Best Friends and Deception

The guilt is starting to become overwhelming. I’m speaking of the guilt about keeping this blog a secret from my best friend, especially since she and her family are mentioned anonymously on occasion. However, as this blog seems to be gaining more readers every day (for which I’m very touched), it’s inevitable that she or someone who knows us will stumble upon it.

She and I have had many disagreements on this issue before, over perceived or actual misunderstanding, but we have both come a long way. She’s struggled to understand the things she says that make me feel small or like she doesn’t understand or support me, and I’ve given her a lot more credit than I have in the past. She comes to me for the brutal truth about potentially touchy comments to childfree friends and asks me to honestly point out anything she says that may come across as condescending or unsupportive. We’ve come to an understanding, but I still don’t feel I can share this blog with her.

There are a few reasons for this. For one, although I leave her anonymous I don’t exactly have a common name. Anyone who knows me will put 2+2 together easily and know both who I am an who she is. I am terrified that she will think she’s the reason I don’t want children (a concern she’s voiced in the past, of being afraid that any negative thing she might say about the parenting experience might convince a fence-sitter not to have children). And in this context, she might justifiably take these writings as a breach of confidence. There are still things she says – the occasional blanket statement about the childfree, the loaded (though unintentionally so) statement of how much richer, fuller, more fulfilling her life is now that she’s a mom – that still get under my skin. We’ve talked about it a bit, but I prefer this topic to be the elephant in the room than the catalyst for an argument. I have said it before: We have a fundamental difference in how we think and perceive the world around us, and that’s okay. If something bothers me enough to make it worth talking about, I’ll bring it to her. Overall I know much of it is me being overly sensitive so I prefer not to take issue with every single thing that might bug me but soon will pass.

I’m also concerned that she’ll think I don’t trust her. I’m still trying to figure this one out, quite frankly, because while I do trust her she is highly sensitive like me. I don’t want her to interpret this blog or the secrecy surrounding it as some sort of statement against her. I do trust her, but I also know that I say things in here that will hurt her feelings. There are older posts from a time when we didn’t understand each other as well as we do now that I worry will reopen wounds. I fear she’ll take things personally, because I realize I *do* have a double-standard for moms I know and care about, just as I have a double-standard for babies and kids I care about. And, lastly, I worry that she will see herself in some of my rants (whether real or perceived) and I will lose her because of it.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve been approached to write and be interviewed in articles for magazines that my friends surely read. I had an editorial for what I thought was an unknown magazine spotted by a friend. I want to take this blog to the next level, but I’m afraid. I don’t want to edit her out of my posts because she is an important window into parenting for me, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings either, and I know she’s going to find this site one of these days.

On Working

Something broke my heart a little last night. My boss darted into my elevator at the end of the normal workday with me. Because this is so odd, him leaving at 5:30 when the rest of the office clears, I made a note of it. “Wow, leaving at a decent hour today! Good for you!” I said to him. He looked at me with a half smile, then said in a defeated, deflated voice, “yeah, it’s my son’s birthday and I’ve got to be home early." He spoke as if his son’s birthday was this horrible inconvenience, keeping him from his work. This wasn’t the first time he spoke of his family like this. He came in late one day last week because his daughter fell ill at school and it was “his turn” to pick her up, and he grumped about the mess it had made his day all day long.

My last boss was like this as well. They both took vacation weeks not during the week their kids and schoolteacher wives were home on winter break, but the week before or after. They complained about family tasks, preferring to stay at work for all hours. I often thought that if one of the lobby sofas were a convertible that my old boss would choose to sleep at the office rather than at home with his wife. Both men hung drawings from and photos of their kids in a manner that smacked more of obligation than love. I was shocked to find out my current boss’s son turned 14 yesterday; the photo in his office is of a little-league playing boy of 9 years, tops.

And then I compare this to the problems a friend is having with her workaholic husband, distant and disinterested in the family, working 70-hour workweeks because he feels obligated. And, granted, he’s in the process of building his own business, but even when he IS at home he’s checked out and picks fights, never appreciating a thing his stay-at-home wife does, sometimes coming home so late he’ll go days without seeing his two young boys. He doesn’t spend time with his family; he does time with his family and it breaks my heart to see what she goes through.

And then there’s the flip-side to this. In my decade of professional experience, I’ve never had a superior who has put their family first. Family folk seem to come in two extremes: either work or family is viewed as a necessary evil. Those who appear to view family as an unfortunate obligation (usually men) make their way up the ranks while those who work to pay the bills and have little other motivation never seem to get ahead.

I will be the first person to label myself as a workaholic. I think my addictive tendencies inherited from my father manifested in my work instead of drink. But while I’ll be the first to volunteer to stay late when there’s a big deadline looming, I also strive to work as few hours as possible to get my work done. Since my career is a major factor in my decision to remain childfree, I often wonder what I would do in a similar situation to my current and former supervisors.

It's no secret that my husband wanted kids when we met, and during those conversations when I was inclined to consent, figuring by the time it came up in our lives I might be okay with it, I told him that if I had kids with him that he would be the primary caregiver. (Eventually, obviously, I came clean with him and told him how I really felt.) I've always known, since before the day almost 8 years ago when my mom said "you're more of a career girl, aren't you?", that if I didn't want to reevaluate my career goals a kid would make things incredibly difficult.

I knew before I had spent much time at all in the type of office where I'd spend my career, before I saw the coldness of the successful parents or the stunted careers of the good parents. Even aside from my lack of maternal desire, I've known that a career and a child wouldn't mix. As Oprah has said, she didn't feel that she could do both as well as she'd feel comfortable with. That sums up my thoughts pretty accurately.

Little Sister

It seems to be quite bizarre that my group of friends are entering our thirties without children. It's something that has made my life, up to this point, easier. I knew the tide was approaching, but I didn't expect the tides to change quite so rapidly.

While I still have a handful of childfree friends, they do seem to be dropping like flies. My childfree sista, the girl who gave me a word for what I was, the one who started a controvery with a mutual mom friend by joining a community that was labeled a "hate group"... she's dating a man with kids, something she swore she didn't want to ever do. But you can't help who you fall in love with, I guess. But that's not even that big a deal.

The bigger deal is Lori, who just announced her pregnancy. All of my other parent friends are people I've known only as adults. My best friend was a newlywed when we became friends. But Lori… I've known her since we were 5 years old, she's my not-my-sister, my lifelong friend. The fact that she's going to be a mom… It's just especially weird.

I am ecstatic for her, but there's something about this pregnancy that's affecting me more than most, making me feel more out of the loop than most.

