Other Than Mother - Chapters 1 and 2

Other Than Mother Choosing Childlessness with Life in Mind

Kamalamani

Winchester, UK Washington, USA

CONTENTS Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: The worldly winds Chapter 1: A growing trend of intentional childlessness Chapter 2: Who are the intentionally childless?

Chapter 3: ‘Before all else, you are a wife and mother’ Chapter 4: Beyond stereotypes, labeling, right and wrong Chapter 5: Naturally Chapter 6: The seven billion mark Chapter 7: ‘Mr Fix-It and the Home-Improvement Committee’ Chapter 8: Unconditional love Chapter 9: Meet the parents Chapter 10: Men, women, and children Chapter 11: The miracle of life – and death Chapter 12: The earth from the sky Part II: A private decision with global consequences Chapter 13: Decisions, decisions Chapter 14: A soft-voiced prince and a flaming sword Chapter 15: Looking into the ‘wheel of life’ Chapter 16: Skilful flirting and the art of brewing Chapter 17: A private decision with very public consequences Chapter 18: Traditional, transitional and transformative women Chapter 19: ‘I happen not to have children’ Chapter 20: ‘By the time I’m 30’

1 4 6 9 25 26 31 34 41 47 53 62 66 71 78 84 86 91 92 108 114 118 124 131 134 137

Chapter 21: ‘You’ll live to regret it’ Chapter 22: A bout of the existentials Chapter 23: Roaming new terrain

140 143 147

Part III: New horizons and baby-sized projects Chapter 24: Baby-sized projects and rites of passage Chapter 25: The bodhisattva ideal Chapter 26: The bodhisattva/ecosattva at work Chapter 27: Occupying your body in taking your place on earth Chapter 28: An emerging consciousness Chapter 29: Giving the gift of confidence Chapter 30: Family healing and the ‘ancestor syndrome’ Chapter 31: Minority report Chapter 32: Ebbs and flows: never saying never?

Chapter 33: Landscapes of the body and divine women Chapter 34: Inspiring women Chapter 35: Going forth Chapter 36: Big mind and parental mind Chapter 37: Stillness, simplicity, and contentment Chapter 38: Red Tara’s fascination and boundless love Chapter 39: Holding to nothing whatever Chapter 40: The personal is political Chapter 41: Doing womankind a massive favour?

Chapter 42: Coming of age: pregnant with possibilities

153 154 159 167 171 177 183 187 192 197 202 209 212 218 221 225 230 236 241 243

Conclusion: ‘A child of all life’ Endnotes References Bibliography

245 248 251 267

Part I The worldly winds

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Chapter 1

A growing trend of intentional childlessness When I took my first steps in researching intentional childlessness I was relieved to find that my perception of fewer women having children in their twenties and thirties was backed by statistics. A significant demographic shift is taking place as a higher percentage of women in the UK and Europe are deciding to have children at a later age, as well as a greater percentage choosing to remain childless: More women in England and Wales are reaching the end of their reproductive careers without having had a live birth. The figure rose from one in ten women born in 1945 to around one in five women born in 1960‌the 2002-based national population projections assume that the percentage of women remaining childless will increase a little further, to about 22 per cent of those born in 1990 and later. (Berrington, 1990) In 2011, one in five women in England and Wales reached the age of 45 having never given birth to a child. This data, from the Office of National Statistics (2013), relates to women born in 1966 who were assumed to have reached the end of their childbearing years. Similarly, one in five women born between 1961 and 1965 were childless when they had reached the age of 45. in the preceding years.

A similar picture is emerging in the US and other countries.

For example, a 2003 US Census study found that a record 19% of US women between the ages of 40 and 44 did not have children, compared with 10% in 1976 (Cohen, 2010). I recently read that it is estimated that one in four children of my generation (I am 44) will be childless on their 50th birthday.

