Easter goodies for childless readers

Today, still overwhelmed and under-inspired, I’m offering you an Easter basket full of links and thoughts.

“The A Word: Why We Didn’t Adopt” by Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled. It’s something people don’t talk much about. I haven’t really addressed it here, but this long post will fill that gap.

Loribeth at The Road Less Traveled talks about the new book Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. I have not read it yet, but I’m planning to. Apparently it leans hard to the childfree-by-choice side, but maybe we can identify with some of it, and there's a lot of wisdom in Loribeth’s review.

“When Men Want Kids and Women Aren’t So Sure” Usually it seems to be the other way around. This New York Magazine piece looks at young women who aren’t so ready to join the mom club. Check out the comments, too, almost 200 of them at this point. It’s just a hard thing to figure out, isn’t it?

I hope you enjoy these links and follow them wherever they take you.

 

Question:

If you were advising a young person in your life who was considering a permanent relationship with someone who doesn’t want to have children, what would you tell them? Forget about your own situation for a minute. What would you tell this nephew, daughter, or friend whom you love?

Happy Easter to one and all. Don’t forget that it’s about more than a bunny who lays chocolate eggs.

Book shows how people can change their minds about having kids

Sometimes it seems like every woman over 30 has kids, right? Well, not always. I'm reading a wonderful true story called Wild Within: How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family by Melissa Hart. An Oregon writer and teacher, she was the guest at our local Nye Beach Writers Series last weekend. She is a wonderful writer, performer and teacher, one of those people who just sparkles with life.

Melissa grew up not wanting children. Her childhood, profiled in her earlier book Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood, was more than a little unusual and she saw traits she did not want to pass on to another generation. Plus, despite years of babysitting, she didn't really like babies. Her first marriage a bust, she raised cats and dogs instead. One day at the dog park, she met Jonathan, and a romance blossomed. Now Jonathan didn't want babies either. Perfect, right?

Jonathan was a volunteer at a raptor rescue center that cared for injured and orphaned owls, hawks, eagles, kestrels and other wild predatory birds. He was going to school and planned to be a photographer, but the raptors were the center of his life. He soon lured Melissa in to volunteer, too. They fell in love, moved in together, and eventually got married. Together they poured their love and nurturing energies into the birds and their four-legged children. They agreed they didn't want to have babies. Jonathan, plagued infections in his testicles, had a vasectomy. Still perfect, yes?

Well, it was perfect until Melissa met Jonathan's sister's adopted daughter and realized she wanted to have a daughter, too. Nervous about how her new husband would respond, she told him she wanted to adopt a child, not an infant but a girl a few years old who needed a home. He said yes. Now I'm at the place in the book where they're trying to adopt. I can't spoil the rest of the story for you because I haven't read it yet.

But here's the thing. People change their minds, and that's okay. We're human. So many of the people who comment here have experienced that change of mind, either themselves or in their partners, sometimes to wanting a baby, sometimes to not. Problems arise when only one person wants to change the terms of their relationship. Ideally, if you both really love each other, someone gives in and the other accepts the decision. That's so hard. Sometimes it's impossible. But we need to try to be open to each other's changing needs and desires.

And read this book. It's encouraging. Besides, if you don't end up having babies, maybe you could take care of owls or dogs or salamanders . . .

Have a wonderful week, and send me some comments besides the spam I keep getting about magic spells and potions, house remodels and website development.

Time to go walk my dog child before she starts eating the furniture.