It reminds me of high school… wanting to be popular, but having no desire to do the things that were required to be popular. Shallow, vapid, slutty… words that I used to describe the "cool" kids at school. I never wanted anyone to use those words to describe me, and yet there was something about the acceptance that I always wanted.

All of my other friends with kids — or friends who are trying to have kids — are people I've known only as adults. But Lori is different. She's like my sister. Knowing that she's going to have a baby is like a reality check that I really am growing up.

I'm okay with that. Relationships change when kids come into the picture, and I see the end of my relationship with Lori as I know it. Hanging out with Lori is drinking and dancing and getting crazy. It's an excuse to deal with Wrigleyville bullshit. It's high-end martinis, the expensive restaurants that her husband works at, it's partying but in a different way than my other friends party. It's watching her kick ass at roller derby and impress boys with her muscles, talking like a sailor, sharing Army stories and shooting the shit with her union buddies (she's an electrician).

And she's going to be an amazing mom. But this is necessarily going to change a big part of who she is. She plans to stay at home, and I anticipate Lori's rough edges that make her Lori softening. I miss her already, and she only announced that she was pregnant this afternoon.

And I see this world that she's approaching, the world other friends are in or dying to be in, and I wish there was a way to join the club without joining it. I think about Lori & Jer's baby and how I want to be a part of its life, but at the same time babies make me so uncomfortable. This child will be my niece, if not by blood, and it's taking me back to when my oldest niece C was born, my first husband and I looking at the child terrified, knowing that we loved her but saying my god, who would do this on purpose when no one could get her to stop crying or she threw up all over the backseat of the car and started choking and I had no idea what to do and I was screaming at my mom to pull over NOW because I can't handle this. It's things like this that force me to admit it: I don't like babies. I may love the child, but I don't like babies.

Why do I feel this horrific rush of guilt by saying that? I already feel inhuman enough when people at the office bring in new babies. The women hear the words "baby in the office" and they coo and giggle and rush off to wherever the baby might be for the chance to hold it, to smell it, to nuzzle and cuddle with it, and I can't get far enough away. I don't see a new baby, even my newest niece Josephine and say "gee, I want one of those." Family looks at me strange when I say I don't want to hold her. And while I loved touching my best friend's newborn's soft little head, as soon as he started crying all I could think is "get it away from me". And it's not the child's fault. I'm just not maternal, not wired that way.

I feel like accepting this as fact, that I'm just different, makes me a freak. I'm back in high school and I'm the freak in the flannel shirt and the heavy metal t-shirt and the combat boots beside the girls with their cute hair, expensive shoes and Guess? jeans. I'm the smart kid who finds high school boys annoying and immature, and the girls too for that matter. I'm the yearbook geek.

But I took some pride in that identity. In this identity, this childfree woman who doesn't like babies and is creeped out by the idea of touching your pregnant belly and feeling the alien baby kick… in this identity, when I'm surrounded by these thoughts as my little sister begins softening and becoming "Mommy"… I feel only shame. A fleeting moment, to be sure, but still...

Bright Lights, Big City

It’s hard to say when I became enamored with the city. Was it as a child, on rare outings with my parents when we’d go shopping in Chicago? More likely it was in high school when having fun meant a 45-90 minute drive to either Milwaukee or Chicago and out out out of my hometown of Kenosha. 45 minutes past farmland (which has now largely turned into condos) and subdivisions; out of hell and into a place where I felt I could be myself. If it was your average night out, we’d go to Fuel Cafe; if we were skipping a day of classes, it was down to Belmont & Clark in Chicago. Surrounded by punks and hipsters, goths and art freaks… that was where I fit in. Even though I’m not any of these things (I flirt with them all on any given day), I felt welcomed, no longer too lame to hang with the “cool” kids in school, who I cared little about anyway. It was nice.

But the bright lights big city, I’m not sure where that love affair began. I’ve always loved the architecture, the sounds, all of it. Now that I work in a high-profile high-rise downtown, a part of me feels like I’ve arrived. I live only minutes away by train, close enough to see the Sears Tower down the train track straightaway on a good day, far enough away from the city’s heart to pay a reasonable rent and acceptable parking fees. This is where I want to be.

When we mentioned to my in-laws that we wanted to buy a house in our little neighborhood (I just can’t call it a suburb), they extolled the virtues of the schools, then wondered why we wouldn’t want a bigger house in a “nicer” (read: newer) neighborhood where the schools were even better. We just left it as “we like it here”.

It’s a very real thing to us, though. At our current income level, we simply can’t afford anything in our area yet, where the home values put a $350,000 sticker on a crappy 2-bedroom ranch. Sure, we could afford it, technically, but then say goodbye to our retirement savings, our lifestyle as we know it as we scrimp and scrounge. We refuse to buy a condo just to say we own property (especially when condo values are stagnant), so we’re stuck.

Unless we move to the ‘burbs.

I’ve never been one to dream of the white picket fence, the 2.4 children scampering around the neatly groomed backyard with a golden retriever puppy. My dream has been the city house, perhaps a smaller yard, but a yard nonetheless. No neighborhood covenants for me, nosiree; if I want to paint the trim on my house plum purple, I will. Want to restore that old Victorian to playhouse colors? It’s my prerogative, it’s my property! Of course I wouldn’t have a house that looked ridiculous, but knowing that I *could*… it’s part of the charm. But the most important part of my dream house? Proximity. Location location location, but not in the way our families think about it.

We could buy a good-sized, cookie-cutter house an hour outside the city for a price easily within our budget. We could take the advice of our families and set up roots near the good schools filled with perfectly coiffed and pressed all-American white kids instead of the dirty Polish immigrants and the Mexicans. To us, this sounds like living in hell, yet it is probably where we’d end up if we chose to raise a family. The fact is, the schools *are* better in the ‘burbs, and if we had kids, that would have to be a major consideration. Additionally, with kids to raise the cost of city living would become even more cost-prohibitive (the great irony – much of the most expensive housing is in some of the worst school districts in the state).

Location, location, location means city living. Minutes away from any ethnic restaurant we can imagine, a cheap cab ride to the arts centres or shopping districts, and a short train ride into work. It’s one of our favorite freedoms in our childfree life. We don’t have to seek out the sterile neighborhoods of Naperville and Wheeling. The Polish deli, the Mexican grocery, the Indian-Pakistani buffet… all of these things are at home in our ideal neighborhood. We’re hoping housing prices start going down soon so we can lay down more permanent roots here, in a neighborhood with a crappy school district (that we will gleefully help along with our tax dollars, even though we will send no child to school there) and a hell of a lot of character.

