I agree with the previous reviewer that the selection of stories from parents is absurd. To me, this has nothing to do with your position on being childless (or childfree). It would be as if I were to write a book on, say, adoption, and then include a section on biological parents and children because they need to separate from each other too...this makes no sense whatsoever. Or if I were writing about Asian-American women and I included a section of writings by white women because deep down, they felt a kinship with Asian Americans, or they struggled with the same issues, or whatever.

books like this make me ask "where have all the decent editors gone?"

I was extremely disappointed in this book -- a large percentage of the stories/articles are about women who have or had children. It is deceptive and inappropriate to have stories about/from women who lost or were losing their children (for various reasons) to be included in a book about childlessness. Even the clip from Amy Tan, one of my favorite authors, seemed to miss the mark on this topic.

There also seems to be an inordiantely large percentage of the articles written by lesbians, and how being a lesbian was so intertwined with why they didn't want kids -- as if women who choose not to have children are possibly all latent homosexuals.

Furthermore, many of the stories focus on women who are dysfunctional -- furthering the myth that women without kids are 'damaged' as an explination for why they don't want children, like a 'normal' woman.

There was one particular article which I found interesting -- about the author's fear of becoming a bag lady because she has no children to care for her, while also aknowledging the fact that having children is no guarentee that sad fate will not occur.

Seperating content from creativity, I also that most of the stories and poems were poorly written. I might have enjoyed this more if the writing were beautiful, or insightful, or artistically significant, even if the topic was not what I expected.

I have read several books about childless/childfree-ness, and this is the worst on the topic in every way.

With more and more women (and men) remaining child-free by choice, Ratner's anthology provides a varied and compehensive look at a topic that will gather more importance as the years go on. The essays range from the plain-spoken and humorous to the heartfelt and intellectual. THis is a good choice for a text in women's studies and cultural studies courses.