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A growing trend of intentional childlessness

The USA’s CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) reported in their National Health Statistics Report from 2012 that of the 19% of women who remain childless between the ages of 40 and 44, half are childfree by choice. The remainder are unable to have children, due to biological and circumstantial factors (CDC, 2012). The process of researching this area is not without its difficulties. Jeffries and Konnert (2002) found that the researcher’s definitions of voluntary and involuntary childlessness were inconsistent with participants self-definitions in one-third of cases. So it is not that easy to get definitive data, again highlighting the gray area between voluntary and involuntary childlessness, depending upon one’s perceptions.

In another study, seeking to understand how adults without children define their childless state, Connidis and McMullin (1996) found that 28% of participants said they were childless by choice and 72% by circumstance. However, the researchers found that there was a 60% overlap in the reasons cited for childlessness between the two groups. It is also worth bearing in mind the process of decision-making; from their US-based research, Heaton, Cardell and Holland (1999) noted shifts in childbearing decisions spanning, on average, six years. Similarly, Merlo and Rowland (2000) point out how most women in Australia remain childless after a long series of postponements. These figures show the importance of a longitudinal approach in understanding childless statistics. A longitudinal approach will also be invaluable in understanding how the estimated one in four women who remain childless live with that decision into their middle and elder years.

The origins of a childless/childfree trend started far earlier in the twentieth century, of course. Abbott writes: ‘a third of the women born in 1960 went through their twenties without becoming mothers. Those who opted out of motherhood were haunted by the ticking of the ‘biological clock’ in their thirties’ (Abbott, 2003:164). This delaying of having children, or ‘fertility 27

Other Than Mother

postponement’ as it is medically called, was most likely a result of the increase in contraception, more women working, and the broader acceptance of alternative ways of living (Daniluk and Herman, 1984).

Preceding these more recent changes was the phenomena of women from different classes being employed on a previously unparalleled scale during the two world wars of the twentieth century. The experience of engaging in non-domestic work, along with the activities of the suffragette movement, meant that women were starting to experience and realize their potential beyond the domestic realm. In the UK women over the age of 30 (who met particular property qualifications) were given the vote in 1918, with suffrage being extended to all women over the age of 21 in 1928 (Crawford, 2000). Prior to this there were calls for ‘voluntary motherhood’ in the late 19th century; the first name for a feminist birth control demand in the US. This was the response of feminists to their understanding that involuntary motherhood and child raising were important aspects of woman’s oppression (Gordon in Walzer Leavitt, 1999).

These figures give a sense of the phenomenon of intentional childlessness, influenced by a wide range of factors: social, cultural, economic, political, ecological, environmental, spiritual, religious, and technological. In the more recent past childlessness is a lifestyle choice for some, for others it can arise out of the pressures of longer working hours and the breakdown of traditional families (Henley Centre, 1999). So choosing childlessness sometimes arises from financial strife and heartbreak, rather than being a positive choice. It is encouraging that childlessness is being more researched, given that in the early days studies failed to even distinguish between voluntarily and involuntarily childless women (McAllister and Clarke, 1998).

The fact that until recently much of the research neglected to distinguish between the intentional and unintentional aspects of childlessness reflects the recent emergence of this field. More 28

A growing trend of intentional childlessness

recently there seems to be a better understanding of the strength of emotion involved in childlessness, particularly one might argue involuntary childlessness, and the need to be clear about the varying intentions of women of a childbearing age. The strongest similarity between the intentionally and unintentionally childless is likely to be their experiences of living in a pronatal society. The difference is that there is likely to be more sympathy for those who are unintentionally childless, compared to those who choose to not have children, given the continuing pro-family narrative of our society (having said that, it can be shocking to witness the lack of empathy for those who are involuntarily childless in some incidences...).

These demographic shifts raise fascinating and far-reaching questions. What is becoming increasingly clear from the research is that a broad range of men and women are remaining childless.

