I was selling books at an author fair last weekend when I noticed an older woman carrying a tote bag covered with children's photos. It's the grandma bag, built with plastic slots to display 4 x6 pics. There were babies and toddlers and pictures of what must be the woman's grown children posing with the grandchildren. As a bag, it was pretty ugly, but it's one of those symbols that so many mothers and grandmothers carry around, proof of a great accomplishment. Of course it may just be that she loves to look at the pictures. Nothing wrong with that. Just another little case of me feeling left out. The bag I carried that day had flowers on it.
You've seen the jewelry with gemstones or nametags for each child or grandchild. For lower budgets, one can buy tee shirts or license plate holders boasting of motherhood or grandmotherhood. Again, it's a whole market where we childless women are left out. Sitting at the stoplight, breathing the exhaust of a Buick with a World's Best Grandma bumper sticker, don't you sometimes wonder what your bumper sticker would say? World's best . . . dog owner? Flute player? Flag-pole climber?
We don't need any of this stuff. It's silly. It's often tacky, but there's that little twinge of oh, I'm not in the Mom Club. I'll never get a bracelet with the names of my kids engraved on it. And deep inside, we kind of really want one.
Anybody else feel that way?
Sue
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This blog has moved. Please switch over to the new site at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com.
All of the old posts have already been transferred over there, and it
would make life easier if you would comment at that site. Thank you.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Welcome to the Childless by Marriage blog
Greetings,
I have resisted doing this blog for a while because I should be working on my book by this title, but so many women have contacted me and visited the "Childless resources" page on my web site that it seems like a conversation that is dying to happen. People can't wait until I get the book behind covers. Plus thoughts and happenings keep coming up that don't/won't fit into a book or an article. So let's blog a bit. I admit up front that I am a professonal writer doing books and articles on the childless thing, and I promise I will not use your comment without your permission. That said, here's my situation:
I have been married twice. Husband number one didn't want children, although he didn't tell me that until a few years in. It was always wait till he finishes college, wait till he gets a good job, wait till we buy a house. Then there came a time when I thought I might be pregnant, and his tune changed to: if you have a baby, I'm leaving. Ouch. I wasn't pregnant, but it didn't work out anyway. Husband number two, a wonderful older man who already had three children, didn't want any more kids. He had had a vasectomy. I thought he might change his mind, but he didn't. So now I have just reached menopause with no kids of my own and three steps I'm not close to. I regret not having children, but at the same time I know that I have done a lot of things in my life that I could not have done if I were a mother.
So that's the deal. Missed my chance, but maybe that's what God had in mind for me.
I'll be sharing stories, statistics, comments, etc., here. I welcome you to join me. Be forewarned that I don't consider myself "childfree." I'm "childless." There's a difference.
Sue
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This blog has moved. Please switch over to the new site at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. All of the old posts have already been transferred over there, and it would make life easier if you would comment at that site. Thank you.
I have resisted doing this blog for a while because I should be working on my book by this title, but so many women have contacted me and visited the "Childless resources" page on my web site that it seems like a conversation that is dying to happen. People can't wait until I get the book behind covers. Plus thoughts and happenings keep coming up that don't/won't fit into a book or an article. So let's blog a bit. I admit up front that I am a professonal writer doing books and articles on the childless thing, and I promise I will not use your comment without your permission. That said, here's my situation:
I have been married twice. Husband number one didn't want children, although he didn't tell me that until a few years in. It was always wait till he finishes college, wait till he gets a good job, wait till we buy a house. Then there came a time when I thought I might be pregnant, and his tune changed to: if you have a baby, I'm leaving. Ouch. I wasn't pregnant, but it didn't work out anyway. Husband number two, a wonderful older man who already had three children, didn't want any more kids. He had had a vasectomy. I thought he might change his mind, but he didn't. So now I have just reached menopause with no kids of my own and three steps I'm not close to. I regret not having children, but at the same time I know that I have done a lot of things in my life that I could not have done if I were a mother.
So that's the deal. Missed my chance, but maybe that's what God had in mind for me.
I'll be sharing stories, statistics, comments, etc., here. I welcome you to join me. Be forewarned that I don't consider myself "childfree." I'm "childless." There's a difference.
Sue
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This blog has moved. Please switch over to the new site at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. All of the old posts have already been transferred over there, and it would make life easier if you would comment at that site. Thank you.
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