"Having It All, Child-Free" is an Oxymoron

Gloria Steinem in early Ms. days

The White House just announced that Gloria Steinem, co-founder of Ms. Magazine ( to which I was an inaugural subscriber), has been awarded this year's Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor.

Ms. Magazine proudly proclaimed her selection, adding that three others so elevated were also female: Oprah Winfrey, songwriter/singer Loretta Lynn, and Judge Patricia Wald. The story neglected to mention that the rest of the sixteen winners, 75% of the total, were men.

I spent an hour on the Michael Medved radio show confronting a topic Gloria Steinem popularized: "Having It All." I debated Laura Sandler, who's in publicity mode on her current Time Magazine cover story, "The Childfree Life: When Having it All Means Not Having Children."

In it, she sympathizes with women who opt out, admonishing our culture for a pro-parenthood bias with little room for deviance from the norm. She bemoans the cultural "pressure" women feel to procreate, even as more reach menopause without motherhood. Her anecdotes of child-free-by-choice women standing up to pro-parental assumptions are meant to illustrate "a deep problem" in our society, as she said on the air.


My mom and me

And yet, she argues, because fewer women want kids, a "new female archetype" of "having it all" sans motherhood has emerged. On the one hand, she suggests, non-moms find it tough to face the well-meaning stare-down from others who think they're missing out. On the other, the freedom to pursue interests, extra earnings and indifference to a ticking genetic clock let child-free women feel fine. A 50-year-old woman Sandler quotes put it succinctly: "Now I don't give a s--- what anyone thinks."



I own the premier issue of Ms.

Gloria Steinem's magazine first defined "having it all" as an ideal combining power career, marriage, motherhood and personal development--though she's asserted attaining "it all" is impossible. "...a recalcitrant society said you had to do it all," she told a PBS interviewer in 2011.

But "all" always included children. That's why "Having it All, Child-Free" is an oxymoron. Non-parents can have, do and give a lot, but let's get the term straight. Without that huge time-and-emotions soaker called parenthood, they're missing an enormous chunk of the equation.

I took issue with Lauren Sandler on the Medved radio show because in the 30 years since I wrote Children: To Have or Have Not?, a book that grew out of my doctoral research at UCLA, much has changed. My dissertation tested a decision-making process that I created, and later used as workshops with hundreds of couples. Thirty years ago, choosing "have not"did come with more of a stigma--though even then, the choice had its advocates. The National Organization of Non-Parents, later renamed the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood, whose LA headquarters were right there in Westwood a few blocks from UCLA, regularly offered discussion groups, public events and even demonstrations.

Now that 48% of babies are born out of wedlock, gays marry and obtain children using surrogates and donors, and divorce, step-families and live-togethers form a myriad of cohabiting configurations, an individual or couple without children earns a big...shrug.

Not to mention that even parents spend perhaps 25 working years alone. The average age for first marriage has leaped to 27 for women and 29 for men, which means a decade in the work world before getting hitched; then if a couple has two kids in their early 30's, they're back to an empty nest when they're close to 50.

The lifestyle hook for the Time article is that the percentage of women aged 40-44 who remain childless--or "child free" if it's their choice--has increased. Well, fecundity is down a bit--but not more than you'd expect. I suspect Ms. Sandler's piece doesn't present the figures, because a 4% decline in the last decade--and 8% over thirty years--just doesn't seem that surprising given expansion of women's careers, and much later ages for marriage.

Here's my take on this: Time Magazine is gasping for air. Wrote Michael Rosenblum in the Huffington Post this week under the headline "Too Little, Too Late for Time Magazine," "Looking at last week's issue, the staple was wider than the magazine and you could see why. They forgot to put in any of the advertising."

What does a dying magazine do? Try to drum up controversy. And what topic is most near and dear to readers'--all readers'--hearts? Their kids. Put a good-looking couple lying on the sand wearing smirks and matching teal bathing suits, arms intertwined, on the cover of the magazine with a headline telling purchasers their kids are in the way of "having it all" and whattaya get? Dozens of comment threads, hundreds of "likes" and "shares," a bunch of TV chat show appearances, and an hour on the Michael Medved Show. Gives the illusion the magazine still breathes.

