Like It Is

Valentine’s Day. February 14th. If you don’t know about St Valentine’s Day, you are obviously from another planet. For weeks now, everywhere I go has been decked out in red and pink, with hearts, and flowers, fluffy things and simply everything to speak (and help you speak, should you get tongue-tied) the language of lurrve.

There are going to be many people writing about the History of Valentine’s Day, Ways to Celebrate Valentine’s Day, Ways To Part With Your Money on Valentine’s Day and How Not To Blow It On Valentine’s Day, Where To Go On Valentine’s Day, How To Express Your Lurrve Love And Affection on Valentines Day, Music For Valentine’s Day and of course What To Do When You Stay In On Valentine’s Day.

One thing’s missing though. What To Do When You Don’t Get a Valentine’s Card on Valentines Day (and everyone else does) and What To Say When You Get Asked How Many Cards Did You Get – to git being smug about their pile. Read the rest of this entry »

Much of the information gathered on child free living has been about women. We know that more and more women are choosing to be childfree. Fertility data is usually gathered on women. Parenting magazines and literature are mostly written by and aimed at women. And childfree women are increasingly prepared to speak and stand up for decision in the face of continuing hostility from our pronatalist society.

But what about the men? Where are their voices? I think that here, there is a huge information gap. We know that there are many childfree men, if only by virtue of some of them being married to, or partners of, childfree women and the fact that more couples are deciding not to have children. There are plenty of books on the joys of fatherhood, but I have, to date found only one (The Chosen Lives Of Childfree Men, by Patricia Lunneborg) that comprehensively addresses men’s reasons for deciding to remain childfree – and, at nearly $70, it’s a pretty expensive book. I remember I had to back order it on Amazon, but

I was determined to get hold of it. It’s worth every penny.

Whether it’s having children or deciding to be childfree, society still views the decision as predominantly the woman’s choice. Society doesn’t seem to say much about where men come into this choice. Isn’t it supposed to be their choice as well? I think it is. Yet, where women have made up their mind that one way or the other they are going to have kids, it seems it doesn’t matter what the men think. Read the rest of this entry »

Plainsfeminist raised an interesting point when, on my post

Childfree Rejecting Those Myths she commented that:

“…speaking from the U.S., we don’t do much to help parents. We act like we do, and we pay a lot of lip service to it, but when you get down to it, we’ve set things up so that parents who have jobs (which most parents need to have) are screwed, and their families are screwed.”

Interesting comment. Being childfree in the workplace was a topic I’ve been meaning to write on for quite a while. But it is so huge that I can really only touch on it, so probably one post alone won’t do it justice. But it’s something I feel pretty strongly about as you’ll see from my reply to the above comment.To a point I agree with PlainsFemininist. I also disagree.

Here’s why.
I agree that working life today (as in well paid jobs with benefits or any job) does not make it particularly easy for people with children to raise children and hold down a well paid job.

Life must be juggled adeptly to accommodate job and children. The demands of the workplace can’t be taken lightly. There are very few places where you will not be working as part of a team, and your team mates rely on you as you will rely on them. The demands of work are ever growing, hours are long, and the pressure to deliver to shareholders and to compete shows no sign of letting up. It’s compete or die – unless you work in the public sector. Anyone who thinks reduced working hours and flexible working is going to get them to the top of the tree (earing substantial bucks) is living in dream-land and does need to wake up and smell the coffee. But, I’m getting a little ahead of myself… Read the rest of this entry »

When at a fairly young age a girl says that she wants to have at least three kids, what do you suppose people’s reaction is? I’m sure you don’t need three guesses. At any rate you can be sure that no-one is likely to tell her she will change her mind.

But when, at a fairly young age, a girl says she does not want children, what do you suppose the response is? It can range from indulgence (when she’s quite young) to “oh you’ll change your mind,” or “you haven’t met the right man yet…” as she grows older. Or just outright disbelief.

Men aren’t believed either, but until they get a lot older the pressure doesn’t really kick in. Yet there are also many men who knew beyond a doubt from a very early age that they never want to have kids.

An early articulator,is someone who knows – and says– from a very early age that they do not want children. There could be a range of reasons, from the model they saw when they were growing up, to not feeling any maternal instinct to not liking children or being around them to simply just knowing they just didn’t want kids. And they want to be childfree

So why aren’t they believed? Read the rest of this entry »

The more I learn, the less, it seems, I know. That’s good. Because it makes me pause and challenge many things that years back, I just believed because, well, I just did. Didn’t know any better. I’m talking about the myths. We know them. With a few exceptions we’ve heard them ever since we were old enough to understand. We’ve had them rammed down our throats. The motherhood/children mystique that women are always told they really should aspire to, (whatever else they might do) which, as far as childfree women are concerned are easy to dispel once you know how.

Learning how can be tricky. But as childfree women and men we have done it. To do that they they have to have strong belief in themselves, if not, I believe the pressure from others to have kids (and more kids) is too strong to resist. A childfree person is not interested in going with the flow or conforming. They are gutsy.

I am interacting with more childfree people than ever, particularly, though unsurprisingly, through Like It Is. It’s inspiring. As far as the whole parenting thing is concerned, I believe in general women have been sold a bill of goods. Some are still buying the goods, in fact are ardent recruiters to the “ you must have kids circle”. Having bought into the various promises myths, even when they discover much of it is not what it’s cracked up to be, keep silent about their discovery, Read the rest of this entry »

That is the only thing I can call these people, or rather this “movement.” What else do you call having kids by the bucketloads, with the excuse that “It’s What God Wants” I’d never heard of them, but according to the article on ABC News A Full Quiver the group is, apparently growing in America. I would take that with at least a pinch of salt, however I thank Carisa, who brought Quiverfull (link below) to my attention.

