The Childless by Choice Project

“Unnatural and Undervalued”: Childless in Australia

2012-01-15T14:58:00.000-08:00

The title of this recently published article out of Australia pretty well sums up the findings around the stigma and perception of childlessness: ‘Unnatural’, ‘Unwomanly’, ‘Uncreditable’ and ‘Undervalued’: The Significance of Being a Childless Woman in Australian Society. And while I agree with their findings, I was disappointed to read that the co-authors Stephanie Rich, Ann Taket, Melissa Graham and Julia Shelley based their observations on interviews with only five childless Australian women (please, it’s a large country, surely there’s a few more women out there to interview!).

Small sample aside, I was interested that they did note one important curiosity—that childlessness for women is considered normal at young adulthood but “abnormal’ for women in their late thirties or early forties. So true! So why does childlessness move from being perceived as normal to abnormal over the passage of say ten or fifteen years?

Is the assumption of the “maternal instinct” so prevalent that we are all expected to be a mother or in baby lust by a certain age, and those that are not are then seen as “abnormal”?

Or, is it that while some folks can understand why a woman or man would wish to postpone parenthood, there is very little sympathy or understanding for those who indefinitely delay parenthood, or very publically opt out altogether?

I suspect is may be a bit of both, as is noted in the abstract for this article: “While childlessness is increasingly acknowledged, it is still not completely understood.”

Where is the “understanding gap” in your experience?

Flickr photo by Amandabhslater

Are Childless Woman Untrustworthy as Workmates?

2011-12-31T12:04:00.000-08:00

A 2009 article titled “Why bosses are right to distrust women who don't want children... by a VERY outspoken mother (and ex-boss)” that appeared in the UK’s Daily Mail and was recently posted on the Childless by Choice Project facebook group page is generating a lot of chatter amongst the childfree and childless members of this group (BTW, this is a closed group but you are welcome to join us, just click here).

You really have to read the entire article to understand why but here’s just one of the many statements made by Carol Sarler, the writer of this piece, that got us all a-flutter:

In my experiences both as a colleague and an employer, I have found that mothers almost always bring something extra to the job, to the benefit of all.
It's not the mothers, for a start, who are going to turn up late and hungover after a night on the razz; they'll have been up, dressed and alert for hours, having cooked a family breakfast and delivered their children to school. On time.
It's not the mothers, usually, who run the office bitch-fest.
They're not there to compete for the attentions of the male executives; they're there to get out of the house; they're there because they genuinely enjoy some adult company; and they're there because they have mouths to feed other than their own and shoes to buy for someone else's feet.

She parrots the stereotype noted in the study she cites that childless woman lack an “essential humanity” and goes on to say “we actually need our children; they complete us as women, they are our light and our love and our legacy.”

This last statement alone speaks volumes. First there is the word “need” which is a red flag for me as a life coach. Then “they complete us as women, they are our light and our love and our legacy” which indicates a core belief that women must have children to feel complete or whole which is unfounded and, in my personal experience, untrue.

So to support her belief that childless women are weird and cold and undesirable as workmates, she points to a study that shows that these tired old stereotypes and assumptions are shared by others like her. This is just sad. It’s like saying “Yes, me and my buddies down at the factory believe that people who own cats can’t be trusted, have bad work habits, and are just plain weird. The fact that so many people believe this must make it true!”

What also raise alarm bells for me is what is not said here--her omission of childless men. Are they untrustworthy too?

Flickr Photo by Massdistraction

Sitcom Childfree Women at Odds with Reality

2011-12-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

Jessica Grose, writing for Slate wrote an excellent article titled Child-free on TV about the childfree characters on some of our favorite situation comedy shows. Grose points out that these characters tend to exhibit masculine traits and send the message that women who don’t want kids are somewhat flawed or dysfunctional:

This message was driven home this week by the way two prime-time shows—How I Met Your Mother and Whitney—dealt with female characters who say they don’t want children. While this may be an uncommon choice on an American sitcom, it’s of course not an uncommon choice in America; the share of American women who don’t have kids has doubled since 1976. But neither of these characters—Robin (Cobie Smulders) on HIMYM and the titular Whitney (Whitney Cummings, also the show’s creator)—was allowed to fully embrace her desire not to have kids. Though Robin’s conflicted feelings about baby-rearing were treated in a much more enlightened way, it’s telling that on both shows, the characters who don’t want babies are women who like shooting guns and talking dirty, but who are grossed out by feelings. These shows are implicitly saying: Of course only a woman who’s not really feminine wouldn’t want to be a mom.

This article merits a full read as it highlights so much of what is wrong about the portrayal of childfree characters in our most popular media. If these characters bore an actual resemblance to the childfree women and men I know I might not be concerned but the reality gap between the sitcom childfree and the childfree that I see and know is so wide and troubling that it can’t be ignored or condoned.

Photograph by Chris Haston/NBC.

“I’ve never felt clucky”- a Childfree Perspective from Down Under

2011-11-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

I laughed when I read this article by Shelly Horton in the Sydney Morning Herald. Outside of the term “Clucky” —which I’ve never heard used before and I assume must be short hand for “mother hen” in Australia— so much of what Horton related about her childfree experience in Australia is what I heard in my interviews for the Childless by Choice Project in North America.

It seems whether you are in Seattle or Sydney, you will have people who imagine all kinds of things about your decision to remain childfree—like you just simply decided, over a bowl of mussels and a glass of sauvignon blanc, that you were going to opt out of parenthood. It was that simple.

On the contrary, Horton describes her decision making and how she navigates outside of the norms:

It's not a light decision. I've spoken to a counsellor about it at length. It's never easy going against society's norms. I have some medical issues that mean it would be very difficult for me to have a child. Sometimes if I'm feeling judged or questioned I hide behind that, because saying ''I can't have children'' is more acceptable than saying ''I don't want children''.
I admire women who juggle family and career. I agree it's the hardest job in the world. It's not a job I want to put my hand up for.
If pressed on the subject I retort: ''Did you 'just know' you wanted to be a mother? Well I 'just know' I don't.'' I'm sure there are other women who feel the same way as me but don't speak up.

Yes, Shelly, there are plenty of other women who feel the same way as you and they do speak up. Right here.

Flickr Photo by Leoncillo Sabino

The Childess by Choice Project on Campus

2011-10-17T04:49:00.000-07:00

When I started screening rough cuts of The Childless by Choice Project documentary to people I would usually be approached at the end of the film by a person with the comment, "This film needs to be shown in schools."

Well I am happy to say that now that the film is finished and is about to be launched into the world that day has finally come. After a few rough cut test screenings in colleges and universities, the finished film is now being shown in colleges and universities in the USA and in Canada.

I am heading up north this week to Madison, Wisconsin where the Sociology department of University of Wisconsin-Madison will host a screening of The Childless by Choice Project on Wednesday, October 19 at 7 p.m. in Room 8417 in the Sewell Social Sciences Building. I will be on hand for the Q & A that follows.

I am planning for more campus screenings in the future, along with home screenings across North America. Check out the Events and Community page of the Childless by Choice Project website for upcoming events and screenings. If you are an educator and would like to host an on-campus screening/Q & A or would like an educational-licensed copy of the DVD for your classroom, department or library, please email saltwhistlebay@cs.com for information.

Are Childless Couples More Likely to Divorce?

2011-08-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Are the childless more likely to divorce? This was the question posed to me by Vicki Larson, a journalist for Huffingtonpost.com, recently, and it gave me the opportunity to clarify.

She contacted me because she wanted to know why childless couples are more likely to end up divorced than couples with children, and this is how I responded in the subsequent article titled article titled “Are Childless Couples headed for Divorce?”

"Not all the childfree are intentionally childfree couples," Scott discovered…"A good chunk are postponers, those who delay parenthood."

Sometimes couples delay to the point that fertility problems arise. "Then the question of ''When should we have kids?' morphs into 'Should we have kids?" Scott says, forcing couples to explore other ways to have a baby, such as adoption, surrogates or in vitro fertilization (IVF). That, she says, can be extremely stressful and can lead to a fracture that a couple can't get past. In fact, many infertility specialists recommend marital counseling.

"If one partner desperately wants to try to have a child and one partner might not put as high a priority on it, that could be a deal breaker," she says. Often a couple hasn't discussed what point they stop trying -- how much money, how much time, how many procedures. Many women often feel like failures and feel less close to their partners; for many men, the fertility process can turn sex into anything other than pleasure. "I hear from men who say, 'This isn't fun anymore. I feel like I'm sperm on demand,'" Scott says.

What I wanted to express is that childless couples are childless or childfree thorough different pathways--either they have:
1) Intentionally delayed parenthood by taking actions to prevent conception; or
2) Tried to have a child but have not yet conceived, are infertile, or haven’t tried that hard (note the recent media focus on sexless marriages); or
3) Have had a child through live birth or adoption and have lost that child; or
4) Intentionally decided not to have biological children and remained childless through deliberate actions to prevent conception, or through termination of a pregnancy.

If you are childless because of 1), 2), or 3) and you and your partner are not on the same page decision-wise, or in a different stage or mourning or acceptance on the issue of children, there is a risk of a fracture. And if you are childfree because of 4) when both partners had agreed on remaining childless but one partner has since changed his or her mind that can be a serious issue too. In any case, it’s stressful, more so because you have a choice, unlike parents who already have kids and can’t take them back to the store for a refund.

So yes, the childless are more likely to divorce, some because they separate before the kids come along and are thus are not motivated to stay together because of the kids, some because they can’t agree on the number or timing of children, and some divorce for the same reasons couples who have kids get divorced: incompatibility, infidelity, emotional or physical abandonment, whatever.

So can you say that the childless have higher rates of divorce because they don’t have kids? I don’t think so. But I think you can say that some childless couples divorce because they are at odds about how they feel about not having children.

Flickr photo by madmolecule

Some Parents Just Don’t Get It

2011-07-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Melody Moezzi's blog post titled "Childless by CHOICE—Get it?" on the Ms. Magazine site last December elicited over fifty comments, many seconding what Melody wrote in her post:

Not long after we started dating, I informed my husband that if he wanted kids, I wasn’t the girl for him. He thanked me for the heads up and said he could easily do without them as well. Relieved, we continued dating for several years before we got married, both in our early 20s.
From the moment we announced our engagement, the pressure began: “So, when can we expect to see a little Melody or Matthew running around?” Matthew always smiled and changed the subject. I, on the other hand, confronted the question head on. “Never” was my standard response, and it always evoked laugher. Nobody could imagine that someone would choose not to procreate. But we stuck to our guns, and now, in our early 30s, people are slowly realizing that we weren’t kidding.
As a result, many have come to view us differently—as selfish, cold, narcissistic and unwilling to take on responsibility, despite all that we’ve done personally and professionally to counter such claims.

Melody and her husband continued to feel pressure from friends and strangers to have kids even though Melody has been firm and open about the “never.”

However, a woman who posted a comment to this blog challenged Melody suggesting the busybodies Melody documented were “mythical” and that Melody was “an unreliable narrator using exaggeration to get attention for her blog posts.”

This woman could have just been a troll, but her comment set off a flurry of responses from other women who documented their experiences of being pressured and disparaged by parents who just didn’t get it. This is real, they said, this really happens.

Having surveyed and spoken to hundreds of childless by choice people over my years working on The Childless by Choice Project , and having encountered more than a few of them myself, I too can say “yes, it does. The busybodies are real.”

Flickr Photo by Miguel Pires da Rosa

The Adoption Option

2011-06-21T06:39:00.000-07:00

Author Stefanie Iris Weiss recently wrote a post titled My Uterus is Officially Closed for Business in HuffPost Living. Is she childfree? No, Stefanie is planning for children:

As a woman who often cries at the sight of infants and coos at her friends' little ones, having biological babies always seemed like an inevitable step. But once I fully wrapped my brain around the relationship of overpopulation to climate change, especially in the West, I made a big decision: I won't bring more kids into the world. I learned that even if I spent the rest of my life recycling, having even one child would increase my carbon legacy by 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide. I still crawl around on the floor with toddlers when given the chance, and go ga-ga for goo-goos, but my uterus is officially closed for business. I'll be adopting kids when the time is right.

When I was interviewing childfree couples and singles for the Childless by Choice Project, I saw a pattern. When I asked the question, “What happens if you change your mind and decide you do want children?” the most common response was “I am not going to change my mind on this.” The second most common response was “I/we will adopt.” This was true even for married women who were still in their fertile years and very likely could have had a biological child if they chose.

There seems to be a movement or shift towards adoption. It used to be the adoption was the last resort for infertile couples, now it appears to be both a viable and desired option for conscious decision makers who are either environmentalists or hold a strong belief that we need to take of the souls who are already on this earth. Or might there be some other motives to adopt? You tell me…

Flickr Photo by nik_donna

Population Media Center—Drama for Dramatic Change

2011-06-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

Population Media Center (PMC) is an international NGO, and a registered charity in the U.S., which is working to educate people about the benefits of small families; elevating the status of women; encouraging use of effective family planning methods; promoting the protection of children from exploitation; and motivating behavior change for avoidance of HIV/AIDS.

The stated mission of the PMC is to: “work with mass media and other organizations worldwide, to bring about stabilization of human population numbers at a level that can be sustained by the world’s natural resources, to lessen the harmful impact of expanding humanity on the earth’s environment and to help large numbers of disadvantaged people live better and move out of poverty.”

Using the Sabido methodology, developed by Miguel Sabido when he was the Vice president of Mexico’s Televisa network, PMC works with media partners around the world to create long-running serialized melodramas, written and produced in local languages, to create compelling characters that are, in time, adopted as positive role models for the audience to bring about changes in social norms on issues that are of concern in that particular country.

In Nigeria, these Sabido dramas have been shown to be highly influential in the reduction in the desired number of children and an increase in condom use. In Ethiopia, listeners of PMC produced radio serial dramas sought HIV tests at 2.5 times the rate of non-listeners. PMC customizes the programs in consultation with their media, government, and NGO partners in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and North America to meet the particular goals of that region or country.

According to the PMC: “The programs incorporate many issues to make them reflective of life in the society rather than single-issue programs. Among the issues most frequently addressed are HIV/AIDS, age of marriage and childbearing, family size and health, contraceptive safety, self-efficacy with regard to childbearing decisions, employment for women outside the home, education of girls, ending abusive child labor, child survival, and conservation of natural resources.”

I normally don’t use this blog as a platform to highlight charities but the work of The Population Media Center is so impactful and amazing to me that I felt the urge to share it with all of you. Feel free to give shout outs to your favorite charities and NGOs here in the comments too!

Photo of actresses in Papua New Guinea recording a radio serial courtesy of PMG

The Truth about Babies and the Economy

2011-05-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

Blaire Brody, writing for the Fiscal Times, gave her readers a heads up when she documented the real costs of raising a child. While the U.S. has been hit hard by the recession and everyone is looking for ways to save, the cost of raising a child has continued to climb.

