A Phenomenological Interview:
A Lived Experience of A Professional Married Woman without Children
By Li-chin
(Crystal) Huang
Abstract
This pseudo-study addresses a lived
experience of being childlessness through a phenomenological interview. Texts
from interview were developed into several themes: (1) being childless gives a
mixed feeling of personal freedom and incompleteness of life; (2) the
biological urge blended with hidden socio-psychological factors construct the
desire of being a mother; (3) the biological bond is the essence of motherhood,
from which the “true” primary relationship derives; (4) career vs. motherhood
is a dilemma that career-oriented women have to face; (5) marital relationship
is a causal factor to the childlessness; and finally (6) self-image as not a
“changing” type of personality contributed to part of the childless regret.
This
pseudo-study presents the complex dimensions of human procreativity. In addition to the biological urge, the
hidden messages of the conventional images of heterosexual marriage,
nuptiality-spouse-children, taken-for-granted motherhood, institutionalized
concepts (e.g., in this case, family, and religious views) are powerful forces
shaping the ideas and behaviors of human reproductive activity.
Introduction
Why the experience is of interest?
The major reason why I am
interested in this phenomenon is mainly from my experience as a woman who is
curious about the crucial issues that most women have to face and render in
their lives. Basically, I have gone
through several stages of understanding and decision making about personal
growth, marriage, children, and career and so on. Now, I have direct connection
to individuals who have no children, because I am one of them.
Among those
crucial issues, the price, and perhaps joy, of motherhood is one of them. Furthermore, the pro/con-natal theme in the
critical science discourse as well as in an array of socio-political
ideological practice of contemporary society catch my attention too. Particularly, there are emerging forms of
childless or childfree[1]
(the definitions are explained in the research method section) phenomenon,
which evolve from various circumstances- medical, physical, psychological,
economic, socio-cultural, political, ecological, and to the ideological
factors, which are worthy of further understanding. Furthermore, the alarmingly
increasing population of this category can be shown from the U.S. Census
Bureau’s statistical data - in 1965, 43.5 percent of all married couples were
childless. In 1996, the figure was 53 percent (Cain, 2001, p. 111).
Other external
factors caught my attention in this field are the significantly emerging strand of
studies on (in)fertility, gender, occupation, race, class, and other
demographic features correlate to childfree and childless phenomena (e.g.,
Crispell, 1993; Abma & Peterson,
1995; May 1995; Custavus & Henley, 1998; Stoneman, 1998; Cain
2001). Various research methodologies have been applied to obtain those
data and interpretation. Some of them
could be replicated by different research approaches. For example, Madelyn Cain collected
information from 100 childless or self-proclaimed childfree women’s stories,
which formed the book- “The Childless Revolution”, published in 2001. On one hand, it would be interesting to see
if hermeneutic phenomenology method and procedures on similar cases would gain
different insight and interpretation to enhance our understanding of the
childless/childfree events.
As
aforementioned, I am a woman "no more young", and I reflect a lot about my
early life-world experienced as a “situatedly childfree” (childless by choice)
person via delaying marriage/keeping single-hood. Later I transformed into a childless due to career issues and quality of life, both by chance and happenstance.
Such transformation makes me wonder what the lived experiences of people in the
similar situations- “an individual without offspring” look like. Such wonder also echoes the statistical data
of fast changing demographic features of childless/childfree people in the
post-modern society.[2] Finally, what the individual’s inner
experiences are related to external forces also triggers the idea of conducting
this research.
The rationale
The
rationale behind this exploratory research is a desire to generate new insight
or interpretation to contribute to the understanding of being
childless/childfree as part of human procreative activities in relation to
several significant social phenomena. Childless and childfree issues tend to
associate with lifestyles, gender/socio-cultural ideology, policymaking,
eco-environmentally sustainable issues, and population problems.[3]
More
specifically speaking, these understandings can potentially affect the emerging
public
policy-making regarding quality of
life, for example, the necessity of redefining or reconstructing the concept of
family in post-modern society; the planned and unplanned parenthood and
population issues in regard to educational policy; medical technology regarding
infertility and voluntary sterilization; tax & social welfare reform for
the fair treatment to the childless/ childfree couples; quality of human
resources and the work force associated with the changing features of
demographic characteristics in regard to the employment, unemployment as well
as under-employment problems; and the consciousness raising of the eco-balance
toward the environmental sustainability, just to mane a few.
Research question
Based on the rationale mentioned
above, the research question is focused on the experience of being a
childless person, either by choice, or
by chance and by happenstance. To avoid the potential confusion in
understanding the phenomenon of childlessness, the “emerging” definitions of
these three terms of “by choice”, “by chance” and “by happenstance” need to be
tentatively clarified as follows: the first term is referred to those who never
want children by their own choice and will never have any. Since the term of childlessness has
connotations of “something missing” for various reasons, the first group of
population tend to use childfree instead of childless by choice (Cain, 2001, p.
15). Cain also differentiated childfree
(or childless by choice) into three categories: those who are positive
childfree, those who are religiously childfree, and those who are
environmentally childfree. Childlessness by chance can be examined from major
three factors: medically childless- diseases make mothering impossible; gay and
childless; and tragically childless. The happenstance childlessness is observed
from childless by childhood; childless by standard; and childless by marriage
(p. 85).
