Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday

When I tell people about my decision to not have children, and tell them the story of how I got here, a common response I hear is: “Don’t give up hope; it could still happen.” They don’t seem to understand that my situation isn’t hopeless; I’ve made an intelligent and considered decision and “hope” is no longer involved.

Here’s the reality: I have bum ovaries that kick out half-baked eggs. I’m 40 years old and am therefore well into the danger zone for birth defects. My husband is almost 55, meaning he’ll be well into his 70’s before our miracle baby makes it into college. We wrestled with the pros and cons of continuing a quest to have children and we’ve made an informed decision to stop. This is now what is best for us. So, if you’re thinking that I’m just saying I don’t want kids, but I’m secretly hoping I’ll get knocked up, I’m not. Please give me credit for my decision and for being strong enough to tell you the truth.

Oh, and Happy Cinco de Mayo.

When Choice is Not an Option

Last night I performed at a spoken word show here in Santa Monica. I got up in front of about 100 total strangers and told the story of how my husband, Jose, and I came to make the decision to give up on having children, and be a happy family of two. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was a very intimate story and I think I told it frankly, maybe even matter-of-factly, but I aired our dirty laundry all the same.

My husband was in the  audience and, as he’d never heard or read the story before, I was a little worried about his reaction, but he was 100% supportive. After the show, a number of people came up to me and thanked me for sharing my story. A couple of women told me how they had related to the story because of their own experiences. It was very touching and encouraging to know that I had reached people.

But more than one person came up to me during the post-show reception and asked the inevitable question, some version of: “So are you guys still thinking of adopting?” I want you to know that I was the model of composure. I answered calmly and politely, that no, we weren’t, and that we were lucky to have the kind of relationship that many people never have, and that was enough for us.

But I guess some people just can’t take, “No,” for an answer. People want a Hollywood ending to their stories,  and for many, the idea of choosing not to have children is, dare I say it, inconceivable.

My Bah Humbug to Mother’s Day, But Not to Mother

Due to circumstances that give no cause for celebration, I will find myself away from home next Sunday, in a country that has already celebrated Mother’s Day, back in March. I’m very glad for the reprieve from the unavoidable Mother’s Day festivities here. Usually on that day I avoid restaurants that might be handing out flowers to all the mothers, and steer clear of stores festooned with gifts I might have liked, had I been a mother. Pretty much I avoid anywhere where I might be at risk of some unsuspecting person innocently wishing me “Happy Mother’s Day” and forcing me to again face the fact that I am not a mother.

But just because I don’t care to celebrate Mother’s Day as a kind of national holiday, doesn’t mean I don’t celebrate my mother on that day, or in my case, in March. I send her a homemade card (because it’s impossible to find a Mother’s Day card in U.S. stores in March), give her a gift that I’ll know she’ll appreciate more than flowers—new cycling gear, or something practical for her garden. If I could choose my mother again from a catalog of all mothers, I’d still pick the same model (maybe with an added “chocolate cake baking” feature), and I wouldn’t dream of not honoring her on Mother’s Day.

But I want to do it in my own way. I want to call her and wish her a happy Mother’s Day, as a private celebration between mother and daughter, and let my brothers celebrate her in their own way, too. To me, Mother’s Day has never been a universal holiday where everything stops to revolve around mothers. It shouldn’t be a day when complete strangers wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. But it is, and I so can’t help feeling like a famous, though unlikable, Dickensian character, when I think: “You keep Mother’s Day in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

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.

Top 10 Birth Control Alternatives Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About

Not all birth control is pharmaceutical; sometimes the world around us is deterrent enough. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek look at some alternative birth control options that you won’t hear about from your doctor.

10. A week on a Disney Family Cruise

9. Water cooler talk about stretch marks, sleepless night, mucus plugs, sagging boobs, leaky bladders, and expanded feet

8. A cross-country flight sandwiched in the window seat next to a barfy, colicky, whiny, wriggly baby and his clueless mother

7. Diapers and their accompanying aromas

6. Finding $700 a month to put away for college tuition—for each kid

5. Your friend’s “Meet the baby and watch my birth video” party

4. The invention of musical toys

3. Your neighbor’s manipulative, destructive, tantrum-throwing, bad mannered, cat-terrorizing grandchildren

2. Lizzie Borden

1. Kate Gosselin

That’s my top ten. What’s on your list of things that make you thankful you don’t have children, or put you you off ever having them? If you’re a mom reader sneaking in, what’s the biggest surprise that no one warned you about?

Whiny Wednesday

I’m tired of the media’s assumptions about women in relation to children. TIME magazine recently ran a special on Women’s Health and the front cover showed a woman (quite a tired-looking woman, I might add) laying in the grass, covered in children. Why is it automatically assumed that women come along with children? What about the rest of us? Do we women without children not count, too? Had it been a Men’s Health special would the photo have been of a wiped out, stressed out father? Probably not.

There’s no escaping the media’s assumptions—even on this site. If you’ve come through the main Life Without Baby site, I’m sure you’ve noticed the Google Ads. This morning’s ads included announcements for a sale at a kids’ store, a mommy support group, and how to adopt a newborn quickly! People, you are barking up the wrong tree.

So, along with today’ whine comes an apology: Please forgive the wholly inappropriate ads. This is a new site and some of the kinks are still being worked out, so please bear with me while I figure out how to make the ads go away, or at least be more appropriate for our members.

It’s Whiny Wednesday, time let loose your inner two-year-old. What’s your gripe?

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.