School tuitions, health care, rent, transportation, daycare, and other expenses associated with raising a family have continued to rise but our salaries have not. Here are the sobering numbers:

In 2009, the Department of Agriculture estimated the total before-college cost of raising a child was $286,050 — about $11,700 per year today, and $21,600 a year by the time they’re 18. With college, the cost nearly doubles, not to mention the costs many parents face during a recession, when their college grad shows up at their doorstep expecting to move back in. Housing and child-care were two of the biggest expenses, 31 percent and 17 percent respectively, and 50 percent higher for those who live in urban areas. The U.S. is becoming more urbanized every year — 90 percent of the population is expected to live in cities or suburbs by 2050. For a newborn in New York City, the average family spends up to $16,250 per year on child-care alone.

After steady declines since 2007, the U.S. birth rate has now fallen below replacement rate, and that trend shows no sign of reversal anytime soon. While my research shows that the financial cost of raising a child is not always the most compelling reason to remain childfree, it is a consideration in the decision-making process, particularly for those who have postponed children and then ultimately decide not to have kids.

What about you? Has the cost of raising children in today’s economy influenced your decision making?

Flickr Photo by Hello Turkey Toe

The No-Baby Boom

2011-04-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

This recent article from Details.com has people buzzing and tweeting. Not just because of the solid reporting and the cool charts but also because of the humor.

Brian Frazer, the writer of this piece, tongue-in-cheek, reports on the increasing costs of raising kids, particularly in a society that values conspicuous consumption. He writes “you can get a vasectomy at Planned Parenthood for less than the cost of a Bugaboo Cameleon stroller.” This shouldn’t be funny, but it is.

The Childfree trend not just an American trend as Frazer points out:

One Italian mayor has resorted to bribery to restock his town, offering couples $15,000 for each child they produce. Germany's baby shortage results in an annual population loss of 100,000. And the sheep-to-human ratio in New Zealand, which currently stands at 10 to 1, seems sure to increase, since a staggering 18 percent of adult men there have elected to get vasectomies.

In the past an article like this, heralding the trend of voluntary childlessness, would illicit dozens of comments predicting the end of civilization as we know it. Yet, the comments posted here seem to be much more thoughtful and less fearful. Could it be that we have turned a corner, to a place where we welcome the impact of lower birth rates?

Flickr Photo by FS999

Is coming out as childfree like coming out as gay?

2011-04-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is the question posed by Lisa Hymas, senior editor at Grist.org in a recent article. I had to ponder this question for just a few seconds before nodding yes. There are some similarities because there is still stigma attached to being childless by choice, maybe not as much stigma as being gay in our society, but stigma all the same. It all has to do about the assumptions our society holds and the judgments we make about what is good or bad for society.

In a November 2010 TIME article titled Marriage: What's It Good For? results from a Pew Center Research survey showed that 29 percent of the U.S. persons polled felt that more women never having children was “bad for society.” Forty-three percent of those surveyed thought that more gay and lesbian couples raising children was bad for society. So gay and lesbian couples raising kids is obviously perceived by more folks as “bad for society” than women not having kids. However as Lisa Hymas has observed:

While LGBT people face more vehement and vicious prejudice than the childfree, they can, if they choose, ultimately lead more conventional lives. Their families won't look like the Cleavers, but they can have what many people would at least recognize as a family, following the traditional parent-with-child pattern. We childfree people, in contrast, are messing with the notion of family in a way that's perhaps even more fundamental.
Maybe that's why gays actually seem to be further along in gaining social acceptance than the childfree. In my urban milieu, no one skips a beat or lifts an eyebrow if you say you're gay, but people do often frown or avert their eyes or awkwardly change the subject if you say you've decided not to have kids -- if they don't tell you what you're missing and try to get you to change your mind.
Take, as a pop-cultural example, the Sex and the City 2 movie. Carrie Bradshaw and the gang are having a gay old time at Stanford and Anthony's big, fat, same-sex wedding when a woman starts interrogating Carrie and hubbie Mr. Big about when they're going to have kids. "It's just not for us," Carrie responds. "So it's just going to be the two of you?" she asks, voice dripping with pity and disdain. Flamboyant gay lifestyle: A-OK. Heterosexual couple deciding to forego parenting: deviant.

A stranger’s reaction to our status in one thing but the real acid test for testing the level of stigma or perceived deviance is how our immediate family reacts to our contently childfree status. As Hymas points out: “Coming out as gay or lesbian might hit your parents hard at first, but at least you can still give them grandkids!” Flickr photo by Sea Turtle

Marcia Drut-Davis—68 Years and No Regrets

2011-03-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

Marcia emailed me to share her story and I knew I had to talk to her and learn more. Here’s an excerpt of her email to me:

I’m smiling seeing the direction of [your] project. In 1974, I was one of those interviewed on a “60 Minutes” segment. I was the President of the Long Island Chapter of NON. I announced my decision not to have children.
The next day, I lost my job as a passionate teacher.
My life was threatened, as was the life of my dog. I faced angry pickets at a high school where I was asked to speak. All this, because I dared to say I chose not to parent.
In 1974, you kept that to yourself. I’m now 68. I’ve just finished a memoir. I’m excited that I finally feel I’m being recognized as a woman who made a choice right for me and who has a message about this important choice.

When I followed up with Marcia by phone, she told me she used to wonder if indeed something was wrong with her, if she was a “genetic mutation.” But she set that thought aside and continued to follow her passions. She remarried and her name changed and she was able to re-apply for a teaching job and was later nominated by her peers as “Teacher of the Year.” She continued to be involved in the Long Island chapter of the renamed “National Alliance for Optional Parenting” and is now very active in a Humanist organization in her home state of Florida.

She admits she occasionally felt pangs of longing when she would witness what she calls “Kodak Moments”—those times when proud parents celebrate their children’s accomplishments or transitions at Bat or Bar Mitzvahs, but whenever she was asked “Do you wish you had kids?” her response is “No, thank you.”

Her plate is full: full of life, love, and the young women she has taught over the years whom she calls her “daughter-friends” who still call her up for advice. To Marcia, life remains “delicious.”

Is it Selfish Not to Have Kids? A Parent’s Perspective

2011-03-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

Kudos to Trent Hamm, a parent who tacked the prickly question “Is it selfish not to have kids?” in a blog post on Christian Science Monitor.com.

It was so refreshing to read a post from a parent who was willing to acknowledge that although he knew going in that kids were going to be expensive and that being a parent would be a challenge he chose to have children because he “deeply want[ed]” the experience of being a parent.

I love this guy because he took ownership of his “want” and didn’t wear his parent role as a cloak of martyrdom or as a way to be holier than thou. For him parenthood was simply a personal goal, something he was drawn to and wanted to succeed at.

“For me, the price of being a parent is one I’m willing to pay, because being a parent is something I’m intrinsically driven to do.” He has also noticed that “other people don’t have that drive.”

I found myself nodding in agreement as Hamm summed up his beliefs:

My belief is that if you don’t wish to have children, don’t have children. If you think that children are more trouble than they’re worth, you probably should not have children.
I also believe that if you feel driven to have a child, you should do everything you can to prepare to be the best parent you can be. This means spending the time to really figure out who you are, how to control your emotions, how to teach, and most mportantly, how to be patient.
The world needs both parents and non-parents. There is a lot of societal value in a wide range of skills, abilities, and thoughts. I absolutely feel that being a parent is a noble choice, but that does not imply that DINKs are not making a noble choice. They’re making a different one in line with their values, goals, and talents.

Very Cool.

Flickr Photo by RealEstateZebra

Aimee’s Letter to Self

2011-02-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

My friend and contributor Teri Tith received an email from Aimee from Australia. She had found the Purple Woman Blog (which Teri founded and I contributed to) and wanted Teri to know how she had been inspired by the posts.

Like many women and men who anticipate children in their lives but end up childless she was in the process of re-framing her perception of a childless life. She shared with us her “letter to herself” which was so touching and inspiring we knew we needed to share this letter with you. Here is an excerpt:

Today is the beginning of a new outlook on life. This weekend we made the decision to not continue on the IVF path. Not next year. Not ever. For me it is also a conscious decision not to continue on the ‘infertility’ path. That may sound strange, because technically we will remain, by definition, ‘infertile’. But today, and every day from now on, this is not how we define ourselves.

Spending our emotional energy, our time and our money trying to bring ‘something’ into our life implies that there is something missing. And that is what has kept us on the IVF rollercoaster and turned both of us – I guess me especially – into anxious and (if I’m being honest with myself) at times unhappy people. What I have come to realise this week is that there is nothing missing. We have a loving, fun, deeply committed relationship and we have a choice to make. So many of our choices have been made for us that I almost forgot the one we can still make – we can choose not to define ourselves by what we don’t have. We can choose to get off the emotional rollercoaster that is IVF. We can choose to embrace a different life. Not a lesser life, but a different one…maybe even a fuller one.

Yesterday I read that ‘There is only so much time in a day, a week, a lifetime, and if we don't raise children, perhaps we "raise" something else.’ Something about this blog excerpt resonated with me because, deep down, I know that I have something significant to contribute to this world. And I know that we both can make a mark, as individuals or as a couple. And that mark isn’t going to be children. But it will be something just as meaningful.

In the past, I was so sad that our beautiful love would never be reflected in a child. What I am focused on now is nurturing and protecting that love and having fun with it. There are other things that our love will be weaved into. We might volunteer overseas together… we might give something back in a way that others can’t. Importantly, we can move forward without resentment of other people’s fortune, because we are going to be fortunate in other ways. We are going to feel fulfilled and satisfied and free. We are going to make a difference. We are going to focus our energies on our marriage, on our own identities and passions, and on our friends – some that we have, some that we will meet. Most importantly, we will feel whole and happy because we have a deep love that we can spend every day investing our time and energy into and nothing will compromise that.

Flickr Photo by Donovan Beeson

Parenthood and Mental Health

2011-02-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

As I was cleaning up my office I came across an article from 2006 I had printed out when I was doing the research for Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice. It’s titled “Parenthood Ups Mental Illness Risk” and was written by Jasmine Karalakulasingam, M.D. a medical reporter for ABC News.

As I read this article, which reported a higher risk of mental illness during the first three months after birth, I was thinking why don’t people talk about this?

In 2003 actress Brooke Shields went public with her crippling post-partum depression but when I attended birth classes with a young woman I was mentoring that same year I didn’t hear any warnings of the mental heath risks of parenthood. The nurse who was teaching the class warned about post-partum infection, breast-feeding challenges, and what to expect when you bring your newborn home but not a thing about being alert for signs of mental distress or illness.

Shortly after I had re-read this article I received an email from a woman who admitted that although she felt, even as a young child, that she didn’t want children when she got married she thought she might change her mind and discussed the possibility of having a child with her husband, who had a daughter from a previous relationship. But her mind did not change and after finding out she was pregnant she knew that she couldn’t handle the stress of birthing and raising a child.

“The thought of being a parent actually scared the hell out of me,” she admits. “I did not want to be pregnant or keep the child. It was in that moment I knew that I did not want to be a parent and I knew that my mental health would not survive having a child as I suffer from depression and general anxiety disorder.”

After discussing it with her husband they decided to terminate the pregnancy, and he arranged to have a vasectomy so they wouldn’t have to worry about birth control. They now have custody of his seventeen-year-old daughter “working through the challenges of teenage life.” She feels they made the right choice for them even though she still hears things like ‘You’re still young, it’s different when they are your own,’ but she knows that it won’t be different because she knows how the stressors of step-parenthood have impacted her mental well-being and her life: “To this day, I do not regret my choice and I believe my marriage is better off for it. I know my mental health is better for it.”

Whether you agree with this woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, or not, what are your thoughts on her consideration of her mental health in the process of her decision-making? Is this something you have considered in your fertility decision making?

Flickr Photo by Giarose

The Changing Roles of Women

2011-01-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

Back in August of 2009, I posted a piece here on this blog about women who became the breadwinners for their family during this recent recession. Not so long ago, in the 50’s in many middle-class and affluent communities, it was considered shameful for a man to have a wife who was a working women. Even a woman who was working part time was tsk-tsked in bridge parlors and country clubs, “Did you hear about Betty? She is selling Avon. Can you imagine? I guess Bob’s business is not as successful as he makes it out to be…”

This attitude seems quaint now when women make up so much of the work force and contribute so much to our economic growth through their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit. Yet I don’t think we’ve fully grasped the implications of this dramatic shift on gender roles, women’s empowerment and financial security, family structure and dynamics, and reproductive decision making.

I suspect that a recent report issued by National Economic Council in the United States titled Jobs and Economic Security for Women will prompt some awareness and actions. In the executive summary of this report, issued by The White House Press Office, the following is highlighted:

• Women are a growing share of our workforce, our entrepreneurs, and our innovators. As the majority of college graduates and nearly 50 percent of the workforce, women are in a position to drive our 21st century economy.

• An increasing number of women are breadwinners for their families. In almost two-thirds of families led by single mothers or two parents, women are either the primary or co-breadwinner. In two-parent families, with the wage gap and the loss of jobs traditionally held by men in this economy, reliance on a woman’s income in their family budget is even greater.

• Since women are nearly 50 percent of the workforce, the recession’s economic impacts on women are even more consequential for the economy than they would have been in past recessions. As a result of the recession that started in December of 2007, women have lost jobs and seen their median annual earnings fall. Further, women have faced increased economic insecurity as housing prices declined and states and municipalities have cut back on the provision of social services.

• Women face a number of longer-term challenges such as the wage gap and female underrepresentation in higher levels of management. Further, specific groups of women like single mothers, older women and minorities face additional challenges.

When I am asked, as the author of Two Is Enough and producer of the Childless by Choice Project documentary, “Why are women choosing to delay or forgo children altogether?,” I respond with the list of most compelling motives I uncovered during my research and then I typically add my observation that increasingly women’s security in the world is tied to their ability to be breadwinners rather than bread bakers. The June Cleaver ideal of the apron-clad mom busying herself in the kitchen while Dad climbs the corporate ladder is just so…dated.

Photo Courtesy of Cornell University Library

2011: Year the Childfree Go Mainstream

2011-01-01T05:52:00.001-08:00

Thank you Lisa Hymas for writing such a great article for www.Grist.org
2010: The year childfree went mainstream (thanks, Oprah!)

It's true! When Oprah outs herself as happily childfree in a Barbara Walters interview, the childfree are definitely put on the map.

This is the best gift I have received this Christmas!

Stocking Stuffer Ideas for Pets and Pawrents

2010-12-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

Okay I don’t have a pet but most of my friends do and sometimes I’ll bring a gift for their dog or cat because—let’s face it—to many people their pets are their furbabies.

So what do you give them? Another rawhide bone, another catnip mouse? Or one of the really cool things I found on the web recently. Here are some ideas:

Biodegradable, flushable doggie poop bags. Really convenient and good for the environment and bonus!—the company gives 10 percent of sales to ASPCA!

Bling Bling Blinkers for pets and pet owners. This LED blinker clips on to collars, leashes, or your belt clip to alert drivers that you and your pet are ahead.

