In a society where most people have kids, some of us don't because our partners are unable or unwilling to make babies. That's what this blog and my book, Childless by Marriage, are about. Let's talk about what it's really like.
I’m recovering from a surgical procedure I had yesterday. It’s no big deal, I promise, but it has left me feeling a bit puny. I keep thinking about being old and on my own. Not having kids or a partner means you may have no one to drive you to and from the hospital or to hang around and make sure you’re all right afterward. That’s something to consider when you’re planning a life without children. But you don’t need to hear me whine, so let’s step back and take a look at what’s happening here at the blog.
Since Aug. 2007, I have published 859 Childless by Marriage posts. I’m hoping to get to 1,000 before I hang it up, but I’ll be honest. I’m running out of ideas. The older I get, the harder it is to reach back to my fertile years and remember how I was feeling then. I will continue to mine the internet, podcasts, books, and other media for inspiration. Usually even when I wake up with nothing, God or the muse provides the spark of an idea and I get busy writing. Today not so much.
WordPress, my blogging platform, gives me stats showing which posts attract the most attention. From the past year, here are the top ten:
If you missed any of these, I encourage you to read them and comment on them. Scroll around to see what else is there. What would you like to see discussed at Childless by Marriage? Is there something bugging you that we have not addressed or need to take another look at? Let me know. I need your help to keep this thing going. If you feel inspired to write a post yourself, do it. See the guidelines on this page and give it a shot. The Childless by Marriage community works best when we do it together.
Happy Valentine’s Day, dear ones. Here is my virtual Valentine to every one of you.
In journals, essays, and newspaper articles from the ‘80s and ‘90s (yes, I’m that old), I wrote about my life as if I were a mother. I talk about school lunches that I never packed. I wrote about PTA meetings, soccer games, and our teenager driving my car. For years, I wrote for a parenting newspaper, Bay Area Parent, covering all kinds of topics from the cost of having a baby to how to make a kid eat healthy food to juggling work and parenting. When I did interviews, I let my mom and dad interviewees think I was a parent just like them. Sometimes they asked questions about my pregnancies and my kids that forced me to admit I didn’t have any, but most of the time I got away with it.
I was parenting in a way, but it was “parenting lite.” My youngest stepson moved in with us when he was 12. Before that, he had stayed with us on weekends, holidays, and summer vacations. We enjoyed his company; then he went home. His older brother and sister were already off on their own so we saw less of them.
The live-in stepson could pretty much take care of himself. Although I was the one the school called when there was a problem and I was the one baking cookies for his Boy Scout meetings, most of the time I was free to work, sing, and socialize. Yet, when it was to my advantage, I let the world think I was a mom.
Was I really? More like a mom wannabe. We all got along, but it wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. It was very clear my husband’s children already had a mother and her name was not Sue. In “family photos,” this short, olive-skinned brunette obviously did not come from the same gene pool as these tall Nordic kids.
What if I had just said, “I don’t have any kids?” Was I afraid to declare my childless state and be kicked out of the mom club? Was I hoping step-parenting was close enough? Did I convince myself I was a mom? What about all those tears I shed as my fertile years dwindled away with no babies for me?
What stories do we tell ourselves? What stories do we tell other people? Why not just be honest?
I don’t have children and I wish I did.
I don’t have children and that’s all right.
I don’t have children. Sometimes I’m sad; sometimes I’m happy.
I have stepchildren, and I love them like my own.
I have stepchildren, and we don’t get along.
I have stepchildren, and I’m trying, but it’s hard.
I wrote those motherly essays and articles years before I started writing about childlessness. I don’t fake it anymore. When my husband died, his children stepped away. I would like to have them in my life, but I’m afraid it’s too late. Maybe I sucked at the whole motherhood thing because I’m obsessed with my work. Maybe they were as confused as I was about how to manage a stepfamily and they had no idea how much I wanted to be a mother.
So the question sits there: Was I pretending? Was it okay? A quick search online shows stepparents do not have the same legal rights as biological parents. Check out this piece, “The Harsh Realities of Stepparenting.” But we’re there, and we care. Doesn’t that count?
How about you? Are there times when you would rather people not know you are childless? Do you ever let the world think you’re a parent to your stepchildren or your pets or . . . ? Is that okay?
