Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Childless people eat healthier diets than parents

Here’s something to be happy about. According to a recent study by the University of Reading, we who are childless or childfree eat healthier than our parenting counterparts. On average, we eat about 2kg more fruits and vegetables over a fortnight, or translated into American English, more than 2lbs a week!

According to an article on Physorg.com:

The study revealed that the presence of children in a household leads to a lower level of demand for fruit and vegetables and meat, and an increased demand for milk and dairy, cereals and potatoes.

The study took place in the UK, so I would add pizza, mac and cheese, and spaghetti to that list for the U.S.

So, if you haven’t had your recommended 5-a-day today, the question is, why not?

Sharing Holiday Traditions

Today is Friday, December 17 and no matter how in denial you’ve been up until now, it’s time to face the fact that we are in full-blown holiday mode. I still have cards to write and mail, gifts to buy, and a naked, but beautiful tree that could use some decorations, and I am slowly acknowledging that Christmas is going to happen with or without me.

J and I have been married for almost seven years now and yet we haven’t really established any holiday traditions. When his mother was alive, we often hosted Christmas dinner at our house, but since she passed away two years ago his family has become fractured and they don’t spend the holidays together so much. My family is half way around the world, so we go there about every third year, and in between we kind of ping around like lost pinballs, with no set program for the holidays. If we had kids, I know it would be different.

Growing up, our family Christmas was the same every year. We’d usually go out Christmas Eve to a party at the local social club. There’d be dancing, my parents could have a drink, and it was a 10-15 minute walk home. We often walked home after midnight, so I would look for Father Christmas (Santa) in the sky. I’d hang out my pillowcase (not stocking) at the end of my bed and somehow Father Christmas would always manage to fill it without waking me up.

Being the youngest of three, I’d be the first up on Christmas morning, and usually get sent back to bed at least twice for getting up too early. My parents would bring up tea and cookies and we’d all pile into their bed to open the gifts. No matter what else we got, we always got pajamas, a sweater, and chocolate.

We’d often go out for a walk on Christmas morning while the turkey was cooking, especially if it was one of those crisp, sunny days, and sometimes we’d go over to my Grandma’s for a short visit, but we’d always get on the phone to all the relatives to wish them a Merry Christmas and thank them for our gifts.

It was usually just the five of us for Christmas dinner. I don’t remember having relatives join us. We’d have the traditional Christmas dinner – turkey, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, etc., followed by sherry trifle and/or Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. We’d pull Christmas crackers, tell the jokes, and wear the paper hats all through dinner. Then we’d do the dishes and be all done in time for the Queen’s speech at 3:00. After that, there’d be a family movie (this was pre-video, and when the UK still only had three TV channels), something big like The Wizard of Oz, or new, such as Superman.

In the evening we’d play a game – cards or whichever board game was hot that year – and snack on cheese and crackers and all the goodies we only ever got at Christmas. My parents would have a beer or two and make me a shandy (a mix of beer and 7Up) and we’d watch our favorite Christmas specials until it was bedtime. So, for me, Christmas was always a quiet family time spent at home.

Why am I droning on about this? Because if I had children, I would pass these traditions on to them. I’d want to create the kind of Christmas memories for them that I have from my childhood. As it’s just the two of us, we have the freedom to spend Christmas however we choose, but without traditions of our own, it doesn’t feel as special.

So, I’m looking for some new traditions to start that fit our life now. I’d love it if you’d share some of yours – old family ones, and new ones that you’ve adopted as an adult. How do you make the holidays special and family-orientated when your family is just one or two?

A Book On Every Bed

Syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson, aka Ask Amy posted a great idea last week. Working alongside the Family Reading Partnership, she has launched a campaign called “A Book on Every Bed.” You can read about it here.

The idea is to give a book to a child this year, wrap it and place it on his or her bed, so that it’s the first gift they see on Christmas morning, before the thrill of the latest video game or gadget takes over.

I love this idea.  Amy talks about her first book, Green Eggs and Ham. Although I can’t remember my first book, I remember the book my older brother gave me for my eighth birthday: The Complete Adventures of Paddington – in hardback. I still love that book and I will never part with it. I don’t remember anything else I got for my birthday that year, but I remember my brother giving me that book.

Even though we don’t have children of our own, we can still have an influence on other people’s children. If you have a child in your life, consider giving them a book this year.  It might not make you the most popular person now, but years from now, when the toys and games have broken and been tossed away, your book will be still be appreciated.

My First Drive-Through Nativity

Tootling around town this weekend, J and I saw a banner for a drive-through nativity. We couldn’t resist!

Is there anything more American than the drive-through concept? I drive through to get coffee, medicine, even dry-cleaning! I arrived in the U.S. too late to catch a drive-through movie, but I felt compelled to take advantage of the drive-through nativity.

