Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

No Fooling: It’s Another Baby Movie, And Another

Coming soon to a theater near you: Two new baby movies. Oh joy.

The first is The Back-up Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez as a woman who decides to have a baby alone using artificial insemination, conceives twins, and then meets Mr. Wonderful (on the day she conceives, of course.) She then drags the poor guy through the usual array of baby-related gags—throwing up on their romantic date, passing out while watching another woman give birth—and ultimately, as the movie is slated as a romantic comedy, lives happily ever happy. It’s Baby Mama meets Knocked Up, as far as I can tell, and does the world really need to see this again?

Also coming soon is Bébé(s) (Babies), a French documentary about the first year in the lives of four babies from around the world. When I first saw this, I thought how refreshing it would be to see the difference in childbirth and childrearing in various cultures. I thought what a great opportunity it would be to highlight the difference in medical care between a country that schedules births for convenience and one where no medical help is available; to show the contrast between countries where a woman might remortgage her house to have a baby of her own, and one where a woman has no access to birth control and has no choice but to keep having babies she cannot afford to feed. This is a movie that could have a lot to say. But watching the trailer, it seems that this is a movie about how cute babies are, and how siblings squabble whether they’re sitting in designer onesies or naked in the African dirt.

Ah well, I guess life would be dull if every movie was made purely to convey a message. On the other hand, do they all have to be pure sap? And how about a positive movie about a woman who decides not to have children and has a happy and fulfilling life regardless? Perhaps Hollywood thinks that too fantastic a concept.

Prisoner applies to become first man to father child behind bars

From the Daily Telegraph in the UK:

A prisoner is hoping to become the first man in Britain to father a child from behind bars after officials allowed him to enrol on an artificial insemination program. Scott Hurford is serving a 30-year sentence at HMP Wandsworth in London after he was caught with 250 amphetamine tablets in Thailand in 2005.

But since his incarceration, the 34-year-old has remained in contact with his Thai girlfriend of six years and the couple now hope to have a baby.

I’m very sorry that this man was locked up for dealing drugs to pay off his gambling debt. It’s unfortunate he chose Thailand with it’s stiff drug laws and ended up serving 30 years (although not in a Thai prison, luckily for him.) Maybe this was his first and last offense. Maybe he’s seen the error of his criminal ways. Maybe he’ll rehabilitate and get out in 2035  and be a model father to his 25 year-old offspring.

Then again, maybe he won’t.

If some people really didn’t ought to bring children into the world, I think that this couple qualifies hands down. What do you think?

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?

Married, Without Children

Kudos to Alexandra Paul for taking a stand in her Huffington Post article Married, Without Children (February 17, 2010). It takes a lot of courage to tell people you aren’t going to have children, whether by choice or by circumstance. We live in a society that expects women to reproduce and most people still struggle with the idea that someone would decide not follow the road most traveled.

Anyone without children can only imagine the conversations Ms. Paul had with those people who enquired about her reproductive plans. We all have our own horror stories. What’s the most inappropriate thing someone has said to you when you’ve told them that you don’t have or plan to have children?