Year: 2009

And the ducks go quack, quack, quack

Sue Fagalde Lick children's songs

This fall I’m going to be leading and playing piano for children’s music at church. They sing simple little ditties accompanied by gestures. Until last week at our late music director Catherine’s funeral, I hadn’t seen it done, and I didn’t know any of the songs. I struggled to find a key that fit the kids’ monotone voices, and people kept telling me to go faster.

Catherine had eight children and oodles of grandchildren, but it’s all foreign to me. All the kids and their parents know the songs from having gone to religious education classes, but I have to learn them from sheet music. I’m going to be the only one who doesn’t know the songs already because I wasn’t part of that world. I could have taught religious education classes and joined that world, but I didn’t because I didn’t know anything about children, and I was too busy singing with the adults. When I was a kid, we sang songs like “Holy God, We Praise They Name,” not “The Ducks Go Quack, Quack, Quack,” complete with wing-flapping. Wish me luck.

This brings back the time when I sang at a birthday party for a friend’s 5-year-old son and I bought this Raffi book and did my best to cram the songs because I didn’t know any kid songs then either. They wanted the same songs over and over, and they sat so close, touching me and my guitar, that I couldn’t wait to get away. I’m not used to having children invading my space. It was one of the hardest gigs I ever did.

It’s just another side-effect of not having children. You don’t know the songs. And the kids think you’re an idiot.

Where does religion fit in?

Sue Fagalde Lick abstinence, birth control, childlesssness and religion

Hi all,
I’m pushing ahead with my Childless by Marriage book, and I’m in the chapter about religion. I’m Catholic. Using any kind of artificial birth control is a sin. I didn’t know that back in the years when I was using it, and now I wonder what I would have done if I did know. In my research I’m reading figures ranging from 60 to 95 percent of Catholic women who use birth control these days. We’re supposed to accept all the babies God gives us, but is that realistic, and what if our mates disagree?

In an era where sex seems to be everywhere, kids are still being taught that abstinence is the way to go. It’s a nice idea, but in a competition between a holy idea and hormones, hormones will usually win.

In my research, I found that only a handful of women said religion was a factor in their decision to remain childless, even though many faiths stress the need to procreate. So my question is: how about you? Where does religion fit in your childless life?

Childless women cold and odd???

Sue Fagalde Lick Caroline Gatrell, childless career women, Embodying Women's Work, sexism in the workplace, working mothers

Do childless career women suffer because their co-workers think they’re cold and strange? According to the May 18, 2009 Daily Mail online site, that’s what Dr. Caroline Gatrell found in researching her book Embodying Women’s Work. Gatrell, from the Lancaster University Management School in the UK, reported that women without children are often seen as lacking “an essential humanity.” Plus, if they’re of child-bearing age, their bosses don’t promote them because they might still get pregnant.

Okay, but how about all those moms trying to juggle child-care and work and getting turned down for promotions and dissed by co-workers because they can’t work late and have to dash out to pick up the kids at pre-school?

It appears to be a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation, doesn’t it?Whether you’re a mother or not, ownership of a working uterus appears to make you suspect. If you’ve got children, you can’t be totally loyal to the company. If you haven’t, either you’re going to spring a baby on them one of these days or you’re just plain weird. Is this the 21st century or not?

Personally, I have certainly experienced sexism and ageism, but I don’t think I have missed out on anything at work because I did not have children. I did have some moms drop their work on me because of their mothering needs. But I also saw moms who worked more hours than I did.

I’m a clock-watcher. I admit it. What employers really needed to worry about with me was that I would always rather be doing my freelance writing and music than working for anyone else. In essence, my books are my babies. And if I was in the middle of writing a song when it was time to go to work, I was going to be late. The song took precedence.

What do you think? Do you believe employers see childless women, especially those who are childless by choice, as heartless and odd? Have you experienced moms slacking because of their kids? Have you noticed women getting stuck in their careers because they carry ticking time bombs in their bellies? Let’s talk about it.