The Rudy the Reindeer dog toy caught my eye because he was so darn cute and squishy. Pawrents beware, Rudy comes with a squeaker!

The Turbo Scratcher Cat Toy entices your cat with catnip, a ball in a track, and a scratching pad. Scratching pads are replaceable and part of the proceeds of the sales go to feed shelter animals.

Some of these sites offer free shipping and express shipping. It’s not too late to buy!

Have a fun and furry holiday season!

Childless in Babyville: Navigating In a Pronatalist World

2010-12-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

Childless in Babyville is the title of a chapter in my book Two Is Enough: A Couples Guide to Living Childless by Choice. It’s a chapter that acknowledges that if you are single or in a committed partnership you will at some point feel the stigma of remaining childfree. I have yet to find one person who has not been second-guessed, challenged, or perceived as odd or seriously flawed because they have chosen a childfree life.

Recently I received an email from a 26 year-old woman whom I’ll call “Bella” who had seen me in a segment titled “Childless by Choice” on CNN’s Joy Behar Show:

I just wanted to say that I have just recently discovered your website after seeing an interview on one of the news networks and very much wanted to share my feelings about this. Let me start by saying this has given me confidence in myself knowing that I am not the only woman who shares these feelings about remaining childless.

I have no desire to have my own children and I have known this since I was 10 years old. I didn't realize until later in life how much this decision would ultimately affect me and could actually be a little stressful.

I work in the design department for a baby clothing company. I love my job and love the people I work with but there is this stigma that there is something wrong with me because I do not share the same interest to bear children like the rest of the woman I work with. And I don't understand why I am questioned so often as to my personal decision not to have kids. Sometimes I am afraid that it is going to affect keeping my job. Just because I don't share the need to have kids doesn't mean I don't like designing clothing. I am a creative, talented person with a lot to offer.

When ever having or not having kids is brought up I am always asked “why?” Sometimes I just didn't know how to respond without sounding strange. I am often told I am "weird.”

When I found this site and started reading the blog, it made me feel so much better about my choice (even though I have never questioned it). I am so glad that there are other people out there that share the same view.

I am not the only "weirdo" :)

Bella is right, she is not alone. There are millions of people who feel exactly as she does and struggle to find ways to navigate in “babyville.”

Flickr Photo by Ex.Libris

Will You Be Working This Thanksgiving?

2010-11-19T07:47:00.000-08:00

This is the question CNN News anchor Don Lemon asked his childfree guest on Sunday night's news program.

He had invited this childfree man and Katherine Reynolds Lewis, The Fiscal Times. com reporter who wrote "Parental Guidance: Why Your Co-workers May Hate You," to talk about the workplace tension that exists, especially during the holidays, when single and childless employees may be expected to work holidays and weekends while their colleagues who are parents are allowed to take the time off.

While Don Lemon suggested that "hate" might be too severe a word, he did acknowledge that this workplace tension does exist in the CNN newsroom and is experienced by his single friends.

Will you be working this Thanksgiving holiday?

Flickr Photo by Riptheskull

A Supportive Sister

2010-11-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

When you ‘out’ yourself as childless by choice you get all kinds of reactions. I documented many of them in my book, Two Is Enough--they run the gamut from disapproval to envy.

Bonnie has experienced most of them as a 53 year-old married woman who never wanted kids. Many of her peers and colleagues don’t understand her decision because she taught elementary school for 23 years, but her younger never-married sister does understand and support her older sister’s decision because she’s childless by choice too.

For many years, my 43 year-old sister and I have discussed the fact that we have made the right decision to be childless. We've also groused about society thinking that we are ‘not quite right’ to not want children. We've been treated like we're not ‘real women.’

We've seen women with children take advantage of health care, sick leave, and ‘mommy duties.’ We're the ones who pick up the slack at work, and then aren't fully appreciated for our efforts, since we don't have children at home. (We do, but they're the furry kind.) I've taught elementary school, working with children of all races and economic situations, and can honestly say that I've seen more BAD parenting than good.

Bonnie and her sister feel the lack of support most acutely around celebrations like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. They feel excluded.

My sister and I decided that WE need a day of recognition. We've wanted to go national with a ‘Childless by Choice Day’ but don't know how. We were not sure of a good day for ‘our’ celebration, but just prior to Mother's Day seemed ideal for us. For ourselves, we vowed to make that special day the day before Mother's Day.

Others have felt the same way which is why people around the world now celebrate “World Childfree Day” on June 4th. How you choose to affirm or honor your decision is fully up to you but I think it’s great to take a day or a moment to reflect and feel gratitude, especially with someone who loves and supports you.

I Can Better Serve the World by Not Having Children

2010-11-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

The title of this post comes from the questionnaire I used to survey self-described childless by choice persons for the book Two Is Enough and the soon-to-be-released documentary The Childless by Choice Project. Close to half of the people I surveyed cited this as a compelling motive for their decision to remain childless.

Back in September I spend an evening with a group of Asheville, North Carolina residents who where concerned about global population. Most in the room were inclined to remain childfree because of the environmental impact of overpopulation, including a woman who really, really loved children yet had decided she couldn’t, in good conscience, have one of her own.

Recently I received an email from Joanna, who wanted to express her gratitude that she “did not cave into the pressure in society to have kids.” She is a 56-year-old woman, happily married for 32 years, and this is what she wrote:

Both my husband and I never wanted children. I have been a teacher since I was in my early 20s, and now I work for a university as a teacher mentor. I have to [say] that people without children add an enormous amount of positive energy to our society. When I was a classroom teacher, the people staying long hours in their classrooms were always the teachers without their own children. Also, not having children has allowed me the time to do a lot of volunteer work.

With the population nearing 7 billion, people who choose not to have children are helping our beautiful, natural world survive and flourish. Both my husband and I are environmentalists, and we feel so happy that we have helped the Earth that way.

I too am grateful for the opportunity to mentor two terrific young women, both of whom have grown from your typical awkward teens to confident, accomplished women (and mothers). Had I had a couple of kids of my own I doubt I would have had the time to mentor these two. But I am so glad I did.

What are you grateful for?

Another Childfree Person Falls Through the Cracks

2010-10-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I wrote a post titled “Are We a Family?” Most childfree couples say “Yes, we are!” However, our social institutions sometimes don’t see it that way and some of the government agencies that are set up to help families in need overlook the families of two.

An example of this came to me by way of email by a woman I will call “Susan” (as she didn’t want her real name to be used). Susan wanted to share “a terrible experience” she recently had when a horse-related accident left her with limited use of her right arm.

I was collecting unemployment at the time from an earlier work lay-off. [My husband and I] were struggling financially and I was without health insurance when the accident occurred. I had four surgeries post accident to repair my shoulder/clavicle/arm. Though I was fortunate to not break my neck or lose my arm, the accident changed my life.

To make a long story short; with no health insurance and limited income, I turned to DSS/Medicaid for assistance. This was extremely defeating to me, but the system is there to help people through crisis (even though it’s widely abused). However, what occurred during my DSS interview was disturbing to me. I was unable to qualify for Medicaid because my unemployment earnings were too high for this county's cut off ($706 for a woman with no children).

During the interview I was also screened for any possible social service help that I might qualify for, and I qualified for NONE...... however, a social worker came into the [cubicle] where I was being interviewed and told me I qualified for ONE program - "Reproductive Counseling". I immediately asked if this included any gynecological services (pap smear etc), and it did not. Upon questioning exactly what this program was, it was explained to me that it is a program offered to all women that consists of counseling on abstinence and safe sex! The irony; I'm 40 with NO children....and I got to that age birth-free BY CHOICE. Did they think I'd be interested??! Hell no.

The moral of the story is--if I had been pregnant or had any amount of children, I would have qualified for many services that I desperately needed due to consequences from my accident. To me, this sends a 'back door message' to get pregnant so the system would WORK FOR ME! How ridiculous!

When I read Susan’s story, I wondered “How did this social worker come to the conclusion that a person seeking help with a limited mobility disability and medical care access would need reproductive counseling?”

Are We a Family?

2010-10-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Alyssa Favreau called me last week for an interview for her university paper, The McGill Daily. She wanted to explore how our definitions of family have expanded over time. In her article titled The Ties That Bind she cited a study by Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell in which Americans were asked what they considered to be a family. Favreau noted:

In Powell’s research, the presence of children had a legitimizing effect on how a couple was viewed. In the 2010 survey, 100 per cent of respondents considered a married heterosexual couple with children to be a family, while 83 per cent considered an unmarried heterosexual with kids to be a family, and 64 per cent considered a same-sex couple with kids to be a family. Remove the children, and the percentages dropped down to 92, 40 and 33 per cent respectively.

Laura Scott, head of the Childless by Choice Project advocacy group and author of Two is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice, said that these findings are representative of how couples living without children are often excluded from the general definition of family. “The perception is that they’re just a couple, not really a family,” she explained. “There’s an attitude that if you’re a [child-free] couple, it must be temporary; eventually you’ll have children.”

This perspective, Scott said, often leads to a social marginalization of couples who are childless either by circumstance or by choice. “As a childless person you become socially isolated,” she said. “Childlessness is approaching 20 percent in women, and that’s huge. We can no longer assume parenthood for all...we need to assimilate those [child-free] couples into our society and recognize that it’s a viable life path.”

Though I do not describe the Childless by Choice Project as an advocacy group, nor do I advocate remaining childfree, I do advocate expanding our definition of family to include functioning, committed, and supportive family units of two or more regardless of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or the number of offspring produced or adopted.

Are you childless by choice or circumstance? If so, what does your family unit look like?

From Mumbai: It’s a Blessing Not To Have Children

2010-09-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

I love hearing from people around the world who are living childfree by choice. Recently Leena contacted me from India with her story:

I am Leena aged 34 from India and I would like to share my story about being Childfree by Choice.
In India the only reason you get married is to breed. The primary reason is to have an heir for your family name and going against such an orthodox society means (you) get shunned and looked down upon. But I and husband Alex (aged 40) now have been married for 12 loving years and we are so glad that we took the decision against all odds to remain Childfree.
In spite of the fact that we are in the so-called "developed megacity Mumbai" you still get the "stare" and "comments" from most of the society around. At my work place, mommies share their agonies and I am the one having the last laugh, though I can not share it openly with anyone.
But I just want everyone to know the life I and my husband lead is a blessing. The intimacy we have after 12 years of marriage is not comparable to any couple married for that long. This is just a glimpse of my life but it comes right from my heart. I am blessed to not have children. My life is more complete, I have more to give to the world today as I don't have to keep anything for anyone. I have more love, more compassion, more of Life!

You Won’t Know You Want a Kid Until You Have One

2010-09-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

“You won’t know you want a kid until you have one.”

We’ve all heard a version of this. It’s the kind of warped logic that comes up when you say “I’ve never wanted children.”

The BBC New Magazine challenged this assertion in an article titled “The Women Who Choose Not To Be Mothers.”

This piece quotes a childfree step-mom who doubts her preferences will change with the arrival of a child, and a therapist who acknowledges that childless and childfree women can, and do, live very satisfying lives, despite the lingering stigma:

Julia Wallace, at 40 a step-mother to three children who live elsewhere: "They say, 'you don't know what you're missing, you won't know until you've had a child that that's what you wanted to do'. That's a hypothetical question - if you've got no motivation to have a child in the first place, why would you do it? I wouldn't chose to become a nurse on the chance I might love the career once I get there."

Beth Follini counsels women agonising over whether to reproduce. It's a decision she herself has struggled with. Until her early 30s, she hadn't wanted children and told her partner so. "Then I just started to feel this urge. I spent a year or two battling it out and in the end I decided I wanted a child. But I know that if I hadn't, I would have a very different but equally fulfilled life."
Many of her clients do not want children but feel pressurised. "Often this pressure comes from friends who have had children - 'you don't know what you're missing' or 'you'd make a great mum'. Or joking that you hate children. Sometimes it's from parents hoping for a grandchild."
But it can be the most passing of acquaintances who pass comment.
“Many people assume if you a single and child-free that you haven't met the right man yet. But if you are in a relationship, they ask 'when are you taking the next step?' A woman's fertility status is still very much considered public property.”

Follini is right. For some reason, people feel compelled show childfree folks the error of their ways. But is anyone really swayed by this?

It’s a Girl Thing!

2010-09-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Periods suck! Particularly if you are like me and my friend Karen who have a tendency to have monster flows—the kind that can’t be absorbed by any measly super-sized tampon or pad.

Sorry guys. You can skip this post if you like. Naturally, girls talk about these things and recently my friend told me about an endometrial ablation treatment she was considering, marketed under the trade name NovaSure. Endometrial ablation is the medical term for a procedure intended to destroy, through minimally invasive means, the lining of the uterus, or edometrium. In the case of NovaSure, this is achieved in less than five minutes by use of wand inserted in the vagina which delivers doses of electromagnetic energy. The resulting scaring of tissue means lighter periods or no periods at all for many of the women who undergo this procedure. Karen didn’t know what to expect but she hoped this treatment would at least remedy the ridiculous flows that had left her anemic and listless.

Karen gave me a report about two months after the procedure. She reported that her recovery had been complicated by an infection, and the fact that the procedure was scheduled just before her period was due meant she had to have a D & C to clear out as much of the blood as possible before her doctor went in. Karen experienced a six week recovery phase during which her body was still expelling blood and tissue but after that she noticed a marked improvement—a much lighter flow and a shorter duration of her period. She was very pleased she had undergone this procedure. Still, I had some more questions for her:

What other options did you have besides the NovaSure procedure to alleviate your heavy bleeding?
My other option was to get on the pill, or to have an IUD that releases progesterone into my system. Either way, the options were going to alter hormones. Given that I’m a happily medicine-free person, I didn’t want to go on any pills and the idea of having a foreign body in me made me really squeamish. I would rather be rid of the problem area, than put something else in it. I’ve already had my tonsils and my appendix removed— what’s one more unused body part?

Was your doctor proposing a full or partial hysterectomy as an option?
Neither of these was proposed, partially because of my age, and the fact that they tend to upset women hormonally. And nothing in my condition was that dire.

How did your doctor qualify you for this procedure?
I found my doctor on the NovaSure site. She was listed as a preferred physician who has done a lot of these. So she knew what to ask. She took a complete history, with good detail about what my most recent monthly periods have been like. She did a Pap smear, blood work and a urine analysis, to make sure that thyroid, diseases or other items weren’t causing the problems. They also did an internal ultrasound to verify that it wasn’t cysts or things like that. She was very thorough. As far as qualifying for it, and having it covered by insurance, the message was, if it’s making you miserable and your quality of life is suffering because of it, it’s a good enough reason to do it.

Did she try to make sure you did not plan on having children?
She did ask me this, to be sure, because the procedure does significantly, if not remove, the chances of becoming pregnant. Give my age, 39, and my desire not to have children, we eliminated this as an obstacle.

Does this procedure interfere with egg production?
It does not. I still drop an egg. But because the lining is gone from the uterus and can no longer hold blood, there’s nothing for the egg to attach to.

