Jody Day

What if nobody was talking about their kids?

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What is it like to be in a room full of people who are childless like you? A room where no one insists on showing you their baby pictures or asks when you’re going to “have a family” of your own?

I can tell you it’s fantastic. In 2017, I attended the NotMom Summit in Cleveland, Ohio. Organizer Karen Malone Wright invited women who were childfree by choice and who were childless not by choice for whatever reason. One might wonder if the two groups would clash, but we had so much more in common than we had differences that we bonded immediately.

Putting on an in-person conference of any kind is a huge endeavor, requiring a lot of money, time and effort, and Wright was not able to do it again, but this year Kati Seppi, who has hosted an annual Childless Collective Summit online for the past years, is hosting the first in-person Childless Collective Summit April 12-14 in Charleston, South Carolina. The weekend includes talks, workshops, opportunities to get to know other women and men who don’t have children, and a fun day at the beach. Keynote speaker Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women, is one of many great reasons to consider going.

Seppi says, “The theme of the summit is celebration. If you’ve had to let go of your dream of parenthood, celebrating may be the last thing on your mind. But, please hear me when I tell you this: You are worthy of celebration. There is room for joy, even in the midst of grief. I’m willing to bet you’ve spent a lot of time celebrating the baby-related milestones of friends and family members. When we’re childless, a lot of our big moments pass by, unrecognized. Our milestones deserve to be seen and celebrated too. This is a party just for us.”

The summit sessions are designed to support you in: 

  • Building friendships with others who are childless.
  • Learning to identify and amplify your greatest strengths.
  • Recognizing your value and worth.
  • Identifying new avenues to meaning and joy.
  • Feeling seen and validated in your childless experience.
  • Finding inspiring examples of rich and full lives without kids.

The cost is $550 before March 15, $600 after, which covers all the sessions, catered lunches each day, and transportation to the beach for the party there. Participants also become members of a private online group that will continue to support each other after the summit.

Learn more and get your ticket to join the summit.

If you’re feeling lonely in your childlessness, I encourage you to think about attending the summit. I believe you will come out feeling recharged and feeling much better about your life.

Due to work and health situations that keep me from flying across the country at this point, I can’t attend this year, but it will be on my calendar for next year.

I know this sounds like an advertisement, but it’s going to be fabulous, and Katy needs more signups to cover her costs. Think about it, okay?

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My poetry chapbook Blue Chip Stamp Guitar, book two of the four I have coming out this year, is in print, and oh so beautiful. Click here to attend my online reading from the book this Saturday at 4 p.m. Pacific time.

You may also want to read Between the Bridges, the third in my series of novels about a childless woman named PD and her friends living on the Oregon coast. In this one, she feels her childlessness more than ever, and I think many of you would identify with her and enjoy her story. Between the Bridges is available at Amazon and wherever books are sold. You can also ask your library to order it.

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My Feb. 22 post about more people owning pets than having children had some incorrect numbers, according to Sarah Rose of the World Animal Foundation. As of this year, she says, 86.9 million U.S. households own a pet, which accounts for 66 percent. It’s still a lot. If you survey my church choir or my neighbors here in Oregon, it would be 100 percent, whether they have kids or not.

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Realistic childless role models, real or fictional, are hard to find

Sue Fagalde Lick adoption, books about being childfree, books about childlessness, childless role models, Nomos , , , , , , , , , , ,

The last novel I read, titled The Way It Should Be, was enjoyable but typical of the prenatal slant we usually get. Early on, newlyweds Zara and Chad discover Zara carries the gene for a fatal disease she could pass on to their children. She’s thinking they should not get pregnant. But he really wants a family. Will he leave her if she can’t give him sons and daughters? Before they can think twice about it, the children of a troubled family member fall into their laps. They’re adorable, and eventually they adopt them. Easy-peasy. Not realistic. I like a happy ending, but it would have been a more meaningful book for me if Chad and Zara had been forced to deal with their situation as potential non-parents and how that would change their lives.