When even a dog is too much…

My husband and I were confronted with the prospect of getting a dog this weekend. On the way home from our New Years Eve party, our designated driver nearly hit an adorable pekingese puppy. He collected the dog, who approached him immediately and was quick to snuggle, and brought him into the car. Like most pekingese, he had silky, long fur that had clearly been recently groomed; the pads of his little feet were bloody, likely from walking on the concrete. We weren't okay with leaving the puppy on the street, and the cops would have taken him to a kill shelter (and, quite frankly, we didn't trust their follow-up skills). Figuring this was a puppy who snuck out the door at a NYE bash or simply got out some other way and would be missed quickly, our friend took the dog home after after my husband took one for the team and brought the puppy into the shower with him -- puppy was unfortunately covered in stink and feces in the back, a common problem with long-haired animals.

The next day, when we still had no word back from the police about anyone seeking a missing dog, we wondered what we'd do with the pup, whom we affectionately named Stinky Butt (because OH MY GOD). Stinky wasn't getting on so well with our friends' dog and couldn't be left alone, and they had an engagement they needed to attend. It fell on us to take care of Stinky.

We panicked. We looked at the house -- we can't have a rambunctious little dog in here. What about my art glass? Our nice furniture? Good gods, what if it PEES somewhere... or worse?! Nevermind that our landlord could potentially freak out. It was one thing having their dog visit -- Lily is mellow, quiet and, well, doesn't have stinky gas issues. Plus, her owners are always there with us. This was potentially us, mano a mano, with an adorable, stinky puppy.

"If we're watching the dog today," said my husband, "that's what we're doing this afternoon, period. Forget our plans." I knew he was right. We intially had plans to celebrate New Year's Day with some other friends, but that couldn't happen if we had to monitor Stinky Butt.

We searched for a no-kill shelter who would take the dog until we could find the owners. We prepared to put signs out. And then we got a call from the cops. Stinky's owner had called them. We were ECSTATIC. Stinky was suddenly no longer our problem. As an added bonus, as we walked to the car to go pick up the dog we saw a sad looking girl taping a flyer to the lamppost -- IT WAS STINKY BUTT! We gleefully told her we had her puppy and went to go collect him.

We fell in love with Stinky as soon as we picked him up. He ran excitedly behind our friend and Lily as she was about to take them out for a walk when we arrived. Stinky hopped into the carrier with little trouble and was just remarkably well-behaved. Our friend declared Stinky a diva who followed her around constantly, wimpering at the slightest hint of being ignored. Because of this, and because Stinky is incredibly cute and cuddly, my husband insisted that Stinky, who no longer appeared to be stinky, sit on his lap for the short drive home.

Stinky snuggled into my husband's lap and rested his soft little head in my hand as we drove. It was so sweet, and I found myself saying "maybe a dog wouldn't be so bad", although I knew that with our work and commuting schedule, gone from 8-6:30 on a good day, it wasn't something we could manage, especially with something as high-maintenance as a pekingese. But as the dog nuzzled into my hand, I felt a warmth that made me happy…

…and then Stinky reminded us why we dubbed him Stinky in the first place. Luckily it was just gas (my husband was wearing his "good pants" and got very, very panicked), but OH MY GOD again. The warm fuzzies immediately dissipated (unfortunately the odor lingered, even with the windows wide open on a brisk winter day) and I could not drive quickly enough. We left the windows rolled down as we took Stinky in to his owner's condo. The smell left the car by then, but we would later find out that it would take nearly two days, a goodly amount of Lysol Disinfectant and open common-hall windows to clear Stinky's stench from our common foyer, where we had the dog until we decided he must be bathed before getting into my friend's car the night before.

I laughed at how quickly our demeanors changed when Stinky went from being cute cuddly puppy to stenchmaster, and it reminded me how ill-equipped we are, temperament-wise, as a couple, to handle a child. "But you guys would make great parents!" people tell us, and all I can think of it the fights about handing off the stinky baby to one person or the other. I picture us playing monkey in the middle with a small child, me with my superhuman sense of smell causing me to gag at the slightest odor, him getting irritated with me because he's always the one who does it because smell and gross doesn't bother him as much. Hell, why do you think he ended up being the one to take Stinky into the shower the night before! I can just see it, and it's not a pretty sight.

A situation like that would make me fear for my marriage. We couldn't handle a stinky puppy for a 20-minute drive home. The idea of something running around and terrorizing our comfortable, adorable home was completely unacceptable to us both, and the thought of giving up an entire afternoon to care for a clingy, stinky diva of a puppy made us angry.

Thoughts like this bring up the question of whether we are selfish because we enjoy the conveniences of our life. I still maintain it's a difference in lifestyle; to say one is selfish is to imply the other is selfless, or at the very least NOT selfish. Many who have children do so because that's what they want for their lives. This is what we want for our lives. It is no different.

We prefer a life where godawful stench and clingy codependence play as small a role as possible. Is that really all that selfish?

When "No" Means Something Else

It's a well-known fact that the earth, the universe and everything revolves around my nephews. And while I find it admirable that their parents are instilling them with a fine sense of self-worth (low self-esteem certainly won't be among their issues), I find it incredibly stupid that the word "no", in addition to having been completely erased from their mother's own vocabulary, has simply never sunk into the heads of these three boys.

On Christmas Eve my husband and I visited with his stepsister who was in town with her beau from Vegas while the other aunts and uncles entertained the boys. My tolerance for the boys is very low, mostly because I get tired of orbiting them with the rest of the world and once in awhile would like to focus on something else. The boys spent the evening telling people to be quiet so they could tell their stories or sing their songs (which was fine once in awhile, but everyone was expected to stop midsentence; if you didn't, you were reprimanded by Mom). Once, when the oldest landed at our table and was offended that the grown-up conversation didn't come to a complete halt, I let him know that Uncles A and D were in the middle of something, and when they finished their thoughts we could listen to him. I told him it wasn't polite to interrupt and got glared at. When the middle child walked, without knocking, into the bathroom while I was in there (thankfully on my way out), I nicely told him he should knock before opening a closed bathroom door. Another glare from Mom.

I'm going to interject with something here: I know that it is a complete faux pas to discipline someone else's child. I gave them no consequences. I didn't make them apologize. I didn't tell them to go away. I didn't yell. I simply stated the facts: It's not polite to interrupt when someone's speaking, and it's not polite to open the bathroom door (that had no lock) without knocking. The problem, if you haven't gotten it yet, is that I told these boys that something they did was unacceptable. In essence, I told them "no", and we don't do that with these boys. Nosiree...