Does it affect hormones?
No. Because I still cycle, drop the egg, have my ovaries, etc. I liken it to a telephone system. If an office building has 15 phones, and you unplug one, the other phones still get calls going in and out. The phone jack is still in the wall, but there’s no phone to ring anymore. My uterus just doesn’t get the call to store up blood anymore, and there’s no lining there to hold it.

Does it affect mood?
Yes, for me it has to do with lack of stress and discomfort. I’m no longer fatigued, bloated, nervous about accidents, or scared to wear white pants. And so it’s one (gigantic) less thing to worry about. It’s made me feel sexier, more desirable, and more confident – that plays well in the bedroom. And now, I don’t have to take 5-10 days off from the gym, so my energy level is up, and my weight is down.

Two important things to note. This procedure is not recommended for those women who plan to get pregnant after the procedure as pregnancy poses risks for both mother and child, and it is possible to become pregnant after this procedure which is why doctors recommend birth control for those women who are still in their childbearing years.

I’m not a medical expert by any stretch but I was very pleased to learn we girls had another tool in our arsenal to combat the Monster Period. If you want to find out more go to the FAQ section of the NovaSure website or ask your OB/GYN about NovaSure.

Do U.S. labor markets favor single and childless women?

2010-08-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the New York Times made this observation:

The last three men nominated to the Supreme Court have all been married and, among them, have seven children. The last three women — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Harriet Miers (who withdrew) — have all been single and without children.

The author of this piece, David Leonhardt, notes that even though we now have many more women in the workplace, and we are moving toward better female representation in our Supreme Court, women who take time off the career path to raise children or switch to part-time hours still fall short of their male peers in earnings in the U.S. labor marketplace. He cites a study titled “Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors”:

A recent study of business school graduates from the University of Chicago found that in the early years after graduating, men and women had “nearly identical labor incomes and weekly hours worked.” Men and women also paid a similar career price for taking off or working part time. Women, however, were vastly more likely to do so.
As a result, 15 years after graduation, the men were making about 75 percent more than the women. The study — done by Marianne Bertrand, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz — did find one subgroup of women whose careers resembled those of men: women who had no children and never took time off.

As a freelance writer, I have been outside of the corporate world for some time now but had I pursued that corporate career track I might have been one of those women. Are you childless and on an uninterrupted career path? If so, do feel like you have the same labor incomes as your male peers who work a similar number of hours?

Flickr Photo by mirimcfly

Two is Enough is Designed for Singles Too

2010-08-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

Don’t let the title Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice fool you. I have designed the content of this book for singles too.

I recently received an email from a single woman who works in the social services field. She wrote: "I wanted to thank you for writing Two is Enough...Although I am single, the research was relevant to me as well. I'm glad your book corrected the myths that childless couples are selfish or do not love children. I do not want children for medical and environmental reasons, but I enjoy working with children. It is important to our society that women have more information like the research you provided."

I pleased to receive this email. I interviewed a number of single women and men in the course of my research for Two Is Enough. I found that the primary motives and rationales for remaining childfree are the same for singles and for couples. In Two is Enough I address the fact that singles have the additional challenge of finding suitable partners in a dating pool filled with candidates who imagine a life with kids even though they haven’t really given it much thought. How does that turn out? Read the profiles in Chapter Five of Two is Enough to find out.

Childfree Women: Could it be the Hormones? Asks Madison Mag

2010-07-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

I granted an interview to Madison Magazine in Australia last year and they published a very good article in March posing the question: Why does society vilify women who choose not to have children?

There were many great quotes from women who had been harangued and criticized because of their choice to remain childfree and some interesting opinions from a sexologist who had made the suggestion that lack of desire for children might be inherited and have something to do with hormone levels.

This is what the sexologist Dr. Frances Quirk suggested may be happening, as summarized by Alexandra Carlton, the author of this article:

We’re equipped with a physiological arsenal of drives, urges, hormones and synapses that will us, continuously, to make babies. But just like someone can be born without perfect hearing or eyesight, or be good or poor at athletics or maths or drawing, some people are born with lower levels of certain hormones. In women, it’s thought low oestrogen levels or high testosterone levels could result in a diminished to entirely eradicated desire to have babies.

Of course, it’s not all about hormones. Dr Quirk suggests that for nature to influence our behavior, there needs to be a fair amount of nurture at work, too. A person’s upbringing, experiences or current situation will generally play a part in controlling their desire to have, or not have, children. Two of the women Madison spoke to for this story – Annabel and 31-year-old children’s model agent Nicola Allan – admitted that their own mothers had confessed that kids hadn’t exactly been in their grand plans. “My mum always said, ‘If I had my time again, I don’t think I’d have kids,’” relates Allan, who says she personally adores being around children – something she does every day through her work – but has no urge to have any of her own. “I don’t take what she said as an insult. She loves us to death and she’s a great mum. But I can see where she’s coming from. I’ve known from the age of 14 that I didn’t want kids either.”

Dr Quirk says Allan’s attitude may be an indicator that she’s inherited a low oestrogen level from her mother; as a result, each of them could harbour a low or non-existent desire to bear children. Or, “the daughter may be having a psychological reaction against being told that her mother didn’t want her” and doesn’t want to put another child through that feeling of rejection.

But most people who identify as childless by choice will refute the notion that there’s some subconscious, must-get-to-the-bottom-of-this, someone-call-Dr-Phil abnormality behind their decision not to reproduce. “People always think there’s some deep-seated reason for why I don’t want children,” says Jenifur Wale, a 34-year-old model and art teacher from Melbourne. “But it’s really not that complicated. I have a wonderful family. I love kids, especially my nieces. I have had meaningful relationships with men. It’s just that having a child has never been for me. I feel really fulfilled; I don’t need a sense of purpose and I’m not looking for something to fill my time. And I feel loved, so I don’t need a child to give that to me.”

So is it nature, nurture, hormones? What do you think?

The Truth About Parenting

2010-07-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Chris, one of my Facebook friends posted a link on the Two is Enough wall to a New York Magazine article titled All Joy and No Fun. It’s an extremely well-written overview of recent studies showing how and why the fun has gone out of parenthood. Studies reveal that parenthood is getting harder with each successive generation. Even with their tight schedules parents actually spend more time with their kids then their parent’s spent with them, on average, but they get less out of it.

But outside of academia people just don’t want to believe these findings:

The idea that parents are less happy than nonparents has become so commonplace in academia that it was big news last year when the Journal of Happiness Studies published a Scottish paper declaring the opposite was true. “Contrary to much of the literature,” said the introduction, “our results are consistent with an effect of children on life satisfaction that is positive, large and increasing in the number of children.” Alas, the euphoria was short-lived. A few months later, the poor author discovered a coding error in his data, and the publication ran an erratum. “After correcting the problem,”it read,“the main results of the paper no longer hold. The effect of children on the life satisfaction of married individuals is small, often negative, and never statistically significant.”

Yet one can see why people were rooting for that paper. The results of almost all the others violate a parent’s deepest intuition. Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist and host of This Emotional Life on PBS, wrote fewer than three pages about compromised parental well-being in Stumbling on Happiness. But whenever he goes on the lecture circuit, skeptical questions about those pages come up more frequently than anything else. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t argue with me about this,” he says. “Even people who believe the data say they feel sorry for those for whom it’s true.”

Why is this important to the childless by choice? Well, the next time someone says, “You’ll regret not having kid.” or, “Parenthood is such a joy, you’re missing out” you can send them a link to this article.

Flickr photo by The Enabler

Prop 8 Trial Exposes Flaws in Marriage Equals Children Argument

2010-06-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

In my google search to catch up on the latest news on the Prop 8 case I came across Nan Hunter’s blog titled Hunter of Justice. Nan is a professor at Georgetown Law in DC and has also been following the progress of the Prop 8 same-sex marriage case in California. In her blog post, Hunter points out that the argument that children are integral to a marriage made by David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values, at the Prop 8 trial, comes at the same time that U.S. trends show a weakening of the cultural assumption that marriage equals children.

Hunter offers an excerpt of a NY Times commentary written by Tara Parker-Pope who pointed out that while Blankenhorn makes the argument in federal court that: “Extending marital rights to couples who cannot conceive children would change marriage from 'a child-based public institution to an adult-centered private institution' and 'weaken the role of marriage generally in society’” US couples are spending less of their married years, or none at all in our case, raising children, according to a Rutgers’s report called “Life Without Children: The Social Retreat From Children and How It’s Changing America.”

And as revealed in a 2007 Pew Research Center survey, “only 41 percent of respondents said children were important to a happy marriage, down from 65 percent in 1990.”

So what is happening? Increasingly, more people are choosing to remain childless in early adulthood and/or choosing to have less children, resulting in many more years of “childfreedom.” No longer is the bulk of our adult experience consumed with raising children. So for Blankenship to suggest that we will weaken the institution of marriage if we allow same-sex couples who can’t conceive children to marry, he is essentially ignoring the millions of couples, gay and straight, who are proving him wrong and finding strength, stability, and happiness in their childless marriages or are choosing to use surrogates or donor sperm, or be adoptive parents.

In my opinion, Blankenhorn’s argument is a weak one, unsupported by evidence, and I hope and believe that Ted Olson and his team will prevail and prove that a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

What do you think?

Flickr photo by Jamison Wieser

Carrie and Mr. Big are Childfree

2010-06-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

I just saw the new Sex and the City 2 movie and was thrilled that characters Carrie and Mr. Big came out as childfree.

Political analyst and commentator Taylor Marsh noticed too and in her Huffington Post review of this film she gave kudos to SACT 2 writers for tackling issues of female empowerment around the world and challenging the myth of marriage and motherhood as a state of perpetual bliss:

As the plot deepens, Carrie has become a nag to Mr. Big about every little domestic thing. Newsflash, ladies. Domestic bliss compared to the emotional high wire can feel a bit mundane for the unprepared. In the end, finding out that as a relationship writer and expert on the topic, the one who knows more about marriage is her man. Aidan enters for the set up. All of this amidst Carrie and Mr. Big's challenge of choosing to be child-free in a world that still expects women to assume there is only one choice.
I can't lose the nanny moments come rarely, but few are funnier. Charlotte feels guilty about wanting to let out a primal mother scream because her girls are driving her insane. But Miranda comes to the rescue knowing how she feels, hoping to help Charlotte admit it over cocktails so she'll survive it all. Both mothers know how lucky they are to have help and take an emotional cocktail moment to salute the mothers who don't.

I agree with Marsh—this is a funny and very bold film which challenges conventional thinking and stereotypes. I went to the movie with two other childless/childfree women and we were thrilled that Carrie did not show regret over her childlessness like so many characters in previous Hollywood films and I was extremely pleased to hear Carrie and Mr. Big agree that "Two is Enough." I was tempted to imagine that the writers had read my book but perhaps this is just a coincidence.

What was clearly intentional was the implied acceptance of all choices that women might make and the resulting suspension of judgment, which is long overdue. Wear a burqa, or revel in your sexual appeal; have kids, or don’t have kids; adopt traditional models of family and marriage or make up your own rules. All options are embraced within the story of these four women, and that is something to celebrate!

Pregnancy is No Longer Taboo for US Teens

2010-06-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

An alarming new report issued by U.S. National Center for Health Statistics shows that 40 percent of unmarried teens are having sex and some are hoping they will become parents as a result.

It appears the taboo of teen pregnancy is waning, much like the stigma of debt and online nudie pics. This caught the attention of the editors of Bloomberg Businessweek who published an article on this report and made a very valid point about this trend in terms of the economic impact to this next generation:

"One of the great success stories of the past two decades has been the extraordinary declines in teen pregnancy and childbearing," said Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "This progress has recently stalled out."

Perhaps more surprisingly, one in five teen girls and one in four teen boys who had had sex said they would be pleased if they or their partner got pregnant.

"This is really quite alarming," Albert said. "I don't think it takes a Ph.D. to understand that in this day and age and in this economy the route to success doesn't begin with a family at age 16."

Flickr Photo by Jessie Romaneix (CC)

Post Natal Depression Suffered by Men Too

2010-05-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

We’ve all heard about, or have witnessed in our own families, the devastating effects of post natal depression on women and their children. Now, a statistical review of previous studies conducted by researchers at Eastern Virginia Medical School has revealed that some men experience post natal depression too. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal noted that:

Some 10.4% of fathers experience depression during the postpartum period, the analysis showed. In the general population, 4.8% of men are believed depressed at any given point in time, according to government data.

For women, the rate of postpartum depression was estimated at nearly 24%, according to the new analysis, which was published Tuesday in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"When we look at the impact on families and children [of depression in new fathers], this is a public-health problem that goes beyond the individual," said James Paulson, a child clinical psychologist and pediatrics professor at Eastern Virginia and the first author on the paper.

The reasons for paternal postpartum depression are likely similar to those that contribute to the condition in mothers, including sleep deprivation, stress in the parents' relationship and isolation from friends, Dr. Paulson said.

Though the reasons for the depression may be the same for men and women, women are more likely to feel sad and internalize the guilt and pain, where as “depressed men are more likely to exhibit hostility and even aggression.”

The authors of this review are hoping that both men and women seek help for these symptoms as depression in one partner can trigger depression in the other. Maybe if we can recognize that parenthood is not all sweetness and light and acknowledge the challenges more parents will find the help they need.

Flickr Photo by ChrisGoldNY

Okay, So I Lied....

2010-05-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

Jen Kirkman, a stand-up comedian from LA tweeted me her sad/comic story of being lectured by a manicurist for not having kids. The next time she was queried in a salon she, well, lied and pretended to be pregnant. It all started when a manicurist saw her wedding ring and asked if she had kids.

When I told a Korean manicurist that I did not and put my nose back in my magazine, she stopped filing and squeezed my hand until I made eye contact with her. She scolded me saying that in her country to choose not to give a man a child and a parent a grand-child is a sin against the family and woman-hood. (I so wanted to ask, “So, aren’t you glad you are no longer living in that country?”)

She told me that I would change my mind and predicted my grim future of changing my mind when it’s too late and I have no eggs left!

So what did Jen do the next time she was asked by a manicurist “Are you a mother?”

I said, “No.” She said, “I’m sorry.” I said, “That’s okay.” She said, “Do you want to be a mother?” I sat still. How would I answer this in a way that allowed me to go back to reading? She said, “You not ready yet but you will be a mother.” So I said to her, “Well, if you can keep a secret….” and I nodded to my stomach. She said, “How long?” I said, “We haven’t told anyone yet. Very early.” She waved me off. “Okay, okay. I see. I see. Just a few weeks along. I ask no more.”

This story cracked me up because I have passed as tragically childless just to avoid having to explain. In fact I did it today when I was volunteering as a ball spotter for a junior golf tournament. A fellow volunteer asked if I had kids and I just said “No.” He gave me the pity frown. I though briefly about adding “by choice” but I wanted to get back to my side of the fairway and watch for incoming golf balls.

Was I wrong?

Feeling Isolated? Reach Out!

