Adieu

This journey has come to an end for me. I have to follow my heart, because life is not all about blogging. Sometimes you just have to log off and simply live it. When I started this blog, I thought I would write a book. I decided to focus on blogging instead.

Purple Women^TM is my trademark, yet I admit I know not what to do with it from here. I have reached a turning point in this project. It has served its purpose. I decided not to invest the time in publishing a book. Nor do I have ambitions to turn this into a revenue stream. Is anyone out there really marketing to childfree women? (Okay, I could turn that into a longer post, but it is time to close the door on this project, as new ones have opened for me!)

To my fellow bloggers, especially contributors to this site, Guest Posters and Regular Contributors alike, a huge thanks for blogging along and exploring the childfree topic with me these past few years. I'd like to think we helped our Co-Contributing Editor, Laura Scott along her path to actually publishing her book. She announced recently that she has secured a publisher. Wish her well, and please check in at her website from time to time: The Childless-By-Choice Project.

The comments will remain open and monitored by me, the Creator and Editor of this unique blog, however, without new posts our readership will drop off and Blogger will only continue to host this site as long as there are visitors. At some point, all our work here will be deleted by a mindless robot (aieeeeee!!!). We have collected 2+ years of posts here, all on the topic of being a woman who is childfree. My final task is to make a back up copy for posterity.

Feel free to explore!

This blog is officially closed. I invite you to visit me over at my personal blog: Peggy's Place.

Technorati Tag: Childfree

Can We Have It All?

This week I caught an episode of TLC’s reality show The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom.

A mother of two pretends she is on a mom’s spa trip when, in fact, she is living her fantasy as a chef in one of L.A.’s top restaurants. While her husband is taking care the of the kids, she is testing her skills in the presence of the top food critics in Los Angeles—reclaiming her dream to be a top chef. At the end of her secret week, she is given the choice between taking the opportunity to be a full-time chef at Chocolat, one of L.A.’s premier dining spots, or to go home and resume her life as a full-time mom.

What does she choose?

Despite her husband’s verbal and whole-hearted support of whatever choice she makes, and with consideration of the financial implications of living solely on a chef’s salary, she tearfully chooses to remain a stay-at-home mom.

The 70’s feminist part of me shakes her head and wonders, have we regressed to Ozzie and Harriet days?

The childless by choice part of me understands.

I, too, chose between a career and children. It was a relatively easy choice for me, because I had difficulty imagining myself as a mom. But what if you had two young ones at home and part of your identity, and being, hinged on being the Mom you always wanted to be, and the other part hinged on accomplishing the goals you set for yourself prior to becoming a mom?

What would you do?

Technorati Tag: Childfree

A Paternal Instinct?

During my research for the Childless by Choice Project, I interviewed partnered and married childless and childfree men and I asked them, "Do you think there is such a thing as a paternal instinct?"

The responses were varied, but to paraphrase the majority of the men I interviewed, the response was: "If there is, I haven’t got it."

Beyond the anecdotel comes evidence from a major study conducted in the U.K. reported by The Daily Telegraph in Australia this past December, in an article titled For Dads, Happiness is No Kids.

Following is the full article:

The patter of tiny feet has long been thought of as the key to happiness. But according to a study, having children makes men less satisfied with their life, while women only enjoy motherhood once their offspring are packed off to school.

Between the ages of three and five, children made mothers less satisfied with life, while being the father of a child under five "significantly reduces"' life satisfaction.

Women with children aged five to 15 were happier than those who did not have children. Even children of school age brought no increase or decrease in happiness for men.

The study, carried out by the Institute for Social & Economic Research in Colchester, England, surveyed nearly 4000 couples between 1996 and 2003.

A caveat: I have not seen the original study. However, this rings true to me, based on my interviews.

What do you think?

Flickr photo by fusionstream (cc) /Technorati Tag: Childfree

Motherhood Manifesto Not Just for Moms

I recently spent part of my weekend free time reading and watching The Motherhood Manifesto, a book and DVD encouraging moms to fight for new laws and workplace policies that would benefit the lives of mothers and their kids.

