Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolff?

A couple of weekends ago I went to a local theatre to see the Edward Albee play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It’s a play that was lauded when it was first produced in the ‘60s, and was made more famous by the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton movie version. It’s the story of George and Martha, a bitter married couple, living an illusion, and dragging a young unsuspecting couple into their turmoil. I’ve seen the play and the movie in the past, but it wasn’t until I saw it this time that the story really hit me.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Early in the story, the subject of George and Martha’s son comes up, but as the story unfolds it becomes clear that someone is not telling the truth about the son. At the end of the play, it is revealed that George and Martha couldn’t have children, and the fictional son is part of a twisted psychological game the couple plays together. What makes the story heart-wrenching is that it becomes apparent that the game is ordinarily a tender private game, but in the play they have broken their own rule and made their son public. Consequently the game becomes a bitter, ugly battle.

Martha is a drunk and a philanderer, she’s bitter, twisted, and frankly, unhinged. She is also childless-not-by-choice. It’s easy to dismiss Martha as crazy, but seeing the play this time, I found myself nodding, and saying to myself, “Yes, I can see how she became the way she is.” Martha had great expectations for her life and it just didn’t turn out the way she planned, so she fabricated the life she wanted instead.

I could have written a post today about how childless women are so often portrayed as anything from odd to downright crazy, but the truth is, Albee took the very real emotions and social stigma of being childless-not-by-choice and created an extreme, but very real scenario. In my opinion Who’s Afraid Virginia Woolf deserves all the critical acclaim it received.

Motherhood Becomes Issue in Gubernatorial Race

We saw it earlier this year, with Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination, but now the issue of motherhood as a qualification has raised its ugly head again, this time in Oklahoma’s race for governor.

NBC News reports that Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, claimed her experience as a mother made her more qualified to run the state than her single, childless opponent, Lt. Gov. Jari Askins. Fallin said:

“I think my experience is one of the things that sets me apart as a candidate for Governor. First of all, being a mother, having children, raising a family…”

Really? While I can see how coordinating lunches and settling tantrums could certainly be useful in state politics, I curious…HOW does being a mother really qualify a person for the job of running a state? How dare she suggest that a childless woman couldn’t possibly be up to the job?

Sorry, but it smells to me like another attempt to use “family values” as a selling point, suggesting that a woman without children has none. Shame on you, Mary Fallin, for playing the motherhood card. As a woman, you should know better than that.

My Ex’s Kids

It’s happened to me a few times over the years. The first time an ex resurfaced was pre-Facebook through a site called Friends Reunited. He was my first true love and it was fun to see his face and remember the good times we had when we were way too young (and thankfully smart enough) to do anything more than fantasize about getting married and having kids together. When he told me about his wife and two little girls, I felt a little melancholy for the life I could have had, but knew I made the right choice when we broke up and I pursued a different life.

The next run-in was in-person with the ex-fiancé who had never wanted kids. I ran into him with his new wife and daughter when I was right in the thick of my infertility madness. That time I was livid, furious, jealous, feeling that the world had done me wrong, thinking how he’d wasted five years of my life and frittered away my chance to have children of my own.  Fortunately my husband was with me at the time and I was instantly reminded that my ex’s lack of desire for children wasn’t the only reason we were no longer together.

This week another ex resurfaced on the dreaded Facebook. He was a high school boyfriend and we “went out” for a few months, as I recall. Nice guy, but I think I was probably about 15 at the time. He friended me on FB and I accepted, and of course went straight to his photos to look for evidence of his current life. There were photos of two little blonde girls and him playing board games with them, and I felt…nothing. No envy, no sadness, not even relief.

We all choose our paths in life. Sometimes the path choses us, but even then we still have choices to make about how we walk that path. I didn’t plan to have a life without children, but I always planned to have a good life, and I do. When I look at the lives I might have had with the men I might have had them with, I realize that they weren’t the life I wanted. I like my life, it’s a good life, and even if it’s a life without children, it’s still the life I want.

Please Give Me Something to Talk About

I’m sick today. But I’m now a blogger and bloggers blog, so here I am. Trouble is, my head feels as if it’s about to explode and every time I raise my hands above the keyboard to type another sneeze hits me. So now it’s 11:15 here on the West Coast and, even though I’ve been “preparing to write” since 7 this morning,  I still can’t think of anything interesting to write about.

 

So will you help me please?

 

What’s on your mind today? What are you thinking about? What issues are you dealing with as a childless or childfree person?

 

Please share your thoughts with me as I have no clear ones of my own.

 

Thanks,

Lisa

The Secret Society of Childless and Childfree Women

I was at a cocktail reception last night. A couple of times a year I dig out my high heels from the back of the closet, assume the role as Executive Wife, and spend the evening shaking hands, eating things on sticks, and trying to remember the names of people’s spouses (and in some cases the names of the people themselves.) When stuck for small talk, I always turn to the subject I know will get people talking; I ask about their children or grandchildren. In many cases, I’ve known these people for many years, and I’m glad to hear updates; in others it’s a ploy. In know that all I have to do then is sit back and let them talk instead of having to come up with anything new and witty to say.

Most of the people I knew in the room have children. Some of their grown children were there. At one point in the evening, I glanced around the room of maybe 80-100 guests and spotted three visibly pregnant women (and spoke to another, although I didn’t know it at the time.) It wasn’t until I bent down to admire the shoes of a little girl toddling around that I was suddenly aware of my childlessness. I wondered if people who knew me well enough to know about my situation noticed me and thought, “What a shame she can’t have children.” But I shook the thought off quickly and got on with my job of working the room.

