Posted on 01/03/2005 8:31:56 AM PST by qam1
Nita and Ken Eaton hit the stores last month, as they do every Christmas, to find just the right gifts for the youngsters on their shopping list.
The carefully chosen presents weren't for their youngsters but for their nieces and nephews.
The Eatons are part of a small but growing segment of American couples who have chosen not to have children.
"We spend a lot of time thinking about what we're going to get our nieces and nephews for Christmas. We want to get them something meaningful," said Nita Eaton, 38.
The Eatons, married for five years, never had the desire to become parents.
"People used to always say: 'Your clock is ticking. You'll change your mind. It's different when they're your own,' " Nita said. "When I worked in a law firm, we were all in the age group to have kids, and I'd go to baby shower after baby shower, and I'd have to say honestly that it never hit me."
Many childless couples say they find themselves drifting away from friends once children are added to the mix.
"We started feeling sort of socially isolated," said Andrea Wenker, 33, of Colorado Springs. "Our friends started having babies and their lives changed. It revolves around the kids, and for good reason. The kind of things you used to do with your friends aren't an option anytime.
"They're talking about childbirth and diapers. It's important to their lives, but you start feeling, 'I'm still here, I'm still a person.' You start to feel kind of invisible."
She and Peter, her husband of 13 years, are childless by choice, and she is the coordinator of Denver Metro NO KIDDING!, one of 101 chapters of an international social group of more than 10,000 couples and singles without children. The Colorado group has about 200 members, 10 to 20 of whom typically attend the monthly get-togethers.
Jerry Steinberg, of Vancouver, British Columbia, calls himself the founding non-father of NO KIDDING! He started the group in 1983, he said via e-mail, because he was losing friends as they started to have children.
"They were no longer available for phone conversations, getting together for coffee or lunch, going to see movies, or much else," he said.
"Most people who have children seem to understand why I felt the need for a social club for child-free people, since people usually like to socialize with others who share at least some of their interests and have a similar lifestyle. After all, most, if not all, of (parents') friends were made through their kids' activities - the soccer moms get together, the softball dads meet, the school parents become friends, etc."
The number of childless-by-choice couples can't easily be determined, but anecdotal evidence indicates that their ranks are growing.
The Census Bureau doesn't ask whether couples are childless by choice, but the bureau projects that the percentage of families with children under 18 will decline from 47.7 percent in 1995 to 41.3 percent by 2010.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 6.6 percent of American women said they were voluntarily childless in 1995, the last time researchers asked the question. The number was up from 4.9 percent in 1982 and 6.2 percent in 1988.
The State of Our Unions, a 2003 report by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, reported Census Bureau projections that families with children will make up only 28 percent of U.S. households by 2010, the lowest number in at least a century.
"The underlying reason that there are fewer children is basically that women have other things to do," said David Popenoe, sociology professor at Rutgers and co-director of the National Marriage Project.
"Child-rearing in modern times is expensive and can be onerous, especially after you've been living as a single person or a couple without children for a while."
The decision to choose children, however, ultimately is very rewarding, he said.
"Over the long term, it's people who have children who are the happiest," said Popenoe.
Childless couples are used to hearing that their choice is either selfish or motivated by a dislike of children.
"I think it's being honest about what your priorities are and how you use them," said Wenker. "It doesn't mean everything's about you all the time. People don't decide to be parents because they're being philanthropic; it's because they want kids."
Nita Eaton works with children as a school psychologist.
"I like kids a lot and work with them in school," she said. "I see kids out there who don't have parents. That really played into my decision. If I decided to have kids, I'd go adopt one."
Population issues drive some decisions about whether to bear children.
"Whether or not I want to have kids is not the only consideration," said Wenker. "I believe there's a problem with population, serious issues with the environment, and I believe I have to be part of the solution."
Would-be parents should carefully consider their choice, said Ken Eaton, 42.
"It's a big decision that needs to be well-thought-out. There are a lot of unwanted kids out there. People didn't take the time to think about whether they would take the time to raise them."
Couples without children say they have more time to spend with their spouses and for volunteering.
The Eatons have three greyhounds and are board members of Rocky Mountain Greyhound Adoption, which they doubt they could do if they had children.
"They take a lot of time, energy and motivation. One has various autoimmune issues, one had a leg amputated, the other had a viral infection and has pretty bad arthritis," said Ken Eaton.
Having siblings who have children, say childless couples, tends to turn down the heat on family expectations to produce grandchildren.
Nita Eaton has three brothers with children, and all three of Ken's siblings have children.
"If I were an only child, I think, the pressure would be pretty great," Nita said. "I've always been pretty outspoken. My mom's pretty much backed off."
In a culture where parenthood is the norm, those who choose to bypass the baby boom often have their decisions questioned.
"Nobody's deliberately nasty," said Wenker. "From men, I get an odd reaction. The reaction (Peter) gets is, they get this look in their eyes that he's lucky. They like to get me to admit it's possible I'll change my mind. What I have to say to that is 'It doesn't seem likely' and 'It's just not an option.'
"I like my life. My husband and I have a very close relationship. We value the time between the two of us and can't imagine that interrupted. I've never regretted it."
Nita Eaton said she felt like an outsider when they moved into a neighborhood filled with young children.
"The woman who sold us our house said the neighbors had been asking how many kids we have," she said.
There is no cultural celebratory template for women who decide not to have children.
