David Sedaris on the Madness of Modern Parenting

One of the funniest things I've read this summer is David Sedaris' Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls. My favorite essay in the book is Attaboy, in which Sedaris ponders the madness of modern parenting. He skewers everything from the penchant for presidentially-named toddlers (think Madison) to the way children today can apparently do no wrong. When the piece veers down the path to the good old days of when he was a kid, Sedaris draws a stark contrast to the toddler-tyrant-run homes of today, writing of his own parents: "They did not live in a children's house. We lived in theirs." In other words, he articulates what every sane person has thought when subjected to, say, watching a mother ask her three-year-old if he or she would like skim or 2% milk in their babyccino as you stand behind them in a five-person deep line at Starbucks while running progressively later for work (or does that only happen in L.A.?).

Buy the book, but you can also listen to Sedaris read the essay, Attaboy, aloud here.

The Childfree Life: The Oprah Problem and Other Myths

Photo-illustration by Randall Ford for TIME

Last week's Time magazine coverstory caused a backlash for, among other things, propagating certain stereotypes about the childfree life. In the aftermath, I thought I would republish a slightly revised version of my own piece on myths about being childfree, which first appeared back in June 2013 on the Choices blog.

I already know what you’re thinking. You’re about to read something fabulous and envy-inducing. Because surely, since I chose not to have kids, I must be living the life exotic AND making a difference along the way. It’s not your fault for thinking this. It’s not even Time magazine’s fault for printing that cover featuring a childfree couple relaxing on the beach. No, that blames lies directly with Oprah.

While the childfree life has become quite stylish with celebrities today–everyone from Rachel Ray to Ellen and Portia to John Hamm and his girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt, are doing it–the flagship celebrity for the childfree cause is Oprah. And this is a problem because the woman is such a damn overachiever. It would be one thing if I could quietly rock the corporate life mediocre and write a bit in my spare time. But no. Thanks to Oprah, I am expected to own my own television network, publish a magazine with my picture on the cover every month, and educate all the girls in South Africa. Anything less and I am failing to live up to the career superwoman assumptions that have been mistakenly bestowed up on me as a childfree woman.  (My sincere apologies to all my exhausted, discriminated against, working-mother friends. I know I am supposed to be smashing glass ceilings on your behalf, and I really do feel bad about this when I use my middle-manager paycheck to buy a third glass of wine.)

Hang on to your seat because, now that I have busted the first myth about childfree women being career powerhouses, there’s more to debunk. Let’s start with the polite but misplaced belief that my marriage must be awesome because my husband and I have so much time to focus on each other. Au contraire, my naïve mother-friend. In fact, sometimes I think it was a mistake that my husband and I didn’t have kids, primarily because we don’t get the benefit of having that distraction for eighteen years or so. There are no exhausting efforts getting a little one to eat or sleep, or, later, crazed schedules chauffeuring them around to school and soccer and ballet.

In the absence of such demands, you actually have to make conversation with your spouse.  Like every day.  And because my husband is the one between us who’s in touch with a feminine side, his favorite insult to throw at me in a fight is that we don’t have anything to talk about anymore.  My instinctual reaction to this is, “What on earth do you expect after twelve years of marriage?  What, exactly, is the quality level of discourse you require during every single breakfast and every single dinner of every single day?” The irony is that, of late, our go-to topic of conversation is one that is also popular in the homes of parents of young children. This, of course, is poop. I chalk this up to being middle-aged–I certainly don’t remember being so scatological before forty. But now, the morning contents of the toilet bowl, or lack thereof, are a reliable topic of conversation. 

I have just one final bubble to burst for all the moms out there, which is you would be full-figured at forty even if you didn’t have that kid. That’s just what happens to our metabolism when we hit middle age. I am embarrassed to tell you that I’ve gained the best part of twenty pounds since I got married. Admittedly, this is also because I get to drink a lot more wine than you do, moms, and that goes straight on the belly. I never had to cut back for a pregnancy, or to breastfeed, or because I might get drunk and drop my infant.  Hell, I wish I could blame my post-marital weight gain on not being able to lose the baby weight.  It’s much more dignified than being an old wino.

So what does all this tell you about the childfree life? Well, for me, choosing not to have kids wasn’t a sacrifice I made for something else I wanted to do (be a CEO), have (a “fulfilling” marriage) or be (unnaturally super-hot well into middle age). Lacking sufficient enthusiasm for what is quite possibly the hardest job on earth, it was simply a choice I made. And so here I am, a childfree woman in all my middle-manager, scatological, slightly bloated, wine-drinking glory.

Jennifer Richardson is the author of Americashire:A Field Guide to a Marriage, the rural idyll memoir for every woman who ever questioned having kids. You can find Jennifer online at:

www.americashire.com

www.facebook.com/americashire

www.twitter.com/baronessbarren

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17691662-americashire

www.pinterest.com/baronessbarren

Great British Summer Goodreads Americashire Giveaway

Last summer the UK had the Olympics, but this summer isn't too shabby either. The Stones finally played Glastonbury, Andy Murray won Wimbledon, and, according to Twitter, Kate Middleton is in labour as I type. Yes, yes, I know it's off-message to write about childbirth in a childfree blog, but even I'm excited by the imminent arrival of the royal heir. My Anglophilia is trumping my childfree-ness in this instance.

