Status Updates From Do You Have Kids?: Life Whe...

I don't want to wonder if I've really made a contribution. Most people's legacy seems to come through their children.

Family-centric themes of what is normal, right, and good offer little relevance as far as sense-making is concerned for those who don’t have children. Yet many of us are called to the sacred and spend lifetimes constructing fulfilling spiritual identities. I’d like to think there’s sufficient space in the realm of the divine to embrace all those identities, especially for the marginalized.

“So how can mothers approach non-moms effectively? Even if you think having kids is the best thing ever, touting your conviction will likely serve only to frustrate or hurt those who wanted them and raise the defenses of those who didn’t. Nothing you say will change their reality anyway.”

Nearly one-in-five US adults (18 percent) were raised in a religious faith and now identify with no religion.”

In fact, breast cancer was once referred to as the “nuns’ disease.” Analyzing data for over thirty thousand Catholic sisters, researchers found a much higher likelihood of nuns dying not only from breast cancer, but also from ovarian and uterine cancers, than women who had given birth

“My friendships change after they become moms,” she continues. “Part of it is they get busy with their babies and are on different schedules. Another part is I’m not really tolerant of ‘Well, you don’t have kids, so you don’t understand text or subtext that comes with that change.’ I agree, I don’t have kids. But I’m an imaginative person. I find that very tough on friendships.””

“Some of us have been accused of being selfish because we’re child free and are weary of justifying our reality”

There is no word for a woman without kids that doesn’t rely on what she lacks rather than what she is or has. Childless, non-mom, children, barren, nullipara