With the U.S. Census Bureau reporting that nearly half of all women between 15 and 44 are childless, it’s clear that the lifestyle for career women entering today’s workforce is quickly changing.
For some, not having children was a decision made at an early age, while for others, the decision to not have children was one that happened by chance and not by choice.
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In the case of Karen Malone Wright, she identifies herself as a by-chance NotMom, where her expectation to have kids did not pan out the way she initially planned.
Previously working in public relations and communications for both the corporate and nonprofit sector, Wright is the CEO of ODYSSEY Creative Communications and the founder of TheNotMom.com. Creating the online platform in 2011, Wright says she started the blog as an effort to share her journey of being a working woman without children. Now, with four years of The NotMom movement under her belt, Wright is expanding the brand to create the first ever The NotMom Summit.
In an interview with BlackEnterprise.com, Wright opens up about the start of her blog, the ongoing conversation about successful career women without children, and the expectation for the first of its kind The NotMom Summit.
BlackEnterprise.com: What prompted you to start TheNotMom.com?
Wright: I started the website in 2011 on Tumblr and I did it mainly as a diary for myself, but it instantly began to resonate with other women. At the time, I was over 50 and I wasn’t an empty-nester. I didn’t have teenagers and I wasn’t sending kids off to college. So out of frustration, I started online what I wish I could have found for myself.
Later, in 2011, I entered the blog for an Ohio business development program for entrepreneurial women and won $5,000. Through research I learned that 1 in every 5 women do not have kids for various reasons, and that is basically around the world; not just in the U.S. So I spruced up the website a bit and moved it from Tumblr to WordPress and everything from there has been organic. The thing that distinguishes my website from others is that it’s for women who wanted to be a mom but it just didn’t happen, and it’s also for women who knew since they were little girls that they didn’t want to be a mom.
With more career women, especially millennial women, opting not to have kids or putting the idea of motherhood on hold, do you think there is still a certain level of judgement that comes with their decision?
I don’t believe that is a millennial thing necessarily. I mean [millennials] may be doing it in bigger numbers, but that ‘one in five women’ is around the world. Every country can trace the growth of women without children back to the 70s, which was when women were told they were going to college not to actually find a husband but to actually get an education. I think there will always be certain people who want to judge a person’s choice, but I think that we are in such a place now where you have TIME magazine and celebs talking about it. I’m personally childless by chance. I wanted to have kids but it just never happened, and there’s this misconception that women without children are sad for the rest of their life.
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Recently, Gabrielle Union spoke out and I think like [Union] and all professional women, the kid thing is a big deal. Also, what I’m hearing more about is workplace issues for women who don’t have kids. If you don’t have children, chances are you may start to volunteer to work extra hours and then after a while it’s obvious that colleagues and your boss expect you to do that because you don’t have kids. So there are [workplace] challenges around the issue.
What can people expect from the first The NotMom Summit taking place this October?
Across the spectrum, we’re trying to make almost every single session reflective of the women who are by choice and by chance. We address everything from financial planning to long-term care. Like if the question is, ‘who will take care of me when I’m old?’ Then we address how to start thinking about that now. Also, how do you talk to friends and family with kids and set boundaries? And if you leave the world and have no kids, how will you be remembered and what will you have left behind? We’ve also got something on pets because we know women without kids tend to have pets in higher numbers. We also have someone talking about environmental issues, and that
We’re also going to talk about dating and on what date do you tell someone you don’t want kids. We also have something on faith, because we hear so much about that and what it’s like to go to church where there are a lot of babies and you want one. For some women, they’ve stopped going to church especially on Mother’s Day. So if you prayed for children and feel your prayers haven’t been answered, where do you stand with God, and is your relationship with him OK? Then we have a session on workplace issues and how do you keep a good relationship with colleagues who are parents, without feeling like you are being taken advantage of?
To learn more about Wright and The NotMom Summit coming up Oct. 9-10 in Cleveland, Ohio, visit TheNotMom.com.