Childfree by Choice

Childfree by Choice PDF Author: Dr. Amy Blackstone
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524744107
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
From Dr. Amy Blackstone, childfree woman, co-creator of the blog we're {not} having a baby, and nationally recognized expert on the childfree choice, comes a definitive investigation into the history and current growing movement of adults choosing to forgo parenthood: what it means for our society, economy, environment, perceived gender roles, and legacies, and how understanding and supporting all types of families can lead to positive outcomes for parents, non-parents, and children alike. As a childfree woman, Dr. Amy Blackstone is no stranger to a wide range of negative responses when she informs people she doesn't have--nor does she want--kids: confused looks, patronizing quips, thinly veiled pity, even outright scorn and condemnation. But she is not alone in opting out when it comes to children. More people than ever are choosing to forgo parenthood, and openly discussing a choice that's still often perceived as taboo. Yet this choice, and its effects personally and culturally, are still often misunderstood. Amy Blackstone, a professor of sociology, has been studying the childfree choice since 2008, a choice she and her husband had already confidently and happily made. Using her own and others' research as well as her personal experience, Blackstone delves into the childfree movement from its conception to today, exploring gender, race, sexual orientation, politics, environmentalism, and feminism, as she strips away the misconceptions surrounding non-parents and reveals the still radical notion that support of the childfree can lead to better lives and societies for all.

Childfree by Choice

Childfree by Choice PDF Author: Dr. Amy Blackstone
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524744107
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
From Dr. Amy Blackstone, childfree woman, co-creator of the blog we're {not} having a baby, and nationally recognized expert on the childfree choice, comes a definitive investigation into the history and current growing movement of adults choosing to forgo parenthood: what it means for our society, economy, environment, perceived gender roles, and legacies, and how understanding and supporting all types of families can lead to positive outcomes for parents, non-parents, and children alike. As a childfree woman, Dr. Amy Blackstone is no stranger to a wide range of negative responses when she informs people she doesn't have--nor does she want--kids: confused looks, patronizing quips, thinly veiled pity, even outright scorn and condemnation. But she is not alone in opting out when it comes to children. More people than ever are choosing to forgo parenthood, and openly discussing a choice that's still often perceived as taboo. Yet this choice, and its effects personally and culturally, are still often misunderstood. Amy Blackstone, a professor of sociology, has been studying the childfree choice since 2008, a choice she and her husband had already confidently and happily made. Using her own and others' research as well as her personal experience, Blackstone delves into the childfree movement from its conception to today, exploring gender, race, sexual orientation, politics, environmentalism, and feminism, as she strips away the misconceptions surrounding non-parents and reveals the still radical notion that support of the childfree can lead to better lives and societies for all.

Complete Without Kids

Complete Without Kids PDF Author: Ellen L. Walker
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1608320731
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Examines the rewards and challenges childfree adults face living in a world that celebrates traditional families, offering advice on how to cope with the pressure of friends and family to have children, taking advantage of leisure time, and financial considerations.

Motherhood and Choice

Motherhood and Choice PDF Author: Amrita Nandy
Publisher: Zubaan
ISBN: 9385932497
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
How can women live fully? If autonomy is critical for humans, why do women have little or no choice vis-à-vis motherhood? Do women know they have a choice, if they do? How 'free' are these choices in a context where the self is socially mired and deeply enmeshed into the familial? What are implications of motherhood on how human relatedness and belonging are defined? These questions underlie Amrita Nandy's remarkable research on motherhood as an institution, one that conflates 'woman' with 'mother' and 'personal' with 'political'. As the bedrock of human survival and an unchallenged norm of 'normal' female lives, motherhood expects and even compels women to be mothers—symbolic and corporeal. Even though the ideology of pronatalism and motherhood reinforce reproductive technology and vice versa, the care work of mothering suffers political neglect and economic devaluation. However, motherhood (and non-motherhood) is not just physiological. As the pivot to a web of heteronormative institutions (such as marriage and the family), motherhood bears an overwhelming and decisive influence on women's lives. Against the weight of traditional and contemporary histories, socio-political discourse and policies, this study explores how women, as embodiments of multiple identities, could live stigma-free, 'authentic' lives without having to abandon reproductive 'self'-determination. Published by Zubaan.

