Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About Nurturers

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I can bitch with the best about how much I loathe the holiday that’s coming up this Sunday. I’ve spent past years avoiding church, restaurants, flower shops, TV ads, and, well, people who brightly wished me “HAPPY (you-know-who’s) DAY!” It was easier to hibernate than face painful reminders of what I am not.

But this year is different. This year I am embracing the second Sunday in May because a wise friend has transformed it for me. This year I am pulling out all the stops and celebrating because I am…drumroll, please…a Nurturer!

Here’s the message my friend sent out last May, and it is my message to you.

To the nurturers in us all: For helping friends in need, for compassion for strangers in pain, for helping children to learn, and for being good stewards of our world…Happy Nurturer’s Day!

If you are an aunt, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a coworker, a coach, or a listener. If you’ve comforted another person, if you’ve offered support or encouragement, or if you’ve shared a hug. If you’ve read something on this site and responded with kind words or sent up a prayer for a sister in need. If you’ve been any or all of these things, then it’s time you acknowledge yourself.

You’ve been there for me, in our forums, in your comments, in your presence here with us on this site. For that I say, Thank you! and Happy Nurturer’s Day!

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She’s mostly at peace with her decision to be childfree.

Uncovering Grief: Writing the Story of Your Day

By Shannon Calder

Before writing, I’d sidestepped my sorrow, not knowing how to move through it. The terrible ache, I believed, would always be there. Writing changed that.”

 – Susan Zimmerman

6:45pm – 3/12/12

5 years ago at 6:45pm my mother’s body was wheeled out of her house, the same house where I sit writing this column, in her office.

Grief clouds everything. I had an important interview to go to today, an errand at the post office, a client to see, this column to do, and a psychological assessment to write. My loss was apparent to me in all these bits of business. It gave them all great meaning. Nobody really thinks about how this is the day, the week, the month, where I still feel that I am moving through tear gas. Five years later, with eyes wet and muscles weak, much of my life, the things I do, the house I live in, has great meaning. It creates the kind of richness in my existence that does not feel man made. People may think I’m over it, past it or that I don’t grieve anymore. But everyone here knows that grief stays with you. And I believe that grief bestows meaning.

I haven’t acted out on anyone today but I know my significant other has had moments in the last few weeks where he looked at me as if I was out of my body. There are times when people ask me what is wrong and I say nothing, when I mostly want to say, ‘my mother, my favorite person, died 5 years ago.’ But if I did say that, say my truth, I would say it to everyone, all the time. I don’t say it because I don’t want it to take me over every day.

I have grieved in writing this. Story predates psychology. Write the story of your day. Today was about me sharing a story of this day with you, this is basically how it’s done. You may have feelings while doing this, indulge them, I did. I didn’t craft this into the best writing ever. I wrote what I needed to write and I feel a relief to have shared this day’s story with you.

I hope you will do the same.

The act of writing brings a structure and order to the chaos of grief. It taps into the healing power of your own unconscious. By giving voice to fears, anger, and despair, by letting go of old dreams and hope; our self-healing powers come into play. The soul knows what it needs to heal. Through writing, it will lead you where you need to go.

 – Susan Zimmerman

Be Well,

Shannon

Contact me at: Shannon [at] LifeWithoutBaby [dot] com

Resource: Writing to Heal the Soul: Transforming Grief and loss Through Writing by Susan Zimmerman, writer, lecturer and author.

Shannon Calder is a writer, psychotherapist, and survivor of grief. She has an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is currently in a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology. She works in private practice treating people suffering from a wide spectrum of symptoms. 


Whiny Wednesday: Sanctuary

Last week, determined to launch myself into some kind of exercise routine, I signed up at a local fitness studio for a month of unlimited pilates, yoga, and zumba.

At my first class I tentatively took my place on the floor and hoped the class wouldn’t be too torturous. It was, but not because of the exertion. It was painful because of the teacher, who talked through the entire class about her teething toddler.

Can there be no sanctuary anymore? Not just for me and the other childless women in the class, but also for the women who have teething toddlers of their own at home and who finally got out of the house for a peaceful hour and then have to hear all about this woman’s drama. Not professional.

Fortunately, it was tough class, physically, so I (and a few others I suspect) was able to let out a few audible groans and get away with it. And I’ve crossed her classes off my schedule.

It’s Whiny Wednesday, time to let out some own audible groans of your own.

