One of many anonymous commenters sent me this: "Hi Sue, I'm the anon from Oct. 30th same age group...I wanted to share something that may help others. Tonight I was starting to feel depressed and anxious (after hearing about a friend's children) and decided to speak with my husband about my feelings. He shared that he feels bad sometimes for us not having children or grandchildren but he chooses not to dwell on it. He doesn't want to dwell on what we don't have but what we do have. He takes a piece of paper and lists everything he can think of to be thankful for. Count your blessings. So I did the same. Then I worked out for an hour to rid myself of the negative energy. This was helpful, tonight, for me. Hoping this will help others...Thank you again for this site."
Try it. I think it does help.
I found a poem by a poet who calls herself Mareymercy that gives me great comfort and I hope it will help you, too. It's called "But Who Will Take Care of You When You're Old and Dying?" The poem offers an answer to those people who ask how you'll survive old age without kids. The last stanza is especially comforting.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Mommy Training with Dolls
I once had a hundred dolls. I lined them up on my dresser and counted them. My math was probably off, but they were my children. Every year at Christmas, there seemed to be a new doll I just had to have. If Santa didn't bring her, I'd die. One year Santa brought a three-foot-tall walking doll I named Patty. My friend Sherri got one, too. We walked them down the street toward each other so they could be best friends, just like us. My dolls always had dark hair and eyes like me. Sherri's dolls were blondes.
Each new doll I received spent the first night sleeping against the pillow next to me while the others slept with the stuffed animals at the foot of the bed. It's a wonder there was any room left for me. I named the newcomer, kissed her and wrapped my body around hers to protect her from the night terrors.
The next morning, I dressed her, combed her hair and brought her to breakfast with me, setting her up against the milk bottle, pretending to feed her bits of toast and eggs. I took her to school with me, never wanting to leave her alone. I knew she was just a cloth or plastic doll, but she was a real person to me.
Back in the 1950s, the big innovation was baby dolls that drank and wet. You inserted the tip of a rubber bottle in the hole between their lips and squeezed the milk or water down their throats. Rather quickly, the liquid came out a hole on the other end. It was too messy to do in the house.
Sherri and I fed our "babies" outside in the patio. That was our house. It never seemed odd to us to be two mothers sharing the same house. Our husbands were nonexistent or off at imaginary jobs where they belonged. Like our mothers, we spent our days taking care of the house and our babies. We talked to our dolls all the time, telling them how sweet they were and how much we loved them. We taught them what we had learned about Jesus in catechism class, along with the ABCs, the times tables, and the capitals of all the states in the U.S.
Betsy Wetsy and Tiny Tears led to Chatty Cathy, who could talk when you pulled the string in her back. "I'm hungry." "I'm thirsty." "I love you," she said. Then we got Barbie and her curvaceous friends. My black-haired Barbie had a best friend named Sandy, and they hung out with Sherri's blonde Barbie and Ken. We invented boyfriends and careers for our dolls. Mine were always in show business. Sherri's Barbie was a stay-at-home mom.
We watched our children grow up in that redwood patio with the cracked concrete floor. We cooked our pretend meals in the brick fireplace that my father and grandfather had built together, and washed the dishes in the sink Dad had made from scraps of wood and old pipes.
I was a good mother to my dolls, but all too soon I faced the empty nest.
When I was around 13, growing breasts and having my first periods, my mother decided I didn't need dolls anymore. "You're getting too old," she said. "It's time to give them to Goodwill.
"No," I protested. "They're mine." My children. How could I give them up?
Mom was not one for sentiment or saving things. Most of my dolls went away. I kept only a few, the ones Mom couldn't find. My favorite, Chatty Cathy, sits on top of my bookshelf right now, looking down with a goofy smile. I change her outfits to match the seasons, choosing from a red and white trunk full of clothing. Chatty Cathy gargle-talks like an old lady who's had a stroke. One of her shoulders is cracked so her arm falls off if I'm not careful. She doesn't have any teeth. But I love her anyway.
Mom ditched my dolls as a sign it was time for me to grow up, date, get married, and have flesh-and-blood babies.
Well, I did part of that. The invisible husband became real, and every now and then I got to play mommy with my stepchildren—until their real mother showed up.
But I never had babies. A little girl with a doll is a mommy in training. I guess I was training for the wrong career.
How about you? Did you play with dolls? Did you consider yourself their mother?
