circumstance
by rantywoman
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/savvy-auntie/201308/the-truth-about-the-childless-life
However, the August 12, 2013 TIME Magazine cover story: “The Childfree Life: When Having It All Means Not Having Children,” presumes that the decreasing birthrate in America is mostly due to a choice by many modern American women and men to be childfree, i.e., to remain childless by choice. After all, with all the choices available to women — the gender the piece correctly identifies as the one that carries the brunt of societal negative attitudes towards childless people — it’s assumed by many that we’ve made childlessness a choice. “If you really want to be a mother,” I’ve been told, “you’d be a mother. Nothing stops modern women from becoming mothers if that is what they really want.” But at age 44, never-married, I still choose love over motherhood, as do most American women — and men.
The heartache over what I call our “circumstantial infertility,” childlessness due to being without a partner, is exacerbated by the inexhaustible myth that we have chosen not to be mothers — and fathers.
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/is-being-childfree-selfish–debating-time-magazine-s-touchy-new-issue-204219641.html
I also came across this story/cover on Yahoo Shine which as a site is pretty much fluff/crap. Aside from the absurdly annoying, know-it-all IM conversation between the two “writers,” the comments were somewhat encouraging. A lot of them spoke to the fact that choosing to be childfree was personal and should not dictated to society, etc. Sadly, I came across few comments from women who came to be childfree out of anything but choice. I haven’t read the entire TIME article, but think they could have more of a collage on the cover. Maybe the young, relaxed couple as one part, then a middle-aged couple, and finally a lone middle-aged woman. And within the article, perspectives from all three segments.
Going back to the Yahoo Shine “writers” again for a moment, I was amazed that it never seems to occur to them that that are women out there who desperately want to have children but aren’t in a situation to do so. Instead they are focusing on whether its selfish or not, and that just makes them sound so young. And frankly, judgemental.
Interesting! Thanks for the link. And I agree about the Time article.