousand dollars! That’s 250 $100 bills or 100,000 quarters! And that got me thinking…. If I had that amount of money to spare, how might I spend it? Here are a few options:

  • With parking at $2 an hour here, I could feed meters (with my 100,000 quarters) while running 12,500 hours of errands. Let’s do some math: At 3 hours each week, I’d be set for 4,167 weeks, or 80 years!
  • A new car! ConsumerReports.org compiled a list of the best cars under $25,000. I’m eyeing the Mini Cooper with a stick shift.
  • Six friends and I could stay in “Premiere Inns” while on Backroads’ multisport adventure in Costa Rica—biking, hiking, and soaking in hot springs in a forest setting. Sweet!
  • Since I could buy in bulk and get a discount, I’d order 468 12-packs of my favorite 82% cacao extra dark chocolate bars from Scharffenberger. At 210 calories per bar, that works out to….oh, screw that! I’ll…
  • …hire a personal trainer! The going rate is $75 an hour, so I’d get 333 hours of crunching abs and burning fat, roughly 6 hours of training each week for one year. Hmmm…I could get in shape for the Boston Marathon…or American’s Next Top Model!
  • 833 mani/pedis ($30) at the little spa down the street. If I visited once a week, I could indulge in 16 years of pampering!

With the exception of the car, all of the above seem extravagant—if not ludicrous—to me. But it is fun to think about. If you won $25,000 in the lottery today, how might you spend it?

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Right now, she’s thinking about running out to the store to buy a bar of chocolate.

Friends

Yesterday I had lunch with two friends, Kathleen and Pamela.

Kathleen writes the fabulous “It Got Me Thinking…” column here on LWB. We first met five or six years ago in a writing class. Back then, both of us planned to become mothers someday, although looking back, it’s now apparent that we were both on the path to being permanently childfree, even then. We connected because we appreciated one another’s writing, and over the years, we found other things in common and became better friends. It just so happens that neither of us got our dream of motherhood, and our childlessness has become another bond that ties us to one another.

My friendship with Pamela, on the other hand, developed on a completely different trajectory. Our paths might never have crossed had I not found myself childless-not-by-choice. Although we live in the same state, we lived 400 miles apart with little in our lives to ever bring us together. But Pamela is the author of Silent Sorority, and I got to know her through her blog. Eventually, we met in person last year, and we soon discovered that our childlessness was only one of many things we have in common, and in fact, one of the least interesting. Our childlessness brought us together, but it won’t be what sustains our friendship. More likely, it will be wine, food, and travel.

It’s funny how life twists and turns, how connections are made and paths laid out. We meet people and we lose people. Some friends stick, some fall to the wayside. Friends change and move in different directions, and new friends come along and fill the void. Our plans change and our lives spin in directions we could never have foreseen. And yet, when the dust settles and we regain our balance, we often see that we are walking the path we were always meant to be on after all. And it’s encouraging to look around and discover that we have friends walking beside us.

In two weeks time, I’ll get the chance to meet some more wonderful women, when the San Francisco Group does lunch. I’m looking forward to finding things in common, and maybe making new friends.

My Inner Child on Time Out

In my “real life” as a freelance writer, I’m hard at work writing a guidebook to California’s Wine Country, where I’m lucky enough to live part-time. It’s a fun project, I’ve been enjoying doing the research, and I’m now down to the serious task of compiling all my information and committing it to paper.

It has been fun to learn about the region in which I live and I now have a whole list of activities I’d like to try, restaurants I’d like to eat at, and places I want to visit, once the book is done.

On my travels, I’ve come across some great kid-friendly place I’d love to try. Safari West is a wildlife preserve where you can camp out over night and do a dawn animal patrol. How cool is that? Pee Wee Golf is an old-fashioned miniature golf course that’s supposed to be a blast. And then there’s Train Town, where you can take a 20-minute train ride on a quarter-scale train though tunnels, over trestle bridges, and through miniature towns. I want to do that.

If I had kids, I’d have the perfect excuse to do all these silly things. But I don’t have kids, so what am I supposed to do, go to Train Town alone? Can you see me in my striped engineers hat, woot-wooting in the tunnels, surrounded by 6-year olds who are terrified of the weird lady?

My inner child is alive and well, but without kids as a cover, I’m not sure how it gets to come out to play.

Whiny Wednesday: Water Baby

My water cooler has sprung a leak. I put a black plastic bowl underneath to catch the drips.

The next morning the water had formed a perfect sonogram-like fetus-shaped pool.

I hate that something so stupid can still cause such a sharp reaction in me, and that I’m still thinking about that peanut shape days later.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s making you want to kick something today?

P.S. The following day, the “water baby” had changed into a heart. Interpret that as you will.