The purpose of this study is
focused on investigating a social phenomenon of being childlessness. Due to the
complexity of variegated individual conditions[4]
and time constraints, this research will narrow down to the female gender with
conjugal, and professional status- ” What is it like being a professional, married
woman without children?” as the first phrase of the research project.
Research
Method
In this pseudo study, I
applied the hermeneutic phenomenological method.[5]
To trace the origins of the
method, I looked for the six interrelated and overlapping definitions[6]
of hermeneutics mentioned in the Palmer’s book (1969). One of its traditions has been evolving from
1654 A. D. through Schleiermacher, Dilthey to contemporary Betti’s
“objectivatons” which underlies the principles of interpretation. Opposing to this tradition, Heidegger and his
followers, such as Gadamer, see hermeneutics as a philosophical exploration of
the character and requisite conditions for all understanding (Palmer, 1969, p.
46). In expounding the understanding
through exploring and interpreting the constructed meanings, Van Manen points
out that human lived experience can only be communicated contextually and
meaning is multi-dimensional and multi-layered (2001, Van Manen, p. 78). Following Van Manen’s approach, I conducted
my research.
Procreation as a social
phenomenon involves in complex, multi-faceted, experiential meanings. For example, the various socio-cultural as
well as bio-heretical factors all play a role in the reproductive phenomena. Thus,
in searching the notion of theme may best be understood by examining its
methodological and philosophical character (2001, Van Manen, p. 78).
In this pseudo-study, the researcher believes
that the hermeneutic phenomenological methodology could obtain the themes
without weakening the authenticity by applying various reduction procedures to
understand the interviewee’s inner experience.
As to reach the authenticity, the universal or essential quality of a
theme, the free imaginative variation approach is applied to discover aspects or
qualities that make a phenomenon what it is and without which the phenomenon
could not be what it is (p. 107).
In
regarding the research authenticity, and trustworthiness, Kvale (1898) mentions
the existing polarity of a positivist reification and a humanistic neglect of
validity in social research. Even though qualitative researchers have long been
trying to validate themselves externally, the internal discussion has not
developed to a similar degree (Dagkbergm Drew, and Nystrom, 2001, p. 230). Due to different epistemological belief leads
to different research assumptions and knowledge claims. In this study, in interpreting the themes, I
kept Lindstrom’s principles in mind that basic epistemological questions must
be reflected in the debate about objectivity in terms of ethical concerns. He
says: “ Intellectual honesty; thoroughness in reasoning and in view of
conditions and consequences; prohibition of favoring one’s own person, skewed
sampling; omission of negative evidence” as the “red thread” which should be
visible the whole way through (p. 231), no matter in description or
interpretation.
Due to time
constraint, the research began with a phenomenological interview accompanied
with some materials available to me.
Texts were generated as the dialog developed between the interviewee and
me. The relevant literature, related stories, and accounts would be interwoven
into themes for interpretation and better understanding.
The process began with S,
who is in her late fifties, a chair of big department in a four years higher
education setting. She gives you a
typical image of women in charge –articulate, strong, and confident. By chance, I got a rare opportunity to
interview her, since I vaguely remembered that she did not have children in her
marriage. In our community, most of us
understand that her department has the tradition in “challenging the status
quo”, and critical scientific research approach is welcome by many of its
faculty. Cutting edge ideas are
populated from this department. Especially the department is in charge of the
Women’s Studies minor courses, and engaged in many gender equity consortia and
related activities. I envisioned that I might get insight in regard to
childfree and childless issues, which is by nature heavily laden, or related to
the ideas and theories in the contemporary health care, reproductive
technology, and other gender related environmental, and population issues.
Currently I
only have one account of lived experience.
With available literatures and
documents at hand, I integrated some relevant materials into the text analysis.
In
interpreting the texts, I also applied Kvale’s (1996) seven hermeneutical
cannons into my interpretations: back and forth process between the parts and
the whole, good Gestalt for an inner unity of the text free of logical
contradictions; testing of part interpretations against the global meanings of
the text and possibly against other texts by the same author; autonomy of the
test; knowledge about the theme of the text; non-presuppositionlessness; as
well as innovation and creativity (pp. 49-50). The applications of the cannons
were integrated and explicated in each theme.
Interpretation and Results
From this
case, the first theme starts from the mixed feeling of being childless, which
means
a joy of personal freedom with an
inner sense of incompleteness. Other themes are: the biological urge blended
with hidden socio-psychological factors construct the desire of being a mother;
the biological bond is the essence of motherhood, from which the “true” primary
relationship derives; career vs. motherhood is a dilemma that career-oriented
women have to face; marital relationship is a causal factor to the
childlessness; and finally self-image as not a “changing” type of personality
contributed to part of the childless regret.
The
elements expressed by the interviewee are sententiously highlighted and
interpreted (with the aids of relevant literature, stories and accounts) as
follows:
Mixed feeling of the Joy of freedom
and the sense of incompleteness in life
S said, “ In some
sense…without children, I can have a career I want to fulfill dreams, to be
myself… and to do many things.” “On the
other hand, it involved with emotional struggle. It makes you feel something
missing in your life…” Later S told me
that she sensed many married with children couples envious of her
being able to do frequent traveling in many countries for academic and
recreational purposes. Here is one
personal story expressing the similar experience from Abby and Tom Bohley. Abby says, ” I consider myself blessed. I
have been able to do so many things that have enhanced my life… things that
wouldn’t have been possible if we’d had kids, such as traveling…” She also mentions, “ A lot of our
contemporaries who are grandparents are always taking about how old they are,
but frankly, we feel pretty young” (Burkett, 2000, p. 182).