Have you read any good books with childless characters lately? Sometimes it seems that every adult character we encounter in books and other media has children. But that’s not how it is in real life. The NoMo (non-mother) book club was formed to highlight books for those of us who are not parents. They have compiled quite a list. Visit their site at https://www.instagram.com/thenomobookclub.

Book club member Rosalyn Scott has started a new feature there called “Other Words,” where she interviews childless authors. The site goes live this Saturday, Jan. 13. and includes an interview with me about my books and writing. The image shown here includes a quote from that interview. I look forward to reading all the others. I know a few of the authors, but most are new to me. Give it a read at https://thenomobookclub.wixsite.com/otherwords. Visit the nomocrones instagram site for some good reading ideas. If you have a favorite book that fits the “NoMo” category, let the book club know at thenomobookclub@gmail.com.

Speaking of books, have I mentioned that I have four coming out this year? One of them is the next in my series about PD (no kids!) and her friends at Beaver Creek, Oregon. Two more are poetry books, and the fourth is No Way Out of This, a memoir about going through Alzheimer’s Disease with my late husband. It’s nuts. But could I say no to any of my dream publishers who wanted to publish my work? Heck no. It will be an interesting year of proofing covers and pages, publicity and marketing, giving talks, and trying to find time to manage the rest of my life. If I had children, they would be badly neglected.

It’s like giving birth to quadruplets. At any particular time, one is crying, one needs a diaper change, one has a fever, and the other has just spit up all over me. I’m raising books instead of people. How about you? What are you raising this year?

On Dec. 20, the childless elderwomen held their fireside chat about childless role models. What most of us decided was that although we could name some famous people without children, we didn’t have many real-life role models to follow. When we were of childbearing age, no one talked about why some people didn’t have children. Rumors were tossed around, but no one sat down and had an honest discussion about it. Now, we have become role models for each other. Perhaps you younger readers can be role models for us. I think the lesson to be learned from this is to talk about it. If you know someone who hasn’t had children, ask them in a quiet, private moment if they mind chatting about it. You could tell them about your own situation and say you’re seeking advice about what it’s like. We have to stop the silence.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to the video. https://jodyday.substack.com/?r=ejjy9&utm_campaign=pub&utm_medium=web It’s a little over an hour long.

I welcome your comments, and I hope your new year is starting out well.

Sue

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Who Do You See as Your Childless Role Models?

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Image is a poster for a panel discussion on "The power of role models" by Gateway Women and the Nomocrones. It lists the participants' names over a picture of a campfire with hills and a sunset in the background.

A role model is a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others, says the Merriam Webster dictionary.

Who are your role models? Who do you want to be like when you grow up?

Back when we were children playing with dolls and various imaginative games, we might have pictured ourselves living the same lives as our parents. Or not. My mom was a housewife, but somehow my older dolls, Barbie and such, were always in show business. There was always a stage waiting for them to sing and dance. Think Doris Day way back then, maybe Taylor Swift now.

That life had nothing to do with having children. I didn’t even think about it. Did you?

Now that we are grownups, whose life do we want to imitate? I ask because the Childless Elderwomen will be discussing our role models next Wednesday, Dec. 20, on Zoom, and I’m not sure yet what I want to say.

A role model demonstrates a role that you hope to play. Literally, if you are an actor. Likewise, if you are a painter, you might try to copy their techniques. A dancer might employ their moves, or a singer might mimic their sounds. Writers like me are always being asked about our role models. I could list them, but in many cases I don’t know if they ever had children. Does it matter?

In religion, one might try to follow the example of a holy person. For example, the Catholic Church celebrates all the many virgin martyrs who gave their lives to God, not to mention all the priests, bishops and popes who lived celibate lives (let’s not get into the whole abuse thing).

Most of us are aware of the usual famous non-moms: Dolly Parton, Oprah Winfrey, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Anniston, Gloria Steinem, Kim Cattrall, Mother Teresa, Emily Dickinson . . .

