Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Top 10 Reasons to Speak Up and Be Heard

10. Women without children are a growing percentage of the population

9. We are still misunderstood, even by our family and closest friends

8. Our opinion is a unique perspective that deserves to be heard

7. We need to show that the childless are not child-haters or parent-haters; we’ve just made an unconventional choice for reasons of our own

6. We might even start a revolution

5. The radicals are just beating their shields

4. People cannot walk a mile in our shoes, but we can tell them about our journeys

3. What we say may help another woman

2. Airing our opinions is therapeutic and can help reduce the risk of wrinkles

1. We all want to know that we’re not really alone.

Have Your Say…Quietly

Since this blog officially launched about a month ago, there have been some great conversations happening, and I’ve been pleased to hear people say how glad they are to have a place to come and talk with like-minded women. But behind the scenes something

interesting has been going on. I’ve had lots of e-mails and “off-blog” contact with readers who’ve shared some really thought-provoking comments. With each one I’ve thought, “Oh, I wish you’d posted that in the comments.”

Finally, a couple of readers admitted that they were afraid to post their opinions in public.

Afraid? I thought. Why?

But after snooping around some other blogs and websites, I can see why. Out there in the blogosphere, I found plenty of radical thinkers of all factions, from child-haters who despise “breeders,” to mothers of 12 (or 19) who firmly believe it’s Gods will that they continue to produce baby after baby. And they’re all pretty vocal about their points-of-view. Getting into those discussions can be intimidating.

The biggest danger in putting your opinion out in public is that someone’s always going to disagree with you. But by the same token there will be plenty more people who’ll read what you have to say, and think, “Yes!! That’s what I’ve been feeling. Thank you!”

So, I urge you: Speak up, Sisters. We childless women are not to be pitied, or sneered at, and, most of all, we don’t need fixing! For every time someone has told you you’re selfish or you’ll regret not having children, or suggested you just adopt, there is another woman out there who has actually walked a mile in your shoes. Even when our dearest friends and family aren’t hearing us, there’s always someone else out there that gets it. So speak up and be heard. Please.

And for those of you who are still a little stage shy, look in the top right hand corner of this page and you’ll see a new button called, “Suggest Topics”; click on that and you can send your comments and opinions directly to me via e-mail. I’ll take them and weave them into a post (without using your name, of course,) so that you can still be heard, even if you’re only whispering. 😉

Do We Have a Responsibility to Reproduce?

I’m sure if you’ve ever told anyone of your intentions regarding motherhood, you’ve heard a response something along the lines of: “Oh, but you’d be such a great mother,” or “The world needs people like you to reproduce.” It comes with the suggestion that if you’re intelligent, law-abiding, relatively sane, and wouldn’t be seen dead on Jerry Springer, you have some kind of obligation to society to contribute your genes to the world. But what is your obligation really?

As women of the 21st century, we still fight the battles our mothers and grandmothers fought. We may not be fighting for the right to vote or for women’s liberation, but we’re still fighting for equality in pay, for the right to marry who we want, and to have full control over what we do to our own bodies. And we still tussle with the wife/mother roles we’ve had passed down to us. Many of us still take on the majority of the household chores and make sure all the family birthday cards go out on time. And yet we’re striving to succeed on our own terms, trying to make a difference, and trying not to be labeled simply Wife/Mother/Grandmother.

But the fact remains that there can never really be equality in motherhood. Women bear children. We feed them. We are naturally the nurturers. Motherhood isn’t a task we can trade with a male partner: “I’ll install the new sprinkler system if you birth the babies.”

So as women, do we have a responsibility to reproduce? The world is overpopulated, polluted, and crowded, but if we all stop reproducing, the human race can’t go on? So what is our responsibility to the continuation of mankind. Tell us your thoughts on this subject.

Guest Blogger: Kathleen Guthrie

The latest relationship-with-potential had ended, and I was again lamenting the fact that I was nowhere near realizing my dreams of love, marriage, and having a child. “Maybe you’re supposed to birth a book instead,” my friend suggested.

I should what?! Like that was supposed to fill the aching hole in my heart?

A decade later, and I still can’t come up with a witty response.

As I breezed through my 30s and early 40s, other friends (and their mothers, and my mother’s friends, and women I’d just met at mutual friends’ baby showers) offered up alternate ways I might satisfy my desire to have a child of my own: Become a preschool/Sunday school teacher. Open a day care center. Volunteer to hold sick babies in a NICU. Become the world’s best aunt ever.

I embraced the last suggestion while I built a successful business, nurtured friendships, traveled, and eventually entered into a loving, built-to-last relationship with a wonderful man. In time, I made my peace with the childless role Mother Nature had planned for me.