Cheroes: Children’s Authors Who Didn’t Have Kids

It takes a mother to truly understand children, right?

WRONG!!

Next time someone tells you that, whip out this handy dandy list of cheroes. All of these wonderful women wrote books that have resonated (in some cases for over a century) with little tykes all over the world.

Louisa May Alcott – Little Women (1868)

Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1900)

Kate Douglas Wiggin – Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903)

Eleanor Hodgman Porter – Pollyanna (1913)

Margaret Wise Brown – The Runaway Bunny (1942), Goodnight, Moon (1947)

Tove Jansson – The Moomin Series (1948)

Dodie Smith – 101 Dalmatians (1956), I Capture the Castle (1949)

Anna Sewell – Black Beauty (1957)

Louise Fitzhugh – Harriet the Spy (1964)

Penelope Lively – The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973), A Stitch in Time (1976)

Ann M. Martin – The Baby-Sitters Club Series (1986)

Gail Carson Levine – Ella Enchanted (1997)

Kat DiCamillo – The Tale of Desperaux (2003), Because of Winn-Dixie (2000)

Meg Cabot – The Princess Diaries (2000)

Holly Black – The Spiderwick Chronicles (2003)

Whiny Wednesday: What any mother would do

The woman who pepper sprayed shoppers at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday has decided to play the Motherhood Card.

The woman, who sprayed more than 20 shoppers while grappling to pick up a bargain X-Box said that her “Mama Bear instinct kicked in” when she saw her two teenage children were in danger, and she did “what any mother would do.”

Really? Because when I picture any of my friends with children in that same situation, I see them grabbing their beloved babies and getting them out of the situation they’d foolishly just put them in. I don’t see them rummaging in their purses and pepper spraying a crowd. And I don’t see them suing Wal-Mart for providing insufficient security.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. Greedy, stupid people rub me the wrong way. What’s on your nerves today?

It Got Me Thinking…About Connections

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Marlo Thomas—That Girl, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and “Free To Be…You and Me”—is on my mind today. I just finished her most recent book, Growing Up Laughing. If you need a pick-me-up, I highly recommend you run out for a copy. It’s her memoirs of growing up with her famously funny father, comedian Danny Thomas, and his legendary pals, which include George Burns, Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Bob Hope, and Red Buttons. She also interviewed present-day stars, such as Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Tina Fey, and Jon Stewart, to get their thoughts on how they ended up funny. I laughed out loud at the many anecdotes and jokes, and I have a new appreciation for the hard work it takes to be a successful comedian.

But what struck the deepest chord within me was a brief story about when Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms., asked Thomas to speak to a group of welfare mothers. Thomas was unmarried at the time, and childfree (she later became a stepmother to husband Phil Donahue’s four sons), and wondered what in the world she could talk about. “Trust me,” Gloria said. “They’ll love you—and you’ll love them. You’re all women.”

And I thought: “That’s IT!” That’s the one message I want to get out to the world through our site and through how I live my life. We’re not mothers and non-mothers, we’re not breeders and infertiles, we’re not with child or childfree. We’re all women.

Thomas bonded by sharing family stories. We can all relate to the antics of the eccentric grandmother, the regrets of aunts who shelved their dreams for the so-called security of marriage, the sisters and friends whose talents were “dismissed because they were women.” With her stories, childfree Thomas had the audience of mothers laughing and crying along with her. “Gloria had opened my eyes and my heart to the connections that we women have with each other.”

It’s so easy for me to obsess over other women’s haves versus my have-nots—or to gloat over the freedoms I enjoy that they have sacrificed for family life. Enough. Let’s focus on our common ground and celebrate and support each other, as women, regardless of the paths we follow.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She celebrates Marlo Thomas for breaking down barriers to gender equality. 

Guest Post: Mom Friends

By Iris

Coming to terms with childlessness can be a very lonely process, especially when most of our friends, those we’ve reached out to over the years for support over things little and big, become difficult to be around.  Women who are consumed by motherhood and their children, and women who are preoccupied by the inability to have them, can sometimes make for a painful combination.

The bond of love between a mother and her child must and should be amazingly strong. I have been known to brag about my niece and nephew and to smother them each with hugs and kisses, probably more than their own mother does. So, I do not resent my mom friends for being less available to me than they were before having children, and I don’t mind listening to their concerns and stories about their kids, some of which I’m pretty fond of myself. It’s a different story, however, when a friend’s appreciation of her new role as a mother seems to translate into a devaluation of your own life’s worth because you have not given birth.