Yeah, I know, I’m childree, but I have great respect for the author’s of this work: Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, an award-winning author and consultant on environment policy. Also, I was curious;

I wondered, is their initiative likely to further the divide between mothers and non-mothers in the workplace?

In my humble opinion, the answer is yes, and no.

Most of what is advocated in The Motherhood Manifesto are changes that would benefit all: Flex-time, benefits for part-time workers, more paid vacation or sick time, minimum "living" wage, and equal pay for equal work.

Where it gets prickly is the instances where the push for maternal/paternal leave, after school programs, affordable childcare, and universal healthcare for kids (just for kids??) may leave childless workers with valueless benefits; benefits which, essentially, they pay for in sweat and are an important part of their compensation package.

The book exposes some very frightening facts, including the fact that families with kids are three times more likely to be forced into medical bankruptcy. But when you think about it, of course, it makes sense; the more people you have in your household the greater chance one of them will have a illness leading to catastrophic, impossible, medical bills. Parents by virtue of their choice to raise a family expose themselves to any number of risks, including sleep deprivation, severe stress, and—in the case of mothers who take time off to raise a family—loss of seniority and promotion opportunities, resulting in serious long-term loss of income.

I sympathize. The current U.S. work culture is not friendly to working moms, Americans pay far too much for health care and insurance, and I believe employers can do more to help the next generation and those who care for them. However, I think in the spirit of fairness and sound economics, benefits should be doled out in value units and the worker should have a menu of benefits and be invited to choose those which would benefit them the most. The parent might choose subsidized day care or flex time, the childfree and empty-nesters might choose affordable long-term health insurance, or paid time off to volunteer or tend to elder-care duties.

I once took a job which required me to travel state-wide. Some days it would take me two to three hours to get home. This situation forced me to drop my volunteer work as a tutor at an after school program. I would have loved paid time off for my volunteer work, but no dice. I was a part-time consultant. No benefits.

Clearly, there are shared objectives if these types of advocacy efforts can be more inclusive. So I was happy to see that on page 72 of the Motherhood Manifesto, in a sidebar titled It’s Not Just Mothers, John de Graff (who directed the Motherhood Manifesto film and is the National Coordinator of Take Back Your Time) acknowledge that moms, dads, singles, and couples are all suffering from "time poverty," pointing out:

"The average American works nine weeks—350 hours—more each year than the average Western European."

Time…aaah; time for leisure, time for family, time for sanity and health.

Now that’s something we can all get behind.

Flickr photo by edtwilight77 (cc)
Technorati Tag: Childfree

The Influence of Culture

I have been researching and writing about the childless by choice in North America for four years. One thing I have learned is many of us are pressured to have kids, or stigmatized because we don’t, because of the culture in which we live.

The culture may be a mixture of religion, race, family, or tradition, but the results are the same. Our decision making and our coping mechanisms are influenced by our culture.

I recently signed a book deal with Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group, to write a book on the Childless by Choice in North America. Yesterday I was working on a chapter in which I profile couples who have arrived at their decision to remain childfree in very different ways. The couples I interviewed are a very diverse group. Some are children of immigrants from India and the Middle East, some are atheists, some are lapsed Catholics, some are devout Jews. Each of them has found their own unique way of navigating what is very often a pronatalist culture.

As a young black woman, how do you remain childfree in a culture where fathering a child is considered a critical rite of passage for most of the young males of your race? Do you date outside your race, do you remain single or celibate, or do you defend yourself by arming yourself with condoms and praying he knows how to use one, or by going to your doctor and begging for a tubal ligation?

If you are an observant Jew do you pass as infertile, do you isolate yourself, do you lie when asked why you haven’t done your part to produce a child for the tribe. The future of Israel is at stake!

It’s tough. So tough in fact that I have yet to meet an observant, orthodox Jewish woman who is intentionally childless, or a African American couple who remained childfree through a lasting, fertile marriage or partnership. I know they exist. They are out there, I’m sure of it. It’s just that I have not met them, even though I have worked and lived along side orthodox Jews and I have mentored young black women.