The last novel I read, titled The Way It Should Be, was enjoyable but typical of the prenatal slant we usually get. Early on, newlyweds Zara and Chad discover Zara carries the gene for a fatal disease she could pass on to their children. She’s thinking they should not get pregnant. But he really wants a family. Will he leave her if she can’t give him sons and daughters? Before they can think twice about it, the children of a troubled family member fall into their laps. They’re adorable, and eventually they adopt them. Easy-peasy. Not realistic. I like a happy ending, but it would have been a more meaningful book for me if Chad and Zara had been forced to deal with their situation as potential non-parents and how that would change their lives.
Have you read any good books with childless characters lately? Sometimes it seems that every adult character we encounter in books and other media has children. But that’s not how it is in real life. The NoMo (non-mother) book club was formed to highlight books for those of us who are not parents. They have compiled quite a list. Visit their site at https://www.instagram.com/thenomobookclub.
Book club member Rosalyn Scott has started a new feature there called “Other Words,” where she interviews childless authors. The site goes live this Saturday, Jan. 13. and includes an interview with me about my books and writing. The image shown here includes a quote from that interview. I look forward to reading all the others. I know a few of the authors, but most are new to me. Give it a read at https://thenomobookclub.wixsite.com/otherwords. Visit the nomocrones instagram site for some good reading ideas. If you have a favorite book that fits the “NoMo” category, let the book club know at thenomobookclub@gmail.com.
Speaking of books, have I mentioned that I have four coming out this year? One of them is the next in my series about PD (no kids!) and her friends at Beaver Creek, Oregon. Two more are poetry books, and the fourth is No Way Out of This, a memoir about going through Alzheimer’s Disease with my late husband. It’s nuts. But could I say no to any of my dream publishers who wanted to publish my work? Heck no. It will be an interesting year of proofing covers and pages, publicity and marketing, giving talks, and trying to find time to manage the rest of my life. If I had children, they would be badly neglected.
It’s like giving birth to quadruplets. At any particular time, one is crying, one needs a diaper change, one has a fever, and the other has just spit up all over me. I’m raising books instead of people. How about you? What are you raising this year?
On Dec. 20, the childless elderwomen held their fireside chat about childless role models. What most of us decided was that although we could name some famous people without children, we didn’t have many real-life role models to follow. When we were of childbearing age, no one talked about why some people didn’t have children. Rumors were tossed around, but no one sat down and had an honest discussion about it. Now, we have become role models for each other. Perhaps you younger readers can be role models for us. I think the lesson to be learned from this is to talk about it. If you know someone who hasn’t had children, ask them in a quiet, private moment if they mind chatting about it. You could tell them about your own situation and say you’re seeking advice about what it’s like. We have to stop the silence.
There was a moment Christmas Eve when I looked out from my seat in the choir at the beautiful families in church and wanted to weep. I don’t have that. I will never have that. I will never be the mom surrounded by children and grandchildren with her handsome husband by her side.
But I was not alone. I was with our eight-person choir, who feel like family, and I had songs to sing and play, with solos to perform. I had to pull it together, even if I was just going through the motions. I admit that I visited the liquor cabinet after Mass and toasted my late husband with a bit of Cointreau, a French liqueur he left behind.
Christmas day dawned gray and rainy, but I felt better. I sat beside my Christmas tree and opened the presents I had not already opened the day before—who’s to tell me when to open my gifts?
The ones from family felt as if they didn’t really know me, but I had another Mass to play music for, so I didn’t dwell on it. I made myself a breakfast of fresh strawberries, a homemade muffin, and tea and dressed for Christmas Day Mass. Instead of Christmas Eve’s long skirt that was constantly in my way, I wore black slacks, a green shirt, and a sparkly vest—I was comfortable and festive.
I look back on my Christmas day in brightly colored mental snapshots and feel blessed.
At church, I played the piano. We sang carols and solos before Mass, and my song went as well as it possibly could. The church sparkled with red flowers and people in their holiday clothes. I love our small white church by the sea and all the people in it.
After Mass, I dashed home for lunch—a meat loaf sandwich, my favorite. I played a CD of Handel’s “Messiah” while making my salad for dinner with friends. I talked for a long time on the phone with my best friend in California, then drove 45 minutes up the coast to pick up Orpha, a friend, from her senior residence. Childless and widowed like me, she is still gorgeous in her 80s, and fun. We laughed and talked until we arrived at our friends’ house. There, it was a riot of gift wrappings, food, cookies, wine, and yes, kids, two teens and a little one. After their biological kids grew up, our hosts became foster parents. They specialize in teens with gender identity issues.