Copyright 2011 Sue Fagalde Lick
Each new doll I received spent the first night sleeping against the pillow next to me while the others slept with the stuffed animals at the foot of the bed. It's a wonder there was any room left for me. I named the newcomer, kissed her and wrapped my body around hers to protect her from the night terrors.
The next morning, I dressed her, combed her hair and brought her to breakfast with me, setting her up against the milk bottle, pretending to feed her bits of toast and eggs. I took her to school with me, never wanting to leave her alone. I knew she was just a cloth or plastic doll, but she was a real person to me.
Back in the 1950s, the big innovation was baby dolls that drank and wet. You inserted the tip of a rubber bottle in the hole between their lips and squeezed the milk or water down their throats. Rather quickly, the liquid came out a hole on the other end. It was too messy to do in the house.
Sherri and I fed our "babies" outside in the patio. That was our house. It never seemed odd to us to be two mothers sharing the same house. Our husbands were nonexistent or off at imaginary jobs where they belonged. Like our mothers, we spent our days taking care of the house and our babies. We talked to our dolls all the time, telling them how sweet they were and how much we loved them. We taught them what we had learned about Jesus in catechism class, along with the ABCs, the times tables, and the capitals of all the states in the U.S.
Betsy Wetsy and Tiny Tears led to Chatty Cathy, who could talk when you pulled the string in her back. "I'm hungry." "I'm thirsty." "I love you," she said. Then we got Barbie and her curvaceous friends. My black-haired Barbie had a best friend named Sandy, and they hung out with Sherri's blonde Barbie and Ken. We invented boyfriends and careers for our dolls. Mine were always in show business. Sherri's Barbie was a stay-at-home mom.
We watched our children grow up in that redwood patio with the cracked concrete floor. We cooked our pretend meals in the brick fireplace that my father and grandfather had built together, and washed the dishes in the sink Dad had made from scraps of wood and old pipes.
I was a good mother to my dolls, but all too soon I faced the empty nest.
When I was around 13, growing breasts and having my first periods, my mother decided I didn't need dolls anymore. "You're getting too old," she said. "It's time to give them to Goodwill.
"No," I protested. "They're mine." My children. How could I give them up?
Mom was not one for sentiment or saving things. Most of my dolls went away. I kept only a few, the ones Mom couldn't find. My favorite, Chatty Cathy, sits on top of my bookshelf right now, looking down with a goofy smile. I change her outfits to match the seasons, choosing from a red and white trunk full of clothing. Chatty Cathy gargle-talks like an old lady who's had a stroke. One of her shoulders is cracked so her arm falls off if I'm not careful. She doesn't have any teeth. But I love her anyway.
Mom ditched my dolls as a sign it was time for me to grow up, date, get married, and have flesh-and-blood babies.
Well, I did part of that. The invisible husband became real, and every now and then I got to play mommy with my stepchildren—until their real mother showed up.
But I never had babies. A little girl with a doll is a mommy in training. I guess I was training for the wrong career.
How about you? Did you play with dolls? Did you consider yourself their mother?
Copyright 2011 Sue Fagalde Lick
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Free to Be Aunt Sue
Published in the Oregonian 12 years ago. William is an adult now. He’s going to law school. Although he loves his Aunt Sue, he is currently entranced by a girl named Andrea.
“Aunt Sue, Aunt Sue!” says the little boy in the man’s body, urgently seeking my attention. I seem to be the one person in the family who doesn’t answer his persistent attempts to join the conversation with an annoyed, “William, be quiet!” His words are the chorus of a sweet song to me.
I actually want to hear what William has to say. I enjoy listening to him fumble through questions and statements that fall easily from the lips of adults. He’s 17, heading for college next year. The world of grownups is just beginning to open up to him, and he is anxious to leap forward feet first, even though he doesn’t know where he might land. He resents not being able to taste beer, play Keno, or try a slot machine. He fantasizes about his first romance and his first apartment. He has his first car and his first job. He wants to try out all the other perks of adulthood. Now.
William, a giant at 6 foot 4, is impatient, hyperactive, always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Teenage girls enter the room and he gawks in a way that will cause them to laugh at him rather than date him. He eats four times as much as anyone else and still claims to be hungry. He mopes when he doesn’t get his way.
No matter. I love being Aunt Sue. I’m the one person who will let him play the same passage of “Fur Elise” on the piano 50 times and let 20 times go by before I make him correct the wrong note he keeps hitting.
