November 16, 2005

What is Our Role?

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

Do Purple WomenTM 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.

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