It was lovely. There were ten or so scenes telling the story of Jesus, all the way from the Angel Gabriel to the rolling away of the stone. Each scene was narrated via a loaned in-car CD (or cassette in our old car) and featured live actors and an assortment of stuffed animals and baby dolls. There were wise men in tennis shoes and pint-sized shepherds with itchy headgear. So far, it was the most Christmas-y thing we’ve done yet this year.

What does this have to do with being childless? Absolutely nothing. But my life isn’t only about my lack of motherhood; it’s also about spending time with friends (at a fun dinner party), eating fabulous dinners out (best Italian food I know of), seeing bad movies (The Tourist. Skip it!), and celebrating the holidays with a drive-through nativity.  What else is your life about right now?

Hey Advertisers, You Talkin’ To Me?

I was browsing a magazine this morning, drinking tea and eating some excellent toast with almond butter and blueberry jam, when an ad caught my eye. It might have been the two very handsome cats that first stopped my eye, but it was the words that really caught my attention.

“New and improved Blue cat food is cat-preferred and mom-preferred.”

Eh? Mom-preferred? What was that supposed to mean? I’ve become so accustomed to advertisers talking over the heads of non-moms that my first thought was that moms liked the food because the natural ingredients would do no harm to Little Johnny if he decided to help himself to the cat’s dinner. But reading on I realized that the advertisers were speaking to “moms and their furry family members” – i.e. pet moms.

This struck me as smart advertising. As a cat-mom (but not a human-mom) this ad spoke directly to me and I appreciated that. On taking a closer look I also realized that human-moms weren’t excluded either. Very smart advertising. Of course the cat-dads were excluded, but as the magazine is geared to women, I doubt there would be many complaints.

Did the ad cause me to run out and buy this brand of food? Well no. My furry family member is a cat after all, and I can’t just go around changing things on a whim, but I appreciated the advertisers thinking outside of the mommy box and including those of us with only furry family members. Maybe they’re starting to realize that just because you’re a woman of a particular age, doesn’t automatically mean you’re a mom.

A Culture of Blame

I came across this article on Childless.com.au, an Australian site. The author, Jane Blakely, is an Australian living temporarily in Malaysia. I found her experience fascinating.

While sitting in a doctor’s waiting room she got pulled into a conversation with a Malaysian man, Raj, who asked her if she had children. When she replied that she didn’t, here’s what happened:

“In my culture, it is expected a couple will have their first child within the first year of being married,” he said. Continuing the family lineage through childbirth is of utmost importance in his culture, Raj said, and the “suitability” of a wife will be called into question by the groom’s family if she hasn’t had a child within the first year of marriage.

The suitability of the wife? There are no male fertility issues in Malaysia? How very Henry VIII!

My initial thought after reading this way, “Boy, I’m glad I don’t live in a culture like that.” But to a lesser extent, I do.

When you don’t have children, you are not the norm, and while people may not openly point fingers of blame, you know they’re speculating as to where the problem lies. “Is it her?” “Is he firing blanks?” And we too often hear stories of marriages that don’t survive infertility, and of spouses who left because they needed to have a family.

Jane’s article was a really eye-opener for me – not because it educated me about other cultures, but because it caused me to take a closer look at my own.

Family Traits

I always thought one of the fun things about having biological children would be looking for family traits. I always wondered which of my relatives my children would look like and who they’d take after.

For example, my niece has the Baker Chin. It’s the same little pointy chin my Grandma Baker had, as well as my mum’s younger sister. None of us kids have it, but it popped up in my niece. My mum (and I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you this!) has a funny shaped head. She has a large frontal lobe (full of math brains) and a rounded protrusion at the back. She can never get a hat to fit. One of my nephews has exactly the same shaped head. I get my math skills from my mother; my brother gets his “life of the party” personality from my grandfather, and my older brother is a dead-ringer for my dad. Line up my uncle, brother, and two of my cousins (each from a different aunt) and they all look like peas in a pod. It’s uncanny.

I’m a bit of a Mr. Potato Head of all my relatives from both sides of the family. I have my mum’s smile and bony ankles and my dad’s eyes and the funny blip on the end of his nose. I look like both my brothers, half my cousins, and at least one of my nieces, so I’ve often wondered which traits my children would have inherited from me and which of my family’s characteristics would have popped up.

I’m sure some of this wondering comes from vanity, and the hope that I’d reproduce a mini replica of myself, but much of it is also scientific curiosity. It’s fascinating to watch genetics in action and it would have been fun to see which long-dormant trait came up in my kids.