2010-04-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

In my book Two is Enough I noted that one of the few downsides of being childfree is the feeling that you are the only couple or person without kids in the neighborhood. It may seem that way but, as I found out when I reached out in my community for childless by choice couples to interview, when you actively try to find others who share your childfree status they come out of the woodwork in numbers.

For example, Beverly, one of the Two is Enough participants sent me a link to a Fort Bragg forum where an intentionally childfree woman posted an appeal to find others on base who didn’t have kids.

I’m sure she was surprised how quickly people responded to her appeal. Check out the comments to her post.

Outside of community forums, there are Facebook pages like the Two is Enough page, there are childfree Meetup groups and No Kidding! social clubs. In fact, the Houston No Kidding! group is hosting a No Kidding! Convention this month from April 23-25. I will be there along with other childfree folks from all over North America.

No matter where you live, the childfree by choice are only a mouse click or two away. Join us on the web or at a Meetup or your community forum and start building a community!

Flickr photo by Knokton CC BY-NC 2.0

My Children Are Dogs

2010-03-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

Janine Adams admits her children are dogs—standard poodles, in fact—and she says Kramer and Scout are “a huge part of my life.” Adams is a freelance writer who specializes in books and articles on pets and makes no apologies (except to her parents) for saying her dogs are enough in her article My Children, My Dogs:

I have dogs. I don't need kids. At least for now, they fill whatever slight maternal urges I might have. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.) I'm happy to say that I'm not alone. A survey of pet owners by the American Animal Hospital Association in 1995 revealed that 61 percent of the dog owners surveyed believe that caring for their pets fulfilled a need of parenting. The previous year, 69 percent of dog owners surveyed said they give their pets as much attention as they would to their children and 54 percent of the survey respondents said they felt an emotional dependence on their pets.

Adams points out that that raising well-behaved dogs is very similar to raising well-behaved children but with some advantages—when the dogs are really bad she can put them in a crate.

Flickr Photo by Sailing Footprints: Real to Reel (Ronn ashore)

/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Earth Days

2010-03-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

Before electric cars, curbside recycling, before energy-efficient light bulbs and wind farms there was a handful of pioneering “greenies” who wrote articles and books or worked to organize protests, demonstrations, and sit-ins for environmental issues as varied as DDT use, nuclear bombs, overpopulation, and pollution.

These efforts sparked a groundswell of awareness and political and social activism which led to the first Earth Day in 1970 and new research, initiatives, and numerous government bills which have changed the way Americans think and act as stewards of the land upon which they live.

A PBS/American Experience film called Earth Days documents the early days of the environmental movement and features interviews with activists and influencers such as biologist/Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand, Apollo Nine astronaut Rusty Schweickart, and Silent Spring author Rachel Carson.

In an unprecedented move, PBS will offer a “social screening” of this film through Facebook at 8 p.m. EST on April 11, eight days ahead of the film being broadcast on PBS American Experience on April 19 PBS 9 EST/8 Central.

I was still a kid during the 60’s and 70’s protests but, as I wrote in Two is Enough, I recall being urged to eat my veggies because there where starving people in Africa. Later, in my twenties, I would get very angry when people threw litter out of car windows and was very pleased to see that littering fines were being enforced by cops patrolling the highways in Canada.

I was recently contacted by a man who informed me of the Earth Days film and told me he had made a pledge not to have children and had the vasectomy to back it up. I admitted I was not motivated primarily by environmental concerns to remain childfree. However, I am motivated by environmental concerns to recycle, drive less, and conserve food and water.

Were you motivated by environmental concerns not to have children? If not, how has the environmental movement influenced your behavior?

The Benefits of Marrying Well are More Pronounced for Men

2010-03-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

It used to be that women were motivated to marry, in part, to ensure their economic security. Now, a new Pew Research Center report titled New Economic of Marriage: The Rise of Wives reveals that the increase of college-educated working women has been a boon for the men who marry these women, not the other way around.

The report's authors, Richard Fry and D'Vera Cohn, wrote:

“From an economic perspective, these trends have contributed to a gender role reversal in the gains from marriage. In the past, when relatively few wives worked, marriage enhanced the economic status of women more than that of men. In recent decades, however, the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men.”
Forty years ago, the typical man did not gain another breadwinner in his household when he married. Today, he does—giving his household increased earning power that most unmarried men do not enjoy. The superior gains of married men have enabled them to overtake and surpass unmarried men in their median household income.”

Another benefit of marrying well for men is increased longevity according to another Swedish study, which showed that married men with college-educated wives live longer than men with less-educated wives, likely because of the higher incomes which fund good health care and the fact that men with well-educated wives are more likely to eat healthier and seek care for their ailments at the prodding of their partner.

So the next time your wife brings home another order of Chinese take out because she is working late or she nags you to eat your veggies or to go to the doctor, just thank her.

Flickr Photo by Clevercupcakes

Take Me To Your Tweeple

2010-02-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

I’m feeling like the aliens shown above because I’ve just created my first Twitter account CbyCproject and I feel like I am on a different planet.

The Childless by Choice Project social media outreach began with the Childless by Choice Project website, a Squidoo lens, a blog (first as a contributor of Purple Women & Friends and now this blog), then the Facebook Page for Two Is Enough, and now Twitter.

I was reluctant to sign up for Twitter at first because I really didn’t have the time and I didn’t know how I might use it. Then a month ago I signed up for a class on social media at a writer’s conference and began to understand where twitter fits in an outreach program. I realized this was another way to connect with other childfree folks and to continue to learn and share.

There is no possible way one book or one documentary can encompass all there is to know about the childless by choice demographic. We are not one homogeneous blob. So I like to go beyond my survey respondents and the participants of the Childless by Choice Project and hear from childless and childfree people from all over.

I was recently contacted by a woman from Argentina. She found me through Unscripted, the ezine for the childfree, after an online search and she wondered if there was a Spanish language version of Two is Enough or the documentary. Unfortunately no, not yet. However she reminded me that childfree people exist in every corner of the world and in every corner of the web.

If you are a twitter user please tweet me at CbyCproject and let’s start a conversation.

Flickr Photo courtesy of State Library and Archives of Florida

Ted Olsen, Conservative Lawyer, Fights to Overturn California’s Gay Marriage Ban

2010-02-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read it right. Ted Olsen, the same guy who got George W. Bush into the White House by arguing for Bush in Bush v. Gore in the Supreme Court went to district court last month (Perry v. Schwarzenegger) to argue that California’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

Why would he do that? One, because he thinks he can win and two, he thinks marriage is a good thing, for individuals and for the community. Gay or straight.

Here’s what he wrote in his article for Newsweek, published prior to the trial, titled The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage:

What, then, are the justifications for California's decision in Proposition 8 to withdraw access to the institution of marriage for some of its citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation? The reasons I have heard are not very persuasive.
The explanation mentioned most often is tradition. But simply because something has always been done a certain way does not mean that it must always remain that way. Otherwise we would still have segregated schools and debtors' prisons.
The second argument I often hear is that traditional marriage furthers the state's interest in procreation—and that opening marriage to same-sex couples would dilute, diminish, and devalue this goal. But that is plainly not the case. Preventing lesbians and gays from marrying does not cause more heterosexuals to marry and conceive more children. Likewise, allowing gays and lesbians to marry someone of the same sex will not discourage heterosexuals from marrying a person of the opposite sex. How, then, would allowing same-sex marriages reduce the number of children that heterosexual couples conceive?
This procreation argument cannot be taken seriously. We do not inquire whether heterosexual couples intend to bear children, or have the capacity to have children, before we allow them to marry. We permit marriage by the elderly, by prison inmates, and by persons who have no intention of having children.

Thank you Mr. Olsen for acknowledging the childfree marriage and our right to be married under the law. I know you are not fighting on behalf of voluntarily childless couples but if you and your very capable co-counsel David Boies succeed in your efforts to overturn Prop 8, you will have gone a long way towards challenging the antiquated idea that couples who are unable or unwilling to procreate should not have the right to legal marriage and to enjoy the benefits of that institution. If intentionally childfree or infertile heterosexual couples can marry, why not gay couples? Children don't make a marriage, committed partners do.

Closing arguments have yet to be presented. However, I will be following up on this trial in this blog. If you would like to read the transcripts from this hearing click here.

The Personality Theory: Results So Far

2010-01-21T07:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks for posting your type here. We also invited the Two is Enough Facebook fans and The Childfree Life (TCFL) goodreads.com book club to do the Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs topology personality test and post their types and out of the 45 people who did so by January 20 we had a whopping 16 INTJs.

This is significant because INTJs are rare, said to represent only 1 percent of the general population but represented 34 percent of this childfree population. The next types in line were ISTJ (representing 11 %) and INFJ (representing 11 %) and ISFJ (representing 9%) and ENTJ (representing 9%). Note all the Judgers here.

Of course, this was not a representative or scientific survey by any stretch. However, the results do beg real research on this theory.

Any doctorate students out there willing to take this on?

Testing the Personality Theory

2010-01-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

In Two Is Enough I suggested that certain personality types may be more likely to remain childless by choice. My theory is that Introverts and those that are Myers-Briggs Thinker and Judger types might be more predisposed or inclined to challenge the assumption of parenthood and embrace a childfree life.

The members of Goodreads.com The Childfree Life book club are testing this theory in the discussion thread and are posting their types. The majority who have posted their types after taking a Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs topology personality test are reporting they are T/J’s (Thinkers/Judgers) and most are introverts as defined by this test.

How about you? Are you childless by choice? If so, click on the link above and take a few minutes to do the test and post your type here. We’ll see if the theory proves out.

You’d be Such a Great Parent

2009-12-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

Two is Enough is the featured book in The Childfree Life (TCFL) goodreads.com book club this month and next. I am joining in the discussions when I can and in one discussion on the chapter on assumptions two women had commented that people always said they would be a good parent. One is a teacher and she wrote "Parent as a noun is common...it is the parent as a verb that is the hard part."

She was a sought-after babysitter when she was young but always though she’d make a better mentor or teacher than a parent.

I really identified with these comments. I wanted to be a teacher when I was a kid and the kids I babysat always requested that I be asked to baby sit again, but I never wanted to be a parent. So I posted this comment:

We get the "You'd be such great parents" or "Oh you guys are they type of people who should have kids" too.

I'm sure we could manage to be successful parents IF WE WANTED TO.

The WANT is what is missing.

A Special Gift From a Friend

2009-12-04T12:57:00.000-08:00

I received the following email recently from a woman:

Yeah! A friend of mine recently gave me Two is Enough for my 35th birthday. How wonderful to know that there are other couples (and many of them) like us out there that do not want children. We are not "selfish" "broken" or "wrong" for not having children, we simply just do not have the desire/need to have children in order to lead a fulfilling life. I have had two relationships break up because I did not want kids and been questioned and criticized by friends and family who truly believe I should have kids because they just can't wrap their heads around me not wanting children.

I though, what a nice friend! This friend obviously understood that no one should be made to feel broken or wrong for expressing a desire to remain happily without children. I imagine she saw Jennifer as she was—a good person and friend who needed a bit of support and validation for making a choice that many people around her did not understand.

Optimism Unwarranted for Past President of the National Organization for Non-Parents

2009-11-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

Last month I got this email message from Marie Bernardy, who once served as President of NON/NAOP, one of the first childfree groups in the United States:

Hi Laura -

I was just forwarded an AOL article about your book on childfree couples. My husband and I were members of the National Organization for Non-Parents in the 1970s and 1980s; both of us served as president of the organization. Below is a wikipedia reference, in case you haven't run across it, which gives some details on the history of the "childfree movement."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childfree

I had my tubes tied at 23; my husband had a vasectomy at 24. We've been married 35 blissful, childfree years. I feel sad that so much of what we worked for so many years ago (education, acceptance, insurance equity, etc.) is still a problem for so many. Physicians are still reluctant to perform sterilizations, families continue to pressure for grandchildren, friends with kids ostracize those without.

Keep up the good work.

Marie was right. People like her have been working for decades to promote understanding and acceptance for the choice to remain childfree, yet not much has changed. She told me that NON/NAOP shut its doors in 1982, because of lack of funding the “thinking that the concept of being childfree was well entrenched” and that other organizations like Planned Parenthood and ETR would continue to provide materials that would invite people to consider the childfree life as a viable option. Marie now says “We were probably more optimistic than was warranted.”

Dear Prudence Advice Raises Objections

2009-11-11T05:39:00.000-08:00

I came across an old article in Slate titled Terrible Twosomes: What's Wrong with the Childless? by Geoffrey Andersen.

This article was a compilation of comments that were posted when Slate’s Dear Prudence advice columnist suggested that a decidedly childfree couple rethink their decision not to have kids. Prudence wrote:

I will join the chorus of people who are driving you crazy. You are about to get married, and as life's circumstances change, it is worth re-examining your goals, especially this one (and yes, I know, I am offending all happy childless people). You're only in your 30s—if you have children now, they'll be grown by the time you reach your late 50s! You say you love children, but as close as you may be to your nieces and nephews, that's no substitute for having your own.

Anderson featured one comment from Lee63 who clearly understood what it was like to be constantly questioned about her decision by those who feel compelled to list all the things she’s missing out on:

I was angry by the response Prudence provided because I know how it feels to have EVERYONE second guess my decision. I don't understand why people think the decision to not have children is this sudden thing that came about with no thought. Sometimes I think I'll scream if I hear one more person tell me I can adopt, or tell me a story about a 45+ women who had a baby. I know what's available out there, but I also know me and having a child is not the right thing for me. When someone goes on and on about why I should have kids, it's the same as coming out and saying "you are wrong" and I find that offensive. I say hats off to all the parents in the world AND to all those who will not have children. There are ups and downs either way.

This comment reflects the frustration many childless by choice people feel when people try to change their mind on parenthood. There is an underlying assumption that you made this decision without much thought, or you made it without complete information, or without an understanding of some of the benefits of parenthood.

But based on my interviews with childfree couples and singles that assumption does not hold true.

Married No Kids Household Likely to Loom Large in 2010 US Census

2009-10-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

The American ideal—the married couple, with kids—is no longer the “Average American” household. Some would argue that it hasn’t been for a while. In 2011 we will know for sure where this demographic stands when reports on the 2010 US census will be published. Peter Francese, a demographic tends analyst for Ogilvy & Mather and founder of American Demographics magazine predicts in his white paper titled 2010 America that "The iconic American family -- married couple with children -- will account for a mere 22% of households."

He is talking in census-speak, in terms of households, where “married couples with children” means married couples with children aged 18 and under living in the household. It doesn’t include parents with boomerang kids who return to live with their parents or empty-nesters but still, this is a shockingly low percentage.

So why does it seem that everyone who has a product to sell is marketing to the shrinking married-with-kids demographic? Along with Mr. Francese, I say “Wake up and smell the coffee!” Our world is changing!”

A summary of Francese’s predictions can be found in an article written by Bradley Johnson titled “The ‘Average American’ is Dying Off” where Bradley reports that, according to Francese, the most prevalent type of U.S. household will be the “married couple with no kids, followed by single-person households.”