Fortunately, I have had the pleasure of knowing so many others, who despite being raised in a culture that assumed parenthood for all their members, became one of the few who resisted the pressure, based on a hard-won sense of who they were and what they truly wanted. (Click here for a short excerpt of a Mexican couple who did just that.)

The decision to remain childfree is not made in a vacuum. You may be caucasian, 5th generation American, atheist, and surrounded by childless and childfree siblings and friends, but you probably still had a parent who hoped for a grandchild one day; who said,

"You would be a good parent if you just put your mind to it."

[Flickr photo by Stephanie Booth - cc]
Technorati Tag: Childfree

The Environmental Motive

Are we motivated by environmental concerns to remain childfree? Some of us are. The Daily Mail recently published an article titled:Meet The Women Who Won't Have Babies - Because They're Not Eco Friendly.

These women, living in the U.K., were compelled to seek sterilization to ensure they would never give birth to another consumer. They felt this was one thing they could do to help reduce their environmental footprint and save the planet.

Toni, 35, who works at an environmental charity, had to go doctor shopping to get sterilized at 27 years old. She did so with the full support of her soon-to-be husband and she has no regrets:
"Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."

Not everyone can understand this rationale, as Toni came to realize: "a woman like me, who is not having children in order to save the planet, is considered barking mad."

So, are we nuts to point to environmental concerns to justify our choice to remain childfree?

Flickr photo by patty_colmer (cc)
Technorati Tag: Childfree

A week with a five year old

One of my very best friends, her partner, and their five-year-old son visited last week. I looked forward to giving the little boy a few swimming lessons, teaching him a thing or two about or regional wildlife. Instead, he taught me a few things, like:

Food and drink can only be enjoyed if it is slurped or crunched loudly.

Kids can enjoy salads for lunch but only if they’ve never seen the inside of a McDonalds.

One of the most fearsome creatures that ever roamed the earth was a giant sloth.

I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to penguins.

Manipulation is an art form.

Santa sucks.

And, I am definitely NOT smarter than a five year old.

Technorati Tag: Childfree

Do I Want to Be a Mom?

A simple question right? For this generation, maybe so.

But for our mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, it is quite likely this question never crossed their minds.

This reality was brought home to me in a casual conversation with my mother over this holiday week. We were remembering my grandmother who passed away roughly ten years ago. Born in Poland, she was a very strong and determined woman who survived wars, near starvation, and the loss of her family home and business.

My mother lamented that at my grandmother’s funeral people stood up and spoke mainly about my grandmother’s devotion to the church and family. A woman who knew her as a much younger woman was not able to speak that day. If she had, she would have told the assembled crowd about a woman who was an accomplished horsewoman, a woman who ran the family business in her early teens while her ailing mother barked orders from her sickbed, a woman who used her smarts and her powerful determination to navigate through the worst atrocities of World War II.

My mother, acknowledging the whole spectrum of her own mother’s experience and personality, remarked, “If she would have been born in today's world she would have been childless and running her own business.”

My grandmother was born close to a hundred years ago. She had eight children.


Technorati Tag: Childfree

Oh, Just Grow Up!

People have told me I’m 'young at heart' and I take it as a compliment. But according to Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it’s a moral flaw.

When the media needs a quote from someone inclined to denounce the choice to remain childfree, they go to Mohler. Two years ago Dr. Mohler appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360˚ in a debate with Madelyn Cain, author of The Childless Revolution, following a video segment of people talking about their reasons for remaining childless, including one childfree woman who was working as a nanny.

In the debate, moderated by CNN correspondent Heidi Collins, Mohler had this to say:

MOHLER:…this is really about avoiding the responsibilities of parenthood. And I find that profoundly sad. You know, obviously, there is a tremendous moral point to be made here. These couples -- well, they have to be very thankful that their parents didn't make the same decision. And society depends upon parenthood and the raising of children being seen as a norm for married couples and as something that is of social value.

COLLINS: But, Albert, isn't it -- pardon the interruption. Isn't it dangerous to assume that everyone can be a good parent?

MOHLER: Well, you know, I think what is more dangerous is to assume that we're going to say that people can be adults, and be recognized as responsible adults, who don't even aspire to grow up, to be mature enough to have children. I mean, parenthood is a part of helping to create adults. We grow up by having our children. Without that responsibility we have a generation of perpetual adolescents, just growing old.

