Article:Honey, where are the kids?
From ChildfreeWiki
From http://new.savannahnow.com/node/157312
Honey, where are the kids? Not here!
Anne Hart | Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 12:30 am
Columnist Anne Hart attends a meeting of a local chapter of No Kidding!, a social group for single and married adults who are non-parents.
Life behind the wheel of a minivan or SUV-size stroller isn't for Lauri Engler.
The 40-year-old Savannah woman doesn't want children.
Ever.
Engler is part of a multiplying group of people who don't want to multiply. The only thing the childfree-by-choice want from the rest of us is a little acceptance.
Engler formed a Coastal Empire chapter this year of the global group No Kidding! for single and married adults who are non-parents.
Their reasons for being child-free vary. Some, like Lauri, recall never wanting children even when they were children. She preferred Barbie to dolls. The blonde was less needy, didn't require changing or burping and was old enough to do what she wanted, even date and live in dream homes.
Others made up their minds later in life, largely because they don't want to bring children into an overpopulated world where schools can be shooting ranges, toxins contribute to global warming and countries go to war for all the wrong reasons.
But deciding not to be mothers or fathers often leaves the child-free ostracized in our Babies-R-Us society. Hence, the birth of No Kidding! in Savannah.
Local members, ranging in age from late 20s to mid 50s, gather for wine tastings, midnight bowling or just dinners without parents prattling on about their darlings' soccer goals, ballet recitals and bilingual talents.
Don't attempt to talk these non-parents into swamping their free evenings out for ones at home with Sendak, Silverstein or a ticklish Elmo.
The kidless-by-choice folks have heard it all from diaper-whipped parents, who, upon hearing about such child-free commitments, go into zealot mode and try to convert them.
"You'll change your mind and regret not having kids, parents tell them.
"A child is the greatest love you'll ever know.
"Your life isn't complete until you're a parent.
"It's different when it's your own."
Such "advice" has inspired a little game: "breeder bingo." When a parent dishes out a certain number of these sayings, the non-parent cries "bingo".
Ouch.
Still, no one called me a breeder or breeder-to-be when I and my very pregnant belly attended a No Kidding! gathering at the Savannah Wine Shop.
This is hardly a child-haters group. They enjoy kids, but enjoy them more when they're someone else's.
I went to gain insight into why the child-free choose their lifestyle. And to find out how those of us suffering from placenta brain - a disease identified by a woman's inability to talk about anything but her pregnancy, nursery and the little genius she's carrying - can step outside our obsessions and learn from the child-free.
Those of us in the motherhood mafia, or on the verge of being inducted, need to stop trying to persuade non-parents over to our side of the playground. Life is not, after all, a big Red Rover game. Not only should we accept their decision, but also encourage them to talk about their choice, if they're feeling chatty.
After all, the child-free are increasing. U.S. census figures show 18 percent of women 40-to-44 were childless in 2002, compared with 10 percent in 1976.
There are more serious signs as well: Honda's designing cars that replace child seats with dog crates,
Still, a taboo against childfree-by-choice women prevails, says bestselling Atlanta author and mother of 2-year-old twin boys Emily Giffin.
Giffin's new novel, "Baby Proof", revolves around a woman who doesn't want to be a parent, but has a husband who does.
Too often people are reluctant to talk to women about why they don't have children, Giffin said. People assume a child-free women either couldn't have a baby, or that she's selfish: which couldn't be farther from the truth.
"What is selfish is to have a child when you are not committed to it," Giffin said.
Giffin receives e-mails from mothers who initially believed they wouldn't relate to a childfree-by-choice female character. They were surprised when they really understood her, Giffin said.
Lauri finds similar acceptance.
Sometimes.
As a little girl, when Lauri said she didn't want children, her mom never told her that motherhood was something Lauri had to do.
Everyone's not like mom, though.
Some continue to ask what she'll do if she meets the right guy and he has kids.
"If he has kids, he's not the right guy, replies Lauri, who is single and has had relationships end because of her child-free choice.
Some non-parents confirm their decision with vasectomies or tubal ligations. Lori prefers a once-every-three-months Depo Provera shot to the cost and risks of surgery.
Often physicians won't perform a tubal ligation on a childfree-by-choice woman before her late 30s for fear she will regret it.
"There is less of a concern among medical professionals about a man deciding not to have children than a woman, Lauri said. "Men are a lot more likely to get their vasectomies than a woman is to get a tubal.
Which may be just another example of child-free women having to justify their decision not to have kids.
While those of us who do don't have to justify ours.
Reach Anne Hart at 652-0374 or anne.hart at savannahnow.com. Read more of her Sunday columns at http://new.savannahnow.com/node/93615
Meeting time
The next No Kidding! gathering for non-parents is at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Tubby's in Thunderbolt. Visit http://www.nokidding.net or e-mail luluette at prodigy.net.
© 2006 SavannahNOW and the Savannah Morning News.