Still… I wonder. What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? I spent the first half of it longing to be pregnant, to experience my body operating at its highest function, to create the miracle of life. I had daydreamed about soccer games, Girl Scout meetings, and family game nights. I had looked forward to raising good humans and sharing them with the world. While I consider my life today “full” and blessed and very happy, I wonder if there’s anything out there for me to do that will be as fulfilling as being a mother.

And so, sister-mentors, I ask for your wisdom and guidance. What other paths have you explored or chosen? What gives your life-without-children meaning? Have you found fulfillment by creating works of art, expanding your definition of “family,” doing volunteer work, or embracing your many freedoms? And what do you say to friends or strangers who unintentionally hurt you with their suggestions for how to make the most of a childfree life?

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.

Useful Advice

My friend Elizabeth passed along a poem to me from Garrison Keillor’s website. It’s called Useful Advice, by Catherine Tufariello, and begins:

You’re 37? Don’t you think that maybe
It’s time you settled down and had a baby?

I laughed at the first line, but quickly stopped laughing as I kept reading. Instead, I began checking off all the lines that I’d heard, maybe even writing a few extra lines for her. I know nothing about this poet, but I am certain, from reading this, that she heard every single one of these lines on her journey. You can read Useful Advice here.

Also, please take a second to visit Elizabeth’s blog, A moon, worn as if it had been a shell. Elizabeth writes about her life with baby, as  the mother of three children, including her daughter, Sophie, who is severely disabled. Elizabeth is a tireless advocate for children with special needs and offers a frank and often surprising perspective on the challenges as well as the rewards of raising a child with disabilities.

The Fairy Tale Ending

Continuing our topic of stereotypes, I came across this Salon article by Tracy Clark-Flory, about the pressure on single women to marry and settle down. She says:

… a new study has found that the “spinster” stigma is still alive and thriving — and it’s worst for women in their mid-20s to mid-30s. After reaching the age of 25, LiveScience explains, women begin to feel “scrutinized by friends, family members and others” — including themselves, of course — “for their singlehood.”

Ah yes, the old “When are you going to settle down?” question. Stick around all you 20- to 30- year olds, because not far behind that one is, “When are you going to have kids?” As Clark-Flory goes on to point out:

Decades later, that warning [that being too picky will lead to a life of spinsterhood] has been passed along fully intact and internalized even by supposedly enlightened young feminists like myself. It just goes to show how cunning and insidious that prince charming, fairy-tale ending is.

And the same goes for having children. While many women do think it through, weigh the pros and cons, and make the decision to have or to not have children, many more feel the pressure from society, family, peers, and just follow along with what’s expected of them, and some of them discover that the fairytale isn’t really what they wanted after all.

Whiny Wednesday

“Why don’t you just adopt?”

People ask this question as if adoption is as simple as filling out a form and picking out a baby. But anyone who’s had a close friend or family member go through the process knows all about the drawn-out bureaucracy, the failed adoptions, the expense of going private, and the trauma of adopting from foster care.

So, don’t ask me why I don’t just adopt, unless you have plenty of time to hear my answer.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s your gripe?

Dear Prudence: Mind your own business

After my gripe on this week’s Whiny Wednesday, I came across this post on the excellent Childless By Choice Project blog. It chronicled the backlash of criticism after Slate’s Dear Prudence suggested to a newly married couple that they rethink their decision to not have chidren rather than suggesting how to deal with the people who keep hounding them about their choice.

Say what?

When I recently told my OB/GYN that we had decided not to pursue fertility treatments and to remain childless instead, she told me that it wasn’t too late for me and that her friend had just had a baby at 45. Do people really not hear us when we tell them about the decisions we’ve agonized over? Do they not give us credit for having weighed the options and made the right decision for us, not them, not the future of the human race?

One reader, who has three children said:

Having said all that, people should (or should not) have children because it’s what they want to do, not because of the expectations of others.

People who choose not to have children have just as much right to that choice and the right not to be harassed by anyone, including parents and grandparents.

Amen! But another reader had this to say:

We are past that age where people are expecting us to have children. However, we still get people who think we will regret our decision, so at any age the decision to remain childfree is challenged or not seen as viable.

If we can’t change people’s point-of-view, or their need to express their opinions on how we choose to live our lives, maybe all we can do is go out into the world armed with an arsenal of snarky comebacks. It’s just a suggestion.

Whiny Wednesday

Why is that people have no problem asking, “So, why don’t you have kids,” or “How come you don’t like children?” or “Don’t you think not having kids is selfish?”

Imagine if mothers were asked the inverse. “So, why do you have kids?” “How come you like children?” or “Don’t you think having kids is selfish?”

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s your gripe?