How many childfree and childless couples have 2nd homes?
What percentage of childfree and childless couples have second homes, compared with the percentage of parents who do?
The pluses and minuses of being empty nesters, childfree, childless and with no grandchildren, direct dependents or pets who need your constant care. Whether you decided to not have children or pets or were infertile or allergic to pets, there's a great future for you.
What percentage of childfree and childless couples have second homes, compared with the percentage of parents who do?
Some 6.6% of women surveyed in 1995 said that they chose to be childfree, and some 44% of women between 16 and 44 are childfree or childless, according to Nancy Rome.
Those of us who are not mothers do not fit into any of society's convenient boxes: We're not slaves to carpools or homework. At the same time, we are not necessarily obsessed about our careers or even ourselves; nor are we anti-family. Our days are simply lived according to a different rhythm: Children don't tug at my clothes and beg for attention; I don't leave my cellphone on during films or dinner parties in case the babysitter needs me; I travel; I read books -- lots of them -- as well as the newspaper.
I am also a filmmaker, and a few years ago I began to work on a documentary about childless women -- not only those of us who have lost or can't have children, but the growing number who don't want to have them. Their reasons vary. In the most devastated areas of Baltimore, I found women who told me they had chosen to be childless because there were simply too many children in their families or neighborhoods who needed looking after. An immigration lawyer told me she had done motherhood when she was a teenager, helping her mother with her younger sibling. Many reflected the attitudes of an academic who told me that her decision to remain childless made her feel like "an outlaw."
Some of the most telling comments come from the women I first talked with -- three friends, all like me now in their 50s. Dyann, a lawyer from Boston, recalls a moment at her local pizza joint when the owner asked how many of the children she came in with were hers. "None of them; I chose not to have kids," she said. "That's okay," she remembers him replying. "You still have time; maybe you'll change your mind."
Having grown up as an oldest child, Dyann felt she should be free to choose a career instead of motherhood. With a wry smile, she told me: "Just because I've chosen not to have children, doesn't mean I'm some sort of W.C. Fields character who hates kids, doesn't have patience for them."
The other point Dyann makes to me is that, in her view, raising children is "a job, which calls on the depths of your soul to give to another person. And because I respect that, I didn't want to call forth a life and raise a child when I wasn't 110 percent passionately committed to the idea."
When the snow is deep, wet and heavy as it is today here, I'm glad I don't have to walk kids to school or just walk the dog.
Childfree and childless couples have familes even though we don't have kids or pets.
The longer I write this blog the more interesting books and blogs on being childfree I find. I'm blog rolling Childfree by Choice.
A Wikipedia article explains the differences between childfree and childless.
Berny Ebbers, former chairman and CEO of the bankrupt Worldcom, and Enron's former CFO, Andrew Fastow, went to jail today, convicted of fraud.
Childfree.net is being added to our blogroll because it offers brief reviews of several books published since the earlly 1990s about the childfree and childless. And it provides links to several web sites that discuss having no kids that I plan to explore.
A search of the internet for "no kids" brings up everything from
Young childless couples are more likely to get their "news" (which is undefined) from blogs; 3% of seniors do. More will as time goes on. Blog readers, however are opinion leaders, so we're getting to the influential people in the world. Click the headlline for more information.
The price wars begin. Note that 150 classes of drugs are involved, not the 291 announced by Wal-Mart, which counted different dosages separately. Wal-Mart says it may add more drugs, will make money on the $4 prescriptions and that the drugs involved represent about 20% of its prescription drug sales.
When you don't expect to have kids, you plan your financial future differently than you would if you had kids.
Parenting lasts a lot longer these days as some parents put their 20 somethings on their health insurance programs.
Whether you have kids or pets or not, you probably are buying generic drugs.
The Washington Post has a great column on modern moms and outdated laws, but it applies to childless working women as well. Click here.
This morning I'm supposed to be proofing our new book of stories by parents of twins, Twice Loved, which we hope to send to the printer next week. I'm half way through the entertaining galleys. There are 220 pages to proof.
The lives of the kidless are relatively routine and quiet.
Just discovered a Blogger, Dual lncomes No Kids that's being written by a couple of newly weds who are at the opposite end of the parenting versus non parenting spectrum.
It's been a long time since I posted on this blog. This tells me that having no kids nor pets has not been at the top of my mind or list of priorties.
If your work requires you or your spouse or partner to be away for home for days or weeks at a time on a regular schedule, you may be interested in a new board designed for "Camp Widows" and their road warriors. I've added a link. Click here to see the Camp Widows Forums.