At the end of the evening, one of my husband’s employees found me. She pulled me aside and told me that she had seen this website and that she got what I was all about (I’m paraphrasing.) She told how she loved children, but had never wanted children of her own, and she told me about the amazing volunteer work she does fundraising for a local children’s organization. Talking to here was like finding a lush tropical island in the middle of the sea of parents. It was like being a part of a secret underground organization and hearing someone else speak one of the code words.

So maybe we childless and childfree women need an identifier so we can find one another at social gatherings. Maybe we need our own secret masonic handshake, or a piece of jewelry with the Life Without Baby crest subtly showing. Because wouldn’t it be great when we find ourselves at mixers and receptions and other social gatherings to be able to find just one person to talk to and not have to talk about their kids?

Happily Childless, Not-So-Happily Infertile

Recently I’ve been dreaming about babies. These aren’t sad dreams or dreams of longing, just dreams in which I’ve interacted, in a very tender way, with a baby that wasn’t mine. I’ve woken up thinking about the dream, but not upset by it.

Last night I had a different dream. I was on one of those double decker open-topped tour buses (like the one I took in San Francisco last week) and the tour guide asked if anyone had ever tried (and he implied, failed) to have a baby. I reluctantly put up my hand. Looking around the bus, I saw that I was the only one.

“And what was that like?” asked the tour guide.

“It was horrible,” I replied. “It’s completely out of your control and there’s nothing you can do about it. There are procedures and things you can do to help, but you can’t control whether they work or not.”

After that the dream gets fuzzy and I woke up feeling very out-of-sorts.

Pottering around the kitchen this morning, I knew this would be a blog post of some nature, I just didn’t know about what. The dreams didn’t make much sense and I couldn’t decipher any meaning to them.

Buttering my toast, it came to me.

I am happily childless, but I am not happily infertile. I have reconciled the fact that I am not going to have children and I am okay with that. In fact, the more time passes, the more I realize how much I enjoy my life without children and what an upheaval to that life children would be. The part I haven’t yet reconciled is my infertility. I still can’t fully get to grips with the idea that my body failed me and that, no matter how hard I worked, not matter how dedicated I was to the goal,  there was nothing I could do to change that.

I don’t feel alone in my childlessness–the majority of my friends don’t have children—but infertility is still, and maybe will always be, something that makes me feel like the odd one out—the only person on the bus with her hand in the air.

Childless in the Workplace

A friend of mine was recently offered a “promotion.” The job came with more prestige and opportunity, but also a significant increase in stress and responsibility, and no increase in pay. My friend wanted the job, but politically, she knew she had to take it. Declining the offer would have been a mark against her for future opportunities, so she accepted the position (and is now working crazy hours, weekends, and also had her planned vacation cancelled.) She later came to find out that someone else had been offered the job, but had turned it down because he has children. My friend, with no children, had no legitimate excuse for not taking the job. If she’d refused because she wanted to spend more time with her fiancé, she doesn’t think she would have a job at all today. Yes, my friend was able to take that opportunity, and yes, it will serve her well in her future career, but it seems that more is expected of childless employees.

Have you found this in your workplace?

Finding My Passion Again

Two Champion Cyclists!

This past weekend I took part in a big organized bike event. Along with my husband, mother, and some good friends, I pedaled my old Trek through 35 miles of beautiful Wine Country. It was a tough ride and I wasn’t quite as fit as I should have been, but still, I made it up the grueling two-mile-long hill, down the wild descent on the other side, and then turned around and went back over the same hill—wild climb up and grueling two-miles down! By the end I was exhausted, ready for the complimentary cold beer and mountain of paella, a hot shower and a long nap. And I did all of those things and THEN went out for beer and fish and chips with my family and friends. It was a fantastic day.

The ride reminded me how much I love biking and running, how much I used to enjoy training and participating in events. Somewhere in the mess of trying to become a mother, I lost sight of this. The ride inspired me to do more, to find other events and train to participate. And I can do that. I can get up early and go for runs; I can take an entire Saturday morning to go for a long training bike ride; and then I can do an all-day event and conk out on the couch in peace for the rest of the afternoon.  In short, I can do the things that please me, because the only other person I have to consider is my husband, and he’s a big boy who can choose to come along with me or stay home and entertain himself. Right now, I am grateful for this freedom to do something good for myself.

What about you? Over the years, what have you pushed aside that used to make you happy?  What haven’t you done for a long time that you could do now? And what would it take to do those things again?

It Got Me Thinking…About Tax Refunds

As in any election year, we’re hearing a lot about taxes and fixing our schools…and that got me thinking. I have no issue with paying taxes. I like that our government takes care of things like maintaining roads and bridges, supporting our armed services, providing social services, and running arguably the fairest judicial system in the world. And back in the days when I was certain kids were in my future, I didn’t see a problem with supporting public schools with my tax dollars. Now, however, I feel kind of cheated. Since I won’t be sending any kids to public school, I’m kind of pissed about having to support other peoples’ offspring. In fact, I’d like a refund.

 

Do you think it’s fair that childfree people have to contribute funds to public schools? And what did you invest in pre–LWB days for which you’d now like a refund?

 

 

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in AAA’s Westways, GRIT, Real Simple, and 805 Living magazines. Read “How to Be the World’s Best Aunt Ever” on eHow.com.