Click here for the full transcript of this show.

Mohler’s not the only one who believes we need to have a kid or two to "be recognized as responsible adults." As Laura C pointed out in her post on Child-free.com, policy wonks and social scientists are struggling with the fact that the three steps to adulthood—employment, marriage, and procreation—are increasingly being delayed in the United States, forcing a reassessment of what were previously considered the normative milestones to adulthood.

So what happens when you skip the having kids part?

You tell us!


Technorati Tag: Childfree

In the Company of Men

I started a scriptwriters group a number of years ago. We meet once a month to critique each other’s work and offer support and to enjoy the camraderie.

I walked into last nights meeting and found I was the only female in the group. We talked about the new generation of video cameras, our recent travels, and how we might share our work online. We critiqued one of the member’s musical numbers and we caught up with each other, exchanging news, advice, and ideas.

It was just like a meeting I might have had with my other writers group, a nonfiction group composed entirely of women, except that the subject of children never came up.

That got me thinking. The men I hang around with (most of whom have grown children) don’t spend much time talking about their kids, yet the women do, even long after the kids have left the nest.

Is it a gender identity thing? Given that most of the women I know took on the bulk of the child-rearing tasks, is it more difficult for them to make the transistion from parent to empty-nester than it is for their husbands?

I don’t know. However, it appears, based on some of my recent social interactions with empty-nester women, they are more likely than their husbands to continue to initiate and forge social connections by bringing their kids and grandkids into the conversation.

Where does that leave me, the childfree woman? Talking about the nephews, and the grandniece, I confess. Guilty as charged.

Or, more often, drifting off to join the cluster of men in the room, the ones talking about movies, golf, and politics.

Flickr Photo by JennsJournal cc
Technorati Tag: Childfree

Raising the Girls

Okay, I’ve never breast fed, haven’t even lactated. So the girls are pretty much what the guys with vasectomies might call sport models.

However, I can identify with moms like Patricia Heaton, the actress who played the Ray’s wife Debra in the TV comedy Everyone Loves Raymond. She did breast feed. She has five kids. She had cosmetic breast surgery because, as she once said, she had to become adept at origami to get her boobs into a bra. I’m younger than Heaton by a few years. I’m not ready to go under the knife, but gravity has become the enemy. I practically have to go into downward dog pose to get into the iron maiden the bra manufacturers call "the underwire."

So I have to give shout out to Belinda Luscombe who made a plea to billionaire entrepreneur Warren Buffett to build a better bra. Her entreaty was published in Time Magazine’s Nov 12th edition, which also featured the best inventions of 2007.

I saw the irony. If we can build a robot that will lift a beer out of the fridge and fling it to the slug/football fan in the LazyBoy, surely we can build a better bra?

Luscombe pointed out that cup sizes were invented 80 years ago and haven’t been modified much beyond the first four letters of the alphabet. Nordstroms and Victoria Secret expert bra fitters take only two measurements to determine our bra size. Luscombe noted that a team of Hong Kong researchers took 98 measurements in their effort to explore the breast sizes and shapes of Chinese women. The Chinese win, again.

But we have the technology. If Levis can do custom fit, laser cut jeans, North American women can get a bra that fits. We just need someone with leadership, someone with money, someone with a history of investment in the undergarment industry. Someone with man boobs—someone who can share our pain.

Warren, where are you?


Technorati Tag: Childfree

The "No Kids" Household

This week Time Magazine published some interesting statistics in a special report titled "America by the Numbers."

According to the stats, there are 31.4 million married couples with no children at home, outnumbering the 24.2 million married couples with children under eighteen. To be clear, the first figure includes empty nesters, but if you add the 8 million single households with no kids, that makes close to forty million U.S. "No Kids" households.

So why is it everytime I turn on the news, the top story is "What can I buy little Johnny for Christmas this year if I can’t buy Chinese toys?" or "What can parents do for a sick child now that cough syrup is not recommended for children under six?"

I guess we know what heads of households with children are doing: Worrying about lead paint and cold remedies.