So as the evening goes on, I see more evidence that these boys OWN their mother, their aunts & uncles, their grandparents. "Can I have some cake [even though I just had four cookies and Uncle Brett snuck me a piece of cake already?]" Suuuuuure! "Can I play with this? [read: can we open and assemble the Mouse Trap game, punching out all the little pieces and spending a half-hour building it even though we have to leave soon and it would make much more sense to open it at home and besides, there are two dozen OTHER toys already open and strewn about.]" Of course! Anything for you kids! Sometimes a good healthy "no" is all you have to say. They probably would have accepted it after a moment and moved on to something else, but we don't tell these kids "no". Nosiree.

They wouldn't have immediately accepted the "no", though. Because "no" doesn't mean "no"; "no" means a couple different things. It means "go ask someone else... maybe Uncle Brett because he's a pushover, or maybe Daddy because he can't handle even the mildest temper tantrum". It means "these people are boring and they don't love me because they won't give me everything I want". It means "how dare you defy me! I control the universe and I *always* get what I want... MOMMYYYYYYYY!"

So many parents teach their kids that they are infallable, that the world revolves around them and anyone who tells them differently couldn't possibly love them.

This isn't so much a rant about children -- they only know what they are taught -- but about parents. I can appreciate that sometimes it's just easier, especially in a very social situation, to say "yes" to everything in order to placate the children. It simply made me ill to see how the adults around let the children control the entire evening so completely, how they looked at anyone who dared tell them otherwise like we were horrible, because "it's Christmas!"

I really, really hope that their mother doesn't allow them to control their house like that at home. Somehow, I doubt that anything is different in their own home.

What I Am is What I Am

It was asked recently of a contributor to a blog I frequent called Purple Women whether she considered "being childless" as being something that defined who she was. I found it a fascinating question, and one that I've wondered about often.

I find it intriguing that if a mother was asked to define herself, no one would question if "I'm a mom" came early on in the description, or even it was the beginning, middle and end of the description. Certainly, if you ask someone to tell you about themselves many parents will start in telling you about their family. If a mother were to omit the word "mom" from her description, she might be ridiculed or at least looked at with concern. I would reckon a fair number of mothers would say "yes, being a mother is something that defines who I am."

Conversely, if I say that being childless (or childfree, as I prefer) is something that defines who I am, I get a very different reaction. It has been implied more than once that my identification with "the childfree community" (as opposed to the parenting community?) was a symptom of a greater "problem". Why couldn't I just be childfree; why did I feel the need to belong to some elitist society? Clearly I must be overcompensating for something.

To even ask such a question is to imply that there's something wrong with it. Do I define myself by my childlessness?

No. Of course not.

However, it is a huge part of who I am, in part because so many people my age and older define themselves by their parenting status. "Jenny, mother of two" you'll see as a caption in a magazine. "Carrie, a single mom..." "Bryan, a single dad..." Look at the descriptions people write about themselves in journals, on MySpace. Parenting status has become a sort of status symbol, perhaps not in that parents are revered more than childless folk (though they often are), but my point is that if one finds out I have no children, the question of "why" always lingers, either as the elephant in the room or with a direct question. I'm not sure I've ever had this fact simply accepted and dropped.

But unlike parents, I don't announce my status immediately. If I get to know someone, a coworker for instance, and they seem like they'll be open to the idea, I will enter a dialogue about it -- because it's never as simple as saying "I'm childfree by choice." If it comes up naturally, that's great. When I'm asked directly, I will answer truthfully, but it inevitably opens a can of worms.

My childfree-ness is a fact of life. Just as a mother might look at a toddler in a store and have a reaction, I do as well. Either I look at a cute kid and say to myself "I'm not going to have one of those and that's okay", or I look at something the child is doing -- sometimes simply the omnipresence of a child, other times a particular action -- and think "my god, that would drive me nuts." While many women flock to a pregnant belly and beg to touch it, I get squeamish. Same with tiny little babies. Like mothers and wannabe mothers, I react when I see children; I just react differently. It's normal. I am reminded of my choice constantly, and that's okay.

There's nothing wrong with our childfree-ness being part of what defines who we are. There is one thing I think we all have in common though: while it is a part of who we are, we will always remain our own person. When you ask me who I am, I will never have a one-word answer. I will never ever be, as I've seen so many women refer to themselves, "just a mom."

I am creative.
I am a graphic artist.
I am a wife.
I am a spiritual being.
I am childfree.
I am many things.
...being childfree is merely one of them.

Inequity: The root of our discontent

I was reading an advice column in Pink, a magazine for businesswomen, and it's made me very upset. There was a time when I had the opportunity to be interviewed for an article on childfree women in the workplace, but because I and the writer were never able to connect, it never happened. This turned out to be a good thing, because after reading the article she wrote, I got the impression that I'd have been painted as petty and mean and completely lacking understanding of the plight of the working mother; the focus of the article was changed to yet another rehashing of the whole "opt-out revolution". Whatever.

So in this advice column, a writer says, "I am offering flex-time to female employees, but I'm afraid that the men are being adversely affected." The woman giving advice states that she assumes that she's giving the flex-time to working mothers, in which case the writer should also give the same to fathers who are primary caregivers. If the employees without small children have an issue with it, the writer is advised to meet with them to "find out the root cause of their discontent." This really, really bothered me. The insinuation is that the discontent couldn't possibly be because parents are given a flexibility they're not. No no no no no, there must be some other underlying problem. Because I already had a letter to the editor printed in the magazine this month, I have chosen not to write to the editor again, but I'm hoping someone else will.

One reason I'm so frustrated with this is that I've seen this happen recently with my mother. She has worked with her firm for nearly a decade, managing a number of clients who have flat-out refused to work with anyone other than her and have pledged to take their business elsewhere when she leaves. She is an invaluable "cog in the machine", as it were, for the company. For the last three years, she has been pleading to go to a four-day workweek. She's there at least 10 hours a day anyway and spends entirely too much time working from home as well; she feels that she has earned this. Time and again they have said no. Recently, a new employee has made the same request, and her bosses have honored it. Why? Because she adopted a new baby and "needs extra time to bond".

Nevermind that my mother may as well be singlehandedly raising my niece and has been doing so for nearly 8 years; that doesn't matter. Because this new woman has a baby, she gets the right to the flex-time. It's completely unfair.

Rules like this should be universal; either you have them for everyone, or no one gets the rights. Too many times I've been the one who picks up the slack for the mothers and fathers who leave early for the events of parenthood; school functions, parents' day, and I'm often the only one who's productive on "bring your child to work day". Yet when I have an event that requires leaving early it's either a request that's granted reluctantly or not at all, which means I end up being forced to lie (embellish the situation -- it's not just a day off, I'm in a friend's wedding! -- or call in sick when I'm not) or face missing an event I consider every bit as important as little Jaime's parent-teacher conference.