William is full of questions, goofy ones and smart ones. “How come you look so much like my father?” I explain genetics. “How come it’s okay for Uncle Fred to be 15 years older than you but I can’t date a 25-year-old?” I tell him that the differences level out in middle age. “Why haven’t your novels been published? You’re a good writer.” I can’t answer that one.
In the pocket of my red jacket is a red plastic parachute man, a treasure. My nephew won it at the casino in Lincoln City. While his parents gambled, I accompanied him to the arcade. I dropped quarters in all sorts of machines, so baffled by the games that I often ran out of time before I figured out how to play. William confidently cashed a $5 bill and went from game to game, fighting monsters, driving a race car and a space ship, catching a bass. When it was time to go, he had a fistful of blue tickets to trade for little-kid prizes. He picked three parachute men, said the red one was his favorite and then gave it to me. Outside, we tossed our parachute men into the wind, running after them as they crashed into the dirt, then letting them fly again. For a few minutes, I was not 47; I was 17, playing with a friend.
It’s a special thing, this aunt-nephew bond. William is a kid with an insatiable need for love. Because I have no children of my own, I have plenty to give to him.
Perhaps someday he will find a wife who will love his dimpled face and smile at his idiosyncrasies, but just as his parents have standards they demand of their son, she will have unspoken rules for what a husband should be. Not me. All I need from William is to be himself and call me “Aunt Sue” once in a while. That’s enough.
Do you have a special relationship with a niece or nephew? Feel free to share.
“Aunt Sue, Aunt Sue!” says the little boy in the man’s body, urgently seeking my attention. I seem to be the one person in the family who doesn’t answer his persistent attempts to join the conversation with an annoyed, “William, be quiet!” His words are the chorus of a sweet song to me.
I actually want to hear what William has to say. I enjoy listening to him fumble through questions and statements that fall easily from the lips of adults. He’s 17, heading for college next year. The world of grownups is just beginning to open up to him, and he is anxious to leap forward feet first, even though he doesn’t know where he might land. He resents not being able to taste beer, play Keno, or try a slot machine. He fantasizes about his first romance and his first apartment. He has his first car and his first job. He wants to try out all the other perks of adulthood. Now.
William, a giant at 6 foot 4, is impatient, hyperactive, always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Teenage girls enter the room and he gawks in a way that will cause them to laugh at him rather than date him. He eats four times as much as anyone else and still claims to be hungry. He mopes when he doesn’t get his way.
No matter. I love being Aunt Sue. I’m the one person who will let him play the same passage of “Fur Elise” on the piano 50 times and let 20 times go by before I make him correct the wrong note he keeps hitting.
William is full of questions, goofy ones and smart ones. “How come you look so much like my father?” I explain genetics. “How come it’s okay for Uncle Fred to be 15 years older than you but I can’t date a 25-year-old?” I tell him that the differences level out in middle age. “Why haven’t your novels been published? You’re a good writer.” I can’t answer that one.
In the pocket of my red jacket is a red plastic parachute man, a treasure. My nephew won it at the casino in Lincoln City. While his parents gambled, I accompanied him to the arcade. I dropped quarters in all sorts of machines, so baffled by the games that I often ran out of time before I figured out how to play. William confidently cashed a $5 bill and went from game to game, fighting monsters, driving a race car and a space ship, catching a bass. When it was time to go, he had a fistful of blue tickets to trade for little-kid prizes. He picked three parachute men, said the red one was his favorite and then gave it to me. Outside, we tossed our parachute men into the wind, running after them as they crashed into the dirt, then letting them fly again. For a few minutes, I was not 47; I was 17, playing with a friend.
It’s a special thing, this aunt-nephew bond. William is a kid with an insatiable need for love. Because I have no children of my own, I have plenty to give to him.
Perhaps someday he will find a wife who will love his dimpled face and smile at his idiosyncrasies, but just as his parents have standards they demand of their son, she will have unspoken rules for what a husband should be. Not me. All I need from William is to be himself and call me “Aunt Sue” once in a while. That’s enough.
Do you have a special relationship with a niece or nephew? Feel free to share.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Pregnant Dreams
Before menopause hit, I often dreamed about being pregnant. Here is a typical dream:
I dreamed I was six months pregnant last night. Another woman in our group was farther along and her big belly poked out under her green maternity blouse like a beach ball while mine was not as obvious. I held my big white shirt tight against me to emphasize my condition because I wanted everybody to know I was not fat; I was pregnant.