More specifically, another woman in
Cain’s Childless Revolution (Cain, 2001) said,
It is often difficult to understand the choices other people make. I can no longer understand how my best friend feels about giving a
birth to her daughter than I can imagine winning a marathon, performing cardiac
surgery, playing a violin concerto, or walking to ocher streets of Kathmandu
with a begging bowl. We give birth to
ideas, to relationships, to works of art, to hope, to peace, and to teach
other. (p. 148)
The freedom and appreciation of
being no children is descriptive and similar to S’ experience.
On the
other hand, the missing part of feeling could be found in many
childless-by-chance peoples’ stories.
Vicki said, “My strong desire to impart life to another human being and
share in the parenting process with my husband… I am not crying because I feel
sorry for myself for not having children. I am weeping because I feel afresh
the pangs of grief “(Love, 1984, pp.
57-59). From her own experience,
she said, “There was an affinity between us: a shared emptiness. Childlessness
sensitizes the people who undergo its pain and creates with us a mutual
transparency, a peephole of sorts into our common suffering” (p. 65). Ann Crittenden (2001), the author of The
Price of Motherhood, shares her experience in her book. She said,
As beneficiary of the women’s movement,
for years I lived the unencumbered life of a
journalist… For a time I was married,
and my husband and I ate out almost every night, had a
maid to clean our apartment, and packed
our bags on short notice. We weren’t even home
enough to keep a cat… (p. 10)
After a divorce, she was stricken with
a baby-hunger: a passionate, almost physical longing for a child. Three years
later, she remarried and has a child.
Indeed, as she says, “ I am not that kind of woman on the T-shirt who
looks at her watch and exclaims, ‘Oh, I forgot to have a baby!’ “ (p. 11).
The above stories expressed both
experiences of joy and incompleteness of S’ feelings respectively. Here is a closer one, pointing to S’ inner
mixed experience,
I had a number of friends who had kids
in their forties and I didn’t look upon them with envy.
They were exhausted and I didn’t
necessarily want to do that. Then I felt, would I really be able to
pull off starting a new career if I go
through a pregnancy and have a baby? What kind of a career
am I going to have? What? I’m going to
be a part-time mom, a part-time working woman?
(Cain, 2001, p. 129)
The mixed feeling of being free and a
sense of incompleteness within the middle-upper class professional women as S
has experienced, echoed Burkett’s observations. Burkett (2000) points out that
the childless are among elite of American women: wealthier, more independent,
and better
educated. Childless women are twice as likely as working mothers to hold
professional or managerial jobs…(p. 182).
In this theme, I used Kvale’s (1996)
cannons of “back and forth process
between the parts and the whole, and good Gestalt for an inner unity of the
text free of logical contradictions” (p. 49). From Abby, and Vicki, to various
experiences of Crittenden’s, Cain’s, and Burkett’s interviewees, each of them
revealed certain part of the mixed feeling of the Joy of freedom and the sense
of incompleteness, which S expressed as a whole in the interview.
The
biological urge blended with hidden socio-psychological factors construct the
desire of being a mother
S talked about the idea of having
offspring, which was not a conscious decision.
She expressed that her experience
of wanting offspring was natural, biological and psychological. It also came
from her family background:
I have
never really thought about this issue consciously…. It never happened to be a
conscious decision…. By accident, I have never made conscious decision of not
having children of my own…. Children are part of life and tradition. Just based on my family background, it is
natural to be a mother. It never happened to be a conscious decision. It is
part of biological urge and part of psychological satisfying… to shape another
human beings. I do have desire to have children. My biological urge- pushed me
that way- the desire to be a mother. Just based on my family background, it is
natural to be a mother. You know that I came from big family-7 children. The
environment that I grew up gave me the sense of having family with children is
natural. One of my sisters even has seven children. Of course, I don’t see why
she needs so many. I am always a good
aunt to my twenty-five nieces and nephews. The older I am, the more I regret
that I don’t have children of my own. I
think it was natural to get married and to have children. As I have mentioned
about my family background and the way that I grew up.
An
important point she said: “I know most people do not want to talk about it
(childless issue).
You know, if you don’t have
children without church affiliations, you know you are…(a
dead man/woman walking- “ being
isolated”)”. At this juncture, some of
her expressions were laden with specific connotations. What did it mean that most people did not
want to touch childless issues? Why did S tie the issues of children with
church affiliations? How and why did she
experience that without children and religious connections was an undesirable
situation for a childless person? How
did she experience and believe that “children are part of life and tradition?
“ These questions need a careful
follow-up interview, if chance comes to me again. S’ connecting the childless issues with social
pressure (do not want to talk about it) and church affiliation (institutionalized
concepts or ideology), is worthy of further attention.
In the following section, I extracted some
common religious, political and ideological beliefs and practice, as well as
various biological perspectives to help us deepen the understanding of what S
meant.
