E150 Do You Have Kids? w/ author Kate Kaufmann
What a pleasure to introduce you to Kate Kaufmann, 67, author of Do You Have Kids? Life When The Answer Is No.
In this episode, Kate and I only briefly discuss her circumstances which led to being childless, although she and her husband had wanted to have children. What we dive into, is the big life experience of not being a parent in a world where 80 – 85% of women become mothers. As she says, she has lived in the small slice of the pie.
She wrote this because there is a need for conversations about childless/childfree living and for whatever reason, this seems to be an uncomfortable conversation.
Well, Kate makes it perfectly comfortable for all involved. She is now on a personal mission to spark 2 million conversations about living as a non-parent.
As midlifers, we who are parents see our adult children playing a starring role in our advanced aging. So, what if you don’t have children? That is the topic for today.
I am a parent, and I really enjoyed this book and its stories: Do You Have Kids? Life When The Answer Is No
About Kate:
Kate Kaufmann is fascinated by how women who don’t have children craft their lives. There are no navigation charts for life outside the mainstream of motherhood.
Kate got her first inkling how different life as a non-mom can be after she and her former husband abandoned infertility treatments, quit their corporate jobs, and moved from a suburb in an excellent school district to a rural community to raise sheep. Everyone in the country seemed to have kids. So began her quest for identity as a non-mom in a culture high on family.
Since 2012 Kate has talked intimately with hundreds of North American women who don’t have children, ranging in age from twenty-four to ninety-one. She’s relentless in her search for pertinent data about not having kids in both the academic and popular press. Kate has also had the privilege of speaking about the childfree and childless with organizations such as AARP, the Oregon Community Foundation, and several colleges, universities, and retirement communities.
Kate has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, an M.A. in Management, and a B.A. in Psychology, as well as professional background in corporate staffing, training, and consulting. She’s lived in various urban, suburban, rural, and coastal communities and currently calls Portland, Oregon home. Kate is proud of knowing how to drive a tractor.