I'm tired of the inequity, of parents getting preferrential treatment. So often I see the parents being allowed to work from home when staying with a sick child, when I know that I couldn't work from home instead of calling in sick myself on a day when I'm too ill to be braving the train and the walk to work but could probably make it through my design work and my phone meetings just fine. They leave work early, they come in late because of children's illnesses, late schoolbuses, school injuries, or snow days. But if the childless and childfree are late, it's unacceptable.

"The root of our discontent" should be obvious, and to imply that it must be something other than being treated differently that our parenting counterparts is insulting.

'Tis the Season

I’ve noticed throughout my years of journaling that I tend to fall into the same rut; when I’m stressed, need to vent or some other outlet for pain, aggression, frustration, I journal. When I’m content or – gods forbid – happy, I don’t find the need to journal as much. That is the rut I’m afraid to fall into with Childfree Me. I’ve decided to invest some time to talk about the good times, why I love my childfree marriage. While I’m touched that Childfree Me has touched a cord with people (for that I’m endlessly flattered; it keeps me going) because I deal with the more emotional side of this decision, I feel the need to should it out how proud and happy I am for the life I am living.

$75. $25 for each nephew. In most situations, I would have no problem spending this money, and in the past I never have. This year, like any other, I was sent a Christmas list for our nephews, but this year it had a twist: assigned gifts. That’s right, folks, Mom picked out what each aunt/uncle combo should buy for her boys. Way to take the creativity – the thing I find fun about gift giving – and dump it down the drain. What did my husband and I get? Bathrobes (not fleece) – seriously, where do they make non-fleece robes for kids, and what fun is that? Way to give us the gift that they toss aside saying “Auntie T & Uncle A are BO-RING”. Oh, and slippers. WHATEVER.

So instead, I got each kid a $25 Toys ‘R’ Us gift card, with which they can buy whatever they want. But I know what’s going to happen: Mom’s going to keep the cards, maybe buy a small gift for each kid, then keep the rest around for friends’ birthday gifts, etc. As someone who takes great pride in the gifts I choose, this regimented approach sickens me and takes the joy out of the whole situation. Mom’s a control freak for sure – always has been – but this was over the top and I can’t decide if I should confront her about it in addition to my civil disobedience.

Enter my niece, who had the most adorable list ever. She is nearly eight years old and thought very hard about her list. New pencils (cool ones), pink erasers (they work the best), construction paper, crafty things, dangly earrings and – the big gift – moon sand, some sort of crafty clay. This was her list, and she was so proud of her list, and then my 12-year-old cousin got hold of her. “Don’t you want this Bratz DVD? What about a new Barbie house? The Hanna Montana CD? New games for your Nintendo DS (that Daddy plays with more than she does)” She listed all these things (peer pressure!), but nothing makes my niece happier than sitting at a table with some paper, glue, markers and scissors; well, except maybe a pencil to write and her imagination. It kills me to see everyone (her daddy included – he likes buying her things he can play with when she gets bored) pressuring her to ask for bigger and more expensive things when all she really wants to do is craft and draw and write. Oh, and she wants to learn to knit.

What stinks about this is that I’m going to get her some earrings I bought in a lot on Ebay, some cool pencils and pink erasers, and my brother, her Daddy, will treat me like I skimped on her gift, when in reality I got her what she really wanted.

I can’t imagine managing this for my own kids, nevermind the worry over the potential appearance of favoring one child over another. Too much stress.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying buying little things for all our friends, for my husband, and for honorary nephews (with parents who don’t get crazy)… The holidays are about family. It’s ironic that I find my “second family” – the large group of friends with which I’m blessed – much more enjoyable this time of year.

For the Kids

Relationships fail. What seemed a good idea at one time can later feel like a huge mistake; it’s a fact of life.

In recent months I’ve seen several long-term relationships break up; one an engagement that, in hindsight we say “thank god the wedding never happened” to a match that wasn’t as wonderful as we all thought; the other a 10-year marriage stressed by years of law school and living a state away from each other. In the case of the engagement, I was devastated for them, but after she was blindsided with the break-up, I learned things about the relationship that made me glad it never got to that point. In the case of the marriage, I never really understood their relationship. Even before our friend’s wife went away to law school, they never seemed very close, very in love, and my husband, who stood up in the wedding, said the same. They didn’t seem to have what he and I have. And while it’s a hurtful thing to watch friends go through, in both cases I feel it’s for the better. Like my own first marriage, neither relationship bore any children, so the break-ups, while of course painful, were largely uncomplicated.

Enter another relationship in crisis: married for 7 years, two children, both people wholly unhappy. Husband owns and runs a videogame studio startup that’s gaining success. A textbook workaholic, he’s spent the last 7 years building his reputation in the industry through long, long hours, finishing his master’s degree, and being married to his job.

The thought was this: when our son is born, he’ll be home more. No? Okay, maybe we’ll transfer to the other side of the country to another game studio where they’ll promise him shorter hours. “But how can I leave when everyone else is staying?” Okay, let’s try this: let’s move back to Wisconsin where he can get a high-level professorship teaching videogame programming; the hours are better and besides, we have another child on the way. But he found he hated teaching; blame the marriage trouble on this. He then found, quite by accident, a technology grant that helped him start his dream business. And now, after all this juggling, we’re back where we started: husband/dad is checked out when he’s home, which is almost never, obsessed with work work work; Wife/mom stays at home with the boys and is lonely. Things are not getting better. She doesn’t want to be with him anymore.

“But the kids will be destroyed if we divorce.” Forget the arguments about whether or not divorce is a good idea when kids are involved. My point is this: when we are unhappy, we take steps to make ourselves happy. Sometimes that involves ending relationships, ending marriages. The only reason my friends have stayed together so long is “for the kids”. He wants to live his rockstar lifestyle, traveling and speaking at schools around the country, schmoozing with Stephen Spielberg at game launches in Hollywood, and not have to worry about the wife and kids at home missing him (in which case, having kids was not the best idea, but another story). She wants a husband who comes home at 6:00 and plays with the kids; right now she’s essentially a single mom, the kids seeing Daddy on weekends only, and getting no romance, no love, no appreciation, and this is how it’s been for years. She just keeps getting more and more unhappy, far past the point where any non-parent would have stayed where they’re at.