Most years, I spend at least one of the holidays there, and it always feels like home. It feels like family—no, it feels better than family because all of the people there have been chosen. My friends have collected me and Orpha, the two men who share a house across the street, their own children, their foster children, and their dogs and cats. It’s loud, crazy and wonderful, and I don’t feel a lack of anything.
Shortly after darkness fell, we oldies headed home. I traded my church/party clothes for soft PJs and settled in to watch the new Meg Ryan movie on Amazon Prime.
The doorbell rang. I paused the movie. My young neighbors and their friends sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in perfect harmony, just for me. They all hugged me, and they gave me cookies, a giant candy cane, and a big beautiful photo taken in the location of my novel Up Beaver Creek. So sweet.
My brother’s family, whom I miss a lot, was having a more traditional Christmas with the kids and grandkids. My best friend was at her adult daughter’s home, but they weren’t getting along and she had a stomachache. Not all family holidays are joyful. If I were with family, I might have felt the lack of my own children and my late husband more deeply. It comes and goes. I have losses to grieve, but at the same time I have so much freedom and so much love in my life.
There is life beyond childlessness. It can be beautiful. You do need to reach out to other people and let them reach out to you. If you close the door and wallow in your loneliness, well, you will be lonely.
How did your holiday go? I’d love to hear the good, bad and ugly. Did you feel sad about not having children or relieved? Did you do anything a standard family might not have done? One couple I know went to Cabo. Why not?
A few days ago, when I was feeling creative, I wrote a new Christmas song. Click here if you’d like to hear it. Let me know if the link doesn’t work.
Next weekend is the New Year’s holiday. What will you do differently next year?
Thank you all for being here. I treasure your comments.
A role model isa person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others, says the Merriam Webster dictionary.
Who are your role models? Who do you want to be like when you grow up?
Back when we were children playing with dolls and various imaginative games, we might have pictured ourselves living the same lives as our parents. Or not. My mom was a housewife, but somehow my older dolls, Barbie and such, were always in show business. There was always a stage waiting for them to sing and dance. Think Doris Day way back then, maybe Taylor Swift now.
That life had nothing to do with having children. I didn’t even think about it. Did you?
Now that we are grownups, whose life do we want to imitate? I ask because the Childless Elderwomen will be discussing our role models next Wednesday, Dec. 20, on Zoom, and I’m not sure yet what I want to say.
A role model demonstrates a role that you hope to play. Literally, if you are an actor. Likewise, if you are a painter, you might try to copy their techniques. A dancer might employ their moves, or a singer might mimic their sounds. Writers like me are always being asked about our role models. I could list them, but in many cases I don’t know if they ever had children. Does it matter?
In religion, one might try to follow the example of a holy person. For example, the Catholic Church celebrates all the many virgin martyrs who gave their lives to God, not to mention all the priests, bishops and popes who lived celibate lives (let’s not get into the whole abuse thing).
Most of us are aware of the usual famous non-moms: Dolly Parton, Oprah Winfrey, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Anniston, Gloria Steinem, Kim Cattrall, Mother Teresa, Emily Dickinson . . .
You can find plenty of interviews with celebrities talking about their “infertility journeys,” most of which ended up with a baby via IVF or surrogacy. But as usual, nobody is talking about not having children because your partner is unable or unwilling. I’d like to read the stories of people who have done that.
Do we have role models who are not famous?
Most of our parents and grandparents modeled one way of life: the one where everything revolves around the family. You work hard, buy a house, raise your kids, enjoy your grandkids, and grow old. But there are others who don’t follow that pattern. My Aunt Edna never had children, and her husband died young. She did office work and volunteered at her church for many years, then traveled all over the world with her sister Virginia, who was also single and childless. Edna died at 100, Virginia at 101. Other childless women in my life have included my favorite journalism professor, my step-grandmother, and friends I met through my husband’s work. All lived active lives and seemed content. They never talked about their childlessness. But would I see them as role models? Not really. We were very different in most ways.