You can find plenty of interviews with celebrities talking about their “infertility journeys,” most of which ended up with a baby via IVF or surrogacy. But as usual, nobody is talking about not having children because your partner is unable or unwilling. I’d like to read the stories of people who have done that.

Do we have role models who are not famous?

Most of our parents and grandparents modeled one way of life: the one where everything revolves around the family. You work hard, buy a house, raise your kids, enjoy your grandkids, and grow old. But there are others who don’t follow that pattern. My Aunt Edna never had children, and her husband died young. She did office work and volunteered at her church for many years, then traveled all over the world with her sister Virginia, who was also single and childless. Edna died at 100, Virginia at 101. Other childless women in my life have included my favorite journalism professor, my step-grandmother, and friends I met through my husband’s work. All lived active lives and seemed content. They never talked about their childlessness. But would I see them as role models? Not really. We were very different in most ways.

Thank God some people in the childless community, including Jody Day, Stephanie Phillips, Michael Hughes, and Katy Seppi, openly discuss their childless status and offer support to others. They can be role models, at least for this aspect of our lives. I suspect we need different role models for different things, some for career, some for lifestyle, some for our spiritual lives. What do you think?

Who are your childless role models? Whose example do you want to follow in your own life? Is there someone you admire, famous or not, that you try to imitate?

I will be joining the Childless Elderwomen on Dec. 20 to discuss our role models. Join us on Zoom. It’s totally anonymous. To get the link, register here.

Read more about this: https://www.thecut.com/2014/08/25-famous-women-on-childlessness.html–most of these active women chose the childfree life.

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Media depictions of childlessness miss the mark

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Cartoon image of Cruella de Vil from 1,001 Dalmations. She has gray skin, wears a fur coat, a red glove and is holding a green cigarette holder. She has an evil grin.

When was the last time you saw our lives without children accurately portrayed in a book, movie, or TV show? Can’t think of anything? That’s because you probably didn’t see anything like that. 

Childless in the Media was the subject of a panel discussion I joined on Zoom last Thursday as part of World Childless Week. Gateway-women founder Jody Day led the discussion. Joining us were author Annie Kirby, counselor and author Meriel Whale, journalism professor Cristina Archetti, and Rosalyn Scott, an editor who runs the NoMo book club featuring books by and about childless women. You can watch the webinar here.

We all agreed that true-to-life images of people without children are hard to find. The childfree are depicted as career-obsessed, hard-hearted, and possibly crazy. Remember Alex in “Fatal Attraction”? Or the countless female characters who were forced to go back to their small-town families for some reason and discovered a handsome hunky flannel-shirted stranger who brought out their feminine mothering side? 

The childless, unable to have children due to infertility and other reasons, are shown as pitiful–until, tada!-a baby magically falls into their hands through adoption or a miraculous conception. The partner who didn’t want kids has done a complete 180 and is delighted to become a parent.

Even those who seem to be set in a childless marriage because one partner doesn’t want to have children–Penny in “The Big Bang Theory”–change their minds. Penny is pregnant and happy about it at the end of the show.

Cristina Archetti, attending from Norway, did a study of 50 films from Norway, Italy, and the United States. The stereotypes hold across cultures, she said. The childless characters either die by suicide or murder, become mothers–thus “normalizing” their lives, or become psychopaths. The exceptions: men and superheroes. Superwoman is apparently okay with not having kids. She’s too busy saving the world. 

Her conclusion: The childless, especially women, are seen as unnatural, broken and needing to be fixed, or as monsters. Yikes. I don’t think that describes most of us. But people often believe what they see in the media. We need truer images of what it’s like to be childless.  

Jody Day asked people who registered for the webinar to list their most loved and hated childless characters. Carrie Bradshaw of “Sex and the City” came out high on both lists. She married Mr. Big relatively late and he didn’t want children. She accepted that with little protest. In the new series, taking place many years later, the widowed Carrie is dating again and children seem to be the last thing on her mind. 

Some of the beloved childless characters include Mary Poppins, Miss Marple, and Jessica Fletcher of the “Murder, She Wrote” series. 

