Consistent with this conceptualization, indicators of adaptation and well-being over time to permanent biological
childlessness for participants in this study included symptoms of psychological distress, marital satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, life satisfaction, and self-esteem.
(39) Also, despite the absence of modem birth control methods, some
childlessness may have been by choice in these historical populations, or couples may have acted to limit their fertility.
is a significant contribution to our understanding of
childlessness. In particular, the reconstructing of our notions of
childlessness to include the circumstantially childless is a major contribution.
Studies show that
childlessness engenders ongoing stress for the couple and that both its psychological and emotional trauma can be devastating.
They may return to a traditional healer, but are unlikely to accept the finality of
childlessness. To date, only one couple has adopted.
But the idea that mass
childlessness is the product of a "lifestyle choice" or a political movement defies common sense.
But if Macadam had his way, any person with the slightest family history of illness would be doomed to a life of
childlessness.
We get to trace accounts of individual families in their households, neighborhoods, and city, such as the Datinis, who were cursed with
childlessness. We get to hear about the travails of finding a suitable wet nurse, the agonies of families upon the deaths of their children, and the hazards of childbirth for mother and infant.
Bearing Life: Women's Writing on
Childlessness, edited by Rochelle Ratner.
Jenny Speice reviews Beth Cooper-Hilbert's Infertility and Involuntary
Childlessness: Helping Couples Cope.
But in Persuasion, it is only the sailors and their wives, never the gentry, who find fulfillment in their marriages, wherein men and women appear to have nearly equal status and
childlessness does not equal failure.
A part of me enjoyed the freedom that I had because of my "
childlessness," and I felt sure that if I did become a mother, I would feel opposing emotions in relation to that experience also.