Thank God some people in the childless community, including Jody Day, Stephanie Phillips, Michael Hughes, and Katy Seppi, openly discuss their childless status and offer support to others. They can be role models, at least for this aspect of our lives. I suspect we need different role models for different things, some for career, some for lifestyle, some for our spiritual lives. What do you think?
Who are your childless role models? Whose example do you want to follow in your own life? Is there someone you admire, famous or not, that you try to imitate?
The workshop leader was talking about reasons to publish a poetry book. First on her list: It’s something to show your grandchildren.
Once again, it was assumed we all have or will have grandchildren. Not me. Maybe not you. The only one I have had around to show anything lately was a cat.
I was collecting my trash a few days ago when a black Persian cat came out of the woods and seemed to want to be my friend. As he swished back and forth across my legs, I gave him the tour: This is my garage. This is my car. This is my back yard. He said, “Meow” and kept following me.
The cat was beautiful, but I’m allergic, and he was too healthy to not be someone’s pet, so I didn’t let him into the house even though I was dying for someone to talk to, someone who could see my home and appreciate everything in it, including my books.
It can get lonely out here. People always assume we have kids if we’re a certain age. They also assume those kids will be around all the time, which is not true for many families. Just like everyone assumes we’ll be right-handed and some of us, like me, are not.
When this poet I admire said that at the workshop, did I pop in and say, “Hey some of us don’t have grandchildren?” No. She wasn’t taking comments or questions at that point, and it was not related to what we were talking about. She didn’t mean to offend. She offered other reasons to write a book, including having something to say and wanting to share it, maybe wanting to help, entertain, or inform. You don’t need children or grandchildren for any of that. In fact, I would bet most writers’ families aren’t that interested in their books. I know that’s true of mine. Some of them don’t even know I write.
But there are a lot of things besides books we might want to share with our children and grandchildren: family history and photographs, art, crafts, recipes, our religious faith, our vision of right and wrong, our favorite music, or movies we love. So many things.
We can work or volunteer with kids, reach out to other children in the family or among our friends. We can do all the stuff well-meaning people suggest, but it is not the same, at least not for me.
As always, I have questions:
What should we do in a situation where someone assumes we all have children? Should we speak up and make a “thing” of it or let it go? Take them aside later and say, “You know, I don’t have children or grandchildren? What is the best way to handle this?
What would you like to show your grandchildren if you could? Is there someone else you can share it with instead?
I hope you had a peaceful Thanksgiving. I ended up with friends from church whom I didn’t know well and several other people I didn’t know at all, but we had a good time. They all had grown children but were not with them on that day for various reasons. They mentioned them briefly but didn’t dwell on it. The subject of my childlessness never came up. We talked about other things. How about you? Was it a day of gritting teeth or lots of fun?
***
The Childless Collective Summit starts Saturday. All online, it offers four days of workshops, talks, and information for those who don’t have children. Attendance is FREE, although you can purchase a pass to watch the recordings at your leisure. Click here for information.
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If your partner has children, does that mean you are not childless? Some people would think so, but do you?
Thanksgiving is coming, which means you may be gathering with family and friends you don’t see often. You may find yourself sitting at the table with multiple generations, including parents with young children and parents with grown children, and they may all be wondering when you are going to add your own offspring to the family tree. They may ask awkward questions that make you wish you had stayed home. Your partner may or may not be any help.
But if you bring stepchildren, will that make you a mom or dad just like everyone else? What if the kids are with their other parent this year? Will showing photos and talking about them be enough?
As usual, I’m full of questions. I started thinking about these things after listening to Sheri Johnson’s Awakening Worth in Childless Women Nov. 6 podcast. She interviewed Gail Miller, who is a life coach, a maternal fetal medicine physician, and a stepmother. Like me, Miller married a man who already had three children.
Miller raised some points that rang a lot of bells in my head. Her husband assumed she wouldn’t need to have children of her own because his kids would be her kids. “WE have kids,” he said. Like me, she didn’t argue with that when they first got together.
It was a long time, Miller said, before he understood that she was still grieving the loss of the children she might have had. He was sympathetic, but it was too late for her to have a baby.
When I married Fred, who also had three children from his first marriage, my family stopped asking when I was going to have a baby. I didn’t need to. Here are our kids, one, two, three. Sure, they didn’t look anything like me, and they spent most of their time living elsewhere, but check the box, kids, done.
