Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Childlessness looks different when you’re pushing 90



Seniors have a different take on childlessness than people in their 20s, 30s or 40s. For one thing, menopause has occurred and pregnancy is no longer a possibility. For another, they know how the story turned out.

I gave a talk about my Childless by Marriage book on Sunday at the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It was such a pleasant experience I’m tempted to drop in again soon. They meet in the upstairs classroom of the Newport Visual Arts Center. The big windows look out on Nye Beach, with the Yaquina Head lighthouse visible to the north. Even on a stormy day, when everything is gray and white, the view is stunning and surely inspires the many artists who leave their paint splatters on the tables and floors.

At 60, I may have been the youngest person there. The oldest was 90.The meeting was an interesting blend of morning coffee and snacks, music, meditation, readings, sharing of concerns, and me.

As I told my story and read excerpts from my book, the audience reacted with nods, oohs and laughs, and when I opened up the discussion, they had plenty to say. Nearly everyone in the room had children. A few had adopted children. Only half had grandchildren. One said her only child, a daughter, died when she was 16.

These lovely elders, several with accents from far away, one lady nearly blind, said they didn’t have much choice when they were young. You got married and had children. If you were physically unable, you adopted. Now their own children and grandchildren are making different choices. They don’t begrudge them these choices, if that’s what they want to do. It’s good that young people have more choices now. A few recalled the days when you couldn’t be a teacher or a stewardess if you were married or had children.Women worked for a few years as teachers or nurses, then retired to become moms.

A few reminded me of ZPG, the zero population growth movement that became popular in the 1960s. It stemmed from The Population Bomb, a book by Paul Ehrlich, which predicted that the human race would destroy itself and the earth if it didn’t stop having so many children. Some people did decide then not to procreate. With birth control coming on the scene, many had fewer children than the generations before.

I talked about how people ask why we don’t have children and shared some of the answers people give: “It wasn’t God’s plan.” “I didn’t want them.” “Ask my husband.” “It just happened.” The Unitarians couldn’t believe anyone would be rude enough to ask. It’s none of their business, they said, and they would not dignify the question with an answer.

We talked about old age without children. If we don’t have children, who will take care of us? Will we be all alone? As I have heard so many times, they scoffed at the idea that one’s children will be around when one needs help. Where we live on the Oregon coast is a long hard drive from any major city. Most young people move away to go to school and get jobs elsewhere. They can’t come back to hold our hands.

Whether or not we have children is almost irrelevant, they said. We need to reach out to friends to help us. If we have enough money, we can buy our way into senior communities, assisted living institutions and the like, but we can’t count on our kids. We need to count on each other.

Finally, someone commented that there seems to be a stigma attached to not having children. People don’t talk about it much. But for that hour with the Unitarians, with the ocean gently moving in and out in the background, we did talk about it, and it felt good.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for taking the time to post comments on your visit to our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Yes, we enjoyed your presentation and hope you visit again. We could use a youngster like you. The subject only came up briefly; but being a vet greatly effected my ideas about having children. By the time I was 21 I had seen the pain parents have when their children are severly ill or injured. I did not want to experience such pain; could it be that some vets are childless by service?

Sue Fagalde Lick said...

Thank you for commenting. What an interesting question. I think some people do decide not to have children because of painful experiences they have had. I wonder how many of our current veterans will make this same decision.

Anonymous said...

http://www.uuworld.org/
Sue, check this magazine out in case you're not familiar w/it. Interesting stuff, imho. UU's rock. -ChildlessDueToBornWithInconceivableFemaleParts

Sue Fagalde Lick said...

Thanks, Anon. I will check it out. From what I've seen, they definitely do rock. Love your signature. Take care.

Katherine said...

Very interesting post. I'd love to hear more on this subject. I don't know many old people who don't have children, but I believe their wisdom could inform my decision about whether or not to have children (I'm worried about loneliness in old age - this is the main reason I haven't fully committed to being childless.... yet).

Sue Fagalde Lick said...

Thanks, Katherine. I don't blame you for worrying about loneliness in old age. For me, I am lonely sometimes, but I'd like to assemble some comments from other older childless people. Most of the ones I know don't seem to be lonely at all. They're too busy.

Katherine said...

Thanks for the response Sue. "They're too busy to be lonely" --- that just made my night :)