"Women.....where are your children?"

By Jenn Giroux

With the release of the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, the past few days we have seen the analysis of women who are having (and not having) children. According to Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, the highest group of women on track for loneliness in their twilight years due to 'childlessness' are White women (20%). Not too far behind comes Black and Hispanic women (17%) followed closely by Asian women (16%).

I have to take note at the presentation of these facts. D'Vera Cohn, one of the co-authors of the report echos the verbiage that women have heard over the past 50 years that have led them down the path of barrenness. She states that "education seems to be a factor in a woman's choice to be a mother. The more educated women are, the higher the childless rate is." This comment is completely contradicted by some of the results which report that the 'childlessness' rate has decreased for women with advanced degrees from 31% in 1994 to 24% in 2008.

Unfortunately, what you do not see in this study is an analysis of the "post contraceptive regret" that is prevalent among all ethnic groups of women.

How do I know this?

First hand testimony and Nursing experience.

Ask any mom of a large family and she will tell you that women often approach us in public when they see our many children and express sadness and remorse or tell (a perfect stranger) why it is that she wanted to have more children "but.........."

Over the years as a Registered Nurse, I experienced a steady pattern of women who shared their gut-wretching stories of pain and sadness from their choice at a young age to not have children.

Some were sterilized even before having even one child.

I also witnessed Nursing homes where older women, sit staring with a far away blank look on their faces while rocking a baby doll for consolation. These Nursing homes and Retirement centers are now prisons of loneliness. The inmates go day after day and week after week with no children or grandchildren to visit them. They live a self imposed life sentence with the burning regret over the children they willingly prevented or aborted.

When I was a child we lived 5 doors from St. Margaret of Cortona church. I recall how often we would walk down the street during Lent to frequently attend the Stations of the Cross. It is not until recently that I have been able to fully grasp what was meant by Our Lord as he met the women of Jerusalem on the way to the Cross:

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed!" (Luke 23:28)

"Blessed are the barren" is exactly what the media is saying to us when we are told, "Women have more options than in the past to build strong careers and to exercise the choice not to have children." More empty words of wisdom from D'Vara Cohn.

Unfortunately, the current numbers on 'childlessness' account for those who bought into the myth that contraception and abortion would liberate them for an awesome career in a 'man's world'. It's time to ask them if giving up motherhood was well worth the fulfillment they were promised. It is in their honest and tearful responses that we will find the answer to our question: "Women,.....where are your children?."

In the silence of their hearts, women are indeed weeping.

© Jenn Giroux