012613 (Sa) A Qualitative Research Project-A Phenomenological Interview: A Lived Experience of A Professional Married Woman without Children

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.

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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: Abby and Tom Bohley of Colorado Springs who have married and committed to childless for more than three decades “ I consider myself blessed” says Abby.  “ 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. . A lot of our contemporaries who are grandparents are always taking about hoe old they are, but frankly, we feel pretty young.”
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.