Purple Women Project Update: Official Launch Jan. 2006

It took a little longer than I was hoping to launch the web site and the blog. Given that it's not a good idea to try and drum up support and participation during the busy holidays, the survey and major effort to promote the concept of Purple Women^TM and participation in the project will be delayed until January 2006.

In the meantime, I will attempt to blog consistently and well. Also going to try my hand at writing articles for publication on the subject of childfree and other related topics (any that I can write about and get published!)

Some of these articles may show up here in blog form if I can find a good way to do it. I'll be consulting my webmaster about this. (There is the Cardinal Rule of blogging -- that no blog post should be longer than three paragraphs -- to keep in mind.)

What is Our Role?

We the proud, the purple, the childfree......What is our role?

Do Purple Women^TM have all the perks and none of the responsibility? Well, maybe on the surface. Shoule we be leaders? Artists? Perhaps the childfree should be the ones to charge into battle, or the first responders in a crisis.

Elinor Burkett wrote a book about the burdens that the childfree adults shoulder in the workplace (The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless, 2000). They don't have to pattern their lives around soccer season or the school year. Perhaps that is as it should be, just as teens and grandparents help parents in childcare and rearing.

We should all invest in the future, right? Whether it be by paying taxes into our institutitions and systems or influencing young minds.

What's a Purple Woman?

I get this question a lot when I mention this project. I am determined to add to the small but growing collection of books and other published material (electronic or otherwise) on the subject of childfree by choice adults.

To answer the question, I believe that a Purple Woman (PW) is a woman who on some level recognizes and accepts her decision to lead a childfree lifestyle. The loaded words are "accept" and "decision" and it is true that not all women without children identify with this. I propose that even women who are childfree by circumstance, whatever they may be, can still on some level acknowledge her acceptance of her role or path in life.

What say you?

Penguins and Childrearing

By now, almost everybody has either seen or heard of "March of the Penguins," a stunning documentary which takes an intimate look at what Emperor Penguins go through to procreate.

I saw this movie with my niece and nephew in tow so their moms could shop the toney Yorkville district in Toronto. The people behind me had a good snicker when during the scene in the movie where the actual deed of fertilization took place -- larger than life on screen -- my precious niece asked loudly "What are they doing?" Purple Women^TM will appreciate my answer: "Go ask your mother"!

One could make the case for what a bunch of trouble it is to raise kids, using penguins as proof, but I rather agree with Mr. Emerson's opinion on some of the parallels that people have drawn about this movie in his post on the movie review blog RogerEbert.com:
Queer, Unfaithful Penguins for Jesus

Double the Trouble

I just couldn't help sharing this to reaffirm the childfree choice. Other people's children (O.P.C.) will from time to time be a subject of ours. This humourous article about two toddlers on the lam was featured in the Edmonton Sun:

Toddlers Run Amok
Edmonton Sun, November 9, 2005

Why Purple?

When I saw this restaurant sign on Yonge Street in North York, I knew the name of my project. It made me so curious, I knew I would have to try it. It is thrilling to create something new, and the domain name for Purple Women^TM was not taken, so boldly I move forward to define it.

Purple Women^TM is a website and team blog as well as an independent study and a book in progress -- in that order. I figure if folks have the same reaction to my project and book, well, that would be super. The online study will be launched in January. That will give us a couple of months to get bloggy with it and develope a voice, some participation and anticipation!