Genocide, Childlessness, and Female Guilt
by Suzanne Reisman

My initial idea for a topic for today didn't originally have to do with women who chose to not have children. Originally, I was thinking about today's date. Although Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Rememberence Day) is officially on May 2, because it falls on Shabbat, it is being observed today in Israel. Thus I decided that it would be a good time to write about what women are doing to stop genocide around the world now. This is a very important issue to me as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

It is crucial to me that the saying, "Never Again," apply not only to Jews, but to anyone who is persecuted for religious, ethnic, or cultural reasons. As Rabbi Rachel Barenblat wrote three years ago on The Velveteen Rabbi:

The obligation to remember the Shoah has two components: memory, and action. If our memory of the Shoah is to have any meaning, it must impel us to act against other attempted genocides. We respond to the Shoah with devastation, and outrage, and sorrow: and we must also respond by wiping genocide from the face of the earth. To me, that means the best way to observe Yom HaShoah is to make a donation to one of the organizations working to end the genocide happening today in Darfur, Sudan.

While I was contemplating the rabbi's words, I began thinking about what it meant to be the survivor of genocide. What was it like for my grandfather, who fled Warsaw at the urging of his elderly mother and older sisters (each of whom was married with children of their own), to return "home" from Russia in 1946, only to discover that every single person he loved was gone? How could he continue living? How does anyone go on under such horrific circumstances? And yet, people do continue. People have survived the genocides perpetuated against Armenians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Sudanese, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and countless other persecuted peoples. Many, like my grandpa, even somehow manage to live relatively normal lives, although who knows what demons they are haunted by in secret.

My bubbe (that's Yiddish for grandmother) knows the answer. "Only with the children is the life worth living," she told me in her thick Eastern European accent over the phone one day recently while we were discussing something that had nothing to do with genocide and the human will to survive. I'm sure this is in large part what propelled my grandfather (and my bubbe, who left her entire family behind in Russia when she went with my grandpa to find his family in Poland) to go on. He had a wife, and he had a son. He had to go on, and create a new life for his family. Otherwise, his mother, sisters, brothers-in-laws, nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends would have no one to remember them.

As Lisa Stone, one of BlogHer's founding mothers, says, "the only thing harder than being a mother in this culture is being a woman who chose not to be a mother." (This is one of the reasons why there will be a panel at July's BlogHer conference on being childless in the blogosphere.) It is never more difficult for me - as a Jewish woman, married to a Jewish man, possessing the resources we need to care for a child or more - than at this time of year to deal with my decision to not have children. The normal social pressure to have kids, so aptly described by Tracey at Bear Traps and Road Maps, barely weighs me down, but the enormous, abstract guilt I feel at not doing my part to replace any of the six million Jews obliterated from the earth is overwhelming. It's bad enough that I don't want children and will thus contribute toward the slow end of our family line (my sister wants kids, so there is some hope), but I took a very fine Jewish man off the market, thus stopping him from contributing his excellent genes to continue our cultural heritage. I don't know if I feel this more acutely because I am a woman and subject to more pressure in general to have children, but my husband certainly doesn't think twice about it.

This line of thinking derailed my plan to author a coherent and stirring piece highlighting brave women, like those at The Feminist Majority Foundation, who are fighting against genocide and for women's rights in Darfur, but it opened up another path to thinking about my role and responsibilities in the world as a Jewish woman. For her post about meeting a Holocaust survivor in Athens, Theresa at Spargel uses the Talmudic phrase, "He who saves one life, saves the world entire," as her title. That ancient wisdom gives me slight comfort. One of the many reasons I have for my decision to not have children is because I want to focus on helping other families. Perhaps if it is enough of a reason for me to forgive myself for what I perceive as failing my grandfather's family.

Whether you have children or not, one way to help save a life and the world entire is to take action. Sigh a petition, volunteer at a social services agency, or donate money. One easy way to raise funds to help other women is to follow the example of Bonnie at Christian Feminist, who "just placed a widget on my sidebar from BlogHer. The goal of this widget is for women bloggers to work together in improving other womens' lives around the world." Some day, I hope to be able to face Yom Hashoah without feeling guilty about not reproducing. I hope whatever work I do over the course of my life to bring about social justice will be good enough to perpetuate our family name instead.

Suzanne also blogs about life at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants, about yogurt and pudding at Live Active Cultures, and about creating social change at Just Cause.

Submitted by Suzanne Reisman (view blog) on Wed, 04/30/2008 - 23:42

Comments

 

There are many ways to contribute

Reproducing is just one of them.

You are a writer - you have the power to reach out to an audience, which will likely keep growing as you keep writing, and make the world a better place.

