Just the two of us: Some area couples opt for childfree lives

Kirk Baird

Wednesday, April 4, 2001 | 9:04 a.m.

Wendy Amato loves children.

She gets along with them and, as a 31-year-old school counselor at Cashman Middle School, deals with them almost daily.

But Amato never wanted children of her own. So much so that on her third date with her husband, Paul, 37, the two discussed their feelings about remaining childless.

"It was a relief to meet my husband and (that) he didn't want any kids," Amato said. "There was not the pressure there the pressure from my partner to suddenly say, 'Let's have a baby.'"

Married 1 1/2 years, the couple live in a house in Summerlin and own five cars, as well as rental and ski-resort property. That type of lifestyle wouldn't be possible if they had kids, she said.

The Amatos are what is referred to as DINKS dual income, no kids.

And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, couples similar to them are on the rise.

Although there are no official figures to represent childless couples, the bureau points to the fertility of U.S. women as a means of measuring the number of children born to couples. In the 40- to 44-year-old age group, essentially the last period of childbearing years for women, 19 percent of all women were childless. In 1980 it was 10 percent.

The trend reflects a changing U.S. lifestyle that became more popular in the 1980s, said Amara Bachu, statistician and demographer for the Census Bureau in Washington, D.C.

"More and more women are getting higher education, getting well-paid jobs," Bachu said. "It's empowerment. They're not tied down, they're economically independent."

And because of that independence, more women are focusing on their careers, she said, and may postpone having children until they are settled in their jobs.

"They get older, into their late 30s, and by then it may be too late for them physically to have children," Bachu said.

There are other reasons why couples are electing not to have children.

Carl Haub, demographer with the Population Reference Bureau Inc. in Washington, D.C., an organization that studies population trends, said some of the more popular reasons given are people not wanting to contribute to overpopulation, and the thought that, "The world is a bad place and I don't want to bring anyone into it."

But perhaps the most popular reason, Haub said, is couples have developed a taste for the finer things in life and don't want to give that up.

"People are traveling more; we have a whole number of things we can spend our money on," he said. "The cost of raising a child is a big thing."

No Kidding!

While those are all straightforward reasons, Lola Henderson's is perhaps even more simple.

"I never wanted children," she said.

In fact, the 40-year-old Henderson said she clearly remembers, while in her teens, telling her mother that she never wanted to be a parent.

Her passion for remaining childless runs so deep that she, along with her husband, Rick, 43, started the Las Vegas chapter of No Kidding! in September.

No Kidding!, founded in Canada in 1984, is devoted to promoting the lifestyle choice of being "childfree," and has chapters worldwide.

The Las Vegas chapter boasts about 100 members -- couples and singles -- who don't have children and probably won't, either, Lola Henderson said.

The group, which is more a social club than activist organization, meets at least once a month for barbecues, happy hours, dances -- activities where the members can interact and discuss being childless in a comfortable setting.

Some might consider the Hendersons selfish for not having children, but Lola Henderson disagrees.

"I think it's more selfish for people who want to have kids," she said. "No one's ever really given me a good reason to have kids. If you want to have kids simply to reproduce yourself, what's more selfish than that?"

Nevertheless, a social prejudice that exists against "childfree" couples (a term No Kidding! prefers over "childless") is one of the reasons she started the chapter, she said.

Negative perceptions

Madelyn Cain, author of "The Childless Revolution: What it Means to be Childless Today,"(published Tuesday by Perseus Publishing, $24), understands that feeling firsthand.

The 55-year-old said until she and her husband had their only child, when Cain was 39, they were lumped into the same category as other childless couples, as "self-centered workaholics."

"I knew it was an inaccurate portrayal, so I began interviewing women to see who they really were," she said from her home in Los Angeles.

Cain spent four years writing and researching her book, interviewing 225 women. She found that women gave eight basic reasons not to have children -- ranging from the aforementioned financial and environmental concerns to medical and fertility issues.

Regardless of the reasons why, however, there is almost always a negative perception of childless couples even though, according to American Demographics magazine, there will be a 44-percent increase in that group by 2010, Cain said.

"Childlessness is the big elephant in the living room," she said. "We all know people who are childless, but nobody is talking about it. There's still a negative attachment to it."

Although Cain is happy with her decision to have a child, she said the fact that more couples are exploring the alternative is a positive development.

"It's getting to the point that we're consciously choosing to have children or not to," Cain said. "It's a good evolution that we're moving into, as opposed to having children just because we have to.

"I think we should all respect each other's decisions."

The decision whether to have children is not always easy.

For Tina Mullis, a 35-year-old lifetime Las Vegas resident, it didn't occur to her until after she divorced her first husband while in her early 20s.

"When he decided he didn't want to be married anymore, I thought, 'What if we had kids?' " Mullis said. "If it's that easy for someone to stop loving someone, I don't want to bring kids into it."

When she remarried 11 years ago, Mullis didn't seriously consider having children then, either. Now being a parent is no longer an option, she said.

She and her husband have developed a less-restrictive lifestyle without children, Mullis said. Plus, she has her career -- an accountant with the federal government -- which she would want to give up if she were a mom.

"I see friends with kids struggling (financially). It's hard for us to make it day to day without kids, so how are they doing it?" she said. "But they all make it. They just adjust, I'm sure. But we're not willing to do that."

Still, there are times, Mullis concedes, when guilt over her decision creeps in -- when she wonders if she's being selfish and depriving a child of parents.

"If anyone says they don't have guilt feelings when they say they don't want kids, they're lying," she said. "You might not sit there and stew over it, but it's there in your head."

But those thoughts quickly fade.

"It's a hard decision and you have to live with whatever you decide," Mullis said. "And I have decided to live with this."