It Got Me Thinking About…A Holiday of Our Own

Well, hallelujah! About jumped out of my chair when I read Donna Brazile’s column in the December issue of Oprah’s O magazine (the donna files, page 60, or here). In “The Overlooked Holidays,” Donna suggests we introduce some new gift-giving occasions. She writes: “I’ve spent thousands on showers, weddings, babies—and for the record, I’m happy to do it—but sometimes it feels as if the world is built for couples” (and mothers, fathers, and grandparents). Wouldn’t it be nice to give “a small token for those of us who never married or had children?” YES!!! Yes, it would be nice. Very nice indeed. Thank you, Donna, for speaking up.

Now we just need to figure out what to call our fabulous new holiday. Suggestions?

Kathleen Guthrie is a San Francisco–based freelance writer. She is learning how to embrace being childfree.

Childless Women and Breast Cancer Risk

I went to my doctor for a check-up this week and the subject of breast exams came up. My doctor (he’s relatively new to me) asked me if I had children and when I told him I didn’t, he said, “Well having children and breastfeeding can help reduce the risk of breast cancer.” It was all I could do to say, “Well then, I’ll just get right on that!”

In my doctor’s defense, it was just a passing comment and not any kind of accusation that I was neglecting my health by not having children, but I couldn’t help but think that this was just another strike against childlessness. Regardless I decided it was my civic duty to research this and report back to you.

A Google search of “childless breast cancer” turned up more contradicting facts than a political sex scandal and starling little trustworthy information. I found this:

Women who had their first full-term pregnancy after age 30, and women who have never borne a child have a greater risk of developing breast cancer. During pregnancy, estrogen levels surge so high that there is a small immediate risk of breast cancer, but the long-term effect, particularly with breast-feeding, decreases risk.

Starting at about age 45, childless women are at an increased risk for breast cancer in comparison with women who have had children, with the risk being from 20 to 70 percent greater.

That’s a big increase in risk, but the source was a pharmaceutical company selling breast cancer preventative medicine, and I couldn’t find similar numbers elsewhere. I did discover that women over 5” 7” tall have a greater risk (two strikes against me) and this article that confirmed that childless women were at greater risk, as were women with more than five children, teenage mothers, and mothers with children closer than 18 months apart. So a tall teenage mother of five or more children under age 7 is basically up the creek.

I also found a blog post on the same subject from two years ago! The fact that this two-year-old post hit the front page of my search suggests that this topic isn’t getting a lot of love

If you happen to have these statistics, please share them, but the bottom line is this: There are so many conflicting risk factors; some us will get lucky and some of us won’t. All we can do is take care of ourselves and check those breasts ladies! I will confess to not being disciplined about doing regular self-exams. I do it when I remember, but not on any regular schedule. That ends this month. Here’s a useful link that offers e-mail reminders to do your monthly self-exam as well as instructions on how to do it.

Finding My Christmas Cheer

It’s December and I can feel myself slipping into the black hole of the holidays. I have no gift ideas for my loved ones, no plans for how to spend Christmas, and frankly no time or energy to do anything about either. I could go on about being busy, getting frustrated with the holiday madness, and blah-di-blah, but it’s not Whiny Wednesday and that’s not what this post is about.

I’ll admit that my holiday funk stems from “that-time-which-shall-not-be-named” when my husband and I were at our lowest point on our infertility journey and decided not to bother with Christmas that year. We made no plans, didn’t get a tree, and decided to hole up for a few days and avoid everyone and everything Christmas-y. About two days before Christmas I finally cracked and thought, “I’m infertile; I’m not dead!” and ran out and bought a rosemary tree and something delicious for Christmas dinner. But even now, I still can’t get my Christmas groove back.

I think part of this stems from my family being so far away. I used to enjoy shopping in October for my nieces and nephews, then shipping a giant box of presents via surface mail. It was fun for me and for them to anticipate the arrival of the box. Would it make it in time? Would it make it at all? But since the USPS did away with surface mail and jacked up the airmail prices so that shipping costs more than the gifts, I do most of my Christmas shopping online and have it shipped direct. It’s efficient and convenient, but really, it’s no fun.

Today we received a gift from one of my husband’s corporate associates. Instead of the usual basket of fake cheese and heart attack salami, they sent us a beautiful live wreath. I opened it up and the house filled with the scent of pine and cedar. Christmas! Now, all of a sudden I want to get my tree, I want to bake gingerbread, and give homemade gifts. I want to throw a party, celebrate Christmas and have fun! But I can’t remember how.

If I’d had children I would have passed my family’s traditions on to them and my holiday fun would have revolved about them. But as it is, it’s just the two of us, and the cat, so how to make Christmas Christmas-y again?

What do you do to keep the Christmas cheer? Do you decorate? Bake? Sing? What do you do to keep the spirit of the holidays?

I’m going to find some string to hang up this wreath, and I’m going to get a rosemary bush and some poinsettia’s this weekend. I’m also going to plan an informal party – some friends and drinks. This year I’m putting some fun back into my holidays.