So, while I am busy feeding my kids and buying them stuff and listening to their stories and soothing their pain, you are busy helping people that are not family members, and working towards achieving social justice.

I don’t see how your work is any less important than mine.

Vered DeLeeuw
www.momgrind.com

Submitted by Vered on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 10:29
 

There are many ways to contribute

I agree with Vered. There are so many ways to contribute and I can think of many single and childfree individuals who play important roles in advancing social issues.

http://her-christian-blog.com

Submitted by violetteb on Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:38
 

Thanks ladies, but what if...

Thank you for your kind words. While I am personally committed to advancing social issues, I wonder how I would feel about my decision to not have kids if my main line of work were in other areas. Again, I think it is interesting how much pressure women have to reproduce, and it is made worse in situations where the family line is threatened. Are women not seen as contributing to the world unless they are moms or do-gooders?

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

Submitted by Suzanne Reisman on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 05:15
 

Single and childfree women contribute

Personally, I can't see how we could get along without having single and childfree women friends. They support us in so many different ways. 

I know there have been heated debates on some forums and I never knew of the pressures of society on women really to "have children" and I only associated those pressures with family more so than the outside world.  I mean why would anybody care whether an individual had children or not, except for countries that think there are too many to support...and mom's who want to be grandmom's.

I guess I've been a to each his own.  I don't think it is required to be a do-gooder to make up for lack of offspring either. I have a few friends that are either unmarried or childfree and I think it enhances my experiences to communicate whether about kids and family or not. She offers a fresh perspective on issues and quite frankly it is nice to know sometimes that if you need to get out with a friend, the one with out the kids is the easiest one to tear themselves away sometimes.

So, I guess to answer your question, I see them as contributing no matter what their main focus is. It doesn't have to be child related at all. It is nice to know that while some women are busy raising children that there is a group in society that is available for other community work or what have you. We don't need to all be supermoms either. LOL.

http://her-christian-blog.com

Submitted by violetteb on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 07:52
 

Childfree Women Contribute

I am a 46-year-old childfree who wishes she had time to contribute more to society, and plan to in the future.

I am writing a book about the childfree called Kidfree & Lovin' It, (which hopefully will contribute in some ways by helping others.) And in my research I have found that many childfree are helping society in various ways by: being teachers or care providers, volunteering in organizations that help children or adults, being involved in animal aid or rescue, or perhaps just by being the only offspring in the family available to care for their aging parent.

I feel like I should contribute my time to an organization like Big Brothers Big Sisters or CASA, but am relieved by "violetteb's" comment above that just because we don't have children doesn't require the childfree to be "do-gooders." I think many of us women (moreso than childfree men) feel it does require us to give more  It is refreshing to hear that as a parent she (violetteb) values our opinions and perspectives about children.

I have an online survey that over 1,800 childfree around the world have taken, and would love for Suzanne Reisman and others to take it too! The results and many of the quotes will be published in the Kidfree book. Here is the link for those without children who wish to take it:

http://tinyurl.com/2lcjah

I would love to quote some of this blog in my chapter on "Finding Purpose" or my section on "Issues Childfree Women Face." (Please email me directly to discuss Suzanne.) I am also looking into coming to the Blogher conference in SFO, if there will be a childfree presence.

Kidfree Kaye

www.kidfreeandlovinit.com

Email: k@kidfreeandlovinit.com

Submitted by kidfreekaye on Tue, 05/20/2008 - 13:26
 

Individual Choices, Individual Paths

I realize I'm coming to this blog a bit late. I'm 52 and my husband (of 30 years) and I are "childless by choice." When we made the choice 30 years ago to remain childless, it was somewhat revolutionary. I had no idea young couples today still face "expectations" of having children. Aargh.

Childlessness was the right choice for us. We are not child oriented, we would not have been good parents, and we had different goals. I have never regretted the decision we made in our early 20's.

Yet there are things parents learn that I believe most childless women don't learn...until much later in their lives. Things about sacrificing oneself for the good of others. Parents learn to suppress their wants, desires, needs for the good of their children. (Not all of them mind you...don't hear what I'm not saying.) Us childless people certainly lead a much more "carefree" life in our younger years.

But I'm convinced that learning to live outside yourself is critical to a "successful" life, and that requires sacrificing your own wants, desires and needs for others. So God gives those opportunities in other ways for childless women. For me it has been through my aging parents. For others it may happen in other ways.

Hat's off to women with children...you do what I couldn't do.

Hat's off to women without children...you face what often feels like the condemnation of the world, hopefully with a smile.

Hat's off to women who long for children but are still childless...you live with the pain of unfulfilled dreams.

Sandy 

www.apprehendinggrace.com

Submitted by SandyHov on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 10:30