What are "no kids" households doing? Sleeping peacefully, and longer.

"13 Percent of parents slept with their infants in 2000, up from 5.5 in 1993." According to the Time stats, these kids sleep one hour less each night then kids did 30 years ago.

Whether you sleep well or not usually depends on whom you are sleeping with. Since 67 percent of Americans share their bed with another person or a pet, we may be able to blame our lack of sleep on our baby (both the two-legged and four-legged variety).

Households with no kids are likely to have more disposable income than do households with kids. The latest estimates say it will cost close to 300,000 to raise the average American kid to the age of 17 (college costs excluded). So what are we doing with all that money? Travel, luxury goods?

According to a Canadian study, we are buying books; households without children make 64 percent of new book buys. We are also buying hybrid cars; according to a survey conducted by Vertis Communications, 58 percent of hybrid shoppers are childless/childfree.

But on sleep we can all agree. Of all the childed and unchilded households in the United States, 17 percent spent as much on their mattress than they did on their last vacation.

What’s your sleep number?

Technorati Tag: Childfree

A Legacy for the Childfree?

A good friend of mine posed an interesting question to me over dinner a few nights ago: Do the childless by choice think, or do, more about about leaving a legacy because they don’t have kids?

Her parents felt that their legacy, or their purpose, was to give their kids a better future and more opportunities than they had. Parents by virture of procreation leave a legacy. So what about the childless and childfree?

This question comes up a lot when I talk about the childless and childfree. My response to her was: "It depends on how you define legacy? Is it genes, philanthropy, creative contributions, good works? Do we even care if we leave a lasting legacy, or do we focus solely on the here and now?

Personally, I do think about leaving a legacy. I hope my volunteer efforts will benefit the next generation. I hope something I have written will encourage someone to expand his or her thinking on a topic. I hope there is something left after I pay for eldercare so I can leave something to charity. But there are no guarantees.

Earlier that evening, this friend had thanked me because that week, for the first time in her thirty-some years, when asked if she had kids, she had felt empowered to respond: No, I’m childless by choice.

To me, that was enough. That’s my legacy.

What about you? Do you think about your legacy? Does it matter?


Technorati Tag: Childfree

Childless and Mormon

Oprah recently did a show on fundamental Mormon polygamists. The majority of women featured on the show appeared very pleased with their plural marriages and most had over five children each. I did the addition and realized there were over 20 people living together in one home. Whew…

Of course this type of marriage is rare and illegal. One notorius leader, Warren Jeffs, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and husband to over 50 wives, is currently in jail awaiting his sentence after being found guilty of accomplice to rape for coercing a 14-year-old girl into a marriage with her elder cousin.

The mainstream Mormon Church no longer sanctions polygamy, and there are only a few communities of polygamists left in North America. However, the Church continues to actively support and endorse large families, so I wondered: what is life like for childless or childfree LDS couples?

Kathryn Kidd, a childless Mormon author from Virginia and a contributor to Meridien Magazine, an ezine designed for Latter-day Saints, explored this question in a article titled Other Avenues for the Childless after being contacted by women who wrote about the challenges of childlessness.

Barbara, reflecting on her experience of a life without kids in the LDS community, had this to say:

The biggest problem was lack of any suitable role or role model for women in my position in the Church. There were no childless married women I could relate to, and a lack of friends or peers with whom I could share experience. Church meetings and classes and talks inevitably involve teachings on the family.

Many of the childfree and childless of all beliefs and faiths experience a sense of isolation and some exclusion. However, I suspect this must be harder in a community where having kids is what a contributor to the Latter-day Saint Liberation Front website called one of the "most profound and fundamental mortal obligations."


Technorati Tag: Childfree

Is Marriage Good For You?

Generally, yes, according to David Popenoe, a sociology professor and co-chair of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. In an article posted on the Discovery Health website, Dr. Popenoe exposes the benefits and myths around marriage.

So what are the benefits?

More wealth for women and better health for men, and more frequent and more satisfying sex for both genders, compared to unmarrieds.

What about the myths? Well, here’s one Purple Women™ can identify with:

Marriage Myth 2: Having children typically brings a married couple closer together and increases marital happiness.