Much of what I read on childlessness and motherhood seems to enhance rather than reduce this divide between Moms and non-Moms, which made me really happy to come across Lisa Rankin’s tribute to her childless friends on that most difficult day for many of us, Mother’s Day.

And that got me feeling very grateful to those mom friends who help me hold on to perspective. The ones who remind me that there is more to life than motherhood, who know of my circumstances and encourage me to stay positive and enjoy my life, who remind me that happiness comes from within and that the grass is not always greener.  I’m grateful for their words and the sentiments of love and friendship they express.

Iris lives in Florida with her husband and best friend of many years. Five years ago infertility and other life stressors really messed with her head, but she’s gradually regaining her Self and her passion for life.

Whiny Wednesday

She doesn’t know it yet, but my cat, Felicity, has to go to the vet today to have three teeth out, which requires a general anesthetic. Meanwhile, I’m alternating between beating myself up for not being a better cat mother, and wringing my hands, worried to death in case anything happens to her. And all I can think is, imagine what a basket case I’d be if I had kids.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s on your mind?

Bambinos

If you ever happen to find yourself in Sheffield in the north of England, you might want to steer clear of Vito’s Italian restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, the food is delicious, the service is excellent, and Vito himself, if he happens to come out of the kitchen to talk to you, is charming and funny. But the place is a minefield for the childfree.

During my recent trip home, I went there with my mother and her gentleman friend to celebrate his birthday. Over the course of the meal the waiter (picture 50-ish, stocky Sicilian, with a thick half-Sheffield, half-Italian accent) discovered (from asking me) that I lived in California, was a writer, and was married to an American.

“So,” came the next question, “you have bambinos?”

“Um, no,” I said, quickly going back to my pasta.

“No?” he says. “Why not?”

There was an awkward pause while I weighed my options as to how to answer. I could grab this “teachable moment” and educate this man as to why is wasn’t okay to ask such a prying question; I could tell him the truth and risk embarrassing him, my mum, and her friend; or I could tell a big fat lie.

I chose a hybrid answer. “Too old,” I told him.

Now you think the penny would have dropped for him and he’d have walked away from the conversation, but no. Instead it went on, something like this:

“Too old? How old are you?”

“How old do you think I am?”

Sicilian shrug. “Thirty six?”

“Thanks for the compliment, but I’m 41.”

“41?! That’s not old. My sister-in-law, she have bambinos and she 50! You have plenty of time.”

At which point I think I nodded and smiled and mumbled something like, “We’ll see,” and wondered if I could have steered the conversation differently.

This occasion wasn’t the right place to set this man right. And he wasn’t the right target for a lesson. Here was a man who came from a time and culture where all women have bambinos, and so naturally why wouldn’t I?

Yes, his question was awkward and embarrassing, but the reality is that anything he asked me in a normal line of conversation could have been awkward. I could have just lost my job, just been abandoned by my husband for a younger woman, just lost my house and been forced to move back in with my mother. He just happened to ask the one question that was my personal trigger and I don’t think that reading him the riot act for his misstep would have been the appropriate thing to do, do you?

What kind of mother would I have been?

I read this article recently by Dr. Ellen Walker about how a new puppy made her realize how much time and energy goes into parenting. Dr. Walker is childfree-by-choice and considers her new puppy the “closest thing to being a mom I’ll ever come.”

One of her commenters added, “If you can’t care for a pet, never have kids.”

I think there’s something to that.

I am an utterly besotted cat-mom. Felicity, my calico rescue, has nudged her mischievous way into my heart and I’m not afraid to admit here that I love her. Would the love I feel for her compare to what I would have felt for a child? I couldn’t say, but I’m guessing not. I’ll never know. What I do know though, is that I might not have been the kind of parent I’d hoped to be.

It’s the whole discipline thing. On paper I’m adamant about well-behaved children, good manners, and not being pushed around by a two-foot-tall tyrant. And yet I’m completely at the mercy of a ten-pound furry tyrant. She misbehaves, does things I know she knows she’s not supposed to do, looks at me out of the corner of her eye while she scratches my couch, climbs onto the dining room table to eat my flowers, sleeps on my clothes, shreds my notes, the list goes on and on. And do I discipline her? No, not really.

Maybe it’s because I know she’s just a cat and not a child who is trying to push the boundaries of independence by pushing my buttons, but it does make me wonder what kind of mother I really would have been.