Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday: “Not having kids is selfish”

I love the Internet for the breadth and depth of information it provides, and for the opportunity to read so many varying opinions on one subject. But sometimes I just have to walk away.

Case in point, I was doing research for a post and came across the following comment on an article:

“I take care of my parents. My children will take care of me. You want to force my children to take care of you too, meanwhile you arrogantly and selfishly live a much richer life style. Frankly, every GINK I’ve met was an arrogant, self-righteous, elitist. You should apologize for not adding to the future of our race.”

So after I ranted to myself about not expecting anyone else’s kids to take care of me, how our race of almost 7 billion people doesn’t need much adding to, and how narrow-minded this woman was to tar us all with the same “arrogant, self-righteous, elitist” brush, I stomped off and took a long, hot shower.

This woman was clearly on a mission (she posted about half a dozen comments to the same article) and I can’t believe I let her anger get under my skin.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s under your skin today?

Whiny Wednesday: “Not having kids is selfish”

I love the Internet for the breadth and depth of information it provides, and for the opportunity to read so many varying opinions on one subject. But sometimes I just have to walk away.

Case in point, I was doing research for a post and came across the following comment on an article:

“I take care of my parents. My children will take care of me. You want to force my children to take care of you too, meanwhile you arrogantly and selfishly live a much richer life style. Frankly, every GINK I’ve met was an arrogant, self-righteous, elitist. You should apologize for not adding to the future of our race.”

So after I ranted to myself about not expecting anyone else’s kids to take care of me, how our race of almost 7 billion people doesn’t need much adding to, and how narrow-minded this woman was to tar us all with the same “arrogant, self-righteous, elitist” brush, I stomped off and took a long, hot shower.

This woman was clearly on a mission (she posted about half a dozen comments to the same article) and I can’t believe I let her anger get under my skin.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s under your skin today?

Whiny Wednesday: “Not having kids is selfish”

I love the Internet for the breadth and depth of information it provides, and for the opportunity to read so many varying opinions on one subject. But sometimes I just have to walk away.

Case in point, I was doing research for a post and came across the following comment on an article:

“I take care of my parents. My children will take care of me. You want to force my children to take care of you too, meanwhile you arrogantly and selfishly live a much richer life style. Frankly, every GINK I’ve met was an arrogant, self-righteous, elitist. You should apologize for not adding to the future of our race.”

So after I ranted to myself about not expecting anyone else’s kids to take care of me, how our race of almost 7 billion people doesn’t need much adding to, and how narrow-minded this woman was to tar us all with the same “arrogant, self-righteous, elitist” brush, I stomped off and took a long, hot shower.

This woman was clearly on a mission (she posted about half a dozen comments to the same article) and I can’t believe I let her anger get under my skin.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s under your skin today?

Whiny Wednesday: “Not having kids is selfish”

I love the Internet for the breadth and depth of information it provides, and for the opportunity to read so many varying opinions on one subject. But sometimes I just have to walk away.

Case in point, I was doing research for a post and came across the following comment on an article:

“I take care of my parents. My children will take care of me. You want to force my children to take care of you too, meanwhile you arrogantly and selfishly live a much richer life style. Frankly, every GINK I’ve met was an arrogant, self-righteous, elitist. You should apologize for not adding to the future of our race.”

So after I ranted to myself about not expecting anyone else’s kids to take care of me, how our race of almost 7 billion people doesn’t need much adding to, and how narrow-minded this woman was to tar us all with the same “arrogant, self-righteous, elitist” brush, I stomped off and took a long, hot shower.

This woman was clearly on a mission (she posted about half a dozen comments to the same article) and I can’t believe I let her anger get under my skin.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s under your skin today?

Caring For Aging Parents

Living so far away from my mother (6,000 miles) I spend a fair amount of time worrying about what’s going to happen to her when she gets old.

 

My mother is 78 (I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you) but she still rides her bike, runs, dances, and practices Tai Chi. But I can see her slowing down and I know she’s not going to live forever.

 

My brothers and I have discussed this. We acknowledge that minor emergencies and issues will continue to fall to my middle brother, who lives the closest to my mum—about 8 miles. My older brother will most likely take care of anything that needs organizing, should my mum need more long-term care. As for me, I live too far away to do much at all. But I don’t want to regret not being there when my mother needed me, so Jose and I have discussed the possibility of me spending large chunks of time with my mother as she ages. My work will allow me to do that, as will my very understanding husband, and of course, I don’t have children to take care of, so I have that flexibility.

 

I’m fortunate to have brothers who don’t squabble about who will take care of our mother, but I have friends who don’t have that relationship, and it seems that the responsibility often falls to one sibling, and quite often it’s the one who doesn’t have children.

 

I’m wondering… do you feel that your childless/childfree status will enable you to be there as your parents age, or does it just mean that your family will expect you to carry the load because you have “no other responsibilities?”

The Mother-Daughter Bond

Last week my mum went home to England after spending six weeks with us. It’s always a bittersweet departure. While she’s here, my life is disrupted, work doesn’t get done, my daily routine is all off, and I never seem to see much of my husband. By the time she leaves I’m ready to get my life back, but I’m never glad to see her go. I know it’s going to be at least six months before I see her again and I know that if she ever really needed me (or vice versa) we are 24 hours away from one another. I often worry that one day that will be too far. But I’ve chosen my life and she accepts it, and we both know that even though we only see one another twice a year, over the course of a year she actually spends more hours with me than with either of my brothers. Somehow the arrangement works out for us.

I live by the beach, (so naturally, I seldom actually go to the beach) and over the course of her visits we’ve developed a tradition of going to the beach on her last day here. It’s always a glorious day, even if the weather has been mediocre for the rest of her trip. We walk down to the beach, get an ice cream, put our feet in the ocean for a while, and then lay on the sand in the sun.

This time we dozed for a while and at one point I woke up and looked at my mum asleep beside me. I was overcome by just how much I loved her.  It’s such a deep, binding love, different to the way I love my husband, or my friends. She is my mother. I am a part of her and because of that we will always be inseparable. It was an almost primal feeling.

And then of course, the other feeling struck me. I realized that no one will ever feel that way about me, and likewise I will never know what it feels like to love my own child.

It was a fleeting thought, not one to linger and bring me down, but I daresay it’s a thought I will have again, probably the next time I say goodbye to my mum.