Two Is Enough

Two Is Enough PDF Author: Laura S Scott
Publisher: Seal Press
ISBN: 1580053211
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
Fall in love. Get married. Have children. For most couples, marriage and children go hand in hand. And yet, the number of people choosing childlessness is on the rise. These are the childless by choice-people who have actively decided not to have children—rather than the childless by circumstance. In Two Is Enough, Laura S. Scott explores the assumptions surrounding childrearing, and explores the reasons many people are choosing to forgo this experience. Scott, founder of the Childless by Choice Project, examines the personal stories of people who have faced this decision and explores the growing trend of childlessness. Scott’s expert knowledge and analysis offer a picture of the childless by choice-who they are, why they’ve chosen to remain childless, and how they’ve had these conversations with loved ones. Honest and unapologetic, Two Is Enough recognizes the challenges of being childless in today’s society and offers suggestions on how that same society can change to make room for the childless and the childfree.

Childless by Marriage

Childless by Marriage PDF Author: Sue Fagalde Lick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781733685238
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
First you marry a man who does not want children. He cheats and you divorce him. Then you marry the love of your life and find out he does not want to have children with you either. The three he has are more than enough. Although you always wanted to be a mother, you decide he is worth the sacrifice, expecting to have a long happy life together. But that's not what happens. This is the story of how a woman becomes childless by marriage and how it affects every aspect of her life. This is the book of my heart, the one I had to write. Ever since I realized I was not going to have children, I have felt recurring grief and an emptiness in my heart. I am different from most women, but I have found that I am not alone. There are many of us childless women, and I think it's important to share our stories about what it's like when you don't have children in a world where most girls grow up to become mothers. I hope this book offers comfort to those who are childless and understanding to those who are not. If it makes you smile here and there, even better.

A Childfree Happily Ever After: Why More Women are Choosing Not to Have Children

A Childfree Happily Ever After: Why More Women are Choosing Not to Have Children PDF Author: Tanya Williams
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780648137269
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
With the numbers of childfree women increasing around the globe, it's time to recognise that the choice not to have children is a valid option, and childfree women are reshaping the definition of womanhood in a fundamental way. Unfortunately, they are largely misunderstood, judged, criticised and scorned. And this pressure, these expectations, can make some women feel compelled to make a decision that's wrong for them, or to put off making a decision only to change their minds later. Regardless of your choice, this is a choice that you should be allowed to make based on what you want. Having a child, or being childfree, should never be something that you do due to obligation, tradition, expectation or because all your friends are doing it. With this in mind, the goal of this book is to unveil some of the different forces that might have been turning you away from what you truly want, or diluting the strength of your inner voice, as well as to help you make a decision that's right for you.

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed

Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed PDF Author: Meghan Daum
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1250052947
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Sixteen literary luminaries on the controversial subject of being childless by choice, in this critically acclaimed, bestselling anthology One of the most provocative and talked-about books of the year, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed is the stunning collection exploring one of society’s most vexing taboos. One of the main topics of cultural conversation during the last decade was the supposed “fertility crisis,” and whether modern women could figure out a way to have it all—a successful career and the required 2.3 children—before their biological clocks stopped ticking. Now, however, the conversation has turned to whether it’s necessary to have it all (see Anne-Marie Slaughter) or, perhaps more controversial, whether children are really a requirement for a fulfilling life. In this exciting and controversial collection of essays, curated by writer Meghan Daum, thirteen acclaimed female writers explain why they have chosen to eschew motherhood. Contributors include Lionel Shriver, Sigrid Nunez, Kate Christensen, Elliott Holt, Geoff Dyer, and Tim Kreider, among others, who will give a unique perspective on the overwhelming cultural pressure of parenthood. This collection makes a smart and passionate case for why parenthood is not the only path to a happy, productive life, and takes our parent-centric, kid-fixated, baby-bump-patrolling culture to task in the process. In this book, that shadowy faction known as the childless-by-choice comes out into the light.