During our discussion, Annie Kirby read from her book The Hollow Sea, and I read portions of my Up Beaver Creek novels  that include childless characters. Meriel Whale shared from her forthcoming book The Unreal City. We believe there is a market for stories about women like us who don’t have children and are not crazy, mean (Nurse Ratched?, Snow White’s wicked stepmother? Cruella de Ville), or likely to end up with a baby at the end (“Mike and Molly,” “Friends”). 

Who would you name as childless characters you admire or hate? 

Is it hard for you to watch shows or read books that are filled with parents and children or that offer magical solutions to childlessness? Can you name any movies, TV shows or books that get it right? 

What do you think? I would love to read your comments. 

  Meanwhile, check out @Nomobookclub on Instagram. 

Little by little, by telling our own stories and sharing the ones that show childlessness as it really is, we can help change the way the world looks at us. 

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Want to Be Seen as Radical? Don’t Have Children

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Are you radical?

Sounds like something we used to say back in the 60s and 70s when something was really “cool” or crazy. Radical, man, groovy.

But radical is a real word, and one of its meanings is marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional. I think that applies to every one of us who does not have children. By not following the traditional pattern of marriage, motherhood, and grandmotherhood, we are both forced and freed to follow a nontraditional path, to be radical.

This was the subject of our spring solstice gathering of the Nomo Crones childless elderwomen on Zoom last week. These women are definitely radical. Straight, queer, single, married, childless by infertility, illness, partner problems, and sometimes by choice, they had a lot to say. Watch the video. We’re a lot of fun, and I don’t think we’re much like the traditional grandmotherly old ladies you may know.

MC Jody Day has dubbed us “Radical Old Women” or ROW. I like it.

I know I haven’t followed the standard patterns in my own life. A lifelong writer/musician, I never had to give up my vocations for motherhood or wait until my children grew up to begin. I have been writing steadily since elementary school. Now that my husband is gone and I don’t need a traditional job, I often do my writing and music to the exclusion of everything else. I work in my pajamas, and my house is a mess. I make elaborate meals when I’m in the mood or grab whatever’s hanging out in the fridge when I’m not because no one except my dog is depending on me to feed them. I wake up and go to sleep when I feel like it. Of course, the flip side is spending holidays alone and having no family to help when I’m sick or injured, but let’s not think about that today.

I don’t feel my age. I notice the physical changes, but without the milestones mothers experience, I don’t feel old, and I’m far from ready to accept the lives many of my friends in their 70s are living. A neighbor, also widowed and childless, told me recently that she was selling her house and moving to a senior residence. I looked it up. Mt. Angel Towers. It looks like a prison to me.

Another neighbor, age 75, rowdy and refusing to give up anything, agrees with me. No way in hell. If she gets feeble, she’ll hire people to help, but meanwhile, she wants to travel, work in her garden, shop at garage sales every weekend, and make her pot cookies.

A childless musician friend who just turned 80 has declared she’s going to be an “outrageous octogenarian.” She is losing her vision and has some major health challenges, but she refuses to leave her three-story dome home overlooking the beach; if she can’t climb the stairs, she’ll install an elevator. And she will keep playing the piano with a little help from her neighbors and friends.

I don’t live like anyone in my family, at least anyone who is still alive. What am I doing out here alone in the woods? Radical.

My step-grandmother, Grandma Rachel, never had children. Instead, she inherited our gang. She was a terrible housekeeper, dreadful cook. She was big, loud, and opinionated and a menace behind the wheel of a car. She loved to read, write, and paint pictures. The family disapproved, but I adored her. She was my role model, filling my life with books and encouraging me to follow my dreams. She died 32 years ago at age 86, but I treasure her letters and poems. I want to be her kind of radical.

I want to be the old lady with the crazy hats who sits around in jeans and tennis shoes playing guitar and writing poetry, who does yoga and travels cross-country by herself, who is not too old to crawl on the floor with the kids, who will never be old enough for an old folk’s home.

