Glad I Don't Live in Chad

An interesting Newsweek article talks about how badly infertile women are treated in some third-world countries. It's quite horrible. In "What It Means to Be a Woman," Karen Springen wrote about a Mumbai woman who was ostracized for 13 years before fertility treatments allowed her to become a mother. But it gets worse than that. Quoting various experts from around the globe, she talks of how infertile women are shunned from gatherings such as weddings because they are believed to carry a curse that might be contagious.

In Chad, if woman doesn't bear children, her husband has the right to leave her or take a new wife. Springen's story also reports that in the Hindu religion women without children can't go to heaven because they have no sons to perform the death rituals. Some Chinese and Vietnamese believe the souls of childless people can't rest after they die, and in Muslim cultures women without children sometimes aren't allowed to be buried in graveyards or sacred grounds.

Compared to that, our situation is easy. We can even joke about it because we have choices. We can choose whether or not we want to be mothers. If we are infertile, we can try medical treatments or adopt. Either way, we aren't punished, well, except perhaps for the mothers who can't get past not becoming grandmothers. At worst, we feel left out of the Mom Club and lonely in our old age. Of course those who want children and can't have them grieve the loss of the babies they never had, but thank God nobody says they can't go to heaven or be buried wherever they want.

In discussing our childless state, we need to remember different cultures have different ways of looking at it and do our best to promote understanding. Let's hope that as the world grows smaller, more tolerant ways will spread and women who don't happen to be mothers will be honored for their value as individuals.

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No Heirs?

A childless Washington couple recently left 1.1 million to the children's hospital in Portland, OR. They had lived a frugal life and managed to save enough to give $5,000 each to a nephew, three nieces and four non-relatives. The money from their house and everything else went to the hospital. Hospital officials told the Columbian newspaper it's not unusual to receive bequests from childless donors. It's certainly a worthy cause.

If you don't have children—or you do and you don't like them--you're free to leave your worldly goods to whomever you choose. In my case, there probably won't be much money. I have already named libraries for the books and needy music students for the instruments and sheet music. But it's fun to think about where you might spread your life savings. Favorite relatives or friends? The humane society? The Friday-night-beer-and-Pizza-Group? I made that one up.

Think about it. Nobody wants to ponder their inevitable death, but if you've got to go and you can't take it with you, who should have it? It's your money. You can be as generous or as selfish as you choose. Maybe you want to blow it all on the grandest funeral the world has ever seen. Go for it. Or maybe you want to help the homeless, victims of abuse, or folks with incurable illnesses. It's your choice.

Whatever you decide, just make sure you put it in writing or the government will dole it out to the closest relatives they can find.

That baby's a real doll!

Readers may or may not remember how I explored the toy section at Wal-Mart to find out what dolls girls were playing with these days. I'll admit that I wanted to play with some of those dolls. The baby dolls were so realistic I wanted to free them from their wrappers and hug them against my barren breasts. But I didn't. It's a small town and I don't want people to think I'm nuts.

However, it seems some women actually do buy baby dolls as substitutes for real babies. They're calling them "reborn" babies or "memory" babies. For the whole story, read "Fake babies ease women's anxiety, sadness," published last week at MSNBC.com. Author Dr. Gail Saltz explains the therapeutic value of dolls for empty-nesters, women whose babies have died, and childless women. Unlike real babies, dolls never cry or need clean diapers, but in some odd way they provide some of the same positive feelings as real infants. "It fills a place in your heart," doll-maker Lynn Katsaris told Lauer.

The link will lead you to a seven-minute video from the Today Show about a British documentary called "My Fake Baby: New Life with Reborn Dolls." Matt Lauer interviewed three women holding their dolls, which each cost more than $1,000. A clip from the film shows a woman carrying her "baby" around a grocery store. People who stop to admire it are amazed to discover it isn't real.

Now, I'm ready to call this just plain nuts, but then again after my dog Sadie died, I purchased a dog statue made of stone. It's about a foot and a half high and sits on my hearth gazing up at Sadie's picture. I call him Stoney and make jokes about how he's such an easy dog to care for. The idea was to purchase a memorial to my beloved pet, but before we got the new puppies (agh, wild mudballs!), I sometimes talked to Stoney and thought of him as my dog.

So who am I to say we're too old for dolls, especially as Chatty Cathy looks down on me while I type?

The Male Point of View

My youngest stepson says he will never have children. He's been pretty consistent about that, although he doesn't give reasons.

Last weekend in Georgia, I talked to two men who were very open about their reasons. Alek, who runs a bookstore, is 40, unmarried and childless. He doesn't want kids because he doesn't like them, he says. I asked him what he'd do if he hooked up with a woman who wanted to be a mom. He replied that no woman who wanted children would want him. "I'm married to my work and I'm difficult," he said. Okay.

