Childless women cold and odd???

Do childless career women suffer because their co-workers think they're cold and strange? According to the May 18, 2009 Daily Mail online site, that's what Dr. Caroline Gatrell found in researching her book Embodying Women's Work. Gatrell, from the Lancaster University Management School in the UK, reported that women without children are often seen as lacking "an essential humanity." Plus, if they're of child-bearing age, their bosses don't promote them because they might still get pregnant.

Okay, but how about all those moms trying to juggle child-care and work and getting turned down for promotions and dissed by co-workers because they can't work late and have to dash out to pick up the kids at pre-school?

It appears to be a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation, doesn't it?Whether you're a mother or not, ownership of a working uterus appears to make you suspect. If you've got children, you can't be totally loyal to the company. If you haven't, either you're going to spring a baby on them one of these days or you're just plain weird. Is this the 21st century or not?

Personally, I have certainly experienced sexism and ageism, but I don't think I have missed out on anything at work because I did not have children. I did have some moms drop their work on me because of their mothering needs. But I also saw moms who worked more hours than I did.

I'm a clock-watcher. I admit it. What employers really needed to worry about with me was that I would always rather be doing my freelance writing and music than working for anyone else. In essence, my books are my babies. And if I was in the middle of writing a song when it was time to go to work, I was going to be late. The song took precedence.

What do you think? Do you believe employers see childless women, especially those who are childless by choice, as heartless and odd? Have you experienced moms slacking because of their kids? Have you noticed women getting stuck in their careers because they carry ticking time bombs in their bellies? Let's talk about it.

Say it, sister

One of the workers at the care home where Fred lives now has been reading my blog and finding it pertinent to her situation. Her situation is the opposite of ours. She's 45 and has two sons. Recently divorced and stop-traffic gorgeous, she finds herself dating younger men or even men her own age who still want to have children. She believes she could get pregnant but worries about the risks of pregnancy so late in life. Plus, she has done the math. She'd be over 50 when the child started kindergarten, in her 60s when he graduated from high school, in her 70s when he finished college and/or married and had children . . . No. She doesn't want to do that. Nor does she want to cheat her dates out of something they really want. So, she says, "I gently set them free."

She wanted to know how I came to be childless. Fred was sitting there with me as I explained that I had married two husbands who wouldn't or couldn't father my children. "I was one of them," Fred piped up. She turned to me. "How old were you when you got married?" "33." And then she gave Fred such a look, a look that said, You dog, you bastard, how could you do that to her? I wanted to jump up and hug her.

Where was she when I was 33?

You're on your own

It has been almost a month since I blogged here, so I'm doing it twice today. I have been in the midst of finding a new place for my husband, who has Alzheimer's. The home where he had been staying was not working out. He was so miserable he tried to run away. So now, with help from a great organization called A Place for Mom, I have moved him to Timberwood Court in Albany Oregon. It's a lot farther from home, but a much better place.

What does this have to do with childlessness? Mainly that I wouldn't have been doing all this alone if I had children or if his children really understood how hard this is. There's the physical part of it: Fred's room came unfurnished, so I had to buy furniture and get it to Albany. I carried a carload of stuff when we moved and last week, I single-handledly shoved two heavy easy chairs into the back of the car and drove them over. This week I'm getting a phone hooked up. I'm dealing with insurance and doctors and staggering bills. Perhaps worst is the strain of making all these decisions on my own. Fred can't help anymore, and no one else is here.

If you're considering a marriage without children, especially to a much older man, think about the possibility that he will get sick and suddenly you'll be handling everything alone.

We have a Google group now

I don't know why I didn't do this a long time ago, but I have set up a "Childless by Marriage" Google group. There's not much in it right now, but judging by the number of e-mails I get on this topic, it will grow quickly. Access the group at http://groups.google.com/group/childless-by-marriage. Come one and all. We have a lot to share.

As you probably know, I'm a writer working on a book and articles about childlessness, but I promise I will never quote you without asking for your permission, so have at it.

Share childless feelings in Exhale zine

My Google alerts brought me to an interesting zine called "Exhale," which is subtitled "A literary magazine for intelligent people who have lost a baby, or can't figure out how to make one in the first place." You can get it in print or online. My friend Tiffany Lee Brown won an award from Exhale for her piece "The Kitchen Sink." It's available online and definitely worth a read.
Bravo, Tiffany.

I also discovered an interesting article called "The Men Who are Desperate for Kids," published April 19 in the UK's TimesOnline. So often, we only look at the woman's viewpoint, but men have strong feelings about childlessness, too. They may not show it, for fearing of appearing "soft," but writer Nirpal Dhaiwal tells how men who wanted children and don't have them can feel the loss just as much as woman can.

As all the advertising media won't let us forget, Sunday is Mother's Day. I'm planning to duck and cover till it's over. Someone already wished me a happy Mother's Day yesterday. I just said "thank you" and moved on. I didn't have the energy to set them straight.

Happy whatever, my friends.

Running Free

Following up on yesterday's post, I've noticed something interesting. Today, with my father and brother gone back home, I'm feeling amazingly freer and younger than I did when they were here. I danced to regae music last night, I had cake for lunch today, and just now I was outside running with the dogs. It felt good. Not having anyone to please or to care for can be awfully lonely, but it is also freeing. You become ageless, not pigeonholed into the role of daughter, mother, grandmother, or wife, just yourself, running in the unmowed grass, the breeze blowing your hair around and making the wind chimes sing.

There's a lot one can regret about not having children. God knows I have shed an ocean of tears, but there are advantages, too. As the Mother's Day ads threaten to drown us in our childlessness, try to remember the good parts. If there's a mother in your life, celebrate her. If not, just tune out the ads and go run with the dogs.

Always the daughter, never the mother

The men in my family have been visiting. They put me right back in the role of the daughter. My brother insists on driving. My father insists on paying for my meals. I'm physically much smaller and more agile than they are, and I'm riding in the back seat again, wishing I had my MP3 to entertain myself. The one time I jump ahead to the cashier, at the air museum, my father drops 20-dollar bills on my table that night to reimburse me. To them, I'm the one having financial trouble, husband trouble and emotional trouble, so they assert their authority trying to straighten me out, not letting me explain how I'm taking care of things in my own way.

Being a wife and mother makes you look like an adult to the rest of the world. With Fred in the care home and no children of my own, I'm always the weird kid, not Mom, not Grandma. In the eyes of my family, I'll never move up into that "we're all adults with kids" role.

Do you ever feel that way?