Another definition of radical: tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions or institutions. In other words, we refuse to accept the status quo. One of five women will never have children. We need the parent-people to see us, to accept us, to understand that our radical lives have the same value as theirs. Who knows? Maybe someday parenting will be the radical choice.

What do you think? Want to be radical with me? I welcome your comments.

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Childless Elderwomen Share Their Thoughts on ‘Renewal’

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Renewal. What does that word mean to you? A fresh start? A new way of seeing or doing things? It seems like we ought to be discussing this in the spring, not in the midst of a huge winter storm, but renewal was the topic yesterday when childlessness guru Jody Day brought together 12 “childless elderwomen” for another solstice chat on Zoom. If you are younger and not sure whether or not you will have children, listening to these wonderful women should prove that either way you can live well and become a badass elderwoman or, as Jody likes to call us a “nomo crone.”

For me, renewal this year means taking my recovery from my fall in October and COVID in November into a concerted effort to reassess my body and my lifestyle in 2023. I am working to counter my aloneness by reaching out more to other people and creating my “village” so we can take care of each other. It also means reaching out to my family and basically demanding to spend time live and online with all of them, especially the young ones, so they know who this “Aunt Sue” is and let me be part of their lives.

Does this sound like New Year’s resolutions? Yes, but this is different. This is a restart on our lives, looking at it fresh. For some, that means getting rid of possessions that weigh us down. For others, it might be changing a life situation that has got us stuck, including this bit about your partner not wanting to have children or you not sure what you want to do. If you knew you only had a short time to live, what would you do? Don’t wait until you’re old or facing a terminal diagnosis to change what needs changing.

What do you think? I welcome your comments.

Have a wonderful holiday. Do your best to make it your own. All of you are a gift for me. Thank you for being here.

Sue

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Childless Holidays Can Bring Unexpected Blessings

Sue Fagalde Lick alone at Christmas, childless during the holidays, feeling left out on the holidays , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear friends,

I am rerunning this post from December 2017 because it still rings true today. With COVID and everything else that has happened, 2017 seems like a thousand years ago. This year, I’m looking forward to Christmas with friends. My house is full of decorations, and my COVID aftereffects are fading away. I wish you all the best of holiday seasons.

Decorated Christmas tree with a cross on top, white lights and colored lights, view through window of trees, cars, house in the forest

Christmas is tough. If any time of year rubs our lack of children in our faces, this is it. Our friends are making themselves crazy buying gifts for the kids and grandkids. Facebook is full of babies and older children posing with Santa Claus. You find yourself trapped at holiday gatherings with people who keep asking when you’re going to have children. I know. It’s rough. You just want to run away to a tropical resort or a distant mountain until it’s all over and people regain their senses. You can’t even take solace in TV because it’s all holiday specials and Hallmark movies in which everybody is one happy family at the end. You try to get into the spirit. You buy treats for the dog and try to get him to pose with reindeer antlers, which he shakes off and uses for a chew toy.

I spend a lot of Christmastime weeping. No kids, no husband, no family nearby. I started to decorate this year, then said no, I can’t. The lights didn’t work on either of my cheesy fake trees, the roof was leaking, the pellet stove wasn’t working, and I probably wouldn’t get any presents anyway, so forget it. Oh, woe is me. But I woke up the next morning feeling like it was a new day. I dealt with the roof and the stove. I went to the store and bought a much nicer fake tree. I spread Christmas decorations throughout the house. I did it all my way, with no one to consult, no one to say, “That looks stupid.” My decorations make me happy.

I hadn’t left any room for presents because I didn’t expect to get any. Then a package arrived at my front door. “Secret Santa,” said the return address. Inside, I found seven gifts from this secret Santa. I don’t know who it is. I know only that it was mailed in Newport, the town closest to where I live. This Santa knows I have a dog named Annie. She got a toy from Rudolph. I cried for the next hour, a blend of gratitude and embarrassment at seeming pitiful and lonely to someone. But I am so glad those gifts are there. I made room for presents under my tree.