Say it, sister

Sue Fagalde Lick dating younger men, men who want children

One of the workers at the care home where Fred lives now has been reading my blog and finding it pertinent to her situation. Her situation is the opposite of ours. She’s 45 and has two sons. Recently divorced and stop-traffic gorgeous, she finds herself dating younger men or even men her own age who still want to have children. She believes she could get pregnant but worries about the risks of pregnancy so late in life. Plus, she has done the math. She’d be over 50 when the child started kindergarten, in her 60s when he graduated from high school, in her 70s when he finished college and/or married and had children . . . No. She doesn’t want to do that. Nor does she want to cheat her dates out of something they really want. So, she says, “I gently set them free.”

She wanted to know how I came to be childless. Fred was sitting there with me as I explained that I had married two husbands who wouldn’t or couldn’t father my children. “I was one of them,” Fred piped up. She turned to me. “How old were you when you got married?” “33.” And then she gave Fred such a look, a look that said, You dog, you bastard, how could you do that to her? I wanted to jump up and hug her.

Where was she when I was 33?

You’re on your own

Sue Fagalde Lick A Place for Mom, Timberwood Court

It has been almost a month since I blogged here, so I’m doing it twice today. I have been in the midst of finding a new place for my husband, who has Alzheimer’s. The home where he had been staying was not working out. He was so miserable he tried to run away. So now, with help from a great organization called A Place for Mom, I have moved him to Timberwood Court in Albany Oregon. It’s a lot farther from home, but a much better place.

What does this have to do with childlessness? Mainly that I wouldn’t have been doing all this alone if I had children or if his children really understood how hard this is. There’s the physical part of it: Fred’s room came unfurnished, so I had to buy furniture and get it to Albany. I carried a carload of stuff when we moved and last week, I single-handedly shoved two heavy easy chairs into the back of the car and drove them over. This week I’m getting a phone hooked up. I’m dealing with insurance and doctors and staggering bills. Perhaps worst is the strain of making all these decisions on my own. Fred can’t help anymore, and no one else is here.

If you’re considering a marriage without children, especially to a much older man, think about the possibility that he will get sick and suddenly you’ll be handling everything alone.

Running Free

Sue Fagalde Lick Mother's Day, running with the dogs

Following up on yesterday’s post, I’ve noticed something interesting. Today, with my father and brother gone back home, I’m feeling amazingly freer and younger than I did when they were here. I danced to reggae music last night, I had cake for lunch today, and just now I was outside running with the dogs. It felt good. Not having anyone to please or to care for can be awfully lonely, but it is also freeing. You become ageless, not pigeonholed into the role of daughter, mother, grandmother, or wife, just yourself, running in the unmowed grass, the breeze blowing your hair around and making the wind chimes sing.

There’s a lot one can regret about not having children. God knows I have shed an ocean of tears, but there are advantages, too. As the Mother’s Day ads threaten to drown us in our childlessness, try to remember the good parts. If there’s a mother in your life, celebrate her. If not, just tune out the ads and go run with the dogs.

Always the daughter, never the mother

Sue Fagalde Lick childless daughter

The men in my family have been visiting. They put me right back in the role of the daughter. My brother insists on driving. My father insists on paying for my meals. I’m physically much smaller and more agile than they are, and I’m riding in the back seat again, wishing I had my MP3 to entertain myself. The one time I jump ahead to the cashier, at the air museum, my father drops 20-dollar bills on my table that night to reimburse me. To them, I’m the one having financial trouble, husband trouble and emotional trouble, so they assert their authority trying to straighten me out, not letting me explain how I’m taking care of things in my own way.

Being a wife and mother makes you look like an adult to the rest of the world. With Fred in the care home and no children of my own, I’m always the weird kid, not Mom, not Grandma. In the eyes of my family, I’ll never move up into that “we’re all adults with kids” role.

Do you ever feel that way?

Childless at the funeral

Sue Fagalde Lick dying childless

If you want to feel alone, attend a funeral with your widowed father. The husband is in a care home and he has virtually no family, except his children. They didn’t know the deceased, my 100-year-old Great-Aunt Edna, anyway. Cousins your age are accompanied by their grown children, talking about an upcoming wedding, to which you have not been invited.

You look up at the front row and see Virginia, 92-year-old sister of the deceased. She is wearing a neck brace and hiding feeding tubes under her clothes, reminders of a near-fatal fall a few months ago. As everyone visits after the formal rites, there are times when she sits there alone. I hasten to keep her company. Virginia never married nor had children. Her sister Edna was widowed for 44 years, and she never had children either. They were each other’s partners in life.

