Dying Childless & Alone, and Other Cheerful Things
The Maybe Lady was flying solo last weekend while Drew surprised his brother Eric for his 40th birthday by showing up on his doorstep in Chicago. I’m glad Drew got to go, and I’m actually glad he got to go alone. Though it would have been great for me to see his family (and my own in that neck of the woods), it gave him the chance to have some rare siblings-only bonding, and some good old-fashioned boys-drinking-too-much-whiskey-and-throwing-up-in-the-yard* fun.
But while he was gone, I realized just how long it had been since I’d been on my own overnight. I could have called any one of my friends or done something wildly productive like start a dried insect collection, but I was strangely distracted by how much I missed him and instead watched a crappy Rom Com, ate cereal for dinner and slept with a Santoku knife in my top dresser drawer to fend off potential intruders. It was a brief and terrifying glimpse into Life Without Drew.
My mind couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen when Drew was gone for good. He’s almost two years older than me, and when you take into account…
- the lifespan differences between men (66 – 82) and women (74 – 86) in the U.S.,
- my gene pool (my 84 year old grandfather kicked my ass in an hour-long walk on the beach last week, and my great Aunt Mable died recently at 104), and
- the scores of Hawaiian pizzas and Hamm’s beers Drew consumed in his bachelor days
…he just ain’t gonna outlast me. Probably by a pretty solid number of years, unfortunately. I used to think I’d be able to handle that with some grace, or at least that it wouldn’t send me into a spiral of regret about not having some kids around to soften the blow. I’d always thought that the fear of dying alone or not having someone to take care of you in your old age was a rather lame reason to have kids. It was something that never even factored into my baby decision for a few reasons:
- I figured I’d be surrounded by other similarly ancient beings in my Del Boca-Whatever community down in Florida, or the assisted living facility. And yes, I’ve heard the nursing home horror stories, but I assumed my Childfree savings account could at least buy me a pretty darn good chance at a nice facility. While the idea of playing Pinochle in twelve hour shifts might seem like a nightmare to some, that’s just Day One of any vacation with my family.
- I have no qualms about taking myself out (like, permanently) if I find myself in one of those nightmare nursing home situations.
- I decided long ago with my best friend Ale (who’s never been sure on the whole kids thing either) that we’d Golden Girls-it with a couple other ladies somewhere warm once our slightly-older-than-us husbands kicked off. I regret to inform you all that I was selected to fill Bea Arthur’s role of Dorothy (I hope it was for my height and acerbic wit rather than my snazzy pantsuits and smoky baritone voice).
While I suppose I always knew in the back of my mind that the Golden Girls dream would never come to fruition, it was only truly hammered home earlier this year when Ale announced her pregnancy. Now it was only me that would need an Estelle, Blanche and Rose to keep me company in my old age. Sure, I have plenty of sassy, slutty and space-cadet friends (respectively) to fill those roles**, but every single one of them already has a kid, is pregnant, or has definitive plans to start having children as soon as they can. Will I truly be the only one of my friends to be left entirely alone at the end?
Before last weekend, I might’ve said, Okay, I can survive that too, and find a way to enjoy the solitude. And of course, I will if I must. But I have to say, if Drew’s brief absence was just a slight hint at the chasm of loneliness that opens up after the death of a spouse when you don’t have children…well, that’s going to suck.
I know this isn’t a good enough reason to have kids. I’d be a real loser if I thought it was. And I know that having a child is no guarantee that they’ll be a good support system later in life, or that they’ll take you in or visit you in the nursing home (in fact, there’s all kinds of evidence to the contrary). But I’ll concede that increasing your chances of having someone around during what might be the loneliest part of your life is at least a notch in the “pros” column for having kids.
Or maybe the next time Drew goes out of town, I should just use the free time to start on my plans to build the People Who Never Had Kids Nursing Home. Applications for co-founders are now being accepted; those with Estelle Getty-sass and a fondness for Pinochle will be given special consideration.
*Lest anyone make a hasty remark about the boozy Childfree lifestyle, I feel I must state for the record that the puker was, in fact, a proud father of one and a half children.
**Just kidding, friends. Except you, Racquel – I meant every word.
35 Responses to Dying Childless & Alone, and Other Cheerful Things
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Lizard… there’s no reason you and i can’t still Golden-Girl it out! I’d be much better off with people my own age than intruding on my kid’s life… they have lives to live too… right? Maybe we can be roommates once again in a nursing home… although… what am i going to do when your “ogre-ness” kicks the can since there has been research showing that short people live longer than tall?!?!?
You will never outlast me, RMB. But I’m glad to hear our GG plan is still a go. If you change your mind, can we still be roommates at your kid’s house? I’ll just assume “yes”.
