Customer Reviews

Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...it's the best I have ever read about deciding whether or not you want children. Jeanne Safer presents the issues head-on, in a warm yet practical, non-sentimental way: how much do you need time alone? how conflicted was/is your relationship with your own parents? does your partner want children? are you afraid you'll be alone in old age? how much are you able to give to another person? what are the realities of your career/chosen path in life? how much do you value your intimacy with your partner? Safer supplements a thorough discussion of these and other issues with case studies of numerous women's lives. Other books on the subject offer stories, poems, essays. However, I've found that these don't help much when you're not sure what motherhood is REALLY like. Safer gives you the nuts and bolts, compassionately.

The author approaches the subject with incredible sensitivity without "baby bashing" and acknowledging that there is grief and loss involved. She goes into different situations where women decide not to have children, touching on commonly perceived stereotypes of childless women and debunking them, such as the idea that childless women do not have a nuturing side, that they are cold and bitter. This is an incredible book that I would recommend to anyone wavering on the motherhood question.

This was probably an ok book in 1996, but I really feel that it has lost relevance, many more couples these days are choosing not to have children, and I think the issues are different. I would like to see an updated book that talked about what the choice is like now. Some of the issues are still the same ... who do you leave your stuff to when you die, but that was not an issue I thought was well covered in the first place.

The women Jeanne Safer seemed to interview for this book were also heavily weighted towards the arts/entertainment industry. There were a lot of comments like "I couldn't have children because it would have drained my creativity." There were few/no comments by average 9-5ers like me.

I've been conflicted about having children for some time now, and have sought out books on the topic to help guide my decision making process, this being one of them. It was exactly what I needed. It was thought-provoking, well-organized, and immensely interesting. It gave words to the way I was feeling and helped me broach the subject with my husband.

There are other books out there that aren't sensitive, and almost flippant in their writing about why it's great to not have kids. I wanted a more in depth analysis from people who made the decision and the feelings they had 5, 10, 20 years later. I was not disappointed.

I just read a recent book by this author and was motivated to look up her earlier publications. Beyond Motherhood was published in 1996, which means it was written 1994-1995. It's over 12 years old.

Beyond Motherhood ignores published research that might show differences between childless women and mothers. I once read that childless women tend to have mothers who didn't push them to have children, but can't remember where and my memory may not be accurate.

Today there may be less social stigma associated being childless, but I find there's still a huge gulf of understanding, especially between married-with-kids and single-and-childless. I've written a humor piece, "All I Want For Christmas is - Solitude." Whenever it's been published, I get calls and emails from single, childless people saying, "I agree! I wish people would stop feeling sorry for me and let me spend holidays alone." In her book Singled Out, Bella DePaolo demonstrates many ways the single-and-childless are patronized by the married-with-children.

More important, our medical care infrastructure is based on presence of children who will take care of us in our old age. Friends are great, but friends can't get time off from work. The Family Medical Leave Act doesn't even promise time off to care for your aunts and uncles. I ask the long term care insurance agent, "Who will hound the hospital and doctors to sign the papers so I can get the coverage you're promoting?" She has no answer.

And while doctors can be quite rude to single people in general (one receptionist thinks it's okay to call all women "Mrs" regardless of marital status), I find they're baffled by childless patients.

Making a will? I'm leaving my worldly goods to arts groups and animal rescue. In a world of Ebay and craigslist, the issue of who gets what seems trivial. And I don't mind the idea of dying alone. I'm more concerned about being forced to tolerate the presence of well-meaning strangers or insensitive medical staff.

For those who proactively choose to be childless, "coming to terms" is not an issue. It's more about getting the freedom to choose a lifestyle that makes a lot of sense in the twenty-first century. If more people felt totally comfortable with this choice, we would have far fewer abused children.

This book definitely put some good perspective on living childless, and helps outline the emotional journey of making the decision to live a fulfilled life without children, but I felt it could have been better, and ended up wanting more from the book. I agree with a prior review that relating to these extraordinary, artistic people was sometimes difficult, and I feel many of them did make the decision to live a childless life for purely selfish reasons. I also felt the book suggested that most people who choose not to be parents are defective or incapable in some way, and are better off or more balanced without children. I personally disagree with that sentiment, and hope that most people who choose not to have children do so because they have made a rational decision to go in a different direction with their lives. Despite my negative comments the book was worth reading if you are trying to decide whether or not children are for you.

As a woman who made the choice at a young age NOT to have children, it was great to find a book that supported and explored that option. Bravo!

I am an early articulator and have been expressing that I do not want to have children since I was 9 years old. I have many reasons, but it wasn't until I read this book that I was able to actually put into words what those reasons are. I have only begun to feel pressure to have a child since recently getting married. My husband has no desire to have children either. All of a sudden, despite my never wanting children and proclaiming this since I was a young child, many people in my life are making comments, asking intrusive questions, and flat out telling me I need to have a child. This has been very annoying and I just wasn't prepared for the onslaught, so I began looking for other people like me and answers on how to deal with the pressure from society. I found a couple of books at my local library. This book is by far the best book I have read on the topic so far. Many of the books I picked up were about all types of reasons women end up not having a child. Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children was the first book I read only about women who choose not to have children. This was refreshing to find and gave me validation that I was not alone in the way that I feel. I also like the fact that the author is childless/free herself and has a Ph.D. I found this book to be immensely helpful. Although published in the mid 1990s, the basis of the book is no different now then it was then. I wouldn't pass it up based on its age alone.

Good book, esp since I haven't found many books on this subject. I was a bit surprised there wasn't more about cultural expectations for non-white women (yes, Eva, was one example, but only one), a bit narrow for an author based in NYC. I was also disappointed to find only one example where spouses had discordant views on the topic--almost all examples consisted of wonderful men who were blindly accepting of their partners' decisions. I wouldn't have minded hearing more about same sex couples, or about how women who made these decisions felt about them 10 to 20 years later (ie did they regret their decisions to remain childless in their old age).

This is as good a book as I have seen on the psychological aspects of voluntary childlessness. Ms. Safer digs deep into her own and her subjects' pasts and personalities to explore what factors might lead a woman to choose not to have children