"I've thrown baby showers for girlfriends, and it's kind of this rite of passage," said Wenker. "We're going to buy you presents to get you started and treat you like Queen for a Day. It doesn't occur to anybody to celebrate a child-free woman in that way."
How many kids do you have???
We're not talking about a child dying. We're talking if they had it to do over again.
Only if it's 10/$1.
Yeah, me too
HA! Boy are you ignorant.
I've known some of these people too, but I think with these people it's a "Cat's in the Cradle" thing. They learn too late.
That wasn't the point of my statement. I'm not going to repeat myself. Read my other posts.
Obviously, I did not word my post very well.
What I found disturbing about this article is that fact that child-less women want some kind of recognition for, well, nothing. That is where the "me, me, me" came from. Seriously, establishing a "Queen for a day" celebration to, I suppuse, counter Mother's Day? Selfish, "me-oriented" people, not unlike small children who don't know any better.
I'm not siding with people who have cildren or people who don't. That decision is up to the couple. The people featured in this article seem like selfish children to me, not because they don't have kids, but because they demand the same attention, or more, than those who do.
My wife certainly doesn't feel deprived of any attention simply because she hasn't given birth. I say the people in this article are just jealous of the attention and respect that mothers get.
How about, it is nobody's business as to which couples have children and which don't. That is between them and their God, if indeed they choose a faith.
It is certainly none of my business, and I'll be damned if I'll judge their union, just as I hope they'd respect mine.
Speaking from personal experiance as a man, being there when your little angel is born and those few years bonding with your little girl are unlike anything else life has to experiance.
I use to say to myself if God appeared in front of me and said someone has to die today you or your wife (ex now) I would hem and haw before saying well I guess I have to go but can I have a going away party.
If on the other hand it had been my little angel I would have grabbed ahold of God instantly and not let go.
You dont know love untill you have born a child. Of course thats just my experiance.
I wonder how many of those reputed "conservatives" have paid attention to what Dr. Laura has said on this matter. Firstly, do not get married unless you are truly ready for it and can "afford" it (both financially and emotionally) and, secondly, only have kids if you can give them a proper situation, generally inclusive of stay-at-home motherhood and extensive effort in terms of educating them in the current debauched cultural environment. What "conservative" would want to promote such things as excessive financial debt, latch-key kids, nannies, and government schools?
The solution here is to dump soccer practice and paying for college. It kills me that people say that they can't have any more children because they couldn't afford college for two or three or whatever. Who the hell cares about college in comparison to bringing another life into the world?
My older lady friend who was estranged from her daughter asked me to become her power of attorney. I declined but wish I had done it for her.
When her daughter went to the apartment to remove everything, she gave the off duty police woman she had hired to help her, my old friends Wurlitzer organ. What was funny was that it didn't work and I had even been on the internet looking for parts so that I could get it fixed and found out that no one made replacement parts for it anymore so the police woman and her boyfriend got bubkus for their effort.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who had a baby, but then failed to love that baby in some fashion, even if only instinctually.
Most (childless) people can't understand how quickly and totally one becomes attached to a child until it happens to them.
It is instinct. (The very small percentage of women who kill their children at childbirth are mentally deranged.)
That's a major reason why people have kids and I think that's very selfish. It's like breeding for a slave.
I'm child-free, by choice, and I don't vote liberal.
But I'm paying for someone else's kids to get a primary education, I'm paying for libraries (I buy my own books, thank you very much), I'm subsidizing child-care vis a vis WIC and welfare, and all sources of other programs that I will never, ever benefit from.
So before the knee-jerkers start calling us selfish, just take into consideration - my income helps subsidize your child-rearing in more ways than one, and you get the immediately benefits of it.
I agree. But that doesn't make it any easier on the children. A child knows when he isn't wanted, and I think it would have been better for these children if their parents had decided not to have children in the first place.
Around here in the blue zone, it's actually the dimocraps who have most of the kids. Firstly there are the dimocrap recruits (e.g. immigrants) having them. Secondly, the debt loving, government school promoting, nanny empoloying set also are having them. Conservatives like me, insistent as we are on standards (of finances, of schooling, of stay-at-home parenting) simply find it difficult, living in the blue zone, to create the proper conditions which meet our standards for having kids. Either we wait (maybe too long!) or we move.
I didn't know I was asking for advice, really, I have given this a lot of thought and know my situation well enough, but I'm open to discussion.
Try to have a baby. The horses can wait. You might wonder why you even wanted to do that sort of stuff after you have a child.
My horse can't wait, he's aged. His time for trail riding is now or never. If you're right, and we never got into trail riding and wanted rid of the horses in our life, I would hate that outcome. My dream has been to have horses and a companion to ride with me in the woods. My goal is to operate a boarding stable and care for many more than my own as a business. That is the life plan we had in mind when we married, I don't want to turn that upside-down on a whim.
It's totally fair to have a child at 40....if you can. Most women's fertility starts going downhill at 27, so I know this sounds kind of harsh, but you're behind already.
I know you are right about being behind. My mom died at 58 of cancer, and she is not the only terminal cancer in my family. If I didn't get cancer, I might be the only one. I don't know what my life expectancy is, I don't want to abandon a child as young as I was left by my mom, and I don't know if my genes are particularly good to pass on. I think about that a lot.
Of course, adoption is also an option....a great one IMO, but it's not for everyone. It costs a lot, and takes a lot of time, so 40 for many adoptive parents ends up looking really young.
This is an option my husband and I have talked about. But in terms of adopting an older child, one who would not be disadvantaged by our age if we adopted later on.
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