If you look at the backstories of each of the Golden Girls characters… they were all moms. Dorothy had two kids and divorce, Rose had five kids and a dead husband, and Blanche had six kids and a dead husband. I don’t think offspring has anything to do with being roomies in old age.
That said, it’s something I think about a lot too… I know I’ll outlast the partner. He’s got bad habits and a family history that indicate he’ll drop dead in his 50s or 60s, and based on mine I’ll probably have another 30 years without him. I shudder to think.
Good grief, Blanche had six kids?! I suppose that makes sense with her promiscuity. I’d remembered her as childfree for some reason, but thank you for the fact-check! Gives me hope.
You’ll have the old geezers fighting over you…especially with your card-playing skills, love of salad bars, and extreme cheapness/frugality. Can’t imagine you’ll ever be lonely, as you will be quite the catch! Plus by then you could be up to a dozen or so cats…
Just what every old widower wants – a crazy old lady with 12 cats!
I wonder about this too since my husband is 11 years older than me. I then remind myself a few things: 1) there’s no guarantee that I won’t be the one to go first, 2) Julia Child was 10 years younger than her husband and outlived him by 10 years and seems to have done just fine, 3) plenty of people loose spouses and go on to have wonderful lives with second loves or a great single life, and 4) children can die before their parents or be otherwise unable to provide care to elderly parents.
Also, children might soften the death of a spouse, but even they won’t truly get what you’re going through unless they’ve also experienced it. Even then, death of an elderly spouse is different than death of a young spouse (I would imagine). Chances are children would be around for a short period after and then they’ll move on with their lives, just as you would.
I personally plan on living in one of those elderly/assisted living communities, like in the movie In Her Shoes, where there will be plenty of age-and-experience related companions who will get my situation and make wonderful Golden-Girl-like friends.
It’s a good point that the kids may not actually be much support after a death. Maybe I thought of it more as a way to divide my affections so not all my eggs were in one basket when it’s likely I’m going to lose that basket. Maybe I just need to look at other baskets that aren’t kids. Maybe I need to end this metaphor before it gets any more out of control. I’m going to have to check out that movie though, thanks for mentioning it!
That makes sense! I think that’s why it’s important for anyone to find a purpose/meaning in life that’s not dependent on other people. I envision myself knitting to my heart’s content, teaching senior yoga or fitness classes, hiking/walking daily, and possibly mentoring kids in literacy or nature in my old age. I’m actually excited thinking about it now and I have a ways to go!
On another note, I think that this might be why some people fear aging. They can’t picture themselves living good lives in 40+ years.
Senior yoga sounds terrifying! I’ll start increasing my calcium intake now so I can join your class someday and not snap all my bones.
Oh, and don’t feel bad about feeling that way when your husband leaves. I think it’s only natural to feel like that when an integral part of your life is removed. Plus, it totally throws off your typical routine (thus the cereal for dinner). People are adaptive though and will settle into a new routine that doesn’t feature that person eventually. Life always goes on, even if it feels like it won’t.
This is something i too think about with a husband that is 15 years older than me. I too am aware that you can and people do loss their spouses at any age. Its a reminder that life is too short and that we should never put anything off as we don’t know whats around the corner. As to being alone other people have done it before and will continue to do so you just have to make the most of the life you have.
Yup, I know I’ll survive – it’s just a question of knowing what to do in the here and now to make sure I’m in a good place when it happens. Wow, why did we all have to marry such geezers?!
I married a woman 4 years older than myself. I guess I was trying to even things out.
I think you’re right about the younger American generations doing less and less about respecting and caring for their elders. We could learn a lot from other cultures, and even from past generations. We’re a “me” generation, and it’s gonna screw us over if/when later generations are even more “me” than us, and just want us to disappear and stop bothering them.
One thing I remember about my wife’s grandfather is that he was sort of on the verge of death for what seems like 5, maybe 10 years. He lost the ability to read, he didn’t like a lot of the television programming, he couldn’t focus on things the way he used to. The one really bright spot in his life was getting visits from his grandkids (we lived with him for a while and our baby daughter adored him). I sometimes wonder if he held on all of those extra years just because he could always look forward to seeing the grandkids grow up, even if he’d lost interest in a lot of other things. I don’t even know if it’s such a great thing to hold on like that…maybe without anticipation of seeing his grandkids, he’d have just faded quickly, if unhappily, away, and not had to worry about another decade of pain and deteriorating abilities.
Thanks for evening things out, Neal! That’s pretty interesting about your wife’s grandfather – I guess we can never really determine what keeps us hanging around a little bit longer, life (and death!) are mysterious indeed.
Um, what about those of us (mostly adjusted, sort of mature, professional adults) who normally eat cereal for dinner? I’ve often told my husband that we couldn’t have kids for the sheer fact that we’d have to cook a normal meal and eat dinner at a reasonable time… every. single. night.