Living the Life Unexpected

Living the Life Unexpected PDF Author: Jody Day
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 150980904X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
‘The book to recommend to patients when they face coming to terms with unavoidable childlessness.' – British Medical Journal In Living the Life Unexpected, Jody Day addresses the experience of involuntary childlessness and provides a powerful, practical guide to help those negotiating a future without children come to terms with their grief; a grief that is only just beginning to be recognized by society. This friendly, practical, humorous and honest guide from one of the world’s most respected names in childless support offers compassion and understanding and shows how it’s possible to move towards a creative, happy, meaningful and fulfilling future – even if it’s not the one you had planned. Millions of people are now living a life without children, almost double that of a generation ago and the numbers are rising still. Although some are childfree by choice, many others are childless due to infertility or circumstance and are struggling to come to terms with their uncertain future. Although most people think that those without children either 'couldn't' or 'didn't want’ to be parents, the truth is much more complex. Jody Day was forty-four when she realized that her quest to be a mother was at an end. She presumed that she was through the toughest part, but over the next couple of years she was hit by waves of grief, despair and isolation. Eventually she found her way and in 2011 created Gateway Women, the global friendship and support network for childless women which has now helped almost two million people worldwide. This edition, previously titled Rocking the Life Unexpected, has been extensively revised and updated, with significant additional content and case studies from forty involuntarily childless people (mostly women) from around the world.

Olive

Olive PDF Author: Emma Gannon
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 1524869988
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The debut novel about the life-changing choices we make about careers, love, friendship, and motherhood from bestselling UK author Emma Gannon. Olive is many things. Independent. Driven. Loyal. And a little bit adrift. She’s okay with still figuring it all out, navigating her world without a compass. But life comes with expectations and big choices to be made. So when her best friends’ lives branch away towards marriage and motherhood, leaving the path they’ve always followed together, she starts to question her choices—because life according to Olive looks a little bit different. Moving, memorable, and a mirror for anyone at a crossroads, OLIVE has a little bit of all of us. Told with humor and great warmth, this is a modern tale about the obstacle course of adulthood and the challenges of having—and deciding not to have—children.

No Kids

No Kids PDF Author: Corinne Maier
Publisher: Emblem Editions
ISBN: 1551992973
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
The shocking treatise that was a bestselling international media sensation upon its 2007 publication in France now makes its eagerly anticipated English-language debut. A mother of two herself, Maier makes her deadly serious, if at times laugh-out-loud-funny, argument with all the unbridled force of her famously wicked intellect. In forty to-the-point, impressively erudite chapters drawing on the realms of history, child psychology, politics, and the environment, Maier effortlessly skewers the idealized notion of parenthood as a natural and beautiful endeavour. Enough with this “baby-mania” that is plaguing modern society, says Maier, it’s nothing but brainwashing. Are you prepared to give up your free time, dinners with friends, spontaneous romantic getaways, and even the luxury of uninterrupted thought for the “vicious little dwarves” that will treat you like their servant, cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and end up resenting you? Speaking to the still “child-free”, to fellow suffering parents, and to adamant procreationists alike, No Kids is a controversial, thought-provoking, and undeniably entertaining read. Reasons to avoid having kids: •You will lose touch with your friends •Your sex life will be over •Children cost a fortune • Child-rearing is endless drudgery •Vacations will be nightmares •You’ll lose your identity and become just “mom” or “dad” •Your children will become mindless drones of capitalism •The planet’s already overcrowded •Your children will inevitably disappoint you