I didn’t feel that way. I still wanted my own. I moped, whined, and got angry, especially on Mother’s Day, when the kids were off honoring their bio mom while my friends were insisting I was a mother just like them. Um, no.
Did Fred understand? Sometimes. I think he felt guilty, but that didn’t make me feel better.
Miller said people assume you will mother your stepchildren like your own, but these kids are not yours, and you don’t have the same rights. Your partner, not wanting to be the bad guy, may not back you up. Nor will the children’s biological parent. The kids can very logically respond, “You’re not my mother” or “You’re not my father.” You might back off to maintain peace. You might put up with bad behavior because you’re trying so hard to make a family and to get these kids to love you.
Meanwhile, the kids are torn. They don’t want to be disloyal to the parent who is not there. How can they love you when they already have another mom or dad? If they’re with you, what are they missing at their other home?
Step-parenting is difficult year-round, but the holidays bring added stress. How do you manage it?
Miller offers some tips:
You can choose to skip the traditional family Thanksgiving. Stay home. But consider whether the repercussions from not going would be worse.
You can tell the hosts in advance that you do not want to talk about your childlessness.
You don’t have to answer nosy questions. You can respond, “That’s personal. I don’t want to talk about it.”
A few of my own:
Be honest with your partner about your feelings and ask them to back you up.
If your stepchildren aren’t there and people keep talking about their kids, feel free to whip out some photos and brag a little.
If you do bring your stepchildren, talk about it with them in advance. These people may be your family, but they are strangers to them. Explain who will be there and how they should be addressed–“Aunt,” “Grandma,” “Mr. Thompson,” etc.
Don’t worry too much about them embarrassing you. All kids embarrass their parents.
Don’t obsess on your lack of children. As Miller said, being childless is just part of her world, not the whole thing.
Don’t expect the worst. It’s quite possible everyone will focus on food and football and no one will say a word about having or not having children. Try to enjoy the day and be grateful for whatever happens.
What do you think about all this? Do you have stepchildren? Do they fill your need for children or make you want kids of your own even more? What are your plans for the holidays? Do you have advice? Please comment.
Yesterday was Halloween. I imagine it was a busy day for people with children. Moms and dads would be dealing with costumes, candy, parties and trick-or-treating while their excited kids drove them crazy. Me, I put on my orange sweatshirt and pumpkin earrings and settled in for an ordinary day. I have no children, and we don’t get trick-or-treaters out here in the woods.
Halloween is just one example of how parents and non-parents live in different worlds. The differences are small at first, but they grow exponentially over the years.
We all start out as young people whose lives revolve around family, school, hobbies, friends, sports, jobs, and maybe church. But we grow up. We pair off. When your friends, siblings, and cousins have children, suddenly their lives revolve around their offspring because the little ones need constant attention. Hobbies, social life, and friends fall away.
Meanwhile, you’re still busy with school, work, hobbies, and relationships. Instead of caring for children, maybe you travel, build or remodel a house, or study for a master’s degree or PhD. You try to socialize with your old friends, but they’re busy with their kids. They have new friends, friends who are also parents.
You get older. At your high school reunions, the others talk about their children and grandchildren. They brag about their kids’ marriages and their jobs and commiserate about their problems. You talk about your work, hobbies, and travel. All you have in common is fading memories of your school days and worries about your aging parents.
In old age, your parents are gone. No younger generation is coming up behind you. Your family is shrinking. Your parent friends send Christmas cards filled with news about their growing tribe of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. You send a photo of your dog or cat. If you meet these friends at a reunion or a funeral, you have nothing to talk about.
Yes, there comes a time when the kids are grown and you can come together with the parent people again, but their family will always be their top priority. At times, you will envy them and grieve for what you have missed. At other times, you will relish the freedom that allows you to be more than “Grandma” or “Nana.” You are still a full-fledged person with your own name and dreams that you are still chasing. Do they envy you? Sometimes I’m sure they do.
You live in different realities now. You can visit, but the bridge between worlds is a shaky one.
If you are still deciding whether or not to have children, consider how your life will take a different path. It’s not necessarily better or worse, but it is different, and the distance between the two ways your life could have gone will get wider and wider.
Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” ends with these lines:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Have you seen the divide happening in your own life as friends and family become parents and you don’t? What do you think about all this? I welcome your comments.
Photo taken on Thiel Creek Road, South Beach, Oregon, copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2015
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My Annie is gone. A month ago, she made her final visit to the vet, and I held her as she passed on to the next life. She was 15 ½, deaf and arthritic, always in pain, and she had cancer. I had to let her go. I am broken, still grieving hard. This loss compounds with the losses I experienced before: my husband, my mother and father, aunts, uncles, friends, Annie’s brother Chico and Sadie, the dog that came before them.
People talk about childless people adopting “fur babies” as baby substitutes. For me, I always knew it was not the same. Dogs will never grow into adult people who can expand your family over the years with spouses, children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. They will not carry on your genes or your name. You can never have a two-way conversation with a pup. Dogs are not children. Neither are cats. But they do fill a hole in the childless life.
Were Chico and Annie, shown in the photo, my baby substitutes? Sort of. They slept in a cage much like a playpen, with little blankets, tiny bowls, squeaky toys, and pee pads. As you may have read in my Childless by Marriage book, my church friends threw us a surprise puppy shower, complete with gifts and cake. The pups, who, at 6 and 7 pounds, were the size of human babies, came at a time when we really shouldn’t have been adding puppies to the challenges we already faced. My husband, Fred, had Alzheimer’s disease, and it was getting pretty bad. He couldn’t handle the dogs.
I was the one dealing with their messes, their chewing, and their need for attention at all hours of day and night. I was the one who took them to obedience classes and the vet. I frequently felt as frazzled as a new mother. But I also felt happy. I knew they were not the same as human babies, but they were fun in the middle of a whole lot of sad.
A year after Fred moved to a nursing home, I had to give Chico, the black dog, away. He kept jumping the fence and running off, frequently going after other people’s pets. By then, he was fully grown, almost two years old. That last day together before I took him to a shelter in Salem, he bit me while I was trying to save another dog from him. I still have a scar on my leg. It broke my heart, but he had to go. He was a dog, not a human being, and he was too much for me.
As Annie aged, she was not my baby anymore. She was a big dog, 75 pounds of love. She was my friend, my sister, and my partner. Perhaps if she were a little dog, it might have been different. I have friends who take their small dogs everywhere, who cuddle them in their laps during Zoom meetings, strap them into their cars when they leave the house, and sleep with them in their beds. Annie was too big for all of that. She was also independent. She liked a good snuggle, but then we each attended to our own business. I liked it that way.
Little dogs are vulnerable, baby-like. People dress them in sweaters and put them in strollers. They talk baby-talk to them. Are they a baby substitute or a breathing version of the dolls we had as kids? Is that crazy or a good thing?
Cats are small, too, the perfect size to cuddle like a baby—if they’ll let you. My neighbor cuddles her chickens. You can love all animals, but do they make up for not having children?
Whatever their size, a pet gives you another name to sign on your Christmas cards, someone to talk about and take pictures of, someone to walk with, eat with, and yes, sleep with. Someone to say good night and good morning to. Someone to notice if you cry and someone who misses you when you go away.
My writer friends on Zoom grew used to seeing Annie in our meetings. I wove Annie into all of my writing. In my bios, I called myself a writer/musician/dog mom. Am I still a “dog mom” if my “baby” has moved on? I am still drawn to dogs the way other women are drawn to babies.
There’s freedom in not having a pet. I can just take off now. I can stay out late or travel overnight. I can tell myself my “baby” has moved on and it’s time for me to have an empty nest.
Will I get another dog? I can’t see myself living forever without one. But at my age, I have to consider how long I might be able to stay in this house where I have a big fenced yard and how long I’ll be able to care for a dog. A new dog would have to be smaller. I need a dog I can carry if need be. Annie’s size was a problem toward the end. But I want a companion, not a baby. I’m too old for babies.
Enough about me. What do you think? Are pets a good baby substitute for you? In what ways do you include them as part of the family? How will you deal with their much shorter lifespans? To love animals is to say good bye over and over again. Unless you get a parrot. They can live up to 50 years.
If you have a partner who does not want the responsibility and cost of children, is he or she willing to commit to the responsibility and cost of pets? Annie’s care cost a fortune, especially in the last few years. To me, she was worth every penny, but some people might not see it that way or might not be able to afford it.