But seriously, I’ve thought about this (my husband is 6 years older than me), and the thought of not having kids to fall back on/rely on if my husband dies bothers me less as I get older and start to think about what my mom will do when her husband dies and my role as part of her support system. I will definitely be there to support her (obviously), but I also know she has other friends her age who will do much more than I can. No way would I have kids now just to soften that potential blow sometime later. Plus, I have this sneaking suspicion that there will be more and more of us childless people, and while it may not be “mainstream”, I think we’ll have a lot more like-minded friends later in life than we expect. Too optimistic?
If the numbers are correct, at least 20% of us geezers should be Childfree. Sometimes it just seems hard to believe it when I don’t personally know even one person who intends not to have kids. But, by the time we’re old, there will probably be a much more effective system in place for the Childfree to find each other. I hope!!!
I’ll come live with you. I sew, so I can fix all of our blouses so we don’t have to deal with buttons, and I’ll make quilts to cover up with, because most of us women are always cold.
I saw a woman on the news once who was celebrating her 105th birthday. Her only wish that year was to have a certain hockey player come visit her so that she could run her fingers through his mullet. He DID come and see her, brought her a jersey and a cake too. That’s what I want to be like. My mother in law has six kids and 11 grandkids, and though she’s only 68, has given up on living. She’s doing the slow suicide through cigarettes and inactivity right now, made even worse by the mini-strokes that she’s been hiding and not wanting to deal with.
Of the six kids, the ones that come and see her most often are the two childfree ones. Of course, we only live a half mile away from her farm and are basically doing all of the work. Part of the problem is that with all the chain smoking and four indoor cats, the allergy level is quite high and no one wants to be sick after visiting their mom/grandmother. The other part is becoming “reap what you sow”. MIL was so busy running her six kids around to EVERY LITTLE THING THEY COULD BE INVOLVED in, she didn’t get around to visiting her own mother very often. Now her kids, who learned well from her, are busy doing the same thing. And I’m the only one who sees that the kids are treating her the way she taught them to treat elderly people.
Yup, count me in for a childfree seniors home. Should be a riot!
I love that mullet story!!! I’m going to have to get started on a list now of ridiculous crap I’m going to force people to do later on because I’m old and they feel bad. Okay, we’re slowly building our seniors community!
I have serious longevity in my family as well. I too have considered the notion of what to do when I’m old. I made a pact with one of my friends that when we grow old we will live together. I pictured us playing cards on the porch everyday, drinking bloody mary’s or smoking weed (I’ve always wanted to be a grandma who grows weed) and yelling at the kids to get off our lawn. I have a feeling though, this might be like one of those promises you made with your guy friend in High School swearing if you weren’t married at a certain age, you two would marry each other…which we all know never happens. I want to live in a community like the movie, “In Her Shoes” but I think you have to have a lot of money. Or, live in Florida. It’s true that our culture doesn’t really acknowledge the elderly. They kind of just disappear: from the movies, Hollywood and t.v. In China, the younger generations take care of the older. They don’t necessarily have to be family, you just need to put in your time. When you then become old, you get the same amount of time you put in given back to you. Pretty cool. Looks like us Americans who are flying high enjoying our youth are s.o.l. (aka shit out of luck). Hope my friend Claire still remembers her promise.
Haha – as I was reading the first sentence, I was thinking of the high-school-best-guy-friend pact too! Well, I hope your plan with Claire has more sticking power than that one did for all of us! As for having enough money for a nice community – don’t forget that if you don’t have kids, you’re going to have an awful lot of cash on your hands.
Cheer up, you might die before your husband! (Sorry, couldn’t resist).
I wrote about this here. It was enormously reassuring to me to find that people who don’t have kids are better prepared for their old age, and have better support systems, than those who rely on families who (frankly) aren’t always there for them. We’ve all got stories of people whose kids aren’t there for them when they’re old.
Also, here’s a hint. Next time your husband is away, plan your evening. I don’t mean hit the town with your friends (though that’s good too). But you could plan a dinner and movie that you like but you know he’d hate. And relish it! The time will fly.
What a great tip! And I really enjoyed your blog post. Good for you for making the choice to be satisfied with the way things have turned out. I agree that our happiness is almost 100% dependent on how we respond to our life’s circumstances, rather than the circumstances themselves.
CEREAL FOR DINNER!!!
