I just finished reading an article in the archives of the Chicago Sun-Times. Doing a search, I found that this paper had quite a few articles relating to fertility. All of which, I was interested in. This article is titled, Women Without Children: Finding Their Place, written by Erica Heilman. It is the initial part of a three part series speaking to Psychologist Dr. Mardy Ireland, located in San Francisco, about her research and subsequent book involving women who do not have children.
It seems to me that in the majority of infertility books that I have read, and in my personal story as well, there are times in some women’s lives that they question even becoming a mother at all. I know that there was a period in my mid-twenties that I really did not think that I would make the decision to have children at all. This all changed with an unexpected jolt into my reality, but that is a story for another time. Delving into this question, and making the decision to not have children is the basis for Dr. Ireland’s book, Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identitiy.
There were many interesting facts and points of view that I had not considered before in contemplating childlessness. One of these were that the majority of women (80%), and I’m not sure if this statistic is global or located to the US, are mothers. I really hadn’t expected the number to be so high for some reason.
What are the primary concerns or anxieties among women without children?
Some women say that the hardest part is that there’s a way in which they feel marginalized. Eighty percent of the women you know are mothers. That takes up a lot of conversation time whenever you’re in a group of women. So even if you enjoy hearing the stories about children and enjoy being involved in that way, which many of these women do, those who don’t have children themselves feel like they can’t participate.
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