Meanwhile, in Americans' posting, Tweeting culture, non-parents are certainly criticized. But not as much as parents are. Given that the vast majority of adults do have children, there's plenty to say: Kids are ungrateful, and their parents aren't teaching civility. Kids are rude, and their parents have atrocious manners so what do you expect? Kids are tattooed, ruining their futures, but their parents' ink sags. Kids' tuitions are outrageous but parents' pushy insistence on exclusive schools drives competition and costs. Kids' clothes and accoutrement are expensive, but parents show off by spending. Kids are loud and slacking and selfish, and their cheering parents helicopter to fend negative consequences.

Halle Berry, pregnant at age 46

We therefore hear more about kids and parenting--though the child-free are among us. Twenty percent of white and 17% of black, Hispanic and Asian women aged 4-44 have no spawn.

The cut-off of age 40-44, however, slices away a growing segment of mothers. Childbearing for all ages declined over the past several years--except in women over 40, for whom the rate increased 10% between 2007 and 2011 alone. Women whose circumstances didn't coalesce earlier are pushing the envelope to take advantage of fertility treatments that can allow women through their 50s to deliver babies. Women Sandler calls "early adopters"--younger people who announce they never want kids--may change their minds, even after counted as "permanently" child-free at age 40.

It's true that as more women remain without offspring, the definition of "having it all" is sliding to accommodate them. Twenty-seven percent of professional women in a survey last year sponsored by Citi and LinkedIn said kids aren't required. Yet an Atlantic Magazine cover story a year ago by Anne-Marie Slaughter gained media furor (including a post by me) by asserting "Why Women Still Can't Have it All," seamless family life being a major part. Slaughter and Lean In'  author Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook, agree that "all" includes children.

As one who has worked with hundreds of couples deciding about childbearing, and as a former 'early adopter' who in my 20s didn't want to disrupt my joyous life, now, as mother of three, I finally "get it." Parenthood's satisfaction, investment, long-term perspective, motivation and connection far outweigh the (significant) inconveniences and costs of children. Each of my children is a unique, fascinating and compelling individual, and I'd have experienced and enjoyed far less in this life without them.

So, yes, if you think comfort, freedom and career top kids as determinants of what "it all" is for you, great. Few nowadays would spend more than a few seconds thinking about your choice, to pity, scorn or envy. But unless you're actually the parent to a real, vital, changing child, I'll never convince you that there's no substitute, if only in sheer intensity of emotion.  Far more women hear that ticking clock and don't want to miss this most major of life's adventures than decide to skip it. And there's always the "tombstone test:" what, in the end, really matters?

The "Having It All" Debate, Again: The Truth No One's Willing to Say

Perhaps it came to a head most with a front-page story in Friday's New York Times, "Elite Women Put New Spin on Old Debate." Here, writer Jodi Kantor summarizes the revival of the most trite of feminist slogans, that women can "have it all" by successfully juggling careers with family. The "new spin" is that highly achieving women--and I mean the 1%, who are powerful, wealthy and brilliant--once again fret over their desires to veer from tough, competitive and demanding professional tracks to embrace family life.

Furor was first fanned by the 2011 Barnard College commencement address by Sheryl Sandberg, in which the Facebook board member exorted women to push ever-harder to maximize their work-life potentials, a concept some cheered and others dismissed.

Well, not quite dismissed, as high-ranking women admitted the draw of their children over career, and felt guilt responding to that pull. A cover story in the July-August issue of The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton professor and "the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department," under Hilary Clinton, takes us through the angst over issues with her teen sons that led to her resignation from that post. The hurdle, Dr. Slaughter tells us in an accompanying video, was admitting that she wanted time with her children. Feminists want to change the world; they're not supposed to want to change diapers.

But she's quick to reassure us that "I have not exactly left the ranks of full-time career women: I teach a full course load; write regular print and online columns on foreign policy; give 40 to 50 speeches a year; appear regularly on TV and radio; and am working on a new academic book." The difference is that now she sleeps at home rather than away in Washington, DC. Some call that compromise. Not me.

Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter

Nor Lori Gottlieb, whose post on The Atlantic website snarkily docks Dr. Slaughter for her suggestions for solving the career-mommy conundrum, which include increasing respect for parenting, shaping work so parental duties are more feasible, re-defining success to allow career dips for motherhood, and roping in dads.  In other words, after forty years of family-friendly discussion and innovation, Dr. Slaughter trots out tired arguments that employers will gain if they structure their businesses around workers' parental duties.

Lori Gottlieb replies, redundantly because she's so tired, that "Time and space do not magically expand because you'd like to be two places at once or do more things than can fit into a 24-hour period or even a life span."  She very accurately mentions the vast majority of women who don't have nannies or mommy-esque husbands, and might be working two jobs to cover the bills. This is a tempest in a Starbucks cup, because while readers of Atlantic are buzzing about the difficulties fitting in yoga while they write another book and take the kids to karate, the rest of the world doesn't subscribe to the New York Times to even read about their plight.

This whole "are we spoiled or are we entitled?" back-and-forth, however, doesn't dare tell the real truth. Something no elite achiever, whether she's a time-out mother or a dedicated CEO can mention. But here it is: Women naturally want to be on the scene raising their own kids. And most men do not.

More succinctly: There are innate gender differences that explain the fact that all these newly-liberated and achieving women are in such a tizzy over this, while men are not. The women who are tops in their careers also want to be tops as parents, and the fact they can't is severely frustrating. The men who are tops in their careers love their children, but don't have that umbilical pull to be there raising them.

The women sounding off complain about constraints of organizations and professions. They moan that even with involved husbands and expert help, their children need them. They grouse about the guilt they feel for biting the hand that feeds them so well in tony restaurants, by stepping down from positions they've sought. They describe the lack of understanding and admiration their nurturing and lunch-packing and selflessness for their children earns compared to, say running a marathon.  But they never mention--they can never mention--that traditional gender roles might have some practical and natural basis.

No, they exist as role models to break those traditional gender roles. Dr. Slaughter repeatedly lauds achieving women, foremost among them Michelle Obama, whose current occupation as First Lady is "a very visible investment interval" for the benefit of her daughters, and, Ms. Slaughter assures us, "we should expect a glittering career from her after she leaves the White House and her daughters leave for college."

The elite feminist trope, as expressed by Dr. Slaughter, is that women should excel in their careers in their 20s and early 30s, freezing their ova to insure that when their trajectories are set, it's not too late to conceive. Then, in their mid-30s and 40s, they can intentionally relax a bit on the professional thrust to allow for parenting to weave itself through their meetings, after-midnight writing binges, and flexible office visits, resuming their quests for ultimate occupational fulfillment in their 50s, once the children are safely esconced at Princeton.

Sounds fabulous. Some of us, however, are unafraid to say at the outset that raising our children is a higher calling than advising Hilary Clinton, or even being Hilary Clinton. Some of us don't want to hear from the nanny that little Taylor or Dallas finished their brie-on-baguette sandwiches at the park after school. We'd rather make the snack, pick up our own kids at the bus stop and walk them to the park ourselves, pushing them on swings and asking them about what happened that morning in kindergarten. Every day. We want to be there, not just because we love them (yes, career acheivers do love their children, too) but because we consider it a privilege and a duty and a delight to nurture. We have no issue with that old fashioned idea that children need their mothers, and that mothers are biologically programmed to crave, care for and protect their children. And to imprint them with their values and styles so that they may thrive.

The truth no one seems willing to say is that men and women are inherently and inescapably different. It's not just socialization that causes these differences; it's nature, or God, or whatever you want to believe makes us who we are when we enter this world. Some people are tall, some are smart, some hate cilantro. And women are made to be mothers, and to mother. Women can be competent and excel in a range of other things as well, but the fundamental truth is that women are made to mother.

That's why we're hearing all these teary treatises from the super-successful. For them, it's not a balance; it's a clash. To some of us, being a mother, there with our children, is the epitome of "having it all."