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THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MAKING A CONSCIOUS DECISION NOT TO have a babyhow to do it, how it feels, what it means, and the impact it has on your life. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MAKING A CONSCIOUS DECISION NOT TO have a babyhow to do it, how it feels, what it means, and the impact it has on your life. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This beautiful book affirms women's lives, their choices, and their achievements, whether or not parenthood turned out to be a part of it.
Radically, the author suggests you should look deeply at your own characteristics and background to determine what outcome would be best for you - and accept the result. For instance, what is your tolerance of interruption? How was your relationship with each of your parents? Is having a child likely to bring up unpleasant experiences from the past that are best left in the past? Rather than railroading you into changing yourself through counselling if you are disinclined towards reproduction (as does the awful 'I Want a Baby, He Doesn't' by Donna Wade, which I have reviewed elsewhere), Safer shows how you can play your characteristics to your advantage in your choice and determine for yourself what is likely to make you happy and satisfied.
The author freely shares her own story, which is poignant: she was one of the two-thirds of (later to be childless) women who are 'postponers', unsure whether they want children, and she describes the process that many of these went through in order to reach resolution, along with the stories of some of the other one-third, 'early deciders', who always knew they never wanted a baby. If you are unsure about the prospect of motherhood, or leaning towards giving it a miss, you will find yourself in here somewhere. There is a useful checklist in the appendix which you can use to help you achieve resolution if you are not sure.
Although focussing on the child-free, Safer's discussion is not one-sided; she includes description of various women who did go ahead and have children, their joys and regrets, and points out that no-one can have it all in one lifetime - there are sacrifices either way. No mother or prospective mother could feel maligned, yet the childfree and those resistant to having children will feel affirmed, supported, and part of a community of lively and richly likeable women (described in the book) who have had full and rewarding lives without biologically reproducing.
I read this book in a single evening, and I'll be reading it again whenever I doubt my own decision-making process or feel under pressure, or just need a bit of uplift in the knowledge that women can lead fabulous, satisfying lives.
Radically, the author suggests you should look deeply at your own characteristics and background to determine what outcome would be best for you - and accept the result. For instance, what is your tolerance of interruption? How was your relationship with each of your parents? Is having a child likely to bring up unpleasant experiences from the past that are best left in the past? Rather than railroading you into changing yourself through counselling if you are disinclined towards reproduction (as does the awful 'I Want a Baby, He Doesn't' by Donna Wade, which I have reviewed elsewhere), Safer shows how you can play your characteristics to your advantage in your choice and determine for yourself what is likely to make you happy and satisfied.
The author freely shares her own story, which is poignant: she was one of the two-thirds of (later to be childless) women who are 'postponers', unsure whether they want children, and she describes the process that many of these went through in order to reach resolution, along with the stories of some of the other one-third, 'early deciders', who always knew they never wanted a baby. If you are unsure about the prospect of motherhood, or leaning towards giving it a miss, you will find yourself in here somewhere. There is a useful checklist in the appendix which you can use to help you achieve resolution if you are not sure.
Although focussing on the child-free, Safer's discussion is not one-sided; she includes description of various women who did go ahead and have children, their joys and regrets, and points out that no-one can have it all in one lifetime - there are sacrifices either way. No mother or prospective mother could feel maligned, yet the childfree and those resistant to having children will feel affirmed, supported, and part of a community of lively and richly likeable women (described in the book) who have had full and rewarding lives without biologically reproducing.
I read this book in a single evening, and I'll be reading it again whenever I doubt my own decision-making process or feel under pressure, or just need a bit of uplift in the knowledge that women can lead fabulous, satisfying lives.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In my twenties I thought I would eventually have children and wanted them more as I got older. Chronic disabling illness came along and now in my late thirties I'm facing the idea that I may be too ill to look after children of my own. I don't fit with the actively Child-Free or with the Unable to Conceive - I'm somewhere inbetween. I wanted to start reading more both about having and not having kids to see if it helps me come to decision as time is against me.
I hoped this book might strike a good balance and was interested to look at the idea of lives of women who chose not to have children without the in-your-face Child Free And Proud flavour of writing.