Perhaps we will see a time, very soon, where the numbers reflecting our current reality speak louder than the marketers.

Flickr photo by Tobyotter CC BY 2.0

Do Kids Make Women Happier?

2009-10-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

This was the title of a segment featured on the TODAY show, which acknowledged that more women are admitting to being unhappy and frustrated because they feel overburdened and overstressed. With or without children, 40 percent of women in the United States are now finding themselves in the breadwinner role. In this economic climate, job security is uncertain. The pressures to fill the coffers and fill multiple roles and juggle multiple tasks are taking their toll on women’s happiness.

What some women thought would bring them happiness—money, the fancy home, and children—fail to deliver. The Today show reported what many studies have shown—that parents report lower levels of happiness than nonparents. The experts featured in this segment confirmed that women’s happiness is not tied directly to having children. It is tied to finding happiness in all aspects of their being. Often that means looking for happiness outside of the confines of the mother role, or asking for help when you need it.

A Parent’s Perspective

2009-10-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

Most of the emails I get through the Childless by Choice Project website are from childfree by choice folks or those who are still undecided but occasionally I will get a email from a parent. One such email from a woman named Stella really struck me as wise and true and so I asked her if I could share a bit of it with you. Here is what she wrote:

I stumbled by your site and I just wanted to let you know that I was so pleased that there are people out there who can promote positive values regarding parenting. It is right that parenting is not and should not be regarded as an obligation. I have two children even though I had planned never to have any children by myself. I never loved children nor did I hate them but my husband urged me to do so because he could not envisage a marriage without children and he also had to prove to his friends that he is man enough as per our African culture. Now I am divorced and I have them all to myself.
I love them deeply and now I can not imagine what my life would be without them. On the other hand, if my reality was that I did not have children, I would also chart a different course for it based on my circumstances. Bottom line is that if one has strong values about being true to themselves, they need to stand by the choice they make. Those who choose to become parents should devote themselves to the task while those who choose not to should also be understood.

Flickr Photo by mrhayata (cc)

LBC Radio's Jim Davis Quizzes Laura S. Scott on Two is Enough

2009-10-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

I spoke with Jim Davis, host of LBC Radio’s Sex in the City, this morning. He wanted to talk to me about the book and the buzz about the Daily Mail article in which some of my quotes and some incidents were made up, as reported in Jezebel.com.

I was happy to grant a radio interview as there is less risk of being creatively edited, and Mr. Davis had some really good questions about motives and the decision making process and we had a good laugh about some of the comments Daily Mail readers made about my choice to remain childfree which reflect just how little they could gather about why I made this choice based on this bogus first person account.

If you are in the London area within range of LBC radio’s signal, you can catch my interview with Jim Davis on the Sex in the City Show tonight (Friday, October 9, 2009)

Good Friends are Priceless

2009-10-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

An email from a very dear friend reminded me how so valuable close friends are. I had sent her a copy of my book and she celebrated with me in a way that only someone who shared a similar path could understand. Not in a superficial way. We are very different. She’s a very intentional parent. I am intentionally childfree. We think differently, we have very different life experiences and very different habits.

But we share joy, and we share laughter, and we share the hard-won wisdom we have gathered along the way.

I met my friend Karen when I was fifteen and we became fast friends. We are separated by borders and busy lives that allow us only a quarterly phone date where we reconnect instantly as if we have never left each others sides.

This kind of friendship reminds me that love, friendship, and respect knows no boundaries and no sense of time.

Not Having Kids is NOT the Best Thing I have Ever Done

2009-10-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

I recently granted an interview with Tessa Cunningham, a correspondent of the Daily Mail, a major newspaper in the UK. She had read my book Two Is Enough and wanted to know some of my personal story and what brought me to write this book. All well and good, except for the fact that she failed to tell me that the result of this interview would be first person article ghost written by Ms. Cunningham titled “Friends call me selfish—but not having kids is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

This title sounded like a direct quote but the problem is I did not, and would never say “not having kids is the best thing I’ve ever done.” There were many other things attributed to me that were not said during our interview and the quotes Ms Cunningham lifted from interviews in the book were also paraphrased in ways which could be misleading. Some assumptions were made about interviewees that were frankly wrong. A simple fact check prior to publishing the article might have solved this but I was never contacted for a fact check so these assumptions and misrepresentations were left unchecked and uncorrected.

What really upset me was that the weekend that she documented in this article--where my friend Marie (mother of three children) called me selfish, followed by golf and an Italian meal, never happened. In fact I do not have a friend named Marie. It’s true that I told Ms. Cunningham that couples who choose to remain childless are often considered selfish by friends and others who do not understand the true motives for intentional childlessness, however this article made it appear that we remain childless primarily because we love our careers and our lavish and glamorous lifestyle and we think our lot is better than that of parents. That is not true. I simply told her that one of the most compelling motives for remaining childless by choice is because we like our lives as they are and we don’t believe our lives would be enhanced by the presence of biological children.

I also said that women who remain childless often experience a higher level of marital satisfaction than do mothers of small children (a fact supported by studies other than mine). I did say that I had a career that involved a lot of overnight travel. However, career considerations were not the primary reason for my decision to remain childless. I told her my lack of desire for biological children was the primary motivator for me.

According to my survey, most women do not choose to remain childless primarily because of their careers. Some people really want children and find that children do enhance their life experience, some people do not. There is no good or bad decision here. No one is right or wrong. You make your choices and you live with them. There are downsides to living childless by choice (social isolation and stigma) which I did share with Ms. Cunningham and in my book but these downsides did not make it to the article. What did make it in the article would lead people to believe that the childless by choice think that parenthood is drudgery, and unfulfilling for all, including parents. And that the childless by choice lifestyle is all fun-filled weekends and high-powered careers.

I don’t know if that is your life, but it certainly isn’t mine.

Marie Claire Magazine Challenges Parenthood Myths

2009-09-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

A few months a go I spent an hour talking to Abigail Pesta, an editor with Marie Claire Magazine about the things I learned in the course of researching and writing Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice.

The result is a article titled “To Breed or Not to Breed” in the current October issue of Marie Claire Magazine, where we challenge some of the common myths about parenthood.

It is a fun and lighthearted look at the myths that often impact our decision making. Myths like:

• All women have the maternal instinct.
• A baby with strengthen the marriage.
• You’ll regret not having kids.

See page 95 in October’s issue or click on the link above to see how I respond to these. How would you respond?

Feedback from a Participant and Reader

2009-09-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

Linda is one of the 171 people who participated in the Childless by Choice Project survey, which is one of the ways I collected comtemporary data for Two is Enough. I ran a book giveaway contest for all my participants and she was one of the winners and one of the first people to read Two is Enough hot of the press.

She emailed me with this kind note:

I received my free copy this past Friday in the mail, and literally read it right away, all the way through. Thanks for getting it out to me so soon.
BTW, I probably took your survey in my late 40s; I'm now almost 53 and still do not regret not having had children. We've been married 30 years, and I get angry with people who say (as someone in your book quoted...actually, YOU and maybe others), "Why get married if you don't want to have kids?" What an inane question!
I really enjoyed the whole book--your writing style, and the way you broke it down into sections/chapters that made sense. Congratulations!

Win a Free Copy of Two Is Enough!

2009-09-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

We’re going to be running a contest to give away copies of Two Is Enough to five lucky winners! Starting Monday September 14 we’ll be running a contest on the facebook fan page of Two is Enough! Check in to find out how to win your copy of Two is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Childless by Choice!

The Environmental Impact of One American Child

2009-08-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

A new study out of Oregon State University suggests that limiting the number of children you have is a way more effective action you can take to reduce carbon emmissions than other more conventional actions such as recycling and cutting energy consumption.

In the article, published in Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) researchers Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax had this to say, in summary:

Under current conditions in the United States, for example, each child adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions.

Clearly, an individual’s reproductive choices can have a dramatic effect on the total carbon emissions ultimately attributable to his or her genetic lineage.

Murtaugh and Schlax make a strong case for smaller families, particularly in countries like the United States where one American child born in 2005 will likely produce close to 20 times more carbon emissions per capita than a child born in India.

An Appeal to Tone Down the Rhetoric

2009-08-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

In a recent post on Jezebel.com titled Assholes Without Kids Challenge Assholes With Kids, Sadie remarked on the vitriolic language used by some writers engaged in the Kids or No Kids discourse and urged some measure of restraint. She writes:

Yes, the cult of motherhood is annoying, and no one should, in this day and age, be considered less of a woman for (sic—not?) having children. But biting back in the same key is hardly the way to exact revenge or encourage respect for different choices. Are people going to be defensive when you call pregnancy and childbirth parasitic, disgusting, germ-ridden? Um, yes. I don't have children, but I can see how goes beyond irreverence into insulting something fundamental. I can't comprehend the bond, physical and emotional, that a mother feels for her children - which is why I wouldn't presume to demean it, any more than I'd insult someone who'd chosen not to have children for any reason.

Though I might quibble about her use of “fundamental” in reference to parenthood, I understand Sadie’s concern. I’ve noticed how quickly discourse on the issues faced by stay-at-home moms and working moms degenerated into the Mommy Wars and I wonder if the same thing is happening with parents and non parents.

Do I care how many kids the Duggars have? Not really. I’m hoping the growing number of childless people will balance them out. I would be upset if the children were being neglected or abused in some way. They don’t appear to be—exploited perhaps but not harmed. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about the Jon and Kate debacle. However I was pleased to learn Nadya Suleman’s recent reality TV deal stipulated fair payment and a trust fund for the kids. I suspect the previous exploitation of Nadya’s infants, and the subsequent outrage from both parents and non parents and California child labor law enforcers, ensured that this TV deal was fairer to the children.

I believe we all have a right to express outrage when we see unfairness, abuse, or exploitation but we can do so by pointing to specific cases and not by disparaging or belittling parents, or nonparents, in general. As the Mommy Wars have shown, not much productive comes out of the vitriolic lobbying back and forth, which is why I question the use of “Assholes” in the title of Sadie’s post.

Flickr photo by BrittneyBush (cc)

Working Wives, Unemployed Husbands

2009-08-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

In the current recession, two things are happening which we need to address politically and individually. One, women are increasingly becoming the breadwinners in their families and two, when the breadwinner loses their job the whole family is at risk of losing their health insurance.

A fascinating and timely article titled Women Breadwinners, Men Unemployed written by Heather Boushey, the Senior Economist at the Center for American Progress examines these current realities and their impact on our lives. Boushey notes:

The reason that more married couples now boast women as the primary breadwinners is because men have experienced greater job losses than women over the course of this recession, losing three-out-of-every-four jobs lost. This puts a real strain on family budgets since women typically earn only 78 cents for every dollar men earn.

What’s equally worrisome is that most families receive health insurance through the employers of their husbands. So when husbands lose their jobs, families are left struggling to find ways to pay for health insurance at the same time they are living on just a third of their prior income.

Worrisome, indeed. Even though my husband and I are married and have been for over twenty years we have a “single + one” health insurance plan through his work that, if he were to lose his job, would be very expensive to replace, even though we are only insuring two relatively healthy people with no life threatening pre-existing conditions.

My income as a writer would not come close to covering this cost. Which is why I’m tempted to contact my representatives in government during their summer break and encourage them to move fast to make sure we pass some kind of health care reform bill.

Families of all incomes and sizes need to be protected, recession-proofed, so that even more people do not become uninsured.

Flickr Photo by keltickelton (cc)

How old is too old to have kids?

2009-07-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

The recent news about the death of Maria del Carmen Bousada, the Spanish woman who gave birth to twins at 66 years old, made me very sad. She lived only a handful of years after she did what many thought was crazy—sold her house to pay for in vitro fertilization and delivered twins at an age when most women are happy to be empty nesters , grandparents, or childfree. She did this as a single woman, after having lied about her age to the doctors at a Los Angeles fertility clinic, where she was not asked for proof of age.

When I read the article about Bousada, written by Associated Press writer Daniel Woolls, I mourned for her and for her two small children who where only two years old at the time of her death and will likely have no memories of their mother, and it brought to mind a conversation I had with my husband when I was in my late twenties and happily childfree.

We talked about how some women hit thirty five and suddenly become desperate to have a child. I told him I was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen to me but he said, “If you decide you do want kids you have to tell me before I turn fifty because I don’t want to be an old dad.”

I took heed and made a mental note of that. He turned sixty last year and I’m forty seven and I have yet to report an incident of baby fever, and even if I did suddenly feel the grip of baby longing I would have to say that now it’s just too late.

I imagine, like Maria del Carmen Bousada did, that I will live into my nineties. But Bousada couldn’t anticipate the stomach cancer diagnosis a year after her twins were born and I can’t imagine chasing a kid around with gimpy knees and brittle bones at seventy. It would be crazy—it wouldn’t be fair to my husband and it wouldn’t be fair to the kid.

Old but Not Alone

2009-07-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

Our friends worry about us. What are you going to do when you get old? Who’s going to take care of you?

Most us have some canned answers to these questions, usually staring with “With the money we’ve saved by not having kids, we can…

...afford in-home care” or

…stay at the Marriott Residence assisted living place” or

…buy some long-term health care insurance.”

Or stay at a Green House. I first heard about this new model of residential eldercare when my friend Linda gave me a copy of an article titled “Where to Live as We Age” written by Susan Fine for Parade magazine.

A Green House is the brainchild of geriatrician Dr. Bill Thomas who, with the help of a foundation and a non-profit organization, piloted this new type of residential living for the elderly. The Green House near Albany, NY shelters 12 “elders” and a multi-tasking staff who cook, clean, dispense medication, or organize activities such as dances and Nintendo Wii games.

The residents say the best thing about this model is the homey feel and intimacy and the fact that they can choose their meal times and live with their pets.

Sounds like a great place to be when it comes time…

Flickr Photo by Adwriter

(cc)

A Birth Control Shot for Men

2009-06-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been waiting for the day when some drug company would introduce a new birth control method for men. We’re not there yet but this day is getting closer with a Chinese study designed to test the effectiveness of a new formula birth control shot for guys.

I thought this was pretty exciting stuff so I did a bit of research into this development, a summary of which was published in this month’s edition of Unscripted. Here’s an excerpt:

In a recent study, 1,045 Chinese men between 20 and 45 years of age were given testosterone injections for over two years. All these men had fathered a child within the last two years and their partners did not report any fertility problems. Yet these shots where able to prevent pregnancy 99% of the time, coming close to the success rate of female hormonal contraceptives.

It been know for years that testosterone shots suppress sperm production but in most previous studies men were subjected to weekly shots instead of the monthly shot given to the men in the Chinese study. Previously researchers and marketers had doubted that men would sign up for a weekly shot so the testosterone shot never really got traction as a viable method for male birth control. And, even though the men taking these shots reported very few side effects (acne and higher sex drive are two), there remains some concern about the long-term effects of testosterone on the prostrate gland and heart, and on the behavioral effects of testosterone.

The main benefit of the testosterone shot is, like the birth control pill for women, this method is reversible. So for those guys who want to take responsibility for their own reproductive lives but aren’t ready to be snipped, this could prove to be the answer.