What are the potential socio-cultural forces
influencing yet hidden under human’s
consciousness, or
probably are taken for granted generations by generations, as S mentioned that
children are part of life and
“tradition” ? Here are some
literature and documents helping us to explicate some of the hidden messages
mentioned above.
First of all, in relating to religious belief,
there are many scriptures carrying the messages of having offspring, for
example, Abraham and Sarah stand out as probably the first and first
fascinating infertile and childless worked hard to become parents (Love, 1984,
p. 23). In Bible, Timothy warned that
women, who are still lugging around Eve’s original sin, could be saved from it
only childbearing. And Madonna and holy
child is the most important religious and cultural icon in the Western world.
Also, Proverbs 30:15 describes four terrible realities, and childlessness is
one of them: grave, barren womb, drought, and fire.
According
to The Talmud, the central book of Jewish Law, “He who brings no children into
the world is like a murderer. A childless person is like the dead.” Historically, childless women were openly
suspect-strangely pathological creatures violating the biblical command to be
fruitful and multiply. In colonial America,
married women without children were assumed to be suffering God’s punishment
(Burkett, 2000, p. 183).
Shifting from religious aspects to society-
traditionally, women, who did not reproduce were virtually invisible, ashamed of
their “barrenness” or too timid to call attention to their unwomanliness (p.
183). In Germany, Hitler lionized the most
fertile Aryan women with the Mutterkreuz- Mother’s Cross, was an obvious case
of politically and ideologically constructed motherhood. Another event came
from woman per se - Lidia Kingsvill Commander called upon intelligent American
women to have six children to keep the nation from being overpopulated with
“loosely united, crude savages, content to hunt and fish, war with neighboring
tribes” (p. 183).
Finally,
turning to the issues of biological urge, as S mentioned in the interview. Ilene Bileky, an interviewee of Burkett,
pointed out that compulsory motherhood, that’s what the relentless social
pressure to reproduce. She said,
People are never asked to justified their
decision to have kids, so why should I be expected to
justify my decision not have
them…The relentless social pressure to reproduce, and most of
parents aren’t aware of what
they’re doing. They just assume that having kids is “natural”. If
having children is natural, what
does that make those of us who don’t
have kids, or don’t want
them? Unnatural? (p. 186)
Another court case related to this issue
described as follows: In recent years, California,
Florida, Utah, and Oregon have passed laws
increasing penalties for spousal abuse if witnessed by a child. An Oregonian
said shortly after her state passed that law in June 1998:
If my husband beats me, it’s not
that big a deal, just a misdemeanor. But if I have a kid who
might be traumatized, then it becomes a
serious crime, a felony, that will put
him away for five
years. Certainly it tells me how much my
well-being counts. (p. 188)
In medical practice, Ilene Bileky faced
another level’s treatment. She said,
Obstetricians and Gynecologists actuality
published a formula, based on how many children a
woman had and her age, to determine
who was “eligible” for voluntary sterilization. A twenty-
five-year-old, for example, was
ineligible unless she had already given birth to at least five kids,
but a forty years could get away with having only three.
When I ask my gynecologist to tie my
tube, he assumes I am a lesbian.
(p. 189)
She said, “Later, I thought,
if I were a lesbian, why would I need my tubes tied?” Her former fiancé, a Marine Corps officer,
was required to undergo counseling before doctors at a military hospital would
perform a vasectomy. “That so rich, they require counseling for people who
don’t want to have kids and let just anyone become a parent.” (p. 190).
Kvale’s (1996) cannon of “keeping the
autonomy of texts” was exercised in this theme. But, due to inadequate
information about what S really meant, as well as in the absence of
re-interviewings, other cannons of Kvale were applied here too. The interviewer, mainly, tested the part
interpretations against the general meanings of the text and against other texts
of S, or of other relevant materials in the interpretations. Furthermore some
innovation and creativity (1996, p. 50) were necessary in interpreting this
theme by interweaving historical, religious, and socio-cultural information
into the text analysis for deepening our understanding.
Thus, such
interwoven meanings mentioned above, blended with biological urge form the
deep-seated social forces, which could potentially influence human procreative
behavior. Thus, I verified this theme as “the biological urge blended with
hidden socio-psychological factors constructing the desire of being a mother”
might tell some points that S meant in the text.
The biological bond is the essence
of motherhood, from which the “true” primary relationship derives
S felt the relationship with her
stepchildren was close, but it might not be called a “true” primary
relationship, according to her description of her relationships with her
stepchildren and step-grandchildren:
It makes
you feel something missing in your life.
It (biological child) is your own things, to have your own children. You
have the desire to shape somebody with your own hands. Of course, I have stepchildren and
step-grandchildren. I like to be with them. I have close relationships,
especially with my step-grandchildren. I
like them, but they are different. They are not your biological offspring. Adopted children, stepchildren are children,
but they don’t really belong to you.
From sociological perspective, primary
group is a small group whose members share personal and enduring relationship.
Bound by primary relationships, people typically spend a great of time
together, engage in a wide range of activities, and feel they know one another
well (Maconins, 2001, p. 164). The
biological bond is one of the most intimate primary sources of forming deep
relationships. From psychological aspects, in interpreting the biological bond,
there are different existing perspectives in contemporary society. For example,
Psychologist Erik Erikson once pointed out that the woman who did not fulfill
her innate need to fill her “inner space” or uterus, with embryonic tissue was
likely to be frustrated or neurotic.
From Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic perspective, though much of it has
been rejected today, he argued that women need children to overcame childhood
penis envy. Even the world wide renowned
neurologist Dr. Max G. Schlapp, lectured that ay woman who did not desire
offspring was abnormal. These concepts, for a time, have been prevailing and
accepted by many people (Burkett, 2000, p.184).
Nevertheless, recent research and
interpretation have shed new light on the issues relating to genetic need. For
example, Dr. Richard Rabkin, a New
York psychiatrist, put it this way,
Women don’t need to be mothers any more than
they need spaghetti. But if you’re in a world
where everyone is eating
spaghetti, thinking they need it and want it. You will think so too.
Romance has really contaminated
science. (p. 186)
About the issue of biological urge of having
offspring, or the myth of reproductive instinct, Burkett (2000) said, “ It is
to provoke the same reaction in who lack it as any another assumption of
majoritarian normalcy”. Some other
critics argued that biological urge or instinct whether it was sprung from sex
desire or reproductive instinct had not been clearly distinguished by research.
And culturally-induced desires can be stronger that they seem to be biological.[7]
Commenting on maternal instinct, sociologist Jessie Bernard proclaimed,
“Biological destiny? Forget biology! If we were biology, people would die from
not doing it” (p. 186).
In
interpreting S’ expressing that biological bond was the origin of motherhood, I
presented the several arguments and imaginative variations from common people
and experts to deepen our understanding of this theme identified from this
interview. But, the meanings of the
biological bond, motherhood, or primary relationship, seem in the eyes of
beholders. So far, it is under various scrutiny and reconstruction.
Career vs. motherhood is a dilemma
that career-oriented women have to face.
S expressed that career was her
primary goal. She said, “When I was a college student, I never thought about
marriage or children at the first place… Children will be part of marriage, but
not the priority.” She also elaborated
the following opinions:
My sister
is a person who wants to get married, and have children. When I was a college
student I had never wanted to do thing like that. I always wanted to have my
own career, and do things with many other ideas. Then marriage and children
would be part of it. Motherhood was not so compelling in my mind. It was career
that was the most important thing in my life to pursue. But the latter was not
my main goal…. I could have made my own choice (change her marital relationship). But, it’s about career… It is always a
problem for women to have both career and family. Now is even worse. “Have them
all” still is a remote goal. You need
all kind of family and government support, such as nursing schools, quality
child care centers to be a career woman with children. Women of last generations did not have many
choices, so they did not face the problems nowadays we have to encounter.
Such experience can be found in an interview of
Crittenden’s The Price of Motherhood. The
interviewee said,
I love my
work, and I’ve always derived a large part of my identity through my work. I
am truly tortured. Men get a standing ovation if they miss a
meeting because of parenting; women miss
whole careers.” (Crittenden, 2001, p. 16)
Another
interviewee said, “ Most women can be mothers, but only you can do what you can
do
for the world.” (p. 16). And Anne
Crittenden added it, “ How do we bring up children without putting women
down?” These feelings expressed by the
career-oriented women as mothers or mother-want-to-be, elucidate S’ experience
regarding such dilemma.
Marital relationship is a causal
factor to the childlessness
This is the most intricate
part of the interview. It shows the
inner struggle of her marriage, which has a say to her being childless. S
wandered around possible solutions that she did not take into action. S said,
My husband
has children from his previous marriage. Yes, before marriage, he said yes (to
have children). After marriage, he changed his mind. He just did not want any
children. He doesn’t want anymore. He is not the caring type of father to the
children of his previous marriage. I
always hoped that situation could have change, and I could have children. Of course,
I might have other choices, such as having a divorce, and find other man who
wanted to have children with me. But I did not do it….Later I realized that my
biological clock was ticking out.
Such childlessness by marriage, in
Cain’s Childless Revolution has detail description. In questioning why men remain childless, or
they don’t want anymore after later marriage is due to emotional or finial
reasons. One male interviewee told her, “You’d have a lot of guts to dip into
our family’s gene pool” (Cain, 2001, p. 111). “ Like some women, some men know
they do not possess the necessary ‘parenting’ instinct – they are not nurturers
and would resent the role” (p. 111).
It
is hard to say how strong the desire or intention to have biological children
versus the hindrance from her marriage and career engagement in this theme.
Thus I applied the word “causal” instead of “prohibiting” or “determinant”
factor, which plays a role to the childlessness.
Not a “changing” type of
personality contributed to part of the childless regret.
As described above, S did think about
the possible solutions to her situation. But she did not do it. She said,
Maybe I
should say that I have made a wrong choice…Women in my generation can have
children without a husband. But, I… It is very personal. Of course, I might have other choices…. But I
did not do it…Basically, I am not a counter-cultural person to do things really
differently.
…Right, not the kind of TV portrayed
lifestyle person.