In short, the Quiverfull group is about having as many kids as possible. Actually, that’s not quite how the group describes it. For them it’s about having as many kids as “The Lord blesses them with.” Which to me, is having as many kids as possible. This could be six, seven, or even 15. There are no limits. This particular family has eight kids. And if more “come along” then they’ll be added to the tally.

Needless to say,to breed consistently on this basis, the Quiverfull group is against all forms of contraception. Unsurprisingly, they also have a problem with the rhythm, or “natural” method of contraception. To them contraception is unnatural and Read the rest of this entry »

Christmas is just around the corner, and it’s no secret that I just love it. The sounds, the smells, the decorations, the Christmas tree, the fun of buying presents, sending greetings and curbing my curiosity as I eye the deliciously wrapped presents under my tree – which I’m under strict orders not to investigate until Christmas Day. People rushing home doing last minute Christmas shopping, and yes, even the Christmas music (although have to admit that does get boring pretty quickly). Read the rest of this entry »

My husband and I are DVD enthusiasts nuts. Between us we have approaching 1,500 DVDs. My husband has more than me, but I’m not doing too badly considering I got into them when I came to Canada five years ago. In fact I got into them when I met him. Our collection includes TV shows as well as films (movies), however altogether we have more than most small DVD stores.

I used quite a few of mine in my popular post – Calling All Movie Buffs. We hardly watch any TV - Poker, baseball and some American football, the Footie is about it. If we like a show, we simply wait for it to be released on DVD. Then we can watch it without advert interruptions or waiting a week for the next episode and risking missing one. Of course, Read the rest of this entry »

Someone said this to me once when in conversation I mentioned that we had decided to not to have children. Obviously irritated by the word “decided” and “not to have” and completely mystified as to how I could possibly not want kids (and still be normal) their response was one that I of course could hardly refute.

Yes. OK. I confess. I was once a kid. In some ways I still am. As childhoods go, I consider I had a pretty good one. Of course, we tend to edit out the parts we don’t like and only remember the good bits. There were aspects of kid-dom that I liked (I’m sure we all have them) and aspects that I absolutely hated (I’m sure we all have them too). But so what?

To me, having been a child is not a reason to have a child. Or is it? Given the fact that I was being faced with the implication that I was “copping out” in some way, I surmised that for some childed folks it appears to be valid a reason. Maybe it’s one they use when they run out of convincing arguments. You were a child once. Someone brought you into being. So how could you not want to have your own and create others who want to have their own?

There is one crucial element people who pose this question ignore and that is, while we had no say as to how we arrived in this world we certainly do have a say as to how we live in it once we are in it. At least after a certain age. We have choices, one of which is whether to have children or not.

Whether or not a person had a great childhood isn’t enough reason for saying one should have a child. They are completely different things. Yet it seems to feature prominently on the list of reasons given to childfree people as a reason their decision is somehow flawed.

Even more important, having a great childhood (or a not so great childhood) isn’t any guarantee that

a) - you will be a good parent

b) - your child will turn out as you want them to

c) - that you will even remotely enjoy being a parent

The only solid reason to bring a child into being is one that is completely selfless… nothing about the parent, it should be all about the child and whether the parent is prepared for it to be all about the child.

When I ask childed people why they had children, I can count on one hand the number of times the response has been of the “selfless” kind. Quite the reverse.

And “Oh I had such a wonderful childhood and I wanted that for my child…” really is all about the parent.

With next Sunday’s article “Childfree? But You Both Have Good Jobs…” I’m bringing the Reactions to the Childfree Choice Part I and Reactions to the Childfree Choice Part II – Responses series to a close. I was going to include one more article called “Childfree? You’re Messing With God’s Plan…”, but I decided many of the aspects of that post were more or less tackled in last Sunday’s article.

I have to say that writing these 20+ articles on the reactions of people when you say you are Childfree has been an absolute blast, quite challenging and very educational. It is aggravating to be on the receiving end of many of these baseless assumptions and intrusive questioning of our lives just because we choose not to re-produce, but it’s encouraging to know that you’re not alone, other men and women meet with the same intrusive questions and make the same uninformed assumptions; you are not strange, nor abnormal, and it isn’t “you.” It’s them.

The ending of one series, however, does not mean the the end of my childfree articles. Far from it.

Like It Is isn’t intended to be a blog about being childfree per se. But it is about yours truly, and being childfree is part of who I am so I am likely to always have something to say on the subject. It looks like being a very interesting time for Childfree men and women in the years ahead. As many are realising that they do have a choice (albeit along with the societal pressure) about whether to have children or not, with the retirement of the baby boomers and the drop in the birth rate I think there is likely to be even more pressure on women to have babies. Of course, this is to prop up the status quo – by which I mean producing the workers to keep the current pyramid and tax structure. Already there are rumblings in some governments both here and abroad about doing more to encourage women to have more babies… Should be interesting, particularly if you’re on the fence.

So there will be more Childfree and non-parenting articles on a regular basis, along with my other posts. And some of them will still carry the title “Childfree…?” where I feel it makes sense. So stay tuned.

Now for some heartfelt thanks – for my wonderful regular readers and commentators – we know who you are – thanks for reading, commenting, sharing your experiences and opinions and adding your voices to the conversation. I hope you keep doing so!

And to my Blurkers – you know who you are – thanks for your regular visiting and reading and feel free to join in the conversation any time.

All the Childfree articles are easily accessed in reverse chronological order in the Childfree category in my sidebar. Clicking on the title will show the entire article.