An anonymous commenter on this blog made the argument that childfree marriages are less happy than ones with children because the divorce rate is slightly higher for childless couples. But I have to wonder, especially seeing what my friends are going through: how many of those marriages with kids are horrifically unhappy, but the parents are staying together “for the kids”? I know that was the case with my parents; my mom would never have even married my father if she didn’t get knocked up with me. And it's absolutely the case for several family members. Of course many are happy, but I think the assumption that marriages that don’t break up are happy marriages is wishful thinking.

I’m sad to see it come to this for all these couples, because I don’t want the people I care about to hurt. But when my friend says things like “I think marrying him was a mistake”, which, by extension means having children with him was a mistake (quite a different thought than wishing your children weren’t born)… that makes me so unbelievably sad.

Special Order

A friend of mine, along with her husband, is currently looking to the foster care system to find a child. I decided to look into the kids "available" to get an idea what she was in for.

It was interesting, and I found myself saying that "yeah, if we change our minds, I can do this", thinking an older child would save the trouble of younger kids, which is the main part of childrearing that I am not equipped to handle.

But then I read their descriptions. Behavioral disabilities, learning diabilities – I've long thought that I'd never be able to deal with a child who wasn't smart. And these were the "special ordered" kids I chose when I went through the checklist. I took out kids with physical and developmental disabilities completely. I found myself looking at what the future would hold for a kid like this. What if they weren't equipped for college, ending up like my brother? Bad decision-making skills run with the men in my family, but I can't imagine raising a child like my brother — 28, living at home with his daughter, no follow-through skills, no ambition… I would lose my mind in my mom's position. While I know many of these kids just need a loving home to turn them around, how many of them have wounds that go so deep that there would be a lifetime of self-sufficiency issues? It sends shivers down my spine.

As I found myself picking and choosing the kids that would be acceptable, I remembered a big reason why we don't want to do this: it's a crap-shoot. What if we ended up with a child with a temperament like our middle nephew, with a "sensory disorder" and ADHD? Or a girl like my cousin with a major learning disability so that she's at the same reading level, in the 7th grade, as my 7-year-old niece. Of course we could potentially get lucky enough to get a kid like C, or my best friend's first son (jury's still out on the baby!)… but who knows!

The times when I feel that maybe I could handle kids, it's always a best case scenario. 100% of the time I think handling one of the aforementioned "bad seeds" (god that's mean) and all it does it reinforce that I don't want to do that. It actually starts happening even when one of the good kids starts acting up, and again the 24/7-ness is a dealbreaker.

But my point is, when I found myself picking and choosing the elements in a potential kid (7-11 years old, minor emotional or behavioral issues, zero physical, developmental or learning issues) I realized that only under those circumstances could childrearing be for us. I still think a foster child would be the best bet for us if we did decide to do this, but I'm not sure we'd be able to get over the potential issues.

My friends who are looking into this are much more prepared for this reality than we are. They've been fostering traumatized greyhounds for years and while it's not the same, it's definitely a stepping stone. She is also an ex-foster kid (one who turned out okay), so she knows more about the system than most. I don't know how someone could look at that list and say "I can do this" when hearing about the kid who has trouble with animals, or has violence issues. The poor kids… thank the gods there are people who can do this. I guess my heart's just not big enough for that.

Constant Change

"We're still going to go out dancing and see our friends!"
"Yeah?"
"No, we're having a baby."

"But we're still going to have lots of sex."
"Yeah?"
"No, we're having a baby."

When this conversation went on between Turk and Carla on Scrubs, it resonated. I recalled when a friend had a baby and their sex life stalled immediately. The reason? Her husband didn't think of her as his lover, his wife, even a woman; she was a mother, and mothers aren't sexy.

This was a difficult one for me, because while she did embrace the Mom role totally and completely (I do think it consumed her), I know there were a lot of other things that contributed to their relationship problems after their first son was born. But aside from their sitaution, more and more often I hear about this happening.

I've heard it from both ends, and with a number of excuses. They see their partner as a mother/father and it's just not sexy. There's so much closeness with a new baby that the intimacy once shared with a partner is not important. Time time time time time, there's just no time.

It's so sad that it comes to that so often. Nothing is the same after a baby comes into a relationship, especially the relationship itself. People who choose to have a child sometimes claim that's not the case, but I don't think it's so much that things didn't change; I think it's that the couple decided the changes that would come with the baby were worth the sacrifice or change. And obviously, the intimate relationship is not the only thing that experiences a dramatic change when the baby enters the picture.

"It doesn't feel like a sacrifice," my friend will tell me. "I just don't want to do those things anymore." But the thing is, we aren't interested in giving up our vacations, our weekends, our evenings, our snuggle time, our intimate time, or any of the things that you trade for the love of a child. It's worth it for many people and it's the right choice for many people. It's not the right choice for us.

Camping Friends

Another pregnancy announced today. Another birth. Two babies and three pregnancies in the last month or two. I'm thrilled for them all, of course, and I marvel at the changes that are going to be happening in the next year.

Every year we go camping with a variety of couples. There's about 20 of us (about 8 couples, a few single folk) that shuffle in and out of who's coming and going, but there's a core of probably 5 couples who always seem to go. We're not close with them the rest of the year, but they're our camping friends, and it's a great bond. We get a big group site up in Northern Wisconsin and we go for the weekend. We drink around the campfire, we swim in the nasty algae-infested lake to stay cool, we stay up super late and make gourmet food over flame, we play bocce and Scrabble and read and hike. It's a blast.

The centerpiece couples, the ones who do all the work organizing, are having babies; one is pregnant, the other trying foster care after infertility. I suspect a third couple will be trying soon if they aren't already, and a fourth already has to miss out on most outings because they don't like to leave their boys for an entire weekend. The face of our friends, at least that group of friends, is changing. And while we're lucky it's changing while we and our friends are all in our 30s (at 29 I'm the baby of that group, it would seem), it's still odd to see it changing.

When I was growing up, camping was a part of life; it still is for my parents and my niece C. I think camping can be a great experience for kids, but it's no place for babies or young toddlers, for certain, and the atmosphere we have when camping — drinking, swearing, being grown-ups — isn't exactly kid-friendly. It's one of the things my husband and I like about it. We went camping with my parents and C last summer and we spent the entire time entertaining her and making sure she didn't go somewhere alone, or get too close to the fire. Oh, we had fun with her of course, but we put our foot down when she wanted to stay in our tent with us because we SO needed that quiet time.