As to S’ difficult situation, currently I
don’t have similar cases or stories to aid the interpretation. But, Ilene
Bilenky, the nurse in Massachusetts
as mentioned in the previous sections, has different orientations, which may
serve as an opposite imaginative variation to S’ case. Ilene said,
Childlessness is still socially suspect unless
you have a pregnancy penned on you calendar for
the following year, or are
desperately seeking little Susan with the help of a fertility specialist…
No matter what attitude I adopt, I know I will
receive one of the five stock responses. All of
which I can recite by heart: Oh, it’s different when they’re your
own; Oh, I’m so sorry. What’s
the problem; Aren’t you lonely? I know a wonderful doctor; Don’t you worry you’ll grow old
have no one
to take care of you? (Burkett, p. 182)
She added,
“ We need to get rid of the image that it’s only okay to be childless if you’re
miserable about it, but you’re a monster if you are childless and happy about
it “ (p. 187).
Another
opposite imaginative variation came from Amy Goldwasser, a magazine
editor expressed ambivalence about having kids. She said, “Progeny, after all,
is destiny… They try to sell me on
children, like you’d try to sell someone on getting a puppy” (p. 185).
It shows
the very different personality, philosophy, and approaches of individuals, such
as Ilene Bilenky, Amy Goldwasser, and the author of The Baby Boon:How
Family-Friendly America
Cheats the Childless- Elinor Burkett herself, reacting to their
environments. S described herself as an individual not to do thing differently.
S did mention that it was not impossible for her generation to have a child
without a husband, but S also expressed that she made a wrong decision.
Furthermore, she explained that she was not the TV type of person, which connoted
that changing lifestyles, seeking a divorce, finding a like-minded person to
have children, or using artificial insemination or similar methods were the
possible solutions if she were that type of individual. Similar experiences
that S expressed in this theme happened in several interviewees of Cain’s
childless-by-chance studies too.
Kvale
(1996) pointed out in his seven cannons of interpretations, “The hermeneutic
explication of a text is not presuppositionless. The interpreter cannot jump
outside the tradition of understanding he or she lives in” (p.49). I kept in mind that every interpretation
involved innovation and creativity as Kvale mentioned. In this theme, the
interpretation went beyond the immediately given text. In order to enrich the understanding, I
brought forth new differentiations and interrelations to the original text, and
extended S’ meaning.
In short,
contrasting to the above different stories and perspectives toward challenges,
the last theme I concluded that “Not a ‘changing’ type of personality” was a
factor to cause part of the childless regret.
Reflection and implication
I was aware
that due to a single account with other material aids might cause some
stretches from the original text, even though I kept Kvale’s seven cannons of
interpretation in mind through all the interpretations. There are still a lot of relevant information
available, which can be woven into and support the verification of the themes,
or the chance of re-interviews could shed new light on the current interpretations.
Hermeneutic
phenomenological approach, in the practical sense is to enhance or help our
understanding of the essence of an experience. So, with such understanding, in
the real life, we can render issues in more humanness ways. In this case, a professional married woman’s
inner struggle and regret for not having the biological children is due to
marital, professional, biological and ideological confluences. What are the
implications derived from such understanding?
Can regret or similar forms of frustration, sorrow, or grief be reduced,
redirected, or removed? Practically
speaking, merely from a case interview, we only see one of multi-faceted
phenomena of being childless/childfree. There are numerous of phenomena await
further phenomenological studies. For example, what is the meaning of
procreation under different of socio-cultural conditions? Under what kind of
contextual or biological conditions that childlessness makes people regret or
grieve? What are the differences of lived experiences between childless by
chance/happenstance vs. childfree? What
are the differences between male’s childless/childfree vs. female’s? What are
the external factors (such as social class, occupational locality, religious/political
belief, reproductive technology, previous exposure to different social
conditions and so on) affect the ideas or reality of being childless/childfree?
What do other cultures render the similar issues? Just to name a few.
Procreation
is the product of multiple socio-biological confluences. Hermeneutic phenomenological studies can help
our deeper understanding of such complexity unfolded layers by layers. This pseudo-study is a tip point of a long
term commitment to unveil the hidden information under the sea level of an
iceberg. The uncovered massages might one day help us to reconstruct a
humanness way of reproduction under an optimal living environment for the most
of the future generations to come.
Notes
[1] Women in
their late thirties with graduate degree- one-third are still childless, that
one in five baby boomer women is a non-mother by choice, or that the U.S.
Census Bureau projects that up to one-quarter of their daughters will follow
their lead (Burkett, 2000).
[2] There
are thirteen million childless and childfree adults over the age of forty in
the U.S.
[3] For
example, both over-populated and under-populated issues in different regions
and countries.
[4] The
individual, who can be male/female, single, married, divorced, GLBTQ,[4] or
there may be other various physical, psychological, socio-political,
eco-environmental or ideological factors for having no offspring, can be
categorized into by choice, by chance, or by happenstance.
[5]
Originally, I used the term “philosophical phenomenological” method. That term
came from the second class session handouts- Girogi’s distinguish between philosophical
phenomenological method and concrete step of human scientific
phenomenological method.
[6] Palmer’s
six modern definitions of hermeneutics- (1) the theory of biblical exegesis;
(2) general philological methodology; (3) the science of all linguistic
understanding; (4) the methodological of existence and of existential
understanding; and (6) the systems of interpretation, both recollective and
iconoclastic, used by human beings to reach the meaning behind myths and
symbols (Palmer, 1969, p. 33).