The question is: Are there enough men out there ready and willing to take a monthly shot?

You tell me…

Flickr photo by stevendepolo (cc)

Looking for the “No Children Guy”

2009-06-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

Niaris emailed me from Puerto Rico to share her story. She apologized for her poor english but in fact it was very good—she communicated very genuinely what many women, and men, go through when they tell their partners they don’t want kids, either they are not believed or their partner believes things will change over time. I’ve heard too many stories like hers to believe that you can change someone’s mind on a commitment as huge as parenthood. It rarely works. Here’s a bit of what she had to say:

When I was little girl I dreamt of having a family, but as I grew older that changed. When I looked around me I saw that the responsibility of the children falls to the mother. I think it is not fair to women—it should be an equal responsibility.

My first marriage ended because I did not want any children, although I made it clear from the beginning. He thought he could change my mind.

As I was getting back to dating, one of the characteristics I was looking for was a ‘no children guy.’ I found him. We got married two years ago.

Niaris still gets the “When are you having a baby?” question, and she weathers the reaction “the look on their face when you say ‘never.’ But that does not bother me. My choice is to live without children. I do not hate children; I just don't want the responsibility.”

Niaris brought up a point I think is important. Though many of the men and the women I interviewed weighed the responsibility of parenthood in the course of their decision making, the women did make the assumption that the bulk of the childcare tasks would fall to them, whether they were working full-time or not. I’ve often wondered if this imbalance of responsibility is one of the reasons why these women resist motherhood. What do you think?

Flickr photo by Ruth L (cc)

Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice is Available to Pre-Order!

2009-06-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, the book created out of the Childless by Choice Project is now available as a pre-order on Amazon.com.

If you pre-order on Amazon.com you can save 32 percent off the cover price and the book will automatically be shipped to you as soon as it hits the warehouse.

Just click on the link above or search “Two is Enough Childless by Choice” on amazon.com and pre-order the book and get it for only US$11.53.

This is the terrific discount for a new release, so take advantage!

Is Divorce Different for the Childless?

2009-05-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that studies, including the Childless by Choice Project study, show that childfree couples are motivated to remain without children because of marital satisfaction, the risk of divorce is still present. In fact, childfree couples are just as likely to divorce as are couples with children. Divorce is never easy—with kids or without them—but an article titled Modern Marriage Risks Amplified by Children recently published in Unscripted suggests that the divorce may be much less problematic if the couple has remained childless.

The article’s author, J. Bushnell pointed out that: “nonparent couples don’t have to stick out a bad or abusive relationship for fear of supporting a household or raising children alone. Unlike parents, childfree couples don’t have to worry about how a divorce will impact children; instead, they can split their assets 50/50, move on, and even move away, without concerns about taking a child away from its school district or nonresidential parent.”

Bushnell also pointed out that the risks of divorce are much higher for women than for men if they have children. “As 80% of children live with their mother following a divorce, perhaps women should seriously consider before starting a family whether they are equipped to parent alone one day if their marriage fails. Because single motherhood is clearly a very strong possibility.”

Imagine a drive-through wedding chapel in Las Vegas and the Elvis impersonator/ordained minister who is about to marry you asks “You have a fifty-fifty chance of ending up as single mother, are you still going to say ‘I do’ and have kids with this guy?”

Flickr photo by madmolecule (cc)

The Childfree In India

2009-05-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

Recently I was interviewed by a reporter who was researching an article about the childfree for The Sunday Indian, a national magazine out of New Delhi.

The resulting article, written by Anu Gulmohar, was published on Mother’s Day, and cited the Childless by Choice Project study and another study of eighteen and older childless persons in India. Turns out urban childless Indians feel pretty much the same way as North Americans in their perceptions of parenthood. The majority (73 percent) of Indians surveyed felt “that having children will curtail their freedom” and 87 percent felt children were “a full-time job.”

Like many North Americans, these childless Indians felt pressured to procreate and they felt that the “the biggest motivator for having kids is not their desire to experience parenthood (12%), or the sheer love for children (10%), but the pressure applied by their society and families!!”

Another assumption that appears to have gone global is the perception of selfishness. A childfree man who was quoted in this article had this to say:

“Tell me one thing that is selfless about wanting to have children,” retorts P Srivastava. “Is there any altruistic sentiment behind it? I feel none. Everything that causes one to procreate is selfish in nature. You want to create your own flesh and blood, you want someone to look after you, you want happiness for your family, you want happiness for yourself. Is not all this selfish?”

Having heard a version of this from my interviews with the childless by choice, I could empathize with this man. Some people do equate parenthood with happiness and they want that for themselves. However, the Indian survey respondents were willing to wait for parenthood, they were choosing to postpone parenthood far beyond the age their parents likely had the first child. The average age at which these young adults saw themselves having children was thirty.

Flickr photo by premasagar (cc)

Fur-Kids

2009-05-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

Many childless by choice adults embrace their pets as part of the family. Whether you call them fido or fluffy, these pets can seem like child substitutes, adding a lot of love.

It's true your pet will never grow up and take care of you when you get old. In fact, you can count on the fact that you will outlive them, barring great misfortune on your part. Their lives are so brief, and they give so much, even if you don't always have time for them.

I recently lost my beloved cat Vladimir. He was with me for 19 years, spanning half my life, thus far. The better half I might add. I was careful who I told about my grief. I learned from a grief therapist that a new loss can open up all the old ones, and my mourning of this cat's passing ran pretty deep. It actually made me wonder if he didn't really fill the "missing child" niche for me. It made me doubt my choice, for a moment.

Cats and children really do not compare. Cats are way easier. I don't think it is a good idea to have children so they can take care of you when you get older, but I have to admit the possibility that they might is rather appealing. One of the nicest things a friend said to me was, "you are a such a positive, warm person Teri, you will always have people around who will help you."

That's a nice sentiment too. I am hanging on to that thought.

Now we're thinking about getting a dog. Hey, it's a big step for a CF couple.

Why Have Kids?

2009-04-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

I was forwarded a link to a fascinating blog post titled “Does Having Kids Ruin Your Life?”

It was written by a 31 year-old childless woman writing under the name kryptogal who was admittedly “indifferent” about children.

One of her major issues around having a child is best summed up in the following quote:

Here’s the way I see it: having a child is like having an arranged marriage with a person you won’t meet until your wedding day. And then you can never get divorced. Your spouse could be tall or short, kind or mean, mentally or physically disabled, funny or humorless, ugly or pretty, lazy or energetic, smart or dull – you won’t know until it’s too late. And you will be 100% responsible for your spouse’s emotional, physical, intellectual, and financial well-being for the rest of your life. If your spouse has problems – say, he/she is an alcoholic or autistic – you will be blamed. You will worry about your spouse and feel guilty about your spouse without cease.

Who in their right mind would sign up for a marriage like that? NO ONE!! Yet that’s exactly what you sign up for when you have a child. You don’t know who your child will be until it’s too late. And you can never, ever, ever un-do it.

So why do 9 out of 10 people seem so gung-ho about this?? Can anyone give me some answers?

Many people did respond to her request for answers. Most were parents and their comments make interesting reading, providing a glimpse into how a parent might respond if asked, “Why have kids?”

The Debate on Paid Family Leave

2009-04-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

A recent article on OregonLive.com in which a conservative columnist slammed a proposed paid family leave law sparked some interesting comments, leading me to revisit my own feelings about government-mandated paid family leave.

In recent years, I have come to the conclusion that paid family leave is acceptable only if it is offered to all—not just parents, or caregivers of family members. Paid leave is a benefit, like a health care plan, and should be available to all. It should be treated like paid vacation time. Nobody should be told how to spend their vacation time; likewise nobody should have to “qualify” for paid leave.

In this economy government-mandated paid leave is a hard sell; it’s a luxury during a time when some companies are not able to afford decent health care plans or matching funds for 401k plans. It is unwise for a government to mandate this benefit with no regard as to a companies’ ability to fund it.

Elizabeth Hovde, The Oregonian columnist who wrote “Paid family leave? Let's give it a deserved rest,” agrees:

Paid family leave -- which is typically used for time off with newborns and sometimes used for employees needing to care for ailing family members -- suggests that our personal choices and circumstances are others' burdens to bear.

They aren't. Choosing to start a family or deciding to care for loved ones is something individuals should plan for -- emotionally and financially. While employers and co-workers have every right to be generous with their money and could choose to donate time or pay an employee to take time off for family, the government has no business being so generous with people's hourly wages.

At the center of this debate is the issue of fairness. I believe the only way to be fair is to offer paid family leave as one in a menu of benefits and invite each employee to choose the ones they want, up to a set monetary value; single employees might choose a gym membership, employees with children might choose “paid family leave.” Given that the “household with children” demographic is shrinking, perhaps it is time we drop the “family” from paid family leave. Companies should be free to offer “paid leave” as a quality of life benefit (acknowledging that employees can benefit from time off to care for family members, pets, or themselves) but they shouldn’t be forced to do so.

The incentive to offer this benefit is already evident; companies that do so are more likely to attract employees who, if they value their work and the benefits, will stay longer and companies will save money in training, employee turnover, and unplanned absenteeism.

Everyone can benefit from a paid leave, and everyone should.

Are You Invisible?

2009-03-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

Wallflower would not exactly describe me, but for decades I have conveniently blended in to the crowd as a childfree by choice woman of childbearing years. Allowing strangers to make assumptions as to my family status has been easier than a long, intimate conversation with someone I may never meet again. Truthfully, no one is owed an explanation, not even the curious.

Life is different now. I live in a suburban town with rural roots. Because of my volunteer work with a local nonprofit and my husband's five generations of family connections in that same town, I cannot go to the grocery store without recognizing someone I know. I like that, and they will get used to me. I've accepted the fact that I may never fit in, even though I may make a significant, unrecognized contribution to this community before it is my time to leave. As my sister-in-law put it,

"Childless people have more energy to contribute to all of the world's people. They also have the time to treasure good friends."

Outside of our family choices, we childfree folks are as diverse in our reasons as we are in our pursuits, using the time that is not devoted to the upbringing of the next generation.

I have explored the invisible nature of being childfree in a few different contexts--on a personal level in intimate settings (expecially hard when people don't already know, love and accept you); in the blogosphere, where we are often not a large enough a self-identifying group to warrant our own affinity category (marketers cannot sell us something specific as we are too diverse and lack unity), and within society at large via the good ol' U.S. Census (Do We Count?).

On November 15, 2007, I even staged an online event called "Purple Women Count" due to my frustrations in trying to find some way to be unified with others like me and counted in the larger context of the modern woman's experience, not necessarily that of a mother. Sadly, I let the anniversary pass last year, without so much as donning a purple sweater!

Because I administered a blog on the topic of being childfree for two years, I drew the attention of reporters who were looking for an interesting story to sell their editors. I am of the opinion that it is almost impossible for a newspaper reporter to capture the experience of a childless by choice individual and draw parallels. Their job is to find an interesting angle, and "early articulators" have been most often covered, those with regret in their decisions a close second. (See White Picket Fences post 10-09-07). Those content with their choice, may be the least interesting and most invisible among us.

Do you have a story about being invisible?

Flickr photo by pericomart (cc)

Lisa’s Story

2009-03-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

Lisa, 46, emailed me to tell me her story. She felt that more needed to be said on the importance of “respecting our spouse’s choice.”

My husband didn't want children from the time we met. Many women ignore their partner’s feelings and manipulate them into getting what they want. Then when the child arrives, they complain their husband isn't involved enough.

I thought about making my husband think that he'll lose me if he doesn't at least consider kids. Instead I asked myself, do I want a child that badly or is it just the next step? Or is it pressure from eager grandparents?

Underneath, I knew I'd really struggle to care for a child. I've had chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia since 1988. After I started caring for my nieces (ages 5 and 7) and my husband was diagnosed with MS, I knew things happen for a reason.

The Journey to Me

2009-03-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

We all start out child-free and somewhere along the way paths diverge, and mine lead to being childless by choice, even though I had to have a life-altering surgery at the tender, single age of 27, that rendered me incapable of bearing fruit. Fruit of the womb, that is.

It has been a long journey to becoming childfree me. I don't like to have my choice taken away from me. After the surgery, I walked the infertile couple path. We were not rich enough to even consider adoption or in-vitro. I felt trapped by my lack of options and by the horrible, emotional experience of wanting something that you cannot have. Something as complicated as love is never quite this simple, but looking back, I think my infertility was merely a trigger for the collapse of my first marriage. His drive to be childed was simply stronger than mine, though I could not articulate it at the time. I was just misarable. So, I exited stage left to explore this option solo.

A decade later, I thought for sure the conversation with my new boyfriend, the one I was slowing falling in love with, would be heart-wrenching. I knew that I had an obligation to tell him I would not be his "baby-mamma" before we went any further. To my surprise, he had already determined for himself that having children was not high on his list. After we married, I discovered the motivation for his decision was based on a lesson in over-population that he was exposed to as a sophomore in high school. His parents had taken the whole family to the world's fair in Spokane, Washington in 1974. A bell rang every five minutes, indicating that another child was born. This conscious-raising stunt had a profound impact on this thinking young man. He realized that the world did not need more children. Perhaps the message rang a little strong with him since he is one of five children. The product of two large traditionally Catholic families. Now, I love to hear him tell this story to a receptive audience.

My personal journey to childfree included blogging about it exclusively for two years at Purple Women & Friends. I didn't like the terms others applied to my brand of childlessness, so I created my own nomenclature around the subject. At the time, my husband and I found ourselves in the social petrie dish of being an expat in Canada. I was also turning 40 and had lots of time on my hands for life review and the blogosphere was my medium. In my 30s, I was still looking for childfree role models and I interviewed and befriended many. Along the way, I discovered and read several books on the subject, some humorous, some humorous only to some, all enlightening. We can definitely use more thoughtful exploration, both fiction and non-fiction in this arena, and I for one am really looking forward to the book and documentary film being produced by my friend and former PW&F co-contributor, Laura Scott, the owner of this blog.

All the online journaling and the childfree adult friendships I made along the way have made me less susceptible to thoughtless comments made by others about my chosen childless by choice status. But still I was a little unnerved when I was invited to be a panelist and moderator at the 2008 BlogHer Conference in San Francisco at an experimental Childfree Women Bloggers session. During my "purple" years, I created a reputation for being a reasonable voice on this often hot topic and an even-handed moderator of this multiple-voice team blog. I had actively lobbied BlogHer and other social networking sites for inclusion in our own separate category, since mom bloggers seemed to dominate all conversations. There never seemed to be a proper category to fit our uniquely focused blog. It was hard to promote, and our chance to gain more readers and expand the conversation was dampened by this reality. So, to be invited to participate in such a panel was an achievement of sorts, and I simply could not refuse.

Laura joined me on the BlogHer "Childless in the Blogosphere" panel. It was a good experience. The panel was attended by more than 50 women bloggers. At the end of the day, I realized I had become the role model I was seeking. My Purple Women blog is now closed, though the content is all there and searchable by topic, but my journey is far from over and I am happy to join this blog as contributor so I can continue to explore the role and phenomenon of childfree adults in our society.

