Nearly 46 percent of American women through age 44 are childless. That's up from 35 percent in 1976.
All reasons this generation of women are not bearing children at the same rate their mothers did are valid. Some are young women and just not at a point in their lives where motherhood is a choice they'd like to make. Some are 'fence-sitters,' not sure about whether or not they want children. Some are childfree by choice. Some are gay and need to take a potentially longer and less traditional route to motherhood. Some are suffering from biological infertility. And some, like me, are what I call "circumstantially infertile."
I want children. I always have. At age 12 I purchased baby name books in preparation for the son and twin daughters I dreamed to be a mother to one day. I was a nanny, camp counselor and frequent babysitter. I would make up songs to sing to the kids I babysat that would become 'our thing' or visit the kids even when I wasn't officially working for their parents. By age 21, I was hosting teen tour girls in my home. Motherhood was always a path I felt ready for.
At age 23, when interviewing for my first job in New York City, I inquired about maternity benefits to make sure it was the right place for me. I focused my career in the non-profit sector, hoping it would give me more flexibility in dating, marriage and motherhood. I dated men with traditional family values, men who have since gone on to be fruitful and multiply.
By my mid-30s, now in my third job working for some of the best companies in the world to make enough money to live in New York City, I was still unmarried. I wasn't a mother. My work hours were longer, some days were spent overseas, and I was beginning to suffer the prejudice of being an 'older' woman. At 34, I was approached by a male friend who said he wanted to set me up with a friend our age but I was just 'too old.' At 35, a man said he would date me if I agreed to freeze my eggs. At age 36, another man told me he'd (reluctantly) date me since I could probably still 'pop one out.' Now we all know these are exceptional instances but they were nevertheless embedded in my psyche.
The grief over not only not being a mother, but now also suffering from feeling 'less than' because I just simply hadn't found love (or mutual love), was at times overwhelming. And as I saw couples younger than I getting sympathy for their biological infertility, I wondered why all I got were accusations of not doing enough, not trying hard enough. Trying too hard. Being too picky. Not being picky enough... And the hardest comment to defend: "You better hurry up!" (Hurry up and fall in love?)
While I have not suffered from biological infertility (as far as I know), I imagined my grief was at least as deep as couples trying to conceive as I didn't have a love who shared the grief. Heck, I often didn't even have a date to get closer to trying! Every month that passed, I grieved a loss. But I grieved alone. I have no husband (or male partner) to grieve with me. And lamenting my infertility to close friends who are parents or to family was never well-received.
Generation X is the first generation of women who have a choice to wait for love. Unlike many of our mothers, we earn enough to take care of ourselves (please don't call us 'career women' as careers are as much a choice for women as they are for men.) But still, the assumption is that all women who don't have children don't want children. There is a place between motherhood and choosing not to be a mother. And tens of millions of American women are there.
I'm 42 and still single and I have come to acknowledge the truth: it's very possible I won't have children of my own. I've grieved and have found my happiness on the other side. There are days that are still hard for me (Mother's Day, the day a friend announces her pregnancy, when I hear a guy won't date me because I'm too old to have kids, my birthdays, my monthly reminder...) but most days I'm happy. Very happy. I'm not in the wrong life being the wrong wife and trying to get out. I have no regrets.
My circumstances have left me infertile but they have not left me non-maternal. I love the children in my life with boundless adoration. If I was not meant to be a mother to 2.1 kids, then perhaps I was meant to be motherly to many more. From a girl in Tanzania I've adopted as a niece and email with many times a week, to the little ones down the hall in my apartment building, and of course to my amazing nephew and nieces by relation, I am an aunt.
I'm not childless, I'm childfull. I'm not a mother but I am maternal.
My infertility is circumstantial but my life is not barren. And to the women who are on the other side of hope, know that you are more powerful than your womb. You are maternal whether or not maternity ever comes. You are a woman and your love and how you choose to offer and receive it, is a gift.
And you're not alone.
Follow Melanie Notkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/savvyauntie
Lisa Hymas: I Am the Population Problem
For whatever reason, women without children are actually doing the world a favor. Population pressure is the single greatest threat to humanity.
That doesn't make me selfish, no more so than not finding NASCAR or field hockey to be interesting.
I grew up reading Mademoiselle, magazines that made me want to be smart, go to college, and be a feminist. But I can't blame that magazine. I just never had the desire to burp out a bundle. Nothing more sinister than that. Some women want to (and do NOTHING else), and other women don't hear the clarion call.
If anything, in my experience, it's women who have children who are the selfish ones. There can only be one topic of conversation when they get together to cluck: KIDS (and bitching about husbands.) Both subjects are boring.
All that work, and how many of their little bundles of joy grow up into sullen, self-centered, dumb ass adolescent brats. THIS is what you want taking care of you in your old age? I'd rather hire a nurse.
And btw, I don't hate kids. Not at all. It's their parents I find repulsive.
I am sure you have spent time with your parents / grandparents and that they found far more topics to talk about other than YOU.
You assume that women who choose to have children just want to sit on their butts and do nothing else? I have seen plenty of selfish single, married, divorced people, people with pets, people without homes - being a parent doesn't mean that you are selfish just as being a proud American means you drives a big wheel truck and eat hamburgers all day.