The priest, Father “Jo-Jo”, says Edna, though childless, adopted her husband’s family, became the matriarch, etc. That’s true, but still the church is troublingly empty. You know that this 100-year-old woman, who outlived most of her friends, could have had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and maybe even great-great grandchildren who would have filled the sanctuary with their own spouses and children. But no. So many seats are empty.

In contrast, the priest at my mother’s memorial service kept referring to her as Mother Elaine. At least with Aunt Edna, he spoke at length about the things she had done, her volunteer work and her travels, her full life. But Mom had more people.

I can see the generations slicing off. We’re coming closer to mine all the time. I have one niece and nephew to whom I feel close and a bunch of cousins I’m starting to talk to on Facebook. I do have good friends, but sometimes I feel awfully alone. When I commented that I would be alone when I was old and dying, my remaining aunt-by-marriage grabbed my arm and fiercely insisted that that was not true, that people care. Yes, but they die and they get busy. If I’m still living in Oregon, we’d better reserve the little chapel.

If my husband was around, it would be different, wouldn’t it? And didn’t I trade it all for him? It’s a gamble we women who are childless by marriage take.

The most comfortable moment of the trip: the day after the funeral, sitting on the ground in the sun next to the grave where the workmen had tossed the pink bouquets over a layer of gravel in the not-quite-filled opening. I could finally breathe. And I didn’t feel so damned alone.

Easter sans children

Sue Fagalde Lick dyeing eggs, Easter bunny, Easter sans children

Well, it’s the season for little girls in frothy dresses, boys with their hair slicked back and dress shirts buttoned to their necks. The store aisles are loaded with Easter baskets and candy and toys to put in them. I remember those great baskets my mother used to sneak into our rooms during the night. Magic. The Easter Bunny had been there. And then Grandma would show up with another basket the Easter Bunny left for us at her house. We believed it for a long time. My brother and I used to compete as we ate our chocolate bunnies. I got the ears and the nose. How about you?

I also remember what fun we had dyeing eggs. I can still smell the vinegar as Mom set the little bowls with red, blue, orange, yellow and purple dye made from those little tabs that come in a kit. They still sell them. You dunk the eggs, let them dry and write on them with crayon or a white wax pencil.

Many years later, I pass those sections of stores thinking maybe I should buy myself a chocolate bunny or a filled Easter egg because the Easter Bunny doesn’t come to my house anymore. I look at the lilies and wonder if anyone will think about buying me one. Not that I like lilies. It’s the symbolism, the honoring-Mom-with-a-flower thing.

People with kids get involved with all that Easter Bunny stuff, putting together baskets, dying eggs, setting up Easter egg hunts, cooking a ham or lamb feast for the family. Maybe they even go to church. Our church is always jammed that day with lots of parishioners who only show up for Christmas and Easter. For my family, that was part of the tradition, the reason we got all dressed up.

But with no children, the traditions fade into memory. We’re not teaching another generation how to carry them on, unless we’re close to other people’s children. It’s a good job for an aunt or uncle, doing the Easter thing. If you’ve got a kid around, drag out the eggs.

On Sunday, I’ll be singing at church and possibly going to a restaurant to eat. Maybe I’ll watch a video later, glad to relax on a Sunday afternoon.

How about you? Does Easter push the childless button for you? How will you celebrate the holiday?

Babies, babies, babies!

Sue Fagalde Lick photos of children and grandchildren

At a party last week, one of the women brought her six-week-old son. He’s a cute little critter, but I had no experience to share, and I was not one of the women reaching out to hold him. People’s cats always wind up in my lap, but babies, nope.

A few nights later, I had dinner at a home of a woman in my church choir. I had already seen her personalized “Nana” license plate, but when I walked in the door, her walls were so plastered with photos of her children and grandchildren it made me dizzy. The other guest, who always brings her granddaughter to church with her, cooed appropriately, but I immediately knew we wouldn’t have much to talk about. As she gave the tour of the house, we had to hear who was in each picture and what they were doing, and I began to regret turning down the glass of wine she had offered. It’s a lot like those folks who send Christmas newsletters telling all about kids we’ve never met and never will. When we finally sat down to chat, I summoned the calico cat to sit in my lap. I loved the vibration of her purring against my thighs even as my sinuses clogged up with allergies. Thank God for cats.