Next post by Teri: Invisible Citizens - Childless by Choice Adults

(Or, let us know what you'd like to read about!)

Introducing Teri Tith

2009-03-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

I've very happy to introduce you to Teri Tith, a new contributor to the Childless by Choice Project Blog. Teri is new to this blog but she is a veteran blogger who has embraced her childless by choice status in the most marvelous way, sharing this experience with others in the blogosphere, and beyond, as you will see in the next post.

Teri introduced me to blogging over two years ago when she invited me to contribute to her blog Purple Women & Friends, and since then I come to appreciate her both as a writer and a friend.

I trust you will too.

It’s Not Realistic

2009-03-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

Back in the 70’s, I had a very brave health teacher who decided to offer her 10th grade class frank and accurate information about sex—both the benefits and the consequences. I recall that my parents had to sign a release form giving me permission to attend this class, which they did, quite happily.

It was in that classroom where I saw my first condom and I learned how men get erections, and learned that women have “little penises” called a clitoris and this tiny bit of anatomy was the key to female orgasm. As I write this I marvel at all the information I was given in this short series of classes. This information later allowed me to challenge much of the schoolyard sexual mythology—such as the “blue ball” myth that guys would practically die if they couldn’t satisfy an erection—and allowed me to protect myself from unplanned pregnancies and act as my own advocate when I was ready to go beyond first base.

I mourn for the generations of men and women who didn’t get this information, or got it too late. I speak not only as a childless by choice woman but also as a mentor of young women. More than once I’ve had to explain to a young woman, as my teacher did, why you can’t use a condom twice, or confirm that it is possible to get STDs from oral sex. Too many go out in a world, where 30 percent of American teens have sex before they are old enough to drive a car, unarmed and misinformed.

This is why I have always resisted the notion of abstinence-only education. I fear that by limiting sex education in schools we rob children of critical knowledge that will keep them safer, and I feel it is grossly naïve to think abstinence-only education can reduce premarital sex. Sadly, my fears were confirmed in a recent article titled Abstinence-Only Education: Just As Much Sex, But With Less Condom Use written by Melanie Altar citing a study by Janet Rosenbaum, a researcher at John Hopkins, which found that “teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until their wedding night are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not. Moreover, pledgers in the study were less likely to take precautions against STIs and unwanted pregnancies than a peer control group with similar backgrounds who did not make a pledge.”

Rosenbaum’s findings were echoed in Greta Van Susteren’s interview with Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, a new teen mom. Although her mother is a proponent of abstinence-only education as Governor of Alaska, Bristol, when asked how she felt about contraception, said, “Everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all.”

From the mouths of babes to our ears.

Mom Bloggers Weigh In On The Childfree by Choice

2009-02-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

Christine Tarbet, the Web Producer of Momversation (a site that features video from mom-bloggers) emailed me last week giving me a heads up about a new video they had produced titled, "Childfree by Choice." It features some the top mom bloggers and their view of the childfree by choice “movement.”

Apparently one of the mom bloggers spent half a day scanning some the sites and forums, was taken aback by some of the content she saw there, and came away with the impression that the childfree hate kids and by extension their “breeder” parents for hogging all the tax cuts and benefits afforded exclusively to parents in our society.

Let me go on record. I don’t dislike children and I have no problem with parents unless they neglect or abuse their children. I confess I have used the term “ankle biters” in reference to children but so have some of my friends who later became parents. But I have never used the terms “crotch droppings” or “semen demons” (used by some childfree forum users) because I find them offensive and rude. I don’t look at a kid and automatically grimace because I have found some kids to be very cool and fun to be around, others not so. Likewise, some of the childfree just plain don’t like kids and some really enjoy their time with the little munchkins.

Writer Sarah Klein did a pretty good job resolving the question: “Are the childfree a fast-growing, misunderstood movement — or just a bunch of mean ol’ kid haters?” in her 2005 Detroit Metro Times article titled “Oh Baby.”

Klein noted that the Childless by Choice come in all stripes and flavors and quoted Psychologist Debra Mollen: “Many parents get upset because they internalize the criticism, and feel like their choice, the choice to parent, is negated. But most childfree people are simply saying, ‘This is what works for us.’”

In this article Mollen also acknowledged that the parents are afforded privileges not extended to the childless. “Pregnant women get preferential parking, those without children are expected to work longer hours, people with children get tax breaks,” Mollen says. “There’s social sanctioning for having children.”

Maybe that’s why the childfree feel the need to rant. If you look hard enough you are going to find the radicals, the shock jocks, and the righteously pissed-off in any population, whether you’re right wing, left wing, religious or atheist, parents or non-parents.

Warning: Slouching into Parenthood May Result in Marital Discontent

2009-02-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

One thing that really impressed me when I started interviewing couples who were childless by choice was how many had discussed their feelings about parenthood with their partners early on in the relationship. Sometimes this happened on the first or second date; sometimes it was discussed prior to marriage. The most important thing is that it was discussed and these couples were in agreement—they wanted to remain childless.

A new study by researchers Philip and Carolyn Cowan cited in a New York Times article titled Till Children Do Us Part written by Stephanie Coontz reinforces the benefits of having what I call the “kid conversation” early on. The Cowan’s findings show that those parents who are not in agreement, or are ambivalent, or have children just to please their spouse are much more likely to experience dissatisfaction with their marriage. Some of this dissatisfaction may also be attributed to the roles men and women adopt after the child arrives.

Coontz explains:

“Some couples plan the conception and discuss how they want to conduct their relationship after the baby is born. Others disagree about whether or when to conceive, with one partner giving in for the sake of the relationship. And sometimes, both partners are ambivalent.
The Cowans found that the average drop in marital satisfaction was almost entirely accounted for by the couples who slid into being parents, disagreed over it or were ambivalent about it. Couples who planned or equally welcomed the conception were likely to maintain or even increase their marital satisfaction after the child was born.
Marital quality also tends to decline when parents backslide into more traditional gender roles. Once a child arrives, lack of paid parental leave often leads the wife to quit her job and the husband to work more. This produces discontent on both sides. The wife resents her husband’s lack of involvement in child care and housework. The husband resents his wife’s ingratitude for the long hours he
works to support the family.”

This study and others show how important it is that both partners are fully on board and have a plan on how they will handle the arrival of a child—or not. Whether you desire a child, or you are planning for a life without children, the strength and happiness of your marriage is dependent on your spouse being a willing participant, whatever you choose.

Hollywood Baby Bust

2009-01-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

Marieclaire.com just posted an article on Childfree Celebrities that features a slideshow of twenty one celebs who are saying “No kids, thank you!”—including Eva Mendes, George Clooney, Margaret Cho, and Kim Catrall.

In the midst of the Hollywood baby boom and the tiresome tabloid “Bump alerts” this is so refreshing!

Check it out and comment on your favorite celebrity sans enfant.

Four Christmases, Four Stereotypes

2008-12-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I went to see the movie Four Christmases with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. I was looking for some light and airy entertainment and what I got was lightweight and airhead.

The story centers around a supposedly happy childfree, unmarried, couple who end up having to delay a trip to Fiji due to fog and are coerced into visiting all four (divorced) parents on Christmas day, something they had managed to avoid in previous years by pretending to be on humanitarian mission trips.

Despite a wonderfully talented cast, this film falls flat not just because of a bad script but because of the cardboard cutout, stereotypical characters, particularly our childfree couple.

Four Christmases perpetuates four stereotypes:

1) Childfree couples are shallow, jet-setting DINKs (perfect for hating).
2) Childfree couples are in denial, they secretly want a child but they are too fearful or too dysfunctional to step up to the plate and be real adults in the world.
3) They are allergic to kids, or just plain don’t like them.
4) When one half of a couple wants a child and the other one doesn’t this dilemma is easily solved by just having a kid—aw, she, or he, will come on board once the kid is here.

This may work in Hollywood, or not, but it doesn’t fly in the real world. Ask any REAL childfree person.

Which brings me to my next thought: if they were really a childfree couple, wouldn’t they be using a reliable birth control method?

Parenthood is Not Fun for Every One

2008-11-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

There is an assumption we make as a culture that says “You may not want kids now, but it’s different when they’re your own.”

After this week I’m not so sure this little birdie can fly. First was the news that the state of Nebraska’s “Safe Haven” law will have to be rewritten because people are abandoning their adolescents and teens at the safe haven hospital sites instead of newborns, which the law was originally intended to protect. In fact, the majority of the seventeen kids who have been abandoned at Nebraska hospitals since the law went into effect last July are over ten years old.

If it is different when they’re yours, then why are parents abandoning their kids? They are no longer colicky, they are, hopefully, toilet trained, and, bonus, they can dress themselves, yet their parents and guardians are clearly not in love with the parenting role.

Which brings me to the second thing—a quote from one of my interviews for the Childless by Choice Project in which Susan Jeffers, a parent and author of the book I’m Okay, You’re a Brat!: Setting the Priorities Straight and Freeing You from the Guilt and Mad Myths of Parenthood said: “I’m not talking anti-parenthood. I’m talking about the fact that some people love it, some people don’t love it. It is not good, or bad; there shouldn’t be any judgment about it.

“You know, it is very possible to adore your children but not love parenting. I think some of us like to be lawyers, some of us like to be teachers. We don’t all love the same thing. So I think it’s absurd to think that everybody would love to be a parent.”

Clearly, some of us don’t relish the parent role and if our society gave us permission to choose childlessness there would likely not be as many parents abandoning kids at the emergency doors of a hospital in the state of Nebraska. And I’m not making a judgment about these parents.

Parenting is hard. Let’s not pretend that it’s not.

You Like Choice? Then Vote

2008-10-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am a new citizen of the United States of America. A former green card holder, born in Canada, I will vote in a presidential election for the first time. After 17 years of paying taxes as a Resident Alien, without a vote, it is something I look forward to.

So I am pleased to see that voter registration is up. I was surprised when I first immigrated how low the voter turnout was for presidential elections. Yet, people complained about the current administration. My thought was let your vote do the talking.

So will you be mute, or will you speak, as is your right as a citizen?

Choice has its Limits

2008-10-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

Recently I was contacted by a journalist who was writing an article on young childfree males who had a vasectomy in their twenties. He asked me if I knew a male in his twenties who had recently signed up for this procedure. I did not.

I knew from my interviews with childfree couples that it is possible to get a vasectomy in your twenties but it isn’t easy. I had heard stories about twenty-something childless by choice men being turned away by doctors who said, "Come back to me when you’ve had a couple of kids."

Hello!? It’s true. You will likely have to doctor shop to get a vasectomy if you are a young childfree man. The same is true if you are a young childless woman seeking a tubal ligation. Some doctors are reluctant to perform a tubal ligation on a woman under twenty-five years old, even if she does have kids. Woman and men have been asked to undergo a year of counseling, write a letter to the child they will never have, and are generally expected to jump through hoops to convince a doctor they are sincere in their desire to remain childfree.

Why is it so hard?

Because there are assumptions, crusty with age, that are operating here:
1) You may think you don’t want children, but you will change your mind (and sue me).
2) You will divorce and your next spouse will want a baby, and you will acquiesce.
3) You’re immature, and you don’t know your own mind.

If you really, really want to be permanently sterilized in your twenties you must find a way to overcome these objections, or wait until you turn thirty. In the meantime, do what many of my particpants in the childless by choice project have done.
1) Double up on birth control (I know, you are already very careful).
2) Discuss your wishes with your partner (it takes two to be this diligent).
3) Do an extensive discernment process. Do you really want to remain childless? Why? When you’ve answered these questions, write a letter to yourself, and print a copy for the doctor and bring it to the initial consultation.

It takes a a good pitch, and a lot of thought, to make this life-altering decision, but if it is what you really, really want to do, remember you can always adopt, foster, or mentor. A life without kids doesn’t necessarily mean a life without kids. (See the previous post).

Tee It Up

2008-10-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

During my work on the Childless by Choice Project, I suspended some of my volunteer work. I didn’t have the time. I still don’t have the time, but I was offerred an opportunity to spend two hours a week with the young golfers at The First Tee, an instructional and character-development program for youth. I jumped on it because I missed working with young people and, frankly, after many hours in front of my computer I needed the fresh air.

A week before my first day at First Tee, I was warned by the director that we had "rambunctious" group, a group of 20 elementary and middle schools boys and one girl. I braced myself. I was used to mentoring teenagers one-on-one so the prospect of one on five younger kids had me worried. How would I cope?

I arrived early. The director asked me "Do you have boys?" "No kids," I responded. It didn’t appear to worry her. I suspect she is childless, or childfree, too.

I turned out to be fine. The kids were great and I enjoyed my time with them. My time is precious; I need to be careful how I spend it these days. However, two hours teaching kids golf and character skills is a good, and happy, use of my time.

How do you use your time in ways that make you happy?

VP Pick Leaves Me with No Choice

2008-09-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

I’m childfree, and I am an independent, because I like the luxury of choice. Party, shmarty—just give me a candidate who can get the job done—red or blue, or green, or violet. I don’t care.

I’ve always admired McCain. I like his party outsider status. As the Senator from Arizona, he was the guy you could count on to reach across party lines and kick ass and take names. I like Obama, too. He’s smart but he’s not an egghead, he knows what’s doable and what’s not, given the resourses. He knows where his priorities lie, but he’s not an idealogue.

So I was happy with the presidential candidates, both were a welcomed departure from Dubya, so I was anticipating an interesting campaign season, where the outcome was uncertain. I was the Bachelorette, in the final episode. I was on the edge of my seat. My vote still to be wooed, I was looking forward to the final courtship process. The bended knee.

Then came Sarah Palin, leaving me with just one choice.

It wasn’t hate at first sight. I was pleased there was a woman VP candidate. We shared a few things in common. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, I could be found warming a seat at the hockey rink; my father was a hockey coach, he spent fall weekends hunting moose; there are family movies of my grandmother in a cap with ear flaps dragging a dead moose out of the woods.

So it wasn’t the pitpull with lipstick, frontier hunter/gatherer chick thing that turned me off. It was three simple things:

Under her watch as Mayor of Wasilla, victims of rape were expected to pay for their own rape kits.
She appears determined to defend abstinence-only education, despite direct and compelling evidence that an alarming number of young people who vow to stay virgins until married abandon ship like rats on a sinking ship, without life vests (read: condoms).
She hadn’t travelled outside of the United States and Canada until 2007 when she was Governor, having applied for her first passport so that she could visit Alaska-based troops in Iraq and Kuwait.

If Palin was the candidate for mayor in my hometown, I might overlook the passport thing, but I would be very concerned about the other two. But she’s not running for mayor, she’s running for Vice President, next in line to someone who, if he gets the votes, will be the oldest elected first-term president in our history.

I shudder. I imagine some factory in China doing double shifts trying to fill the next container full with Sarah Palin masks. It will be the scariest thing I see at my door this Halloween.