Pregnancy puts a woman into a special state of grace. It brings her acclaim and privileges. She’s “queen for a day” for nine months, the immature young woman turned Madonna. It’s the ultimate achievement. She has not only caught a fellow, but she’s having his baby.
Old people, priests and mothers see the swelling up front and nod; this woman is fulfilling her proper role, she is healthy and fertile, she is partnered with God in the miracle of giving birth. People bring her gifts, pink, blue, yellow, and green blankets and booties and bottles and all manner of baby carriers. They throw her baby showers, at which she sits in all her swollen glory receiving more presents, hearing baby stories, playing games, and eating chocolate cake.
The pregnant woman is eating for two. Barring doctor’s restrictions, she can eat whenever she is hungry and indulge in whatever sweet, fattening, sinful food she craves, be it pickles and ice cream or maple donuts with custard filling. She can get fat; she is supposed to get fat. When she gets so fat her rings don’t fit and her belly button pops out like the indicator on a Thanksgiving turkey, people just smile. After all, she is pregnant.
Pregnant. Blessed. Privileged. I want to be that. In my dream, I wanted to shine a spotlight on my belly so the whole world knew. Look at me! I’m pregnant!
In reality, I know it’s not all smiles and blessings. Some pregnancies are horrible from beginning to end, but this is the fantasy of a woman who dreams about being pregnant.
My period is coming. I’m swollen with water weight, achy and expectant, constantly checking for the first blood and the first cramps. That’s when the dream usually comes, when my subconscious plays what if. What if this were a baby instead of PMS, what if I had nine months of sanctified pregnancy instead of nine more periods? What if this buildup of blood and tissue in my uterus, this baby nest, wasn’t wasted this time?
I wake up rubbing my belly and feel it shrinking under my hand. No, I am not pregnant. Never will be.
Have you had dreams like this? I'd love to hear them.
I dreamed I was six months pregnant last night. Another woman in our group was farther along and her big belly poked out under her green maternity blouse like a beach ball while mine was not as obvious. I held my big white shirt tight against me to emphasize my condition because I wanted everybody to know I was not fat; I was pregnant.
Pregnancy puts a woman into a special state of grace. It brings her acclaim and privileges. She’s “queen for a day” for nine months, the immature young woman turned Madonna. It’s the ultimate achievement. She has not only caught a fellow, but she’s having his baby.
Old people, priests and mothers see the swelling up front and nod; this woman is fulfilling her proper role, she is healthy and fertile, she is partnered with God in the miracle of giving birth. People bring her gifts, pink, blue, yellow, and green blankets and booties and bottles and all manner of baby carriers. They throw her baby showers, at which she sits in all her swollen glory receiving more presents, hearing baby stories, playing games, and eating chocolate cake.
The pregnant woman is eating for two. Barring doctor’s restrictions, she can eat whenever she is hungry and indulge in whatever sweet, fattening, sinful food she craves, be it pickles and ice cream or maple donuts with custard filling. She can get fat; she is supposed to get fat. When she gets so fat her rings don’t fit and her belly button pops out like the indicator on a Thanksgiving turkey, people just smile. After all, she is pregnant.
Pregnant. Blessed. Privileged. I want to be that. In my dream, I wanted to shine a spotlight on my belly so the whole world knew. Look at me! I’m pregnant!
In reality, I know it’s not all smiles and blessings. Some pregnancies are horrible from beginning to end, but this is the fantasy of a woman who dreams about being pregnant.
My period is coming. I’m swollen with water weight, achy and expectant, constantly checking for the first blood and the first cramps. That’s when the dream usually comes, when my subconscious plays what if. What if this were a baby instead of PMS, what if I had nine months of sanctified pregnancy instead of nine more periods? What if this buildup of blood and tissue in my uterus, this baby nest, wasn’t wasted this time?
I wake up rubbing my belly and feel it shrinking under my hand. No, I am not pregnant. Never will be.
Have you had dreams like this? I'd love to hear them.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Blame the childless adults?
A couple recent articles have got my teeth gritting and may do the same for you.