I am truly glad that you have chosen to not have children. It is a choice for most of us, and the world certainly doesn't need someone who cannot commit to that kind of responsibility and relationship.
I understand it's not for everyone and that's fine. But reproducing is kind of a biological thing, so it's not like it's the most ridiculous thing in the world for someone to do. I would imagine you have friends who talk alot - perhaps even ad nauseum - about their jobs, their hobbies, their love life, depending on the phase of life they're in. Talking about kids is the same for parents - there are phases where it is all-consuming. But with your attitude, I can't imagine you're really around parents enough to be subjected to it that much.
I continue to not understand why, as we attempt to explain our own choices in life, we feel compelled to bash those that made different choices.
eleanore - The Spinsterlicious Life
Then again, I don't think anyone ever gets over a loss, unless they go into denial, which is what people do, all the time. It's how we survive. Memories of losses have a habit of returning from time to time. So I agree in a way with what you say, Sock, that Melanie decided to take another path and not the motherhood one (and not the maternal one either).
It's fine that she did that, despite the influence of others to have her conform in whatever way she could, and be a mom. I can see she put a lot of thought into making the decision, over a period of time, no doubt, in bits and pieces, to become mainly an aunt.
Actually, we don't all get to choose the life we want, though having a baby (giving birth) is generally (though not for all) a lot easier to accomplish than, say, having a career. I think the word 'default' probably doesn't apply in this situation. I suppose one could end up a mother by default, but not through having considered it and dropped the idea and taken precautions for it not to happen.
The article was a brief story of one person's coming to terms with having a career and no children. It was a personal story, with some social comment included. Some may see it as tender, some not. Some may see it as honest and some not. The complexities of modern-day womanhood are so great that it would be impossible for one person's story to portray anything more than just a tiny bit of all that womanhood is today. That you see the attention it got, and the outpouring of responses (and sharing) from other women, as unfortunate, is beyond belief.
It's unfortunate to me that people feel so desperate to defend themselves - for whatever reason - that they run down others' choices and use demeaning phrases like "breeders" or tell others with opposing views to "get an education". I wish we could have a little more compassion for those who's path in life is different than ours and speak more civilly to one another when we do disagree.
I did not know what I'd posted would be grounds for a fight - you must really be looking to scrounge!
Since you didn't opt for artificial insemination, then you just simply weren't prepared to have a child on your own, which means you didn't really want one enough to put it above all else - society's rules, cultural norms, religious values.
We all choose the life we end up with, whether that's by default or design.
Likewise, I for one, don't want to have a child without giving that child a FAMILY, and I need a husband to do that. Otherwise, I'm making a salary that is sufficient for ME to live on... but to raise a child, in my one bedroom condo, sling some mac and cheese in a bowl and rush the kid to daycare that would eat up at least 1/2 my salary... is not the type of parenting I wanted to get into. For me, it's the traditional family route... or not at all ... so maybe I chose that... but I honestly did, fully expect to find love and start a family. I had no idea that would be beyond my control.
And yes, that is grief.... the whole world told me to expect to get married and have a family. God gave me a body that, among other uses... is designed for procreation... and at 41 - yes, it's likely I've lost that chance. I lost the opportunity. That's a loss. It's gone. I'm grieving.
One can single out (pardon the pun) a certain segment of society as being outside the norm of acceptability, possibly seen as more powerful (not needing what traditionally is expected of them). Thus older women living without a man, and without grandkids, could also fit in here, not just the perpetually childless single woman. Try talking to women whose main interest is their grandkids and you'll know what I mean.
In fact, isn't that the myth that the author is trying to dispel, that such never-been-married women don't like kids. Melanie prefers to use the term 'auntie' to describe the relationships she has with children not her offspring, though she does apply the term 'maternal' to herself, which may not be accurate. In fact, the way she talks about it at the end indicates she sees it as an instinct, something internalized, which is not the way many feminists have viewed it. Liking kids is so much easier when you don't have to be there for them for 16-20 years, nights and often during the day too. I can't see that she demonstrates being 'maternal' by being an auntie.
As an academic, I'm sure you've got some research to back that up. Please share.
I can say I am a selfish person in many respects that is typically a trait of childless women. You don't ever really grow up until you have a child and take on that responsibility. I lack maturity in many areas of life. I don't want children, it's something adults have.
There's a dark future for humanity ahead, I feel bad for parents in this day and age, it will be tough. I'll try to lend a helping hand in spite of my lack of maturity.
High school is alot tougher for teenagers today than a few decades ago.
A lot of people work with children, as volunteers and on their jobs, or as mentors on occasion, and that's really commendable, but it's not the same as mothering and being in it for the longterm.
I'm sure a lot of women don't want to be seen as putting their career first, while not yet married, but if it is a fulltime job, others are going to see exactly that - a career woman - just as they might also see someone who spent 20 years mothering as simply a housewife and mother, no matter what else they do.
Giving up on the idea of marriage and choosing to be a single mother might even increase the opportunity coming of meeting someone compatible. If being a mother is what you really want, and not just the marriage, it sounds like a good idea.