Fact: Many studies have shown that the arrival of the first baby commonly has the effect of pushing the mother and father farther apart, and bringing stress to the marriage. However, couples with children have a slightly lower rate of divorce than childless couples.

Currently, divorce rates hover just below 50 percent of first marriages in the United States.

So how do modern marriages compare to those of our parents? Popenoe observed that modern marriages are not any happier: "Some studies have found in recent marriages, compared to those of 20 or 30 years ago, significantly more work-related stress, more marital conflict and less marital interaction."

Flicker photo by Pencils and Pixels (cc)

Technorati Tag: Childfree

Consider "Child Free Living"

Consider "Child free Living."

This from two of the top infertilty doctors in Mombai, (formerly, Bombay) India.

Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, MD and Dr. Anjali Malpani, MD have an infertility clinic in India. They wrote a book titled How to Have a Baby: Overcoming Infertility.

How do you overcome infertility? According to the Malpanis:

Choosing not to have children at all is an option which you can select - to live childfree. Remember, childfree living is a choice you can make - choosing not to have children isn't the same as having childlessness thrust upon you.

This is a quote from chapter 31 of a their book, which can be read (free) in its entirety on the Malpani Infertility Clinic website.

Here’s what they have to say about how infertile couples can "adapt to the decision to live childfree":

Remember, there can be real advantages to life without children: more personal freedom, more time to spend on your own interests, and more emotional energy to invest in your emotional relationships. Start enjoying your time with your spouse more - remember the early heady days of your marriage before you were striving for a child? Try to recapture those magic moments again.

Kudos to these two compassionate people who dedicate their work to helping infertile couples but recognize that childfree living can be a viable and sustainable option for couples who are ready to get off the fertility treatment treadmill.

Technorati Tag: Childfree

Childfree and Pet-Free

When people ask if we have pets I respond: "Heck no, I can can barely keep a plant alive!"

It’s true. If plants could talk, Home Depot would be at my door demanding I relinquish custody of their neglected fern. My lucky bamboo is lucky indeed, having survived months in stale, stagnant water.

We are childfree and pet-free, in part, because we could never figure out how we could manage to take responsibility for dependent beings, given our crazy lifestyle.

When I married my husband, he was working in international sales and I was a fashion sales agent. There were many times when we wouldn’t see each other for three weeks at a stretch. Our work, and our vacation travel, has taken us hundreds and thousands of miles away from home.

Even now, our luggage is stored in the laundry room so we can unpack, wash, and repack. I suspect there are some pairs of my husband’s socks that have never seen the inside of a drawer.

So when the assignment editor at Unscripted e-zine, a web-based publication focused on childfree living, was looking for someone to write a feature on pet-free CF folks, I volunteered to do some research and report back.

The resulting article No Kids and No Pets exposes the common rationales for pet-free living. I was surprised how many dog lovers I encountered amongst the pet-free. They expressed sentiments similar to mine: my husband and I both like dogs, but we like them too much to leave them for weeks at a time with a pet-sitter or parked at a kennel.

We don’t have pets for many of the same reasons we don’t have kids. I feel guilty enough about the plant; at least I won’t ever have to worry about the animal protection folks or social services at my door.

Technorati Tag: Childfree

When is a Purple Woman Green?

I watched part of the Live Earth concert series this past weekend. The music and media stars who participated in the concerts in New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, London, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, and Washington waived their appearance fees and pledged to cut their CO2 emissions.

So I am inspired to come up with new ways to reduce my personal environmental footprint.

Hmmmm. I already recycle; I bought the expensive "sundowner" windows for the house to save energy; I carpool when I can; I changed all the exterior lights to the energy-saving ones. But I can do more.

I pledge to use cloth bags for groceries. I pledge to refill my plastic water bottles instead of buying more. I pledge to continue taking my birth control pills.

Looking back on my Fourth of July week on the beach—all those discarded swim diapers, styrofoam coolers, and plastic beach toys—I’m thinking that my birth control pledge might be the easiest and best one yet.