First, apparently, the problems with the economy are partically our fault because we don't have children. Say what? A recent article in the Washington Times titled "Modern Economies 'Rise and Fall' with Nuclear Families" talks about a study by the Social Trends Institute that implies we need more people to marry and have children to keep the economy going. Essentially what this study says is that married men work harder and earn more money and couples with children consume far more goods and services. The fact that so many people are not getting married or having children is hurting the economy. Therefore, governments should encourage marriage and procreation.
Unfortunately, the story has been removed from the Washington Times website. I wonder why. I also wonder whether the numbers are really that different or whether parents and non-parents just spend their money on different things. What do you think?
Another article, published at VDARE.com,is headlined "Childless Adults, Unsurprisingly, Don't Understand Children." The author calls her/himself Anonymous Attorney. She (I'm guessing) raves about how children are being diagnosed with ADHD or bipolar disorder and put on medication unnecessarily by psychologists, social workers and other professionals who don't have children and therefore can't understand them. If they did have children, they would know these kids are behaving normally. She concludes, "We don't actually have an epidemic of mentally ill children. We have an epidemic of childless professionals."
If that doesn't make you grit your teeth, I don't know what will. True, we don't have children of our own, but we don't live in isolation. We once were children, we have been around children, and the folks who work with kids have lots of training.
What do you think?
First, apparently, the problems with the economy are partically our fault because we don't have children. Say what? A recent article in the Washington Times titled "Modern Economies 'Rise and Fall' with Nuclear Families" talks about a study by the Social Trends Institute that implies we need more people to marry and have children to keep the economy going. Essentially what this study says is that married men work harder and earn more money and couples with children consume far more goods and services. The fact that so many people are not getting married or having children is hurting the economy. Therefore, governments should encourage marriage and procreation.
Unfortunately, the story has been removed from the Washington Times website. I wonder why. I also wonder whether the numbers are really that different or whether parents and non-parents just spend their money on different things. What do you think?
Another article, published at VDARE.com,is headlined "Childless Adults, Unsurprisingly, Don't Understand Children." The author calls her/himself Anonymous Attorney. She (I'm guessing) raves about how children are being diagnosed with ADHD or bipolar disorder and put on medication unnecessarily by psychologists, social workers and other professionals who don't have children and therefore can't understand them. If they did have children, they would know these kids are behaving normally. She concludes, "We don't actually have an epidemic of mentally ill children. We have an epidemic of childless professionals."
If that doesn't make you grit your teeth, I don't know what will. True, we don't have children of our own, but we don't live in isolation. We once were children, we have been around children, and the folks who work with kids have lots of training.
What do you think?
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
If you don't have children, who is your family?
These days, I wince when people talk about family activities. They always seem to have all these people around, a spouse and children and maybe grandchildren, to do things with. Since my husband passed away, I just have a dog.
If you're teetering at the point of deciding whether or not you can be happy without children, think of this as a cautionary tale. I have been married twice to men who didn't want to have children with me. Husband number one just didn't want them. Fred, number two, already had three kids and didn't want any more. He backed that up with a vasectomy long before we met.
In that second marriage, I gained three stepchildren, so in some respects I was not completely childless, but trust me, for most of us, having stepchildren is nowhere near the same as having your own. There are those lovely families that blend so well the "step" disappears, but they are rare. Like most stepchildren, mine have their own real mother, and now that I'm not linked with their dad, we have no connection at all. No, that's not true. We're Facebook friends. But so are lots of other people.
Meanwhile, my real-life friends are busy with their kids and grandkids. Some even have great-grandchildren. Yes, I have some terrific friends, and I have a shrinking family of older relatives and cousins. I won't be alone on the holidays and I can get a lunch date if I want it, but on a day-to-day basis, it's not the same. Mostly, I have my work and my dog.
I wince when people talk about families.
If you're 30-something and have a choice, think hard before you volunteer to give up having children. If you really want children, fight for it.
Sorry for bumming you out, but that's how I'm feeling today.
If you're teetering at the point of deciding whether or not you can be happy without children, think of this as a cautionary tale. I have been married twice to men who didn't want to have children with me. Husband number one just didn't want them. Fred, number two, already had three kids and didn't want any more. He backed that up with a vasectomy long before we met.
In that second marriage, I gained three stepchildren, so in some respects I was not completely childless, but trust me, for most of us, having stepchildren is nowhere near the same as having your own. There are those lovely families that blend so well the "step" disappears, but they are rare. Like most stepchildren, mine have their own real mother, and now that I'm not linked with their dad, we have no connection at all. No, that's not true. We're Facebook friends. But so are lots of other people.