Research to date about childless women challenges the earlier assumption that this figure is mainly composed of successful, well-educated, white, middle-class career women. The phenomena of increasing childlessness challenges conventional conceptions of, and assumptions about, womanhood and how to be a woman. I am focusing on women, rather than men here, given that there remains a widespread societal assumption – implicit and covert – that motherhood remains central to adult female identity and notions of femininity, maturity, and what is considered ‘normal’ compared to notions of manhood and fatherhood.

The popular media in the UK report that women in their twenties are experiencing something of an early identity crisis as child-bearing and rearing is a far less obvious choice than it once was. Concern is also starting to be more widely expressed about women leaving it too late to have children. Today I read how Kirsty Allsopp, a popular UK television presenter, was urging women to ‘ditch university and have a baby by 27’ because of her fear that woman wanting children are leaving it too late (Tran, 29

Other Than Mother

2014).

I hope this book plays a part in filling out the broader landscape of the decision-making process behind these bare statistics. The reasons why people remain childfree are as complicated, as varied, and as individual as why and when other people choose to become parents. What goes on in terms of our decisionmaking around procreation? How is it to be a woman who’s not a mother? Or a man who’s not a father, but who has always dreamed of becoming one? How do we go about ‘choosing’ – with all the caveats I included earlier about the notion of choice – and how does it vary for different people at varying points in their reproductive life?

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Chapter 2

Who are the intentionally childless?

If there is a shared characteristic amongst the interviewees [voluntarily childless women] it is that they are all ‘distinctive’. It takes a lot of strength and courage to swim against the tide of convention. (Bartlett, 1994: xi. Author’s brackets added) The last chapter explored the statistical information regarding intentional childlessness. But who are the childless in real life, in a more three-dimensional way? Thinking of those I have met, those who chose not to have children are: • men and women • lesbian, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning • middle class, working class, upper class • wealthy and broke • white, people of color, and from different ethnic groups • atheists, materialists, spiritually-inclined, unsure, undecided • jobless through to career-focused • procrastinators • disillusioned by the free babysitting they provided during their own childhood • free of obvious ‘baby urges’ and hormonal surges • pursuing other things: art, travel, a religious, spiritual, or vocational path • out of time, having left it too late • recovering from being born into traumatic family dynamics 31

Other Than Mother

• non-committal • eco-warriors with concerns for the population and the planet (some identifying as a GINK - a synonym for ‘Green Inclinations No Kids’. See Hymas, 2010) • simply not interested in kids or family life Identity-wise, thinking of those same childless people. Some: ...are happy on the margins ...feel excluded and overlooked ...feel liberated in no longer having to be part of family life ...do not relate to themselves as childless until it is pointed out to them ...see themselves as the black sheep of the family or the ‘odd one out’ ...are busy getting on with life ...have regrets about not having children: part decision, part circumstance ...are shunned for their decision ...are supported in their decision In other words, those who choose a childless life have a spectrum of experiences. I include this chapter early in this book for two reasons. Firstly, to ensure that this book stays grounded in the reality that the decision as to whether or not to have children is something that affects real people, rather than those who have been counted and analyzed in quantitative research, with their stories remaining rather faceless and nameless.

Secondly, to challenge the far-reaching stereotype that those who choose childlessness are mainly career-driven, successful, 30-something women (sometimes dubbed the ‘Bridget Jones generation’, taken from the book and film Bridget Jones’s Diary (Fielding, 1997)). For some intentionally childless women this career status may be important to their identity in the world and 32

Who are the intentionally childless?

how they are defined. For others, it is less important because their creativity and engagement is expressed in realms of life aside from career or because they barely paused to consider having children. For others still, having children is too far out of reach financially, or in terms of their life circumstances.

Reverie I long to soften the barriers between how those with children and those without are seen, categorized and judged – and in how we see, categorize and judge ourselves, too. I also seek to break down the stereotypes of those who are voluntarily or intentionally childless. Who are the intentionally childless in your mind’s eye? Which friends, family members, of public figures come to mind?

Can you notice in yourself whether you see childlessness in terms of lack? Emptiness or wholeness? Or abundance?

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