VHEM, Biology
and Breeding. April 10, 2003
Retrieved from http://ww.vhem.org/biobreed.htm.
References
Burkett. E. (2000). The
Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America
Cheats The Childless. The Free
Press, 2000.
Cain, M. (2001), The
Childless Revolution: What it means to be childless today. Perseus
Publishing
Coontz, S. (1992). The
Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. Basic
Books.
Crittenden, S. (2001). The Price of Motherhood. New York: Henry Holt and
Company, LLC.
Dahlberg, K., Drew, N.,
Nystrom, M. (2001). Reflective lifeworld research. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Ireland, M. (1993). Reconceiving
Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity. The
Guilford Press.
Carter J. & Carter, M.
(1989) Sweet Grapes: How to stop being infertile and start living again.
Perspectives Press
Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews-
An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage
Publications.
Lang, S. (1996). Women Without Children: The Reasons, The Rewards, The
Regrets. 1996.
Adams
Pub.
Love, V. (1984). Childless
is not less. Minneapolis:
Bethany House Publication.
Lunneborg, p. (1999). The
Chosen Lives of Childfree Men.. Bergin
& Garvey publishers.
Macionis, J. (2001). Sociology.
New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall Inc.
Mahony, R. (1995). Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies, and Bargaining
Power. Basic Books
Maushart, S. (2000). The Mask of Motherhood: How becoming a mother changes
everything and
why we pretend it doesn't.
Penguin Books/
Williams, J. (2002). Unbending
Gender: Why family and work conflict, and what to do about it.
Oxford Univ Press.
Palmer, R. (1969). Hermeneutics. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press.
Van Manen, M. (2001). Researching Lived
Experience-Human Science for an Actoin Sensitive
Pedagogy. Canada:
Transcontinental Printing Inc.
VHEM, Biology and Breeding. April 10, 2003 Retrieved
from http://ww.vhem.org/biobreed.htm.
Appendix: Table of themes, themes statements and possible variations.
Themes
|
Themes statements
|
Variations
|
1.
Mixed feeling of being childless- freedom vs. missing part of life.
|
- In some sense, on the
one hand, without children, I can have a career I want to fulfill
dreams, to be myself… and to do many things.
- I won’t be like the
married with children women bustling in the kitchen with apron on.
- On the other hand, it
involved with emotional struggle. It makes you feel something missing in
your life.
- By every measure, the
childless are among elite of American women: wealthier, more
independent, and better educated…(Burkett, 2000, p.182)
- My strong desire to
impart life to another human being and share in the parenting process
with my husband (Love, 1984, p. 57)
- I am not crying
because I feel sorry for myself for not having children. I am weeping
because I feel afresh the pangs of grief (p. 59).
|
When
I was a college student, I never thought about marriage or children at the
first place.
Anecdote:
|
2.
Socio-psychologically constructed needs and biological urge confluence the
desire to have own offspring.
Reproduction is a taken-for-granted and
self-evident socio-biological phenomenon.
|
- I have never really
thought about this issue consciously.
- It never happened to
be a conscious decision.
- By accident, I have
never made conscious decision of not having children of my own.
- Children are part of
life and tradition.
- Just based on my
family background, it is natural to be a mother. It never happened to be
a conscious decision.
- It is part of
biological urge and part of psychological satisfying… to shape another
human beings.
- I do have desire to
have children. My biological urge- pushed me that way- the desire to be
a mother.
- I know most people do
not want to talk about it (childless issue). You know, if you don’t have
children with no affiliation with churches, you know you are…(a dead
man/woman walking).
- Just based on my
family background, it is natural to be a mother.
- Yon know that I came
from a big family-7 children. The environment that I grew up gave me the
sense of having family with children is natural. One of my sisters even
has 7 children. Of course, I don’t see why she needs so many. I am always a good aunt to my 25
nieces and nephews. The older I am, the more I regret that I don’t have
children of my own.
- I think it was
natural to get married and to have children. As I have mentioned about
my family background and the way that I grew up.
- Traditionally, women,
who did not reproduce were virtually invisible, ashamed of their
“barrenness” or too timid to call attention to their unwomanliness
(Burkett, 2000, p. 183)
- In fact, for most of
the nation’s history, childless women were openly suspect-strangely
pathological creatures violating the biblical command to be fruitful and
multiply (p. 183)
- In colonial America,
married women without children were assumed to be suffering God’s
punishment
- Abraham and Sarah
stand out as probably the first and first fascinating infertile and
childless worked hard to become parents (Love, 1984, p. 23).
- Madonna and holy
child is the most important
-
-
- Proverbs 30:15
describes 4 terrible realities, childlessness is one of them:
Grave-with its death and corruption
Barren womb-with its unspeakable emptiness
Drought-with its killing dryness
And fire-with its power to consume
- There was an affinity
between us: a shared emptiness. Childlessness sensitizes the people who
undergo its pain and creates with us a mutual transparency, a peephole
of sorts into our common suffering (p. 65) Proverbs 30:15 describes 4
terrible realities, childlessness is one of them:
Grave-with its death and corruption
Barren womb-with its unspeakable emptiness
Drought-with its killing dryness
And fire-with its power to consume
- There was an affinity
between us: a shared emptiness. Childlessness sensitizes the people who
undergo its pain and creates with us a mutual transparency, a peephole
of sorts into our common suffering (p. 65)
-
- biblical icon in
western societies.
