Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Summer Vacation and a Request for Help

P1160705By the time you read this I will be trekking through the Shropshire Hills with my mother (who turns 81 in a couple of weeks) and two of her friends (both in their 70s), and hoping I can keep up with them.

So that I can fully enjoy visiting my family and friends, and get a brain break as well as a physical break, I’m planning to give the site a vacation for the month of August.

Beginning on Wednesday, I’ll be posting reruns of some of my favorite and your favorite posts from the past year. Just like an episode of I Love Lucy, I hope you’ll get to enjoy these conversations again.

While I’m gone, I’ll also be contemplating what’s next for Life Without Baby. For those of you who’ve been tagging along with me for a while, you’ve probably noticed that the site go through a growth spurt about every six months or so, as I try to make it what I think it ought to be.

I’ve largely gone through this reinvention process on my own, noodling and brainstorming what I think is best for the site. This time, I’m getting smart (finally) and I’m asking you what you need most and what you want the site to be.

I’ve put together a short survey (8 check box questions, that’s all) and would be enormously grateful if you could offer me 5-10 minutes to let me know what’s important to you, so that I can then attempt to make it available.

Yes, I’ll take the survey!

Front cover-hiAs a thank you for your time, you’ll have the option be entered into a drawing to win a copy of my book, “I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood.” Just be sure to complete the survey by September 2 to be entered.

So, for now, enjoy your summer, enjoy the posts, and I’ll look forward to catching up with you again in September.

It Got me Thinking…About Family Options

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

I was really excited about a book I read recently, a humorous look at life that lauded women’s progress in the working world*. But then. In the last several chapters, the author focused on the trials and joys of being a working wife and mom. As I skimmed back over previous pages, I noticed that she talked about her friends and colleagues and their struggles as working moms, but nowhere did she mention anything about the women (and men) who cover for them while they’re all out on maternity leave. In her discussion about families, the closest she got to including any other kind of family (such as one that resembled my own) was an offhanded remark about a gay couple and their dog.

Now I don’t like to get all politically correct about things, but I would like to open her eyes to other family options. I’d like to introduce her to my neighborhood where retirees are raising their grandchildren, former and new spouses are setting aside their differences to co-parent, cultures and languages converge, couples (gay and straight) live with their adopted and foster children, and couples and single people without children are right in the mix. The old Norman Rockwell model of all-white families comprised of one man, his wife, and their two children is neither the majority nor the norm.

Along with the strides women have made it the world, I think our new definition of “family” is also something to celebrate.

 

*Can’t recommend the book (for the reasons noted above), but also don’t want to pan it, so I’m not going to mention the title.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is wrapping up her memoir about being a temporary single mommy and how it helped her come to terms with being childfree.

 

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayI am rushing around stuffing things in a suitcase with one hand and trying to finish up all the work I really ought to do before I leave for England to visit my mum.

As I’ll be on a plane and hopefully asleep by the time you read this, I don’t have too much to whine about this week, but please feel free to whine on my behalf. It is Whiny Wednesday, after all.

Nobody Puts Fur Baby in a Corner

Maybe BabyBy Maybe Lady Liz

For those of us without kids, our pets are our children. For those of us who are also insane, our best friends’ animals are essentially our nieces and nephews. We sometimes send them Christmas cards from “Auntie Lizard”, or even draw paw prints as signatures for “Cousin Jacques & Cousin Olivia”. I’m not describing all this to frighten you (though I can only assume I have). I’m merely trying to set the stage for my level of emotional attachment to my best friend’s two cats. And my shock and sadness when she told me she’s getting rid of them because she’s afraid they might not be good around her not-yet-one-year-old daughter.

Before she had a child, her cats received an embarrassing amount of attention. Cuddling and smooching sessions that would have prompted passersby to suggest they get a room. She freely referred to them as her babies and we talked about what wrecks we’d be when our cats eventually passed away. She was the only person in my life who was also considering not having kids, and I assumed we’d grow into crazy old cat ladies together. So imagine my surprise when I went to visit her earlier this year to meet the (unexpected) baby and see the new house, only to find that the cats had been relegated to little more than a nuisance. If they hopped on her lap, they were swiftly brushed off. If they did something she formerly found quirky, it was now supremely annoying.

