Friday Laugh

I am SO getting this decal for my car!

Childfree Celebrity Spotlight: Oprah Winfrey

Although I've known for a long time that Oprah was childfree-by-choice, I did not feature her on my Childfree Celebrity Spotlight page because she never openly discussed her childfree status.  And no wonder.  When your multi-billion dollar empire is built on the cash-cow market of moms, it's your job to make them feel that moms are the greatest and most important people on earth, so it's probably not in your best interest to rub it in their faces that you deliberately did NOT choose their lifestyle.

Once Oprah's network talk show went off the air, however, things changed - a little.  She began to open up about her choice not to have kids and stated that it was a deliberate decision that she feels very comfortable with.  When asked how she feels about not having children, she said:

Really good. No regrets whatsoever. Gayle grew up writing the names of her would-be children, making little hearts and putting children's names in them. Never occurred to me to do that. I never had a desire. And I don't think I could have this life and have children. One of the lessons I've learned from doing the show is just how much sacrifice and attention is required to do the job of mothering well. Nothing in my background prepared or trained me to do that. So I don't have any regrets about it at all. And I do feel like I am a mother in a broader sense—to a generation of viewers who've grown up with me.

In this interview with Barbara Walters, Oprah discusses her decision at the 7:30 mark.  Note how Barbara dropped the "regret" bingo on her.



Want to see what other celebrities are childfree by choice? Check out my list and be sure to let me know if you learn of others so I can be sure to add them!

Childfree Celebrity Spotlight - Ellen Degeneres

I was excited to learn of another vocally childfree celebrity when my reader nptcowgirl pointed me to this USWeekly article about comedian Ellen Degeneres.  (Thank you, nptcowgirl!)

"I don't want to have one. I don't want to have six. I don't want to have any," the funnywoman said. "They're precious to look at and I love them; we have nieces and I love them very much. [But I] don't want 'em."

In her 2011 book, Seriously...I'm Kidding, DeGeneres made light of the pressure to procreate, writing that "people are constantly asking Portia and me if we are going to have children. We thought about it. We love to be around children after they've been fed and bathed. But we ultimately decided that we don't want children our own. There is far too much glass in our house."

Want to see what other celebrities are childfree by choice? Check out my list and be sure to let me know if you learn of others so I can be sure to add them!

The September Perspective

It's September, Labor Day is over and everyone is back to the old rush.  School buses are back on the roads, along with the traffic, and moms everywhere are plastering Facebook with first-day-of-school photos of their kids.  One of my mom friends posted on Monday, "I love my kids with all my heart, but I am soooooo glad they are going back to school tomorrow!"

Yes, back to school comes as a relief to many parents after 3 long months of summer chaos, but as Laura Rowley writes in her Huff Post article, Why September can be the Toughest Month for Working Mothers , September -  a month fraught with its own assortment of parental stressors - is enough to send even the most organized mom off the deep end.

As is always the case when I read articles written by moms about the overwhelming stresses and insecurities of motherhood, I got to the end, shook my head and said aloud, "THANK GOD I had the good sense to avoid this prison sentence!"

For my mom friends, September is a time to get back into the feverish daily pace of Beat the Clock - "How will I get Johnny to soccer at 5:00 when Melissa has to be at softball at the same time?", "Oh no - it's already 9:00 p.m. and I forgot to get to the store to pick up the Lunchables!",  "How in the world am I going to get all of us ready and out the door on time?"  "How many times have I told him to get off the computer and get his homework done!!?"  It's a time for being stretched too thin, worked too hard, living the life of a mouse on a treadmill - spinning wheels and getting nowhere fast for 9 long months.  Following that is summer "vacation", which means 3 months of fun and relaxation for the kids, and nonstop madness for mom.

As a childfree woman, September is a completely different experience.  It's that pretty time of year when the sun sits a little lower in the sky and starts to cast a warm glow over everything.  It's that wonderful month when we can turn the air conditioning off, open the windows and say, "ah....".  It's the best time at the Jersey Shore - the hordes of tourists are gone, but the ocean is at its warmest, the nights are cool and beautiful and the restaurants are still open for business.   It's a time when I still get that little flutter of nervous butterflies and the intense urge to buy myself some notebooks and pens, even though my school days are long gone.  It's my time for setting new personal goals and aspirations, thinking about what new adventures to plan, and feeling excited about the impending fall and winter holidays.

I'll take my September over Laura Rowley's any day!