Then I ended up in a cab driven by Massoud, with his wife Puran riding shotgun. They're from Iran. Massoud has two daughters from a previous marriage and had a vasectomy eight years ago. Puran, who wanted children, had to have a hysterectomy four years ago, so they are childless, but seem very happy together. Why no more kids, I asked Massoud. "They take all your money and they're nothing but trouble," he said. I wonder what his daughters would think if they heard that. Anyway, biology has sealed the deal for them.

I know men who have agreed to fatherhood despite age differences, offspring from another marriage or misgivings about the whole deal, but I'm always surprised when a man states so definitely that he is not having any children, period, end of discussion.

On the heels of these conversations, I was thrilled to discover a new book, Nobody's Father: Life Witout Kids, has been published in Canada. This collection of essays, edited by Lynne Van Luven and Bruce Gillespie, is a followup to Nobody's Mother. Amazon has it for $16.95. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Childless men out there, I just have one question? Why?

Uh-oh, the stepkids are reading this

I have recently become aware that my stepchildren are reading this blog. Oh my gosh. I have been honest, even occasionally catty. It's as if they have been reading my diary or listening in on my phone calls. I know this blog is public and I also know I am blessed to have Michael, Ted and Gretchen in my life. They have grown into interesting, loving adults. Maybe a little too interesting sometimes, but who isn't?

Gretchen says I can say anything, that she has nothing to hide. Okay. The other night, when we were on the phone for 90 minutes, she told me she had always hated me because she thought her father was cheating with me while her parents were still married. What made her think so? Well, she had come upon a necklace that he gave me early in our relationship. I assured her I didn't even know her dad when he was still married. I was dating someone else. I met Fred seven months after his wife asked him to move out. He had told me he had bought the necklace for someone else. I assumed that was his wife. Well, Gretchen was flabbergasted to hear that. Twenty-five years of wasted hate. It explains a lot.

We get along all right now, even though we have nothing in common but her father. Gretchen gives the best hugs, second only to her dad, except that she usually smells much nicer.

Unfortunately, Gretchen, Ted and Michael will never be my own children. They have a perfectly good mother back in San Jose. But if they need one in Oregon, here I am. And Michael, who was just here visiting, if you're reading this, I hope you're over your stomach flu. Ted, congratulations on your engagement to Shelly. She's terrific, and it's about time.

Dear readers, how about you and your stepchildren? Do you feel totally comfortable with them, hate them, or wear yourself out trying to win their love because they aren't yours? Let's talk about it.

Free to Bequeathe

Without children to be our natural heirs, we childless folks may struggle with what to do with our worldly goods when we shuffle off to heaven. To whom do we leave our photo albums? Who will care about my collection of antique ruby glass? But we are also free to do whatever we want with our stuff. As an old text called Family Systems and Inheritance Patterns notes, childless people often name outside beneficiaries and really tick off their families.

Many childless people leave their estates to good causes, such as scholarships, charities, animal shelters, medical research, etc. That's pretty much what I plan to do.

But some folks go a little farther outside the norm. For example, an AOL page on wacky wills notes that George Bernard Shaw bequeathed millions to anyone who could devise a new alphabet that made more sense than the one we have. Louis da Camara, a Portuguese man with no family, picked strangers out of a Lisbon phone book to be his heirs. Ed Headrick, perfector of the Frisbee, asked that his ashes be moulded into memorial discs to be sold, with profits to be used for a Frisbee museum. My favorite: Ruth Lilly, an amateur poet, left $100 million to a poetry magazine that had repeatedly rejected her work.

Another good one from the UK on the tiscali.money site: A Mr. F left several relatives each "one penny as that is what they are worth as members of my family." Show of hands: how many of us are tempted to do that? Me too.

How about you? Have you made a will? Who will inherit your earthly wealth? Did you know that in some states, including Oregon, where I live, stepchildren are not considered your legal heirs unless you write them into your will? What unusual bequests have you heard about or considered doing? Without children--and assuming the spouse goes first--we are free to bequeathe as we please. Any thoughts?

Three points of view

Some interesting things on the web this week.

A recent report from Korea shows that childless couples are more likely to divorce. The author gives as the most likely reason that people with kids feel tied down by their offspring and worried about the financial consequences. I'm sure there's some truth to that. It's also interesting that the childless rate among 40-something women is about the same as in the U.S., approximately 20 percent.

A writer for The Times of India argues that it's no longer necessary to have a child to feel complete, that attitudes are changing, especially among professional women. Among the women I interviewed was an Indian professor who said her family was making her life a misery because she had no children. Whatever she accomplished meant nothing to them. Let's hope people everywhere are becoming more open-minded. Whether by choice or circumstance, some of us are never going to have children.

And then there's "Childless Bitch," with a humorous rant on the craziness that accompanies the back to school season. Now for Pete's sake, this is meant to be funny. Don't jump on me or CB for being mean, rotten people. Admit that at least some of it is true. For example, she talked about "the return of the midget panhandlers," kids selling candy bars and other things for school causes, and mothers going overboard trying to prepare their children for every possibility. "Hand the kid a ruler and push him out the door," she says. Check it out and add a comment if you feel so moved.