Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 3, 1993 TAG: 9308230291
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Lafayette, founder of the ChildFree Network, a national support and advocacy organization for childless men, women and couples, says she takes exception to society's treatment of the childless: They're viewed with suspicion or fear; they're put under tremendous pressure to procreate; they're treated condescendingly, carelessly or as though they are invisible; people accuse them of leading meaningless, selfish lives.
``Jesus of Nazareth never had children, and I would hardly consider his life selfish or meaningless,'' Lafayette asserts. ``That's one reason I find it particularly ironic that many churches really make childless couples feel very uncomfortable.''
She also lists among the childfree famous Voltaire, Chopin, Sir Isaac Newton, Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott and Mother Teresa. Education about the realities - the difficulties, demands and expenses of parenting - combined with acceptance of a childfree lifestyle as a viable option, could help lessen many of the country's problems including welfare, child abuse and teen-age pregnancy, Lafayette says. Acknowledging the lifestyle also might rectify some problems faced by the childless.
``The problem is that we put such a high premium on having babies in order to be complete, respected or accepted, Lafayette said in a telephone interview from her Citrus Heights, Calif., home. ``People feel free to ask invasive questions like when do you plan to have children or why don't you have children. There is just very, very powerful pressure that's put on us.''
Add to that economic pressure. Lafayette points out that there is big money in child-oriented products and services as well as in fertility, with many women in their 40s, 50s or even postmenopausal opting for first-time parenthood. Herself, a child of ``older'' parents, Lafayette - whose ailing mother is now 86 - says they need to look at what's coming down the road.
``What about their own retirements? Will they have enough money or will it all be going toward a child in college? Will they have the physical energy to cope with a teen-ager? I think we need to look at that pressure and change that pressure and let people know that if they can't or don't want to have children, they don't have to,'' Lafayette says.
Lafayette - 48 and divorced - says she suffered through a decade of indecision and despair over childbearing. While married, she had several miscarriages. After her divorce, she twice seriously considered adoption before finally rejecting what her research revealed as the realities of parenthood, particularly for a single mother. A couple of years ago she decided to remain childless.
``Once I made my decision, it made my life much easier. I went from despair, regret and grief - all the feelings that I think people who are childless by chance go through - to embracing the child-free lifestyle and feeling positive and happy about it. I'd like to help others make that transition, too,'' she says.
Problems of the childless are not limited to self-esteem, though. Lafayette says they also are discriminated against:
``Childless people get unfairly taxed in this country,'' she says, citing the $900 per child tax deduction accorded parents.
She says she will not be offered a deduction comparable to child-care even though her mother's illness has necessitated care expenses.
In the workplace last year, she says, there was $3 billion lost in child- related absenteeism. ``The extra work gets thrown on the childless people because they don't have any excuse to cut out early or stay home an extra day. And it's always the childless person who gets to go on the business trip that no one else wants to go on.''
She talks about an airline that gives flight discounts to employees' children but will not extend the same discount to a childless flight attendant's closest relative.
``People who have children also often speak of parenting in a condescending manner or with thinly disguised pity to people who don't have children, as though not procreating impairs your brain. `Oh, you don't have children, so you wouldn't understand,' as though you're so far removed from your own childhood or have no contact with children as a point of reference. And don't dare express an opinion on child-raising,'' says Lafayette who, among other vocations in public relations, television writing and magazine editing, has taught school for 17 years.
There's also an invisible-person syndrome, she says. Advertisements and television sitcoms are full of all types of familial configurations - traditional, single mothers, single fathers, two of each sharing a house and kids, empty nesters - but no child-free adults. Murphy Brown's motherhood, which to Lafayette implied that Brown's success was incomplete without a baby, in part spurred Lafayette to form the network, she says.
``It's a little tiring for people who don't have children to be surrounded by a culture that first of all builds a whole big myth about having babies and how wonderful your life is going to be because of them and secondly ignores and devalues its childless members, she says.'' The invisibility
extends to what Lafayette says is an appalling lack of demographics and data on the childfree lifestyle - a situation she's working to remedy through a database she is compiling, based on information supplied by the network's members. The information about lifestyles, values, incomes, interests and opinions will be used in a book on positive child-free living that Lafayette has contracted with a New York publisher to write. It also will be available to network members and to the media.
Besides the data, the network's $20 yearly membership fee entitles members to a quarterly 12-page newsletter that regularly includes letters from members, reviews of childfree-related reading, tax and travel advice and guest columns. The latest issue, out June 1, includes a tongue-in-cheek review of movies to see if your childfree resolve ever waivers. The first is ``Mildred Pierce,'' starring Joan Crawford as the long-suffering mother of a horrid, selfish daughter. Next will be ``The Bad Seed'' or maybe ``Blackboard Jungle,'' Lafayette laughs.
Interest in the network has been heartening, she says, with membership in the California-based organization growing to roughly 1,500 since its founding in August. There already are several members in Virginia.
The network is not by any means anti-children, Lafayette saysi
``I see it as pro-child and pro-people, because children are people who grow up to be adults. We advocate educated, responsible, financially secure people who want to have children and know what they're getting into and are totally committed to it. We don't support those who at 18 or 15 or 13 decide they're going to have a kid because it sounds like a fun thing to do and then leave the responsibility of raising that child and paying for it on the shoulders of their fellow citizens,'' she says.
For information, send a self-addressed envelope with 52 cents postage to ChildFree Network, Suite 1800, 7777 Sunrise Blvd., Citrus Heights, Calif. 95610 or call (916) 773-7178.
by CNB