I knew things had changed, but I can’t say I wasn’t still completely blown away to find out in an email last week that she was getting rid of them. In addition to being afraid they would scratch the baby (though nothing of the sort had yet happened), her main reason was simply that they weren’t getting the attention they deserved. Which, silly me, seemed like a rather easily remedied problem. She was a stay-at-home-mom and spent far more time in proximity to the cats than most pet owners who left every day for work. Was there truly not enough love to go around? Not enough energy to extend an arm and give them a nice scratch under the chin? No room on the couch to let them curl up on your lap during a movie? A spare two minutes for a rousing game of Red Dot?

I know parents will tell me that I just don’t get it since I don’t have kids. And I guess…they’d be right.

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

It Got Me Thinking…About Balanced News

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

First I scan the headlines of the breaking news. If something catches my eye, I might read the whole article. Then I return to the home page and glance through the categories: local, entertainment, opinion, food, living…. What the fruitcake? Four out of the five featured stories in the “living” section are about parenting!

I’ve somewhat resigned myself to the reality that “women’s” magazines are thinly veiled publications for “mommies,” but this is getting ridiculous. With a category as broad as “living,” possible topics are limitless. How about profiles of people doing good works, stories about working stiffs who ditched “secure” corporate jobs and pursued their passions to great success, hidden gems for travelers, or tips on how to make a house/apartment/trailer a welcoming home?

For just a moment I’m tempted to write a letter to the editor. But you know what, I think I’d rather spend my free time pursuing the art of living fully.

Still, I’m frustrated. I like keeping up-to-date on news, styles, etc., and I’d really like to avoid the baby-bump updates.

If you subscribe to a printed or online periodical that is balanced in its coverage, leave a comment and let us know.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

 

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayLast week I went out for a short hike in my local park and decided I felt so good I would run a bit.

So I did.

And I fell.

Again.

Fortunately, this time I sustained only a knee scrape, sore hands, and a bruise.

Until I got up the next morning and realized that the impact of my fall had to go somewhere, and it had gone up my arms, into my shoulders and neck, down my back, and basically into every single muscle in my body.

Never have a felt every single day of my age (or even single ounce of my weight!)

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What are feeling sorry for yourself about today?

My People

Last week I attended the World Domination Summit in Portland, OR. Despite what you may think from the title, this was a gathering of creative folks and people living their lives along a slightly different track. For four days, I was amongst “my people.”

wds-2013

When people asked, “What do you do?” I could tell them that I’m a freelance writer, that I run a website for women without children, and that when I grow up I want to be a fiction author, and no one went cross-eyed and looked at me as if I was some kind of loser. They got me.

In a crowd of 3,000 people, I think perhaps two asked me if I had children and both understood and respected the fact that I didn’t. I even had an in-depth conversation with a woman who had a biological daughter and was now trying to navigate the world of adoption and learning first-hand that it’s not the quick-fix so many believe it to be. These people got me, too.

So many of the speakers addressed the topic of community. Jonathan Fields included “find your tribe” in his Good Life Project creed; Steve Schalchlin talked about living in what he calls the “bonus round” and brought the entire audience to tears with his story of his friends’ love literally kept him alive. When he sang, “We should all be connected to each other,” I got it. In fact one of the main themes of the summit was “community” and the importance of being among people who understand you was never clearer to me.

After the summit end, I went home via the Portland airport. It was full of families returning home from a long holiday weekend, and never have I felt more like an alien crash-landing on a strange and hostile planet. I wasn’t among my people any more.

But the next day I sat down to write this blog post and I realized that I do get to be among my people, around people who understand me. And those people are you. Here on this blog is one of the few places I can talk about it’s like to live without children, to get blank stares of misunderstanding from people who don’t get it, and to feel as if I don’t belong. Here I am among my tribe and today, I appreciate my tribe more than ever.

It Got Me Thinking…About Curiosity

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received is “Follow your curiosity.”

The story, as I recall it, was that Elizabeth Gilbert was working on her follow-up book to Eat, Pray, Love when she got stuck. That’s stuck as in missing deadlines stuck. The more she tried to make it work, the more panic-stricken she became, which made her even more stuck in miserable stuckness. A friend suggested she set the project aside and follow her curiosity, so for several months she focused on her garden*. She planted, weeded, pruned, harvested, until one day inspiration blossomed and she went back to her desk and finished the book.

I use a variation of this when I hit blocks in my own work. Not quite to this extent, but with short breaks to rest my mind while I do something totally different, like going for a walk in the park or practicing a new trick with my dog. Some of my best creative solutions have come to me when I’ve completely given up and decided to take a long-overdue shower. Bam!