I don’t have many people to buy gifts for. I’m thinking next year I’m going to put some energy into being a Secret Santa for other people, both the kids for whom we get requests at church every year and older people who might be feeling alone. Did you know that approximately one-third of Americans over age 65 live alone? I can buy them presents because I don’t have children and grandchildren to buy for, cook for, and worry about. I put a few doodads in the mail, and I’m done with the family Christmas. But I’m free to do more.

People are more generous than you expect. This old guy at church, Joe, stopped me after Mass on Sunday. “I’ve got something for you,” he said. Oh God, what, I thought. The man is a little loud and crude sometimes. Then Joe, who lost his wife a few years ago, handed me a framed poem, “My First Christmas in Heaven.” Tears blurred the words as I read them. The frame is beautiful, the words even more beautiful. At home, I hung it under my husband Fred’s picture and above our wedding rings and other keepsakes I display on his nightstand. So sweet. You can read the poem here.

I have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful for all of you who read and support this blog, for everyone who has read my books, for all those people who love me and don’t care whether or not I ever had a baby. I’m even grateful now for a chance to hold someone else’s baby once in a while. And I am so, so grateful for dogs.

I have said it many times. It gets better. It gets easier. I swear to you that it does. The hardest time for me was when I could see my fertile years slipping away and didn’t know what to do about it. So I did nothing. I cried. I drank. I over-ate. I over-worked. I barked at anyone who expected me to enjoy their children, and God forbid anyone wish me a happy Mother’s Day.

Sometimes I let people think I had a medical problem that kept me from having babies. Sometimes I blamed my husband. Sometimes I just said, “Not yet.” And sometimes I told people who asked about my children that God had other plans for me. I think that’s true.

I wish you happiness and peace this holiday season. As much as possible, do it your own way. If that means running away, fine. If you can’t run away, be honest with your loved ones about your feelings. It’s okay to tell them that it makes you sad to see their babies when you may never have one. It’s okay to answer persistent questions with, “I don’t know. Please stop asking. It’s a sore subject.”

Worst case, do what I do when I’m in a tough place. Think about how in a few hours or a few days, this will be just a fuzzy memory.

Love to all of you. Feel free to cheer, whine, or rant in the comments.

Sue

P.S. Another episode of the Childless Elderwomen’s fireside chats hosted by Jody Day is happening on Zoom next Wednesday, Dec. 21, noon PST. Our topic this time is “Renewal.” Participants include me, Kate Kaufmann, Jackie Shannon Hollis, Trish Faulks, Suzan Muir, Susan Dowrie, Pamelia Tsigdinos, Elizbeth Grambsch, and Karen Malone Wright. For those who can’t hear it live, the chat will be recorded to enjoy later. To register for the free event, visit bit.ly/gw-renewal.

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Drugs for Bipolar Disorder Thwart Motherhood Dreams

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Poet Sherri Levine always wanted to have children, but she has bipolar disorder, which causes extreme mood swings, and her mother had it, too. Should she risk passing it on?

She takes lithium to manage her symptoms. Because of the risk of birth defects, it is not considered safe to take lithium during pregnancy, but she knows from hard experience that within two weeks of stopping her medication, she will become manic. The added stress of fluctuating hormones and her changing body will not help. 

Her doctor told her to let go of the motherhood dream. Her husband, who didn’t want children anyway, agreed, but Sherri was and still is devastated. “I don’t want to be an aunt; I want to be a mother,” she said, fighting tears. 

Why not adopt? Her husband didn’t want children, and she wasn’t sure she could deal with the stress of the adoption process.  

So the choice was made. People don’t understand, she says. If she agreed not to get pregnant, why is she still grieving?

Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com

I think a lot of us here know the answer to that question. When we close the door on parenting, we lose a dream, the life we had expected to have, the children and grandchildren we might have had, a chance to live like our friends and relatives, and the right to claim a rose on Mother’s Day. It’s what Jody Day calls “disenfranchised grief.” You’re losing something you never had, so our friends and co-workers find it hard to understand.