I like camping with our camping friends because it doesn't feel like those family camping trips. It's something else altogether. I think this year, since babies and pregnancies are going to get in the way, we'll start planning to camp with a different group of friends. Maybe we'll see these folk out in the clubs when we go up to Wisconsin, but they'll probably fade into parenthood oblivion. We'll keep in contact but not in touch via LiveJournals and MySpaces. But I think the days of us hanging out with that crowd are numbered. I'm sad to lose them, but in reality I know that they're no longer going to be the people they once were.

That Horrible Woman

We went to dinner with my in-laws tonight. I debuted the idea of us considering maybe opening my business in New Orleans after my husband graduates if their economy is ready for a marketing/design startup (the plan is to begin research now, look into grants, etc). It was not received warmly, but I don't think anyone gave it much credence. That's probably okay.

Overall, though, dinner was not offensive. It was on the drive home, the hour long drive home, with my husband's grandma yammering on in the back seat while A slept. She talked and talked and talked the whole way.

It was awkward, yes, but then, only minutes from home, she said the thing that I can't get out of my mind: She started talking about her son's first wife, "that horrible woman".

"I was so glad when she got that marriage annulled, even though it took him years to get over it." She paused, took a deep breath, and said, "She didn't want to have children, that horrible woman."

I wish I believed that there were other reasons that she called her "that horrible woman", that the main reason she said she was horrible was because she broke her son's heart and this was just icing. I wish I was imagining the disdain in her voice, that I had a recording to combat all the people who think I heard it that way because I'm a drama queen and reading too much into things. I wish I could convey how my stomach sank through the floor of the car and splattered all over the road, and I felt about two inches tall and wanted to just cry, the words stung so much. "That horrible woman."

It matters to me what she thinks, even though I know it makes her mean and intolerant and narrowminded and Catholic. It doesn't make the words sting any less. My best friend thinks she might have been trying to bait me, that she heard rumours from the stepsisters whom I've hinted to that we weren't interested in kids and wanted to see my reaction. Who knows.

I have to wonder how she feels about the fact that they chose not to adopt after his second wife's inability to complete a pregnancy, after, from what I've heard, stillbirths out of horror movies and countless miscarriages. I wonder if that makes them horrible in their eyes, if she thinks less of them for making that choice, even after all they went through.

I know I'm not horrible, but the words still hurt.

And Then I Find Peace…

And, as quickly as it began, the emptiness and weirdness fades away.

A look at the blogs of other childfree women, of childfree advocacy groups, and articles about them… A look at these reminds me that I'm not alone.

That is the answer then: too much time spent in a world where I don't belong, among the clucky, the childLESS, the parents. It's not my world, and that's why I was feeling so empty.

It all makes so much sense now.

Reflection Hurts (x-posted from LiveJournal)

I'm enjoying writing my NaNoWriMo novella, but it's becoming more personal than I intended. The interesting thing about this process, writing so quickly and so stream-of-conscious-ly (necessary if one hopes to ever make the deadlines) is that the story takes on a life of its own.

The main character in my novel is a childfree woman, about my age. My inspiration for her was my friend's cousin Shereen, who was the oldest left in the house of 9 kids and spent much of her teenagehood caring for babies, toddlers and kids. When she moved out, she continued to babysit, remaining very close with her siblings. She married and has told her family, who is furious with her, that she intends on having no children, that she's done raising kids and wants to do something different.

While I'm picking influence from Shereen's life, a lot of encounters my character has, good and bad, are coming from my own experiences. The supporters are there, but so are the people who are less supportive. I just got done reliving the bizarre coffeeshop incident from last summer ('05), and I'm feeling very emotional about it.

What happened?

I was meeting Jeanine for coffee. We sat on the patio and were talking. I mentioned the incident where A and I were at his grandmother's house the night before and she kept talking about "when the baby comes", and how uncomfortable that made me. I talked about his family, how uncomfortable the idea of talking to them about the whole childfree thing made me, etc.

A woman, in her late 30s I would later find out, two tables over came over and interrupted our conversation, giving me the third degree about why I wouldn't want children. I'm all about opening a dialogue about the issue, and she started off innocently enough, so I engaged her; big mistake. She badgered and pushed, asking all sorts of inappropriate questions, insisting that I would regret the decision. "How old are you, like 24?" 27, I corrected her. "Oh, so maybe you'll have kids when you're like 32?" No, I said. "But you'll probably change your mind." No matter what I said, she wouldn't leave me alone (and didn't) until I said "fine, I'll probably change my mind." As soon as I said that, she backed off and went back to her table, no exaggeration, and I was sick about it. By now I was near tears on the inside, but I kept putting up this front like it was okay. Weird, but okay. But it wasn't okay. I never really talked about it, like talked about it talked about it, with anyone, but it tore me up inside that what I was saying was so offensive to a complete stranger that she would commit a social faux pas, not even pretending to make honest, friendly conversation and just launch right into it, with a couple of girls who were just sharing stories over coffee. It made me feel so small, so freakish, so weird and broken.

I knew I was working up to this in my novella, but after writing it I'm just feeling all those emotions again.

After reliving it through the eyes of my character, along with the other incidents she's experiencing: being chastised at work for not wanting to hold random-woman-in-another-department's newborn son; being told repeatedly that I would never know what happiness was, that my life would be empty without children; that I didn't know what I was talking about, that things would change when I got married; the pregnancy test that was thankfully negative being greeting with comments of "that's ok, you'll get pregnant sometime, don't worry"; being accused time and again of being a childhater, while others assumed that affection for a child meant that I must want children of my own; people implying insensitivity because I was "wasting" a perfectly good uterus when others out there so desperately want a child; words like selfish, heartless, silly, misguided, being tossed about like grenades; people saying the wrong things while trying to be supportive; others just not getting it or telling me it's just a phase; people accusing me of being melodramatic about the whole thing, or implying that my pain over it meant that I was internally conflicted or something. I can deal with it case by case, but as I've been writing it's just sort of come all at once.

I was rereading the story and seeing how sad my character is, how depressed, and I wondered "is that me?" The only answer I could come up with was yes, and that's really, really… well, sad, quite frankly. And I'm not sad because I don't want children, or because secretly I *do* want children and I'm trying to be part of some club or something, which has been implied. I'm sad because so many people have treated me like shit, made me feel like a broken freak because I don't and I just want to feel like I can be myself.

I don't really have much to say other than that. If you have made commentary like that, it's okay, you didn't know, and I'm not angry, and NO this IS NOT some passive aggressive attempt at getting my anger out at anybody (most of the offenders were random, not friends, anyway, and if you're reading this I consider you a friend and supporter). I'm just feeling worn down. Too much emotion, and at the tail end of a bad day.

And yet I want to keep writing.

What the Hell is This Feeling?

