Category Archives: Health

Are childless women happy?

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Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert says childless women are just fine

The husband, the kids, the picket fence, you know this scene. Women’s biological clocks are desperately ticking. We’re on a quest to secure a man so we can reproduce, because becoming mothers will make us truly happy and fulfilled.

While childless men manage to find a respectable place in society, often with a few publicly recognized achievements under their belts, admired, or even envied, as the self-sufficient bachelors they are; childless women remain suspect, if not total freaks. They’re often pitied; people wonder at what point in their lives they veered off onto their unnatural, unfeminine paths, becoming lonely “spinsters” or crazy cat ladies.

Best-selling, childless author of Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert introduces a radically different theory in her new book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. She writes that childless women have historically served a crucial role in society, not yet publicly recognized. These women should not be scorned but celebrated for their contributions to bettering the human race.

Gilbert writes:

“If you look across human populations of all varieties, in every culture and on every continent (even among the most enthusiastic breeders in history, like the nineteenth-century Irish, or the contemporary Amish), you will find that there is a constant 10 percent of women within any population who never have children at all. The percentage never gets any lower than that, in any population whatsoever. In fact, the percentage of women who never reproduce in most societies is usually much higher than 10 percent- and that’s not just today, in the developed Western world, where childless rates among women tend to hover around 50 percent.”

Gilbert speculates that female childlessness is an evolutionary adaption:

“Maybe it’s not only legitimate for certain women to never reproduce, it’s necessary. It’s as though, as as a species, we need an abundance of responsible, compassionate, childless women to support the wider community in various ways. Childbearing and child rearing consume so much energy that the women who do become mothers quickly become swallowed up by that daunting task- if not outright killed by it.”

Elizabeth GilbertElizabeth Gilbert

Gilbert points out that childless women have always taken on the tasks of nurturing children who are not their biological responsibilty as no other group in history has ever done, in such vocations as running schools, hospitals, and becoming midwives.

That’s all fine and good, but won’t these childless women be desperately unhappy in their old age?

Gilbert says no. Recent studies of happiness levels in America’s nursing homes show the indicators of contentment in later life are poverty and health. “Save your money, floss your teeth…you’ll be a perfectly happy old bird someday.”

Gilbert concedes that without descendants, childless women are often forgotten more quickly, but that the role they played when alive was vital. Gilbert calls these vibrant women the “Auntie Brigade.” Here are some examples she lists of their influences:

Jane Austen was a childless aunt.

Raised by childless aunts:

Leo Tolstoy

Truman Capote

the Bronte sisters

Edward Gibbon (famous historian raised by his Aunt Kitty)

John Lennon (Auntie Mimi– convinced him he would be an important artist)

F. Scott Fitzgerald (Aunt Annabel offered to pay for his college education)

Frank Lloyd Wright (first building commissioned by Aunts Jane and Nell who also ran a boarding school in Wisconsin)

Coco Chanel (Aunt Gabrielle taught her how to sew)

Virginia Woolf (muse was Aunt Coraline)

Marcel Proust (memory set off by Aunt Leonie’s madeleine)

Gilbert writes that when J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, was “asked what his creation looked like, replied his image, essence, and spirit of felicity can be found all over the world and hazily refelected ‘in the faces of many women who have no children.’ That is the Auntie brigade.”

Marcel ProustMarcel Proust

I’ve always wondered why people get in such a tizzy about gay people, justifying their bigotry because: “It’s just not natural.” How do we know what’s natural? Is everyone supposed to pop out babies like the Duggar family and their 20 kids? Is that “natural”? And is every “natural” thing good anyway? Death is natural. Cancer can be natural.

Women without children are perfectly capable of being happy; what they’re often missing isn’t kids, but a society and a culture that values and respects them.

To all the moms out there, thank you for working hard to continue the human race. And to the “Auntie Brigade,” thank you for working hard to continue the human race.

Read my post on New York Magazine’s biased coverage of childless women here.

Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E, & more fat jokes

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Garfield isn’t the only cartoon hero relentlessly mocked for his weight.

I was shocked at the continual stream of fat jokes while watching the animated hit, Kung Fu Panda. The story is about a panda, Po, who dreams of becoming a martial artist instead of a noodle seller like his father. What holds him back is his weight. The Furious Five, a pack of martial artists he idolizes– who are all male except for a token female voiced by Angelina Jolie– constantly make fun of Po’s weight. When these characters mock Po, surprisingly they retain their hero status; they are not portrayed as cruel bullies. Kids watching this movie see that it is OK and justified to put Po down for his body size. It’s espcially odd to witness teasing behavior shown as acceptable and funny, because making fun of others is a constant theme in kids movies; but it’s always potrayed as bad and wrong, acted out by the villians, not the good guys. Unless, I guess, the teasing is focused on fatness. Then it’s OK, just funny and true. Po’s teacher, Si Fun, constantly beats him up to convince him to quit his training, because he’s too fat to succeed. This prediction seems justified also.

In one scene, Po explains that the brutal training and beatings he suffers are mild compared to the pain

he experiences every day “just being me.” Then he looks down sadly at his big stomach, equating “me” with his body size, obviously  feeling a lot of shame.

Po explains that when he’s upset, he eats. The turning point in his training comes when Si Fun realizes that Po can be motivated to perform amazing acrobatic feats by a jar of cookies on a high shelf. They begin to train with food as a reward. Po does pushups over hot coals while trying to slurp noodles from a bowl of soup. Po and Si Fun battle over a bowl of dumplings. It’s good, I guess, that Po doesn’t end up becoming thin in order to be a master. But the way this movie uses fat and food to advance its plot line and character development  is truly odd and confusing if you’ve taught your kids– as I have–  not to experience food as a reward and not to think fat people are bad, or to be made fun of, or that they are not as good as thin people. After about two hours of fat jokes, my kids came out of the movie with lots of questions about why being big is funny and bad why don’t I think so too?

Another popular  animated movie, Wall-E (also named for its star male character) has a central plot line where the fat aliens are mocked. The aliens have evolved into an existence where machines do everything for them. They are fat, lazy, and nasty. Lucy asked me during the movie, “Why do they all look like that?” I guess I was supposed to say, “because they don’t get exercise. They’re lazy.”  The message that fat people lie around all day and that if you don’t work out, you will look like a fat, pink alien is not something I want my daughter to learn. She’s six years old. I’d rather her do the monkey bars and play soccer because she loves it and it’s fun. I’d like my girls to learn to use their bodies out of joy and pleasure, not fear, for as long as possible– their whole lives?

Garfield, Yo-Yo Dieter ***G/S***

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There are usually no major female characters in Garfield cartoons. The stories focus around Garfield, his owner Jon, and his frenemy, Odie the dog. Jon has a love interest now and then, as does Garfield, but I don’t think Garfield ever returns the affection.

Garfield gets one G because he sets a rare example by not caring much what other people think of him. His indifference to the opinions of others fascinated me when I was a kid and still does. It’s mostly Jon that worries about Garfield’s weight.

When Lucy and Alice watched the cartoon this morning, Jon put Garfield on several different scales, weighing him along with other animals to show Garfield’s weight was incorrect for his species. I’m not that upset about the constant focus on Garfield’s weight and the accompanying fat jokes on his cartoon. Maybe because Garfield’s male. Or because he’s been in this position for so long– the cat has got to be healthy, he’s been around for at least 35 years. Or maybe because he doesn’t care at all what other people think of him, so why should I?

I am glad that my kids– except for math and science class and annual doctors appointments– are pretty unfamiliar with the bathroom scales, featured all over this cartoon.

Girls and food

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This post is really about kids and food. I realize even girls and food is a digression from my main blog mission which is supposed to be to rate and recommend media and products on how empowering they are  to girls. But as I write and think about media and girls, the way I think about food and girls is so related. Besides, the whole point of a blog is you get to digress, right? So here I go.