Technorati Tag: Childfree

In the Company of Grandmothers

This past weekend I attended two gatherings: One a monthly meeting of nonfiction writers and the other a BBQ dinner hosted by neighbors. These were great opportunities to catch up with people I like and admire.

Most of the women were grandmothers, or grandmothers-to-be, and on both occasions the main subject was children and grandchildren.

Normally, I would feel excluded in these conversations. However, this was different. All of these women knew me, knew I was happily childless by choice and was working on a book and documentary on this subject. All of them appeared to respect my choice and understood that I also respected their paths as parents and grandparents.

Other than mutual respect, what did we have in common?

The common theme of these conversations was "setting boundaries." Grandmothers and grandmothers-to-be talked about how to communicate to their children that they would not be full-time babysitters for grandchildren. They were finally empty nesters and they valued the free time and the lifestyle they had come to enjoy, and were reluctant to get sucked in to that full-time guardianship role again.

I could identify with that. I set boundaries early, when I chose to babysit at thirteen to earn some money. I told my clients I would not babysit infants and toddlers who were not toilet-trained. I would not day-sit or do overnights. Eight hours in the company of children was my limit.

We also talked about this new generation of parents: how paranoid and nervous they were. I told them how my cousin is considering implanting a chip inside his infant son’s body so he could find the child if he went missing. A grandmother lamented that she could not watch TV in the presence of her grandchild because her daughter didn’t allow TV for her children.

Another grandmother said her daughter had told her that she did not want her child exposed to unsterilized surfaces, plastic toys, and sugar or sugar substitutes. This woman’s husband was peeved over the fact that he could not take his grandchild for an ice cream. These women worried that their grandchildren were being over-protected, isolated from the real world in which they would eventually navigate on their own and from the bacteria that might save them one day.

I found myself nodding in agreement and sharing a laugh over many of these stories. Modern parenting is a huge challenge for both the parents and the grandparents. The stress, the worry, and the inevitable guilt when things don’t go perfectly are the acknowledged pitfalls of caring for a small child. That’s one reason why I never wanted to take on the full-time guardianship of an infant.

Apparently, some grandparents feel the same way.

Flickr photo by by garethjmsaunders (cc)
Technorati Tag: Childfree

Follow Up: Initiative 957

Apparently, I am not the only one to be confused on the whole idea behind Washington State's Initiative 957. Our co-contributing editor, Laura Scott, did the homework for us. She asked me to publish the following to clear the air. Thanks Laura dear!

Why We Should Support Proposition 957
by Laura S. Scott
©2007

I've fielded a number of outraged emails from my childfree and childless friends about the proposed Washington State Initiative 957.

Here's the scoop: unlike previous "Defense of Marriage" initiatives, the people behind the Initiative 957 are not social conservatives trying to ban same-sex marriage or childless/childfree marriages.

They are "concerned citizens" who are trying to challenge the assumptions behind an earlier Washington Supreme Court ruling that asserted that procreation in marriage serves the state's interests.

Randy Stapilus of Ridenbaugh Press does a great job of spelling it all out in his recent article: At Their Word. He summarizes that proposition 957

“would limit marriage only to male-female couples who are capable of having children with one another," specifically barring marriage - in case anyone missed the point - "when the parties are unable to have children together for any reason.

After getting married, the couples would have three years to produce (and not by adoption) at least one child, after which they would file with the county a "certificate of marital procreation."

Silly?

Of course it is, but so was the Washington Supreme Court Anderson v. King County ruling that said "limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation" and is "essential to survival of the human race."

Childless marriages a threat to the human race? C'mon. Childless marriages and smaller families are what averted the so-called "Population Explosion" predicted back in the 60's, when governments around the world were adopting policies and passing laws that would reduce the number of new births, and avert anticipated economic and environmental disasters.

Those efforts led to the one-child policy in China; perhaps well intentioned, but poorly and cruelly implemented, leading to unforeseen and unwelcome consequences such as the dramatic increase in abortions of female fetuses. Now a young Chinese man is less likely to be a father, because he has difficulty finding a wife!

Perhaps there's a lesson here for legislators who attempt to intervene in matters of love, fertility and marriage.


Technorati Tag: Childfree