Are those bran flakes from Trader Joe’s?? I actually just finished a mini-bowl of TJ cheerios… it’s a nice thing to indulge in. Although visualizing myself as an elder and considering the risks of Type II diabetes makes it a little less pleasant
Thinking about our golden years alone is scary. I am also hoping I can save up enough for a retirement community next to a golf course in sunny Arizona. What I have noticed though, is that many childfree folks I know in their 40s and 50s spend most of their time taking care of their elderly parents. Not having kids can definitely help, ($$$ and time wise), but like Jennifer S said, if you have a bunch of siblings and you are the only one with, I guess, less “excuses” to be around, then that becomes your primary responsibility. Which I would not mind, since I only have one younger sibling. But NPR featured recently all these stories about the cost of elderly care, and how families are not living in intergenerational households, etc… so who knows? I probably should give up Starbucks and start to seriously prepare.
Something I enjoyed about grad school was that the opportunity to build relationships with mentors, professors and colleagues that get pretty close; they are obviously not a substitute for a parent-child relationship, but I have found these connections nurturing and necessary, since I don’t get to see my parents that often. I care about visiting and keeping in touch with these parent-like figures. So hopefully I will also develop this type of relationships with studnets, nieces, nephews and others in need of a fun substitute grandma to visit at my awesome desert-view nursing home.
That’s a good point about finding “substitutes” in school. I’m actually trying to find a job in student advising/career counseling at colleges right now, and part of the reason is that if I’m not going to be a parent, I want to find a different way to make a real difference in someone’s life. So it’s good to hear how much you valued those relationships as a student.
If we’re going to be so morbid about the future, then remember that there is a chance that you will die before he does. If you have a kid to have someone to take care of you in your old age, then consider the small chance that you will die before reaching old age. Then you would have had kids for nothing!
One long-term strategy: nag hubby into nailing down a great job with huge life insurance benefits. Then, you can prowl the nursing homes dazzling the old timers with your bling.
Oh, I’d already planned for that, don’t worry.
Both my sister and I moved away, like moved countries, away 10 years ago from our parents (there’s only the 2 of us). We both have lives, jobs and spouses in our new countries. My parents are getting older, mid 70s now and it does eat me up that we won’t be around to take them to the Dr, take them to Tai Chi class & visit them regularly but with our jobs, mortgages etc realistically neither of us are going to move back to the motherland to care for them. They seem to have accepted this and are getting on with their own lives as much as they can, but I still find it hard and guilt-inducing. Having kids is absolutely no guarantee that you will have them around for company in old age. You have to take responsibility for your own happiness and time and not count on kids to fill that void for you.
On a side note, I was in an uphill road bike race a couple of weeks ago (I’m in my 30s) and had my ass handed to me on a plate by a guy who was 73- humbling and inspiring at the same time and I guess it’s proof that you don’t lose it if you don’t stop doing it.
Haha! Glad I’m not the only one getting thoroughly embarrassed in athletic endeavors with old people! Kids so rarely stay in their hometowns anymore, so even if it’s still within the same country, I bet a lot of families are in the same situation as yours where they may only see each other once a year. I guess I was thinking more about emotional support, which doesn’t necessarily need to be in the same location. But it definitely makes it harder when it’s not.
Yes! I have thought about starting a home like this too. I really, really hope society has adapted enough by the time we’re old, because there will be many more of us childfree folks without spouses. (But, like you, I don’t see any around me! I’m still looking for my Golden Girls too.)
My husband is 6 years older than I. One of the main reasons I have spent a lot of energy and time whipping our finances into better shape (he’s on board, but is not the driving force behind it) is because I’m terrified of what might happen to me if I don’t have money to take care of myself when I’m older. He doesn’t have this urgency or fear that I have (because he’s going to die first, duh…and he has kids!)
It sounds morbid, but I wish the government distributed suicide kids for those that are ready to move on from life in a peaceful way. I have no qualms about it.
Well, by the time we get to that point in our lives, they MIGHT be distributing them! Who knows? Society might view it totally differently.
Oh, and don’t forget about dementia. When you’re much older, you may think the people taking care of you really are your children, even if you never had any. Or, you may not recognize your children when they come to take care of you. So, what’s the point of being taken care of by your children when you don’t even notice?
This post keeps getting more and more cheerful!
Dealing with family deaths has made me truly sad that i’m an only child, I can tell you – having a brother or sister to share the burden of burying a parent would have been bloody wonderful. There’s a point where it hits how alone you are, and that the child-bearing choices of even your grandparents are directly impacting your life (my parents had no siblings, therefore I have no aunts, uncles, or cousins) and that’s the point at which I personally started to really value and respect (okay, envy) big families and the support that they provide, even when not living close by or not always getting along day to day. Marriages don’t always last, but family are always family. Sorry, didn’t man to sound so gloomy, I’m still hurting from some of this stuff so apologies if I’m over-sharing.
Yes, big families are totally wonderful in many ways. Especially when the kids grow up. But man, that’s a LOT of work to raise more than two children. Some days, I don’t even know how people do two!