Meanwhile, my real-life friends are busy with their kids and grandkids. Some even have great-grandchildren. Yes, I have some terrific friends, and I have a shrinking family of older relatives and cousins. I won't be alone on the holidays and I can get a lunch date if I want it, but on a day-to-day basis, it's not the same. Mostly, I have my work and my dog.
I wince when people talk about families.
If you're 30-something and have a choice, think hard before you volunteer to give up having children. If you really want children, fight for it.
Sorry for bumming you out, but that's how I'm feeling today.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Are educated women more likely to be childless?
“A College Degree as Contraceptive,” published on the Discover Magazine site, includes some interesting statistics. A study by the Pew Research Center found that about one quarter of all women with bachelor’s degrees and higher in the United States never have children.
The rate of childlessness among professional women is also higher than average. A Center for Work-Life Policy study showed that 43 percent of the women in their sample of corporate professionals between the ages of 33 and 46 were childless. Among the Asian American professional women in the study, the rate of childlessness was 53 percent.
Many studies have shown similar numbers. It appears that the more education a woman has, the less likely she is to have children. Also the more money she has. The same article reports that poor women in the U.S. are five times more likely than higher-income women to have an unplanned pregnancy, and six times more likely to have an unplanned birth.
Interesting, yes? There is speculation that poor, uneducated women have less access to information, contraception, and health care. Maybe they simply don’t see as many choices for their lives. When I was finishing high school, it looked like my family would not be able to afford to send me to college. The theory was that I would just get married and have children anyway, so I didn’t really need a college education.
As it turned out, I did make it to community college and then to a university, and I did not have children. I wound up divorced and grateful I had a career to support me. When I remarried, I continued to work, and I still did not have children. My dad is probably still trying to figure out how he wound up having granddogs instead of grandchildren.
My best friend and I were the only young women on our block who did not get pregnant out of wedlock before the age of 21. We were also the only ones who went beyond high school degrees. Is there a connection?
Perhaps those of us who go to college delay childbearing during the years when women who aren’t in school are starting their families. Or maybe there’s some truth to the cliche that “career women” are too devoted to their jobs to deal with babies. Of course this doesn’t even address the issue of husbands who can’t or won’t father their children.
Why do you think more educated, professional women are childless? I’d love to hear your comments.
***
Just for fun:
Remember the Savvy Auntie? We have talked here before about the “Savvy Auntie” book and website. Author Melanie Notkin has a fantastic article on the subject in today’s Huffington Post. If you’re feeling blue about not having children, read this and give yourself a boost.
The rate of childlessness among professional women is also higher than average. A Center for Work-Life Policy study showed that 43 percent of the women in their sample of corporate professionals between the ages of 33 and 46 were childless. Among the Asian American professional women in the study, the rate of childlessness was 53 percent.
Many studies have shown similar numbers. It appears that the more education a woman has, the less likely she is to have children. Also the more money she has. The same article reports that poor women in the U.S. are five times more likely than higher-income women to have an unplanned pregnancy, and six times more likely to have an unplanned birth.
Interesting, yes? There is speculation that poor, uneducated women have less access to information, contraception, and health care. Maybe they simply don’t see as many choices for their lives. When I was finishing high school, it looked like my family would not be able to afford to send me to college. The theory was that I would just get married and have children anyway, so I didn’t really need a college education.
As it turned out, I did make it to community college and then to a university, and I did not have children. I wound up divorced and grateful I had a career to support me. When I remarried, I continued to work, and I still did not have children. My dad is probably still trying to figure out how he wound up having granddogs instead of grandchildren.
My best friend and I were the only young women on our block who did not get pregnant out of wedlock before the age of 21. We were also the only ones who went beyond high school degrees. Is there a connection?
Perhaps those of us who go to college delay childbearing during the years when women who aren’t in school are starting their families. Or maybe there’s some truth to the cliche that “career women” are too devoted to their jobs to deal with babies. Of course this doesn’t even address the issue of husbands who can’t or won’t father their children.
Why do you think more educated, professional women are childless? I’d love to hear your comments.
***
Just for fun:
Remember the Savvy Auntie? We have talked here before about the “Savvy Auntie” book and website. Author Melanie Notkin has a fantastic article on the subject in today’s Huffington Post. If you’re feeling blue about not having children, read this and give yourself a boost.
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