People don’t talk enough about mental illness and childlessness, Sherri says. We need to get the conversation going. Those living with it need the support not only of a team of doctors well-versed on the conditions, medications, and risks, but supportive friends and families who offer love and acceptance.

In doing a little research, I find most of the attention focused on depression during and after pregnancy, not so much about going into a pregnancy with a diagnosed mental illness, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, or depression. It’s a big deal. Many psychotropic medications can cause birth defects in the developing fetus, but not taking them and leaving the illness untreated can be dangerous for both mother and baby. In some cases, it may be possible to find drugs that are safe, but not always. Sherri has looked at other possibilities, but none would manage her illness as well as lithium does. She couldn’t take the chance.

Over the years, childless people I talked to have mentioned concerns about mental illness as a reason they didn’t have children. It’s not always the woman with the problem. Men can pass on genetic-based illnesses to their children. They may also feel that their illness makes them incapable of being good dads. 

A few things are clear:

  1. It’s not just bipolar disorder. There are risks taking any kind of medication during pregnancy. Bipolar medications are particularly dangerous, but there are some drugs that seem to be a bit safer. Medications for depression and anxiety also may endanger the baby, and stopping them could endanger both mother and child. 
  2. If you take prescription drugs for emotional issues, you need to confer with your mental health professional, OB-gyn, and primary care doctor about the pros and cons of pregnancy. You will need support from your partner, along with a team of people who really understand this stuff. 
  3. Ask them: How dangerous is it for me to continue my meds? How dangerous is it to stop? Is there something else I can take that would be safer? Do you think I can handle the stress of pregnancy and childcare? 
  4. Ask more than one professional. The answers are rarely black and white.

Have you or someone you know struggled with mental illness that became a factor in their decision about having children?  Were you/they concerned about medication and birth defects, passing the illness to their offspring, or being able to cope with the added stress of being parents? Let’s talk about this. Sherri Levine, who wrote about this topic here a few years ago, has offered her email address for people who want to talk privately with her about this. You can reach her at sherrihope68@gmail.com.

Some resources: 

Bipolar and Pregnant by Kristin K. Finn, 2007. This looks very helpful, although Amazon has only used copies.

Bipolar and Pregnant by Katie McDowell, 2017. It’s more of a memoir of a woman who did get pregnant shortly after her bipolar diagnosis. Looks good.

International Bipolar Foundation

Mayo Clinic symptoms and causes of bipolar disorder

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Fighting Mistaken Identity on Mother’s Day

Sue Fagalde Lick childless on Mother's Day, Mother's Day, Mother's Day at church , , , , , , ,

Mother’s Day can be a day full of people thinking you’re someone you’re not.

You walk into church, and the usher hands you a flower. “Happy Mother’s Day!” If you explain that you are not a mother and reject the flower, they seem insulted.

The priest or minister asks all the mothers to stand for a blessing. You remain seated and feel as if everyone is staring at you, wondering why you don’t stand. You’re a mother aren’t you? Of course you are. But no, being a female of a certain age does not mean you are a mother. Must you explain that to every single parishioner when it’s easier to just say, “Thank you. You too.”

Wherever you go, it will be the same all day. Brunch, a quick trip to the store, a concert: Happy Mother’s Day, happy Mother’s Day.

Moral dilemma: if moms get a discount on Mother’s Day, should you accept it?

Meanwhile, if your mother or mother-in-law is still alive, you need to honor them, which means dealing with family. Do your relatives or friends who know you are not a mother assume you don’t want or like children? Do they hang together talking about kids, leaving you chatting with the cat, or do they keep telling you that you’ll be the next one getting pregnant when you know that isn’t going to happen?

Again, mistaken identity. They don’t understand who you are or why you might be a little weepy or bitchy on this day.

If you’re a stepparent, Mother’s Day brings a whole other kind of mistaken identity. Your friends may decide your stepchildren make you a mother, but you may not feel like a mother at all because the kids have a mother and she is not you and you might not get any recognition, not even a card, from your partner’s offspring.