And I have started to think that curiosity can play a part in my healing process. As I grieve the loss of my dreams of motherhood and family, I sometimes get really stuck. I can’t figure out what to do with the next week let alone the rest of my life. Do I focus on my career? Do I become my community’s most giving volunteer? Do I challenge myself to break the marathon record for my age group?

Right. All of these seem so big and lofty (and not all that much fun), and I’m not ready to commit to any of them. But I can do something small. I can sign up for a one-day knitting workshop or a five-week Italian conversation class. I can purchase Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and listen until I understand why everyone considers it one of the greatest albums of all time. I could pick a particular era or event in history and read up on it, or I could rent one of Ken Burns’ documentary series and learn about prohibition, the American civil war, or the Central Park Five. I might select three cookbooks at my library and experiment until I create the perfect chocolate cream pie.

Wine tasting, photography, classic Russian novels…whatever I choose to explore, I hope it engages me enough that I get out of my head and heart for a bit. And who knows, maybe I’ll discover a new passion and direction in the process.

What are you curious about?

*By the way, I noticed in her bio that Ms. Gilbert has a new book coming out this fall. The Signature of All Things is described as “a sprawling tale of 19th-century botanical exploration.”

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status. 

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayI love to receive pitches from guest bloggers, especially from regular LWB readers. I think there’s great value in sharing our stories and points-of-view on a topic that doesn’t get much “air time.”

I’ve included Writer’s Guideline” on the site, so that writers who aren’t familiar with the blog can understand what we’re all about here and offer up something appropriate.

So it drives me potty when I receive pitches like “8 foods to feed your child’s brain” and “Me time for busy moms.”

As a writer, I used to get annoyed when editors wouldn’t respond to my submissions. Now I realize that their inboxes are probably so full of inquiries from people sending out random and completely inappropriate pitches that they just delete the lot.

Anyway, it’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s bugging you today?

Fitting In

puzzle-63626_640By Geneva Fox

I have been thinking about “fitting in” lately.  I have accepted that I do not fit into society’s conventions.  Most of the time, I am fine with that.  Sometimes, I am reminded of this fact with such force that I feel as if all of the air has been sucked out of me.  This usually occurs when I am reminded of my former life as a wife who desperately wanted to be a mother.

Several days ago, I was having a conversation with my friend about some problems a mutual acquaintance was having with his children.  My well-meaning friend said: “And you want that?!  You’re lucky you don’t have kids!”  When she saw the look on my face she asked me if I had considered adoption.  In my former life, I had not only considered it, but I had pursued it.  I have asked myself again and again what that dream was all about. Why did I hold onto my marriage after so many colossal deceptions by my ex husband?  Most important, why would I even consider adopting a child with him when I knew in my gut he was lying about having read the parts of the books I had marked for him about the adoption process and transracial adoption?  These are the answers that I have come up with:

1) There is a deep urge in my soul to be a mother that I cannot explain even to myself. That urge is now a whisper and a shadow of what it once was.

2) My ex husband was my first love. I believe in true love.  I wanted to believe he would change if I did.  That was a huge mistake.

3) I wanted desperately to be normal, to fit in.  I wanted to be married, own a home, and have children in order to be like every one else.  I had not ever had this experience and I wanted it very badly.  Giving up the pursuit of that life is the hardest thing that I have ever done.

These are the facts about me: I am 44 and childless.  I live with my mother and my boyfriend who is 13 years older than me in a double-wide trailer that is in need of many repairs.  I own a business.  I am a full time college student.  From an outsider’s point of view I am sure my life could seem pretty dim.  It does not fit.

This is my truth: I am happy.  I feel comfortable in my own skin.  On most days I have a great deal of serenity.  I don’t worry about my future.  I no longer stress about my finances.  I am madly in love with my boyfriend. I love who I am on the inside and most of who I am on the outside.  I do not doubt that I deserve the best.  I do my very best to be of service in all situations and relationships everyday.  I am kind.  I enjoy living immensely!

In regards to fitting in, As Dr. Wayne Dyer said: “The road most traveled is one that will allow you to fit in and feel accepted, but it will never allow you to make a difference.”

Perhaps the greatest gift we can give the world is giving up fitting in and taking the path that truly belongs to us.  If I am able to make even a small difference on my path through the world then I am truly living life to the fullest!

Geneva Fox is embracing her childfree status. She is a business owner, full time college student, and writer. She leads a beautiful life with her boyfriend, family, and friends in Ruckersville, VA.  Her blog, “A Beautiful Life” is at GenevaFox.wordpress.com