I don't know what it is, but I've been feeling awful all day. I'm currently writing a novella for National Novel Writing Month with a childfree theme and I've been doing a lot of research. I suspect my über-emotional state has to do with a few things:
1) Reading too much about infertile women, and miscarriage stories to ensure I do right by one of my characters
2) Too many friends announcing pregnancies, births, and feeling like my "congratulations" are considered suspect
3) Reading too much about clucky girls and women, who want babies desperately

It's hard to describe the sensations in my body, and part of me wonders if this is akin to the biological urge that so many women give into without consideration. I don't want to say it's the "my body wants a baby" thing, because I've never felt that and I'm really not okay with feeling that, and my brain certainly doesn't want a baby, but yet I've got this uneasiness, noticing babies everywhere — not with desire, merely seeing them. I suspect it's because I've immersed myself in thinking about it and I've been trying to put myself in the mindset of the clucky girls, but I'm incredibly uncomfortable.

I feel like I need to research childfree women who either (a) deny or redirect "maternal" feelings because they know children don't fit into their life for one reason or another, or (b) have a situation where their body wants a baby but they adamantly do not.

Part of me wants to abandon this book because I'm feeling so weird. It's got me thinking entirely too much and I really don't like the way I'm feeling. It's like a combination of guilt and terror. I'll freely admit I have an irrational fear of baby rabies; I don't want babies, period, and neither does my husband. I've seen too many people give into the baby rabies, wanting to have a baby but not wanting to raise a child, if that makes sense. And while I don't think that's what it is, whatever the hell it is I want it to go away. I think I'm just getting too close to all the emotion.

Someone Who Gets It

I got the most unbelievable validation from my husband's best friend. He's known my in-laws for nearly 20 years, and the only authority other than my husband who can pass judgments on the way I'm choosing to handle things with the family.

So to all of those who accuse me of being melodramatic, overthinking the issue of telling my in-laws about our childfree-ness…

What he said, to paraphrase:
"I don't blame you for being scared of being disowned, disinherited, any of that. I wouldn't put it past that family. I can tell you exactly what they will do: They will pass judgment, badger and bother you, and then they won't believe you. They'll continue to make comments about 'when the baby comes' and assume that buying a house means babies are imminent."

He agrees that the best approach right now is to not tell them, at least not while we hope to get in on the inheritance/trust fund. Again he suggested feigning infertility which has always been an unsavory idea for me. However, after hearing him say it, he who knows that family so well, I'm starting to think why the hell not, if we have to do it, and I'm considering talking to my mom and ensuring that, if she speaks with my in-laws we have the story straight.

I probably will go with the truth when the time is right, but early introductions of the topic to the in-laws has not gone so well. Who knows what we'll finally decide to do. Regardless, it feels good to know that someone who is qualified, who does know the situation, supports me on it, even if a dozen strangers tell me to get over myself and that it's none of their business. And that is empowering.

It's nice to feel empowered for a change.

Childfree TV

Awesome.

I liked Studio 60 from the moment I saw it for no other reason than it's smart TV, and smart TV on network has been such a rarity. I never thought I'd see a smart show portraying a likable childfree character. Well, at least *I* like her.

For a bit of background, Studio 60 centers around the behind-the-scenes of a Saturday Night Live-style sketch comedy show and the network that's struggling to reinvent itself. The show is brilliant, and as someone without cable, an unbelievably welcome addition after Heroes, the other best show on TV right now. But I digress…

A couple weeks ago, they showed a sketch called "Jenny Doesn't Have a Baby", which made me laugh hysterically while a couple of moms badgered a childless Lauren Graham about how she wasn't a real woman, couldn't know what joy was, and would lead an empty and incomplete life before inevitably changing her mind about kids because she wasn't getting any younger: a litany of lines we've all heard a thousand times or more.

But it gets better.

Tonight Jordan (Amanda Peete), the controversial new president of the TV station, has been outed in the press as being childfree, disliking kids and said she'd never hire a woman with children. And while I'm not as anti-child as her, I've often wondered, as owner of my own firm, how I would feel about hiring a mom versus a childfree/childless person with all other traits being equal.

Peete's character is going to open a dialogue. And while it remains to be seen how this will be portrayed on the show, Jordan is clearly a strong character; she's charismatic, smart and, while driven, incredibly likable. I am in awe that someone had the guts to start the dialogue with a major character in a new, popular series, and now I can't wait to see how they decide to let this develop.

Alone or Abandoned

My step-grandfather, Loren, passed away on Saturday night, with only one of his children present, and while she was sad, she also complained A LOT about all the work she would have to miss, and various other inconveniences that this would bring upon her.

His children were involved with the decision to take him off the machines, but that was it. Granted, they are not local, but my grandmother's reason for calling them was so they could say goodbye, and no one was interested. No one was interested. The whole situation is being treated by his kids as a horrible inconvenience.

They are annoyed at having their grandmother's health situation put on their plates because my grandmother has no desire to be involved. That poor woman's only living son moved to Florida upon being granted power of attorney over her accounts, abandoning her as an invalid without a nurse. Loren cared for his mother-in-law (MiL) because her own son wouldn't, and his motivations were largely financial. When it began to be clear that, at the very least, he was not going to be able to care for her for an extended period of time, my grandma packed up his MiL's things and brought them to her attorney because Loren's daughter was not interested in caring for her grandmother. "Too busy."

When folks bring up the idea of who will care for me when I'm elderly if I have no children, I wonder what would be worse — going through an illness alone, or going through an illness waiting for someone to care. I wonder how Loren's MiL must feel — her mind is alive, at some level, but her body has withered away. She knows her son has taken her money and abandoned her. She knows her grandchildren won't come see her. She will now know that the only person left in the world who cared about her anymore, whatever his motivation, is dead.

I'm not saying the idea of being alone isn't a concern. But I think it's silly to use that as a way to try to convince someone to have children, especially when I've seen families abandon each other more often than not. My grandmother was the only one of 10 living children who my great-grandmother remembered as Alzheimer's claimed her because she was the only one who saw her regularly. When she became ill, it was as if everyone wrote her off as already dead, resenting the money her nursing home drained from their own incomes.

Some people, like my Gramps or my friend's grandfather who recently passed, are fortunate enough to be surrounded by family who is there 'til the end. And it does give me sadness that I won't experience something like that. But to me it's like someone asking me if I'm sad that I'll never win a Clio award because I'm choosing to get out of high-buck advertising. If I decided to go back to an agency, sure there's the chance I could do great things and I could write an award-winning campaign. But it's a big "what if" that requires a sacrifice that I'm just not interested in making for my life, my marriage, and my happiness.