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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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)