Annie wasn’t perfect. She’s the dog who chewed up one of my hearing aids, who ate pens, paper clips, reading glasses, and important mail, who could chew up an “indestructible” Kong in an hour (I got a refund). She loved people but shunned other dogs. Cats confused her. She chased robins and rabbits, picked blackberries, and “helped” visiting workmen by stealing their tools.
She ran to help when I spilled food in the kitchen and stared at me until I moved out of her spot on the love seat. She thought dried-out crab shells on the beach were a delicacy and could sniff out a burrito or French fries in the bushes all the way across the street. She shed so much it took three days to blow her fur out of the old Honda when I traded it in last month. Fur will be embedded in this house forever. But that’s okay. She was Annie, the best dog in the world.
When you were born has a huge effect on how you feel about marriage and having children (and a whole lot of other things). I knew this in a vague sort of way, but the book Generations by Jean M. Twenge really opened my eyes. Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z readers, I see you more clearly now.
The world is so different from when I was growing up as a baby boomer in the 1950s and ‘60s. Yes, I’m old, at least on the outside. On the inside, I’m still that long-haired hippie wannabe wearing mini-skirts and panti-hose and certain I would fall in love, get married and have children, just like all the other women in my family. Okay, not all. There were a few who didn’t have kids, but people didn’t talk about that stuff.
So much has changed. Birth control, legal abortion (until lately), women working outside the home as much as men, more people living into their 80s, 90s, and past 100, more young people going to college, student loan debt, the cost of living, LGBTQ folks going public and getting married, Internet, social media, smart phones . . . It’s not an Ozzie and Harriet world anymore.
A what? Exactly. Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were a real couple who had a black and white sitcom on TV featuring their lives with their two sons, Ricky and David. They were all musicians, and their problems were always resolved in less than a half hour, with time for a song at the end.
In her book, Twenge looks at each generation, from the Silent Generation (1925-1945) that was alive during World War II and their boomer children (1946-1964) through Gen X (1965-1979), Millennials (1980-1994), Gen Z (1995-2012), and what she calls Polars (2013-2029), the youngest generation. The changes are striking.
With each generation, people are waiting longer to get married, from late teens/early 20s in my day to an average of 28 for women and 30 for men now. And that’s just the average. Twenge writes: “Millennials are the first generation in American history in which the majority of 25- to 39-year-olds are not married.” They may or may not be living with a romantic partner, but marriage is pushed way down the road.
The trend continues with Gen Z, the oldest of whom are now at the height of their fertile years. The average age of women having their first child is 30, much later than earlier generations. But many millennials are choosing not to have children at all. It’s just not “required” the way it felt when I first married in 1974 at age 22. Couples are waiting longer, and many are deciding they don’t really want to be parents. They want to be free to work, travel, or do whatever they enjoy. Thanks to reliable birth control, it is easier to make that choice these days.
Even people who want children don’t see how they can do it, considering their student loan debt, the impossible cost of buying a home, and the equally impossible cost of childcare. They also look at the state of the world and think, really? I’m going to subject a child to that?
By the time they decide to get pregnant, they may be dealing with fertility problems, which leads to the whole world of fertility treatments, surrogates, and adoption, all difficult and crazy expensive.
How does this factor into being childless by marriage? In an era when more people are putting off having children or declaring they don’t want them, it’s more likely that one’s partner will be unable or unwilling to have babies. Of course, things get even more complicated when one partner has already had children and doesn’t want any more.
Twenge blames most of the changes over the generations on technology, including social media, birth control, and all the gadgets that dominate our attention. What do you think?
Generations is over 500 pages long and not a quick read, but it is fascinating, and I highly recommend it. If you’re much younger than I am, it could help you understand your parents and grandparents just as it helps me understand those born generations later than I was.
When I was young there was a saying: Never trust anyone over 30. We talked about the “generation gap.” Surely the generations have always disagreed on things. Do you think the differences are more pronounced now? Or is all this Gen X, Gen Z, etc. stuff nonsense?
Let me know what you think in the comments.
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During World Childless Week, I spoke on two panels, one about the image of childless people in the media and the other about aging without children. If you missed them or anything from World Childless Week, you can still watch the videos at https://worldchildlessweek.net.
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Childless by Marriage 