The only ones who understand are the non-moms who are going through the same thing.

Every year I urge those of us who hate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to stay away from social media and avoid trigger settings. Go for a hike. Paddle a kayak. Jam with friends who care more about music than Mother’s Day.

But part of me says why should we have to hide? Can’t we just love the moms in our lives and let them love us for the people we are?

My wish for you this year: Do what makes you feel good. Be honest about who you are and how you feel. We need to teach the world that we don’t all have the same lives and that’s okay.

So, Happy Spring!

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Some resources you might enjoy:

Jody’s Day’s Gateway-Women chat about childless Mother’s Days.

Brandi Lytle’s “mom-heart” perspective from her NotSoMommy blog.

Lissa Rankin’s heart-warming take on non-mothers and Mother’s Day

Have Non-Parents Failed at Life? Definitely Not

Sue Fagalde Lick childless and single, women without children , , , , , , , , ,

If you’re not a mother, what are you? Years ago, I faced this question from a 4-year-old at a Montessori School where I was taking pictures for the newspaper. If I was not a teacher or a mommy, what was I? She didn’t understand when I explained that I was a newspaper reporter. In her world, all women were either teachers or mothers. It’s a question that continues to come up for those of us who have not had babies. 

Jody Day looked at this phenomenon in her recent Tedx Talk, “Social Plankton: Why Single Non-Mothers are the Fuel of the Future.” Most of us here at Childless by Marriage are not single, but much of what she said still applies. For example, she asked what other terms of respect do we have for older women besides “grandmother.” Well, um, hmm. 

Until life got in the way, I hoped to be “Professor” or “Doctor.” What else do we have? Director? President? Boss? But what if we are just regular people who happen to have never had children? 

As Jody Day says, we still have great value to society. Although she was specifically speaking about single women and not men at all, look at what non-parents can do:

  • It takes a village to raise a child. We are part of that village as sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, friends, role models, and helpers.
  • Because we are not taking care of children, we have time to be more involved in our communities, doing the volunteer work that parents cannot.
  • We are the ‘backbone” of many organizations. For example, I have led several writers’ organizations, been a teacher, and a church choir director. 
  • We serve as society’s “elderwomen” and “eldermen,” source of memories, skills, and wisdom.
  • We offer loving hearts and extra hands.  

In some circles, Day noted, childless women are considered failed women because they did not live out their biological mandate to procreate. While we may grieve the loss of the life we had planned and the children we might have had, we are not failures. 

I have just finished reading a book by Kamalamani aka Emma Palmer titled Other Than Mother: Choosing Childlessness with Life in Mind. I will write more about this fascinating book next week, but she has some encouraging words about the topic at hand. “What is increasingly clear to me is that the life work of each of us is to find out what to do with the time and health we have available to us. I do not think that we are all on the planet to have children. In fact, I am starting to wonder whether in our generation, a growing minority of us are here to start to redress the attention we pay to our relationship with the earth and other elements, and our effect on them as a human specifies, rather than creating more new lives.”

Kamalamani quotes Jane Barrett in Will You Be a Mother? Women Who Choose to Say No: “The space in the childfree woman’s life is not empty and barren, but full of potential.” 

We may consider ourselves “childless” rather than  “childfree,” but you get the idea. If we don’t have children, all is not lost. It’s not the life you planned, but your life is still important and of value. 

You can listen to Jody Day’s Tedx talk here. 

I welcome your comments. 

***

I placed in a poetry contest recently and won an invitation to a national competition in Florida. Yes, I am pleased. But as the director started talking about the accommodations where we’ll be staying and how my kids will love it, I thought, oh no, not again. Should I explain that I will be coming alone because I don’t have any children or just let it go? I let it go. We were having such a nice talk up till then, and I will enjoy the dinosaur-shaped swimming pool as much as any child would. 

Mother’s Day is coming. Our priest is already talking about the pancake breakfast and how the church will honor all the mothers. Grit your teeth. Here it comes again.  

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