The bad points first:
- My edition was published in 1996 and I think in many ways it has dated. I think choosing to be child free is much more common in 2011 than it was in the mid 1990's when she was writing this book.
- The author is a psychoanaylst and her personal experience reflects this deeply. Her dreams are significant and influence her thinking. She looks at her case studies and of mothers from a psychoanalyst's frame of reference. A lot of this I found furstating and skimmed over.
- Many of the women she references in the book are artists, writers, film makers and they find their creative practice and careers very fulfilling and often all consuming. Women from other walks of life may find that a little hard to relate their own experience to.
- I'd like to have seen a little more of women in later life who chose not to have children and how they feel in their twilight years. There is some reference to this but not much.
- It's got a strong American focus which as a British reader made me stretch more to relate to what was being said
The good point(s):
- Amongst a lot of stuff I didn't much relate to or even irritated me were some absolute gems which made it worth having read it. Such as the idea that deciding not to have children doesn't suddenly open a gap that needs to be filled with something else but rather life opens up with more opportunities and possibilities. And like the admission by the majority of the women including the author that despite a choice not to have children that doesn't mean there is no feeling of loss, pain or grief which helped frame it better for me.
- Also lots of examples of couples (many of whom seemed normal and functional people though some did not) enjoying their relationship without children and the benefits it brings as well as many using their love, compassion and nuturing in active ways like caring for parents or neighbours, mentoring or surrounding themselves with nephews and nieces often not blood relations. That not having children doesn't close one down to kids altogether or mean you don't like kids.
Basically some really valuable moments that made me think, or said things that may be obvious but I hadn't known and it helped to be told. On balance glad I read it but the majority of the book I didn't enjoy.
I hoped this book might strike a good balance and was interested to look at the idea of lives of women who chose not to have children without the in-your-face Child Free And Proud flavour of writing.
The bad points first:
- My edition was published in 1996 and I think in many ways it has dated. I think choosing to be child free is much more common in 2011 than it was in the mid 1990's when she was writing this book.
- The author is a psychoanaylst and her personal experience reflects this deeply. Her dreams are significant and influence her thinking. She looks at her case studies and of mothers from a psychoanalyst's frame of reference. A lot of this I found furstating and skimmed over.
- Many of the women she references in the book are artists, writers, film makers and they find their creative practice and careers very fulfilling and often all consuming. Women from other walks of life may find that a little hard to relate their own experience to.
- I'd like to have seen a little more of women in later life who chose not to have children and how they feel in their twilight years. There is some reference to this but not much.
- It's got a strong American focus which as a British reader made me stretch more to relate to what was being said
The good point(s):
- Amongst a lot of stuff I didn't much relate to or even irritated me were some absolute gems which made it worth having read it. Such as the idea that deciding not to have children doesn't suddenly open a gap that needs to be filled with something else but rather life opens up with more opportunities and possibilities. And like the admission by the majority of the women including the author that despite a choice not to have children that doesn't mean there is no feeling of loss, pain or grief which helped frame it better for me.
- Also lots of examples of couples (many of whom seemed normal and functional people though some did not) enjoying their relationship without children and the benefits it brings as well as many using their love, compassion and nuturing in active ways like caring for parents or neighbours, mentoring or surrounding themselves with nephews and nieces often not blood relations. That not having children doesn't close one down to kids altogether or mean you don't like kids.
Basically some really valuable moments that made me think, or said things that may be obvious but I hadn't known and it helped to be told. On balance glad I read it but the majority of the book I didn't enjoy.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had my doubts. I am still having them. And I always wondered - why is it that I don't feel the overwhelming desire to have kids. I am still on the fence, and I was desperately seeking an alternative perspective. There surely must be something else other than motherhood for a modern woman to give her meaning of life, to devote her life to, to define her as a woman? Women are no longer defined by the role of mother. We have a choice. There are so many options of what to do with our lives out there. This book answers most of the questions. I had an 'aha' moment reading it and can now clearly see the underlying factors behind my indecisiveness which will surely help me shape my future decision. This book is honest too - it openly talks about cons of deciding against having kids. Overall it was absolutely worth buying and reading, and is nothing less than an anthem to modern feminity.
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