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!

Cameron Diaz: Happily Not Having It All

Here’s a refreshing celebrity point-of view–the idea that “having it all” just isn’t practical and that “giving life is easier than giving love.” Granted, for some of us, the latter isn’t exactly true, but if only everyone gave this much thought to the parenthood decision.

Cameron Diaz: Happily Not Having It All – Expertise – SavvyAuntie.com.

A Magazine for Non-Moms?

I recently received my monthly copy of Runner’s World, to which I’ve subscribed for years. This month they had an article about training for a half marathon that featured five real-life runners. For each runner, the article listed their name, age, occupation, running goal, and…the number of children they each had.

What? What does the number of children have to do with how fast they run? I scanned the article again looking for my answer, and found it: Nothing! It was completely irrelevant. What’s more, when I looked at each runner, trying to find the one who was most like me, I saw that they ALL had children?

I tried to figure out what message the author was sending, intentionally or otherwise. That childless people have nothing but free time to train? That childless people don’t run? That only people with children read the magazine? It made no sense.

Then my friend mentioned that she has recently cancelled her longtime subscription to a popular women’s magazine because the articles were all mommy-focused, even though the magazine touts itself as “the total-life guide for every woman.” What a shame that’s every woman but the childless.

Is there anywhere for us to turn? Do you have a favorite magazine that’s geared to women and not just women with children? Let us know.

And attention magazine editors! There is a big audience out here looking for a voice. I’m just saying…

The Unreasonable Uproar About Elena Kagan’s Childlessness

On her blog The Road Less Travelled, loribeth posted a great piece about Elena Kagan and the uproar about her childlessness. It’s a very insightful post with some great comments.

She says:

I’m somewhat sympathetic to the argument that American women desperately need role models who have managed to rise to the top while also having a family. At the same time, reading stuff like:

“To me, if a woman doesn’t have a child, she has only an abstract ability to pass judgment on issues where motherhood is concerned.”

sets my teeth on edge. I would submit that parents pass many, many judgments on behalf of people without children that don’t necessarily serve our needs very well — and yet nobody seems to question their ability to speak for us.

In an NPR article about women in the Supreme Court, Nina Totenberg made a great point:

Before Sotomayor’s appointment to the court, there were six justices in the court’s history who were unmarried and had no children — all of whom were men.

I’d be willing to bet that during their nomination proceedings the topic of their childlessness never came up.

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.

Number of women without children soars, study finds

Number of women without children soars, study finds.

I found this article very interesting, especially as a great discussion on this exact topic ensued here a couple of days ago.

While I’m not exactly happy to hear that our numbers are swelling (because I’m concerned that at least some of this is due to rising infertility rates) I’m always glad to see the discussion being had “out there” in the public eye. The more we talk about this, the sooner being a woman (or a man) without children will become less of a taboo subject.

Childless or Childfree?

This is a debate that rages in my head often and I know it’s going on out there in the world, too. Are you childless or childfree?

I used to refer to myself as childfree as my way of stating that I made a conscious decision about my life. The problem is that “childfree” always had the suggestion of a narrow escape, or that I’d been cleansed of something unpleasant, like being germ-free, or living rent-free. Occasionally I come across parents or children that make me feel like I had a lucky escape by not having kids, but usually that’s not how I feel. So, recently I’ve switched to using “childless” instead, but that has the opposite connotation, that I am missing something that makes me less than whole. Again, aside from those odd times when the hormones fare up or one of my triggers is flipped, I consider myself to be a whole and fulfilled woman.

So what do I call myself? I’m looking for a term that suggests no affiliation to any faction, including parenthood.  Something that suggests my independence and my wholeness. Any suggestions? How do you refer to yourself?

Adapting to a Childless Life

I recently read Cheaper By The Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth. If you’ve never read it, I recommend it. Don’t be put off by the awful Steve Martin movie version; the book is a classic. In one of the stories, the family with twelve children goes through a string of household help (not surprisingly) because, quote: “People can’t move from a quiet home to a large family.”

I can imagine the shock of moving from a small quiet family into a household of 14, but what about the other way around?

I’m from a family of three children, but my brothers are 11 and 13 years my senior, so in many ways I’m an only child. I have memories of quiet afternoons at home with my mum, or of just making my own entertainment if there were no neighborhood friends to play with. Even now, I enjoy my peaceful life and like nothing better than a quiet evening at home with a good book. If there’s no one to talk to, I talk to myself. I’m seldom bored or lonely.

But I wonder, if I’d grown up in house with a big family, would I feel the lack of children in my house more deeply? Would I crave the noise and chaos, or would the quiet life I have be a welcome rest?

Do you come from a big family? Do you crave that company or have you adapted quite easily to a quieter life?

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!