- Proverbs 30:15
describes 4 terrible realities, childlessness is one of them:
Grave-with its death and corruption
Barren womb-with its unspeakable emptiness
Drought-with its killing dryness
And fire-with its power to consume
- There was an affinity
between us: a shared emptiness. Childlessness sensitizes the people who
undergo its pain and creates with us a mutual transparency, a peephole
of sorts into our common suffering (p. 65)
|
Children
will be part of marriage, but not the priority.
But
I do have a sister who becomes a nun
.
|
3.Differeniate
the biological motherhood from the step-relationship. The former is deemed as
a necessary condition to fulfill a female’s ultimate desire and identity.
The
step relationship is not as “primary” as the blood bond.
|
- On the other hand, it
involved with emotional struggle…(compared to childless freedom). It makes you feel something missing
in your life.
- It (Biological child)
is your own things, to have your own children.
- You have the desire
to shape somebody with your own hands.
- Of course, I have
stepchildren and step-grandchildren. I like to be with them. I have
close relationships, especially with my step-grandchildren.
- I like them, but they
are different. They are not your biological offspring.
- Adopted children,
stepchildren are children, but they don’t really belong to you.
- “Compulsory
motherhood, that’s what Ilene calls the relentless social pressure to
reproduce” (Burkett, 2001, p. 186).
- “He who brings no children into the
world is like a murderer. A childless person is like the dead.” -The
Talmud, the central book of Jewish Law.
- Timothy warned that
women, who are still lugging around Eve’s original sin, could be saved
from it only childbearing. - Bible
- In Germany,
Hitler lionized the most fertile Aryan women with the Mutterkreuz-
Mother’s Cross.
- Lidia Kingsvill
Commander called upon intelligent American women to have six children to
keep the nation from being overpopulated with “loosely united, crude
savages, content to hunt and fish, war with neighboring tribes.”
- Sigmund Freud laid
the groundwork by teaching that women need children to overcome
childhood penis envy.
- World wide renowned
neurologist De. Max G. Schlapp, lectured-“ Any woman who does not desire
offspring is abnormal.”o
- Erik Erikson said “
The woman who does not fulfill her innate need to fill her “inner
space,” or uterus, with embryonic tissue is likely to be frustrated or
neurotic.”
|
It
never happened into my picture (thinking to have children in the first
place.)
Motherhood
was not so compelling in my mind. It was career that was the most important
thing in my life to pursue.
Anecdotes:
“Biological
destiny? Forget biology! If we were biology, people would die from not doing
it”- Sociologist Jessie Bernard.
|
4.
The dilemma of career vs. motherhood is a sensible treat to the
career-oriented female gender to have children
|
- My sister is a person
who wants to get married, and have children.
- I could have made my
own choice (change her marital relationship). But, it’s about career.
- When I was a college
student I had never wanted to do thing like that. I always wanted to
have my own career, and do things with many other ideas. Then marriage
and children would be part of it.
But the latter was not my main goal.
- It is always a
problem for women to have both career and family. Now is even worse.
“Have them all” still is a remote goal.
You need all kind of family and
government support, such as nursing schools, quality child care
centers to be a career woman with children. Women of last generations did not have
many choices, so they did not face the problems nowadays we have to
encounter.
|
Childlessness
is not a traditional way of family life. Religion does not sanction such
phenomenon.
Family
background affected the traditional image of marriage and family outlook.
|
5.
Marital
relationship is a prohibiting factor to the childlessness
|
- I always hoped that
situation could have change, and I could have children.
- Yes, before marriage, he said yes (to have
children).
- After marriage, he changed his mind.
- He just did not want
any children. Of course, I might have other choices, such as having a
divorce, and find other man who wanted to have children with me. But I
did not do it….
- Later I realized that
my biological clock was ticking out.
- My husband has
children from his previous marriage.
- He doesn’t want
anymore. He doesn’t want to have children with me. He is not the caring
type of father to the children of his previous marriage.
|
A
career woman’s launching in a marriage which was expected to be a normal one
- with husband and children.
Court case anecdote:
In
recent years, California,
Florida, Utah, and Oregon have passed
laws increasing penalties for spousal abuse if witnessed by a child. “ I
see,” said one Oregonian shortly after her state passed that law in June
1998. “If my husband beats me, it’s not that big a deal, just a misdemeanor.
But if I have a kid who might be traumatized, then it becomes a serious
crime, a felony, that will put him away for five years. Certainly tells me
how much my well-being courts.”
|
6.
Self-image as not a “changing” type of personality contributed to part of the
lamenting childlessness.
|
- Maybe I should say
that I have made a wrong choice…
- Women in my
generation can have children without a husband. But, I… It is very
personal.
- He just did not want
any children. Of course, I might have other choices, such as having a
divorce, and find other man who wanted to have children with me. But I
did not do it…
- Basically, I am not a
counter-cultural person to do things really differently.
- Right, not the kind
of TV portrayed lifestyle person.
I think I am in the middle.
|
….But
I did not do it…..(take action to change conditions)
Anecdote:
“People
are never asked to justified their decision to have kids, so why should I be
expected to justify my decision not have them.” Ilene Bilenky, a nurse in Massachusetts.
|