In any case, to celebrate all things great about this Great British summer, there's a Goodreads giveaway for my book, Americashire, running now through August 8th. Hurry on over and enter now. It's open to UK residents as well as many of the notable former colonies (by which I mean Australia, Canada and the U.S.).

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Americashire

by Jennifer Richardson

Giveaway ends August 08, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

A little shout-out for Americashire

Yesterday I attended Book Expo America to get a little writerly inspiration – graciously provided by Neil Gaiman – as well as pick up the 2013 IndieReader Discovery Award for travel writing for my new travel memoir, Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage. Alongside the English country life travelogue, Americashire is also the story of my decision not to have children; you could call it the origin story of  Baroness Barren. Check it out along with the other winners of the 2013 IRDAs here.

With Amy Edelman, "Founder, President, and Cheerleader" of IndieReader

The Glamour of Childfree Life

Yesterday's stop on the blog tour for Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage was all about the glamour of childfree life. You know, celebs, wine, and, ummm, other stuff.  Head on over to Madeline Sharples' (author of Leaving the Hall Light On) blog, Choices, and check it out.

The Question of Motherhood

The blog tour for Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage is underway. Today's stop is about "The Question of Motherhood" -- head over to All Thing Audry, Audry Fryer's blog, to check it out.

What To Do When You're Mistaken for a Mom on Mother's Day

One morning about a year ago I was in my local supermarket buying bacon and eggs. It was Mother’s Day and, as a childfree woman, the one Sunday a year when I wouldn’t consider going out for breakfast (unless of course it was with my own mother, although that usually doesn’t happen since we live in different states). Brunch reservations on Mother’s Day are the domain of moms, and I wouldn’t dare compete for a table—a reservation at Gjelina is hard enough to get, even when it’s not a major breakfasting holiday.

So back to the grocery store: I was just paying for my breakfast-to-be when the checkout clerk wished me a happy Mother’s Day. I momentarily froze, disoriented by his assumption that I was a mom. It was, of course, a perfectly reasonable assumption to make about a forty-year old woman grocery shopping in a family-oriented Santa Monica neighborhood. But I was fresh from several years of working up the courage to admit to my family and the world that I didn’t really want kids, and had only just recently embraced the mantle of a “childfree” woman.  It is a title that is reasonably used to distinguish those who don’t want to have kids from those who want to but haven’t been able to—the childless by circumstance—but it asserts a certain confidence and clarity in the situation that belies my experience.

You see, I would like to be able to say I always knew I didn’t want to have kids, but the truth is a lot less clear. Sure, there were indications early on that this might be the case, like how as a teenager I used to stand in front of the microwave when it was on and proclaim I was radiating my uterus to prevent impregnation. (In retrospect, I’m pretty sure I did that because I enjoyed shocking my mother.) Then later, as my friends started to have babies, I was not blind to my uncanny ability to make infants cry instantly upon contact.

But still some part of me held out for the possibility that my biological clock would start ticking. This was what was supposed to happen, right? After all, I had grown up in the eighties when well-meaning feminists were still pushing the belief that women could and should do it all: husband, kids, and a glass-ceiling-breaking career where you got to wear jewel-colored power suits with linebacker-worthy shoulder pads. Convinced I, too, could and should want to do it all, in my late twenties I even went as far as to threaten to break off my engagement to my anti-children fiancé if he wasn’t willing to leave open the possibility that one day we may have kids. He caved, and I was a married woman at twenty-nine.

Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, thirty-five arrived and there was still no sign of my biological clock. This state of affairs made me uneasy. I knew beyond that age I was entering into high-risk territory for a pregnancy, my parents were highly vocal about their desperation for grandchildren, and my husband—eager to know once and for all if his life was going to involve children or not—was becoming as vocal as my parents in expressing his desire for me to just make a decision already. I caved to the pressure and, that Christmas, my husband and I announced to my parents that we were going to “try” for a baby in the next year.

But even this game of chicken I had played with myself and my poor, unsuspecting family was not enough to kick start my biological clock. This became clear as the next year wore on and each month I somehow ended up at the pharmacy to pick up a refill of birth control. Despite the fact that it made me feel somehow less of a woman, I was finally starting to admit to myself that I didn’t really want to have kids. It was both a surprise and a relief when I finally said aloud what I had felt for a while: I was complete without them.

Despite all logic to the contrary, I was somehow surprised the grocery store checkout clerk hadn’t been able to intuit my entire backstory of my struggle with motherhood. For a fleeting moment I wondered if I should correct him. It felt odd and somehow dishonest to impersonate a mother, however passively, especially on this particular day. If I said thank you, I was taking credit for "the hardest job on earth." If I corrected him, I risked sounding a little crazy and making him uncomfortable. He was, after all, just a well-meaning teenager trying to be polite. I thanked him, gathered my groceries, and headed home.