Women Without Children: The Reasons, the Rewards, the Regrets

Rating:
Summary: Stories from women who have been there
Review: As a 41-year old woman who is coming to terms with continuing my life childless, aka "child free", I found this book a wonderful source of insight and inspiration. Granted, the book is not that scientific, but it's an important book for the minority of women who, either by chance or choice -- or a little of both -- are childless.

I would recommend it to anyone who is deciding whether or not to become a parent, who is struggling with infertility, grieving the loss of a child through miscarriage, or wants to reaffirm a child free existence.

Rating:
Summary: Well written and helpful
Review: As a 41-year old woman who is coming to terms with continuing my life childless, aka "child free", I found this book a wonderful source of insight and inspiration. Granted, the book is not that scientific, but it's an important book for the minority of women who, either by chance or choice -- or a little of both -- are childless.

I would recommend it to anyone who is deciding whether or not to become a parent, who is struggling with infertility, grieving the loss of a child through miscarriage, or wants to reaffirm a child free existence.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful interviews
Review: I enthusiastically recommend this interesting, well-written, well-researched, easy-to-read book. Wonderful interviews with real women--not composites--are interwoven with research results and statistics. Several chapters are arranged around reasons Lang's interviewees had not had children: "The Never Married, Choosing to be Child Free, No Time Was the Right Time, When Men Don't Want to Father, Infertility and Medical Interference, and Women Who Love Women."

See chapter 11 for a refreshing look at the stereotype that childless women are selfish, including self-centered reasons that parents give for having children. See chapter 15 for an eye-opening discussion of old age and childlessness: it isn't as gloomy as you might think. The tone throughout is neutral: not anti-motherhood or anti-children.

Women like me who wanted children can probably find both comfort and information here. This book would be useful for young women considering whether to have children and also for family members or friends of childless women. Possible drawbacks (which I did not mind) are that the research and statistics are now a decade old and that one might have to settle for a used copy. Index and end notes.

For practical emotional support on how to come to terms with unwanted childlessness in only one book, read Linda Hunt Anton, "Never To Be A Mother: A Guide For All Women Who Didn't--Or Couldn't--Have Children" (1992).

Rating:
Summary: Well written and helpful
Review: Susan Lang sought out child-free women of several generations to interview for this book. Her interviews and research gave quite a bit of insight into the emotions and reasonings of these women. Several interviews hit so close to home that I was in tears. I would strongly recommend this book to any woman trying to decide on a child-free way of life. I could see where the book might also give some comfort to those women that didn't have a choice.