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.

I’m childless and strong

Sue Fagalde Lick childless and strong

I’m turned 57 years old last week. Don’t panic, book editors. I look 47 and have the energy of 37, as you will see. My age is not the point—or is it?

If you had dropped by my house recently, you would have seen me shovel ice from the driveway and sidewalk, move 600 pounds of wood pellets, assemble and transfer a dog crate almost as big as I am from garage to car and back again, take the pellet stove apart and clean it, shovel dirt for two hours in my back yard, walk one big dog for a mile and turn around and walk the other big dog for another mile, pretzelize my body in yoga class twice a week, plant eight cement stepping stones in my back yard, scoop about a hundred pounds of dog poop, fix my own toilet, stand at the top of a ladder moving boxes, and arrange for construction of a new fence, plus all the girl stuff one would expect, the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.

When my mom, God rest her soul, was 57 or even 37, she could not do any of these things. She had no idea how, and she barely had the physical stamina to walk to the end of the block. My father and my brother handled all the “guy jobs.” With all her needlework, Mom probably had the nimblest fingers in California, but she never exercised the rest of her body, never really took good care of herself. She was too busy taking care of Dad and my brother and me. It was what women in her family did. If Dad had died first, she would have had to call my brother or a neighbor to help the “poor widow.”

I refuse to play that role, even though I’m alone now. My husband, who has Alzheimer’s, is in a care home, and I don’t have children because he had his share before I met him. When the job is truly too big for one person, I do call for help, but I’m smart, I have muscles, and I have no sons to call on. If I don’t know how to do it, I can learn.

Part of this comes from being my father’s daughter. At 86, he is strong and stubborn. But part of it comes from being childless. I think we have to be more self-reliant. Perhaps I have mentioned my Aunt Edna here before. She celebrated her 100th birthday on Dec. 29. She has been widowed for about 50 years and never had children. She was well into her 90s before she needed help from anyone, and she had already made arrangements to move into a senior residence. Likewise, her sister Virginia, who is 92, lived on her own until she fell last year and broke her neck, but darned if she isn’t up and ornery as ever, even though she still has some health challenges to conquer. In Grandpa Fagalde’s day, he would have called Edna and Virginia “tough old birds.” Well, that’s what I want to be, too. I want a big crowd like the one that gathered for Aunt Edna’s birthday to talk about how strong Aunt Sue was, not about how sad it was that she never had children.

Now I’m not saying that moms can’t be strong. Raising children is hard work, but some mothers just don’t learn to be independent or physically fit. I have a close mom friend who is my age and can barely walk. She says she’s “old.” I’m just saying there might be a connection.

Dogs too much for me?

Sue Fagalde Lick Chico and Annie, dog mom, too aggressive

I know this is not about babies; it’s about dogs. Again. If I had children who turned big and wild right as I was becoming a single parent, I don’t know how I would handle them. They might end up in foster care. Then again, I wouldn’t be in my 50s, so I might have the energy to parent them properly. Perhaps if I had had children, I wouldn’t have felt so driven to raise puppies. Anyway, that ship has sailed.

With my husband in a care home and his doctor confirming yesterday that he needs to stay there, I’m on my own. I’m grieving and trying to adjust to big changes in my life. I know I’m not thinking straight, but for the first time, I’m wondering if I should find another home for Annie and Chico. The dogs were in the kennel last night and this morning, and it was so peaceful.

When I went to pick them up, I was asked not to bring Chico back. He’s too aggressive toward other dogs. I don’t see him that way, but he and Annie are very rough with each other, clacking their teeth, throwing each other around, banging into the door, the furniture, my knees. I need to acknowledge their half pit bull ancestry. They love me and would never hurt me on purpose, but I can’t handle them both at the same time. Chico can pull me right off my feet. I wish I’d had these thoughts before I approved an $1,800 fence and the posts were cemented in. I love my dogs. They’re only a year old, and they will calm down, I hope, but maybe they’re too much for me.

Of course I didn’t expect them to get so big, and I didn’t expect to be alone at this point.

Even as I pet these big dogs and hug them to me for comfort, they exhaust me. I wonder if I should give them away. I don’t want to separate them. They’re siblings who have always been together. Maybe the new fence, going up tomorrow, will make life manageable. But are they worth the effort now that my life has changed so dramatically? My father says I should get rid of them. He may be right.

Then again, he doesn’t like my stepchildren either.