I mentioned a few posts back I don’t want to forbid toys like Barbie because I think that gives her a charge that only makes kids want her more; I think candy, junk food, is the same way. I try to get really excited about things I think are good for my kids and give little attention to things that are not so good.

A main goal for me as the mother of three girls is to help them grow up without eating disorders. I know its pretty sad that this is something I have to think about but I see so few women eat normally and joyfully.

So after I gave birth to daughter #2– who wants to be called Magnolia in this blog — I read an incredible book called Preventing Childhood Eating Problems. It is by Jane Hirshmann and someone else who I will look up. Anyway, GREAT book. I follow it to the letter and my kids are amazing eaters. They are not picky, they are open to trying new foods, they eat a huge variety of foods and we rarely fight about food. (God, I hope I am not taking all this back when they are teenagers.) But the whole idea is you let your kids eat whatever they want. You let them eat when they are hungry until they are full. It makes sense, I mean let the poor guys control one thing in their lives. Why shouldn’t they eat when they are hungry? Magnolia and Arania (my 6 1/2 year old’s chosen moniker– OK, maybe they’re way into the princess thing after all)  each has a food shelf in the cupboard and in the refrigerator. They pick out the food for their foodshelf and they are allowed to go to it and eat whenever they want, even during dinner if they don’t like dinner. We cook one hot meal for dinner; we are not short order cooks. But if they don’t like it, they don’t have to eat it, and we don’t take it personally. Think about it– say you love steak and your husband makes you an amazing steak dinner with a baked potato but you really feel like a salad that night. Maybe you eat the steak anyway so he won’t feel bad. Wrong reason. But can you imagine him forcing you to eat it because that’s your dinner and it’s good for you? This is all from the book, not me.

The kids food shelves have granola bars, tangerines, carrots, M n Ms, cashews, rice cakes, raisins, cheese, lollipops, yogurt etc. They have another cereal shelf that has sugary cereal and cheerios etc they can access. They have an abundance of food, more than they could eat. I don’t give them trouble about wasting food. I feel like they have enough to worry about just learning how to eat right now.

The idea is that there is no “good” food or “bad” food. Forbidding certain foods, calling certain foods dessert that kids are only allowed to eat when they finish other food, using food as a reward or a way to feel better after a cut or a scrape gives food all kinds of power. This book basically teaches kids to tune into their own hunger and meet it. Sadly, I did not learn to this until I was twenty-eight years old, after years of therapy and programs. Nothing ever really helped me get better from an eating disorder until I went to this place in Marin Country called Beyond Hunger which teaches the same practice: eat when you’re hungry, eat whatever you want, stop when you are full. I think the most amazing thing about it is that your orientation switches from outward (calorie counting, nutritionists, the latest diet fad) to inward (“what do I want?”) It’s a skill but I am enormously grateful I learned it and hope to keep passing it on to my daughters.

We do have dinner time but we call it “family time.” We hope that they eat and it is their last chance to eat before bed. They were trying to use this system to manipulate bedtime, if we let them have snacks etc. If they don’t like what’s for dinner, they can go to their foodshelves, but usually they don’t.

In the morning I do say things like “Yum! Cheerios! That’s what I’m going to have.” We call peas “pea treats” and say things like “Who gets the peas first?” We say yum a lot around vegetables or we love the way carrots crunch etc. My kids– like most kids I think– are really influenced by my own food choices and watching me eat. I am really glad I got myself healthy years before I had them.

One challenge I have had with this system is that other kids (Magnolia and Arania’s friends) do have lots of rules around food so there have ben arguments with other kids and their parents at my house. The way I deal with this– the book has good advice– is one rule I have is that my kids cannot feed anyone else or tease people with or about food or it gets taken away.

Read my responses to all the comments & questions I got about this post here.