Spoiling our child substitutes rotten!

Newsweek has a big feature article out about how childfree pet owners are pampering their pets--not always a good thing. Check it out:

It used to be that most pets were bought by families. Now, the majority of pet owners, 61 percent, are childless—singles, unmarried couples waiting to have kids, gay couples, empty-nesters. Invariably, these owners tend to treat their pets like surrogate babies, and they spoil them accordingly. To help these childless pet-parents spend their disposable income, the pet products industry has mushroomed in the past decade. This year we’ll shell out more than $40 billion to keep our furry friends fed, adorned, amused and healthy—the latter a huge growth category, with more and more owners paying top dollar for elaborate medical treatments to forestall that inevitable last visit to the vet. By the end of the decade, we’ll be spending $50 billion on pet products, according to the APPMA.

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Amusingly, "buy videos for cats" is on my current to do list.

Sure you don't want kids now, but ...

We've all heard it: "Sure you don't want kids now, but won't you regret it when you're old?" Well here's a little tidbit from UPI that you might want to include in your answer:

Being in good health and having a husband or partner gives a bigger boost to U.S. women in their 50s than having children does, a study has found.

"The most vulnerable group in terms of being least happy, loneliest and most depressed are the mothers who were single, divorced or widowed in middle age," lead author Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, a University of Florida sociology professor, said in a statement.

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In India, a childless (e.g. infertile) couple has adopted a monkey as their daughter. In Baby Not on Board I encourage adopting child substitutes--from carnivorous plants to dogs--but this really takes the cake (or banana):

A childless couple in Andhra Pradesh has adopted a monkey and made it their daughter. When the monkey came to their house, they gave it food and since then the monkey is their daughter. Right from brushing teeth to giving milk and wearing new frocks….everything is done....because the couple had dreamt of a daughter when they got married

They have named the monkey Anjali who has been with them for seven years now. They pamper her like a real daughter.

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Getting old without kids, and other news from the week

My inbox is overflowing with news articles about people who don't have children. Every time I think this story is on the wane, another wave comes crashing in. Here are a few that were particularly interesting:

>>>In Australia, yet another female politician is getting the business for being childfree.

An Australian senator on Wednesday stood by his claim that the country's top female opposition politician would be an inept prime minister because she is childless.

Bill Heffernan, a close friend of Prime Minister John Howard, admitted his comments about Labour Party deputy leader Julia Gillard were uncouth.

But he told The Bulletin magazine he would not retreat from the remarks he made last year, when he said that because Gillard was "deliberately barren" she was unable to connect with the public.

Here's a really choice quote from this gent:

"Anyone who chooses to deliberately remain barren... they've got no idea what life's about," Heffernan said.

Gillard's response?

"The reality is that modern women know all about modern women's choices. Mr. Heffernan is a man stuck in the past,'' the 45-year-old lawmaker said in a news conference.

Well said!

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>>>I learned about a new childfree podcast this week, originating out of the San Francisco Bay Area. (Hey, that's where I live!) I haven't checked it out yet, but fully intend to.

The Fixed Kitty and her co-host and husband, Henry, post their podcasts on their Web site (gettingby.net/blog/nfblog/) about once a week. The programs include listener comments, news on issues like birth control, interviews with leaders of child-free groups and experts on child-free sociology, rants from The Fixed Kitty on the hassles of choosing to remain childless (she says she's been asked if she was abused as a child) and a segment called "happy stuff" that highlights the joys of existence without children.

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>>>I was excited at first when I saw that MSNBC had run a piece on planning for old age if you don't have kids. But the article is heavy on fear-mongering and short on helpful advice:

Experts say plan ahead, stay healthy, check your finances (and start saving now) and find community resources before you need them.

Meltzer is doing all of those things but still worries about what the future will hold.

"Who's going to help me?" she asks. "Who's going to be my voice?"

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>>>The U.K. study showing a large number of educated women are still without children by age 35 is continuing to attract commentary. The Independent gets into the stories behind the statistics, interviewing some very prominent women, such as actress Helen Mirren, who are over 35 and without kids.

Look around and there are certainly the signs. Most of us know of women in their mid-thirties who haven't had children. But research published last week showed a startling picture: 40 per cent of graduate women are still childless by the age of 35, an increase of 20 per cent in just over a decade. A third of female university graduates will never have children. Some right-wing commentators blamed these "selfish" women for the pensions crisis facing the country. Others asked, "Who is to blame?" But the author of the research - along with women all over Britain - says that the real questions are much more complex.

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