Families of Two: the childfree a decade later

Last Fall Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud Show did a piece on “As We Are: Childfree.” Tiffany Lee Brown, a writer and artist, was a guest on the show, and told an interesting story about her experience of the biological clock.  She decided not to have children in her 20’s, mostly because she felt that living an artist’s lifestyle would be incompatible with parenthood.

But at about 40, she says she got “slammed” by the biological clock. An intense need came over her body, and she was “wrestling it down” to preserve other areas of her life. She is married and is a step-parent to her husband’s daughter. Her husband doesn’t want to have more children, she has an awesome step kid, so although her body was crying out to have a child, she decided to remain “biologically child-free.” 

She makes the point that by not honoring our biological urge we deny a most basic need – one that comes from the reptilian part of our brains. This made me think of the many childfree women I’ve talked with …

(more…)

Check out a very interesting article in The Times of India.  It discusses the rising population of childless by choice couples in India.  “Time was when having a kid – or three – was the norm. And a childless couple, a rarity. If at all there was a pair that didn’t have a kid, friends and family were sure there was, ‘some problem.’ Not anymore. In the new India, people are childless by choice. And the stigma attached to the concept is slowly wearing off.”

The article tells us about Anish and Monisha Palshekar, who decided they do not want to have children.  Like a lot of childfree, it does not mean they do not like children.  For many years Anish has taught street children, and Monisha has worked with women and children in India’s hinterland.

Then there is 45 year old scientist Dipshita Singh, who ..

(more…)

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the popular Eat Pray Love, has a new book out, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. Like the couple on I wrote about in my last post on Dr. Phil, in Committed Gilbert speaks to her genuine lack of desire to have a child:

” … while the vague idea of motherhood had always seemed natural to me, the reality … only filled me with dread and sorrow. As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to have come equipped with that famously ticking clock. Unlike so many of my friends, I did not ache with longing whenever I saw an infant. (Though I did ache with longing, it is true, whenever I saw a good used-book shop.)”

For many childfree writers and artists, their creative endeavors are their act of creation, and they are devoted to that creation. As Gilbert says, 

(more…)