What came to me when I first thought of "childlessness transformed" was that for a couple of years now I've had this thought of my life being dedicated to that. I've been asking, do I want children, or don't I want children? I'm heading toward that age. I'm 39, so I'm just toward the end there. I have been married for 15 years. I've spent a long time with one person, and we've obviously had enough time to get to know each other, and to make a decision about children. I have had the thought that if I don't have children I'd love to do service for the world. I have a lot of mothering instincts, and I am already mothering all my clients, and taking care of them.

I see clients in two ways. First of all I have a body work business, a massage business. I see a lot of people for massage, polarity therapy, and I'm also a degreed nutritionist. I just love to talk about food in a wholistic type way, and I like to deal in the world of straight doctors. I like to play in both realms.

I also teach cooking classes. I've taught cooking classes out of my home, teaching people how to cook with low fat, low sugar, low salt, and making food a very fun but healthy experience. I've done that for two years. I derive a great deal of pleasure in helping people creatively with food. I love giving 100%, seeing people really respond to me when I do, and I see them start to heal, start to care about themselves. I also lecture in business. I have given lectures to businesses like AAA and Blue Shield. I just did a lecture last week for thirty people, and half the room was men and it was just great seeing them respond to my work on nutrition and cancer prevention. I volunteer for the American Cancer Society, and it's a real thrill for me to go out and talk to people who aren't even into this at all. I start to plant little seeds about attitude, and even if they eat a little broccoli or carrots, they are doing something good for themselves. I bring food, and I spread it out. I feel through good food I can help people love themselves more.

One of the things I've thought about is that parenting is very nonverbal. Especially the first few years you are communicating with this little being. You choose the foods to give them, and shape their lives a lot by what foods you give them. I parent a lot of people by offering them new kinds of food, not by telling them about them, or persuading them, but by putting it on their plate, and saying, "Here, try this." They don't even know that I'm doing that, but that's what my feeling is inside, that they're going to be exposed to really good food, and going to see that health can be fun. I'm not even going to put it out there as "health." I love to feed people. I'm always feeding people. I've had great results. I feel I'm supposed to work in areas where people are not attracted to it right away, and I'll introduce them to the idea. I really feel that food is primal. It's something that we have a lot of ritual about, and it has so many meanings to it besides just nourishment. It's the first thing that happens with children. That's the bond between mother and child. You're just feeding all the time. It's through this feeding that you spend time together, and even feeding before birth too.

I'm going on my fourth business now. I envision myself as taking the energy that I would have had with a family, and really giving it just as if the world was my child. I really do feel that.

Four years ago, I started thinking, "What if I don't have children? What if my husband doesn't want to have them?" Actually I had an infection a couple of years ago and my gynocologist told me I might not be able to have children. My husband and I have been discussing it, and he really doesn't want to have children. So it would really have to come from my side. Everyone says, "You'd be the best mother, I can't believe you're not going to have kids." Honestly, I've never had strong desires to have children.

I have this feeling that I really want to do things for people in a broad sense. And I feel the same love with them that I do when I'm with my family or with my godchildren. I am a godmother for four children. Two of the children are legally mine so if something were to happen, I would become their mother, and the other two I'm like their godmother, but not their legal godmother. Kind of like a fairy godmother. I've been with them, and raised them for practically 10 years on and off. Since I've been 8 years old I've been taking care of kids, and babysitting for them.

I love kids, I'm very comfortable with children. I know I'd be a great mother. I know I'd be a good parent. But I really had to decide "Do I want to be a parent in that way?" I decided I would rather use that energy in other ways, and I'm feeling comfortable with it, even though there is something about being a woman and having your own children, being pregnant giving birth and raising them. I even wanted to be a midwife at one point.

Recently all of my friends are starting to have children, even my friends who are in their forties. And my husband came to me and said, "I would really like to have a vasectomy." He asked me how I felt about it. At first my impulse was, "No, not yet." One small part of me is still thinking of having my own child. Then I told him this weekend, it has nothing to do with this interview, but I said, I've thought about it, if you really want to... I've really settled with the fact that I won't have children, even though one small part of me asks myself, "What would it be like to have my own?" There's nothing like that. It's a unique experience.
Some people just know, "I've got to have a child." I have never felt that. There's tons of stuff that I plan on doing, and I feel as if I am mothering the world. I'm involved with planetary organizations like Beyond War. I'm starting to feel like the world really is my home, home in the intimate sense of the house I live in and care about.

I was at a meditation course when I was 22, sixteen years ago, and while meditating I started thinking about people I really care about. I started thinking about my parents, and how much I love them. Then I started thinking about other people that I wasn't that close to, and I felt the same love. I don't mean this in that blissy way; I really felt that same kind of love and commitment to people I was just meeting on this course at that time as I did to my immediate family. And I really liked that global kind of a feeling.

My parents are fine about the fact that there may be no grandchildren. Even though you've got to know my mother, she is the ultimate Jewish mother. My mother was born to be a mother. And she would love to have grandchildren. But she's never pressured me. She just feels fine as long as I am happy. She's just proud of me, and loves me no matter what I do.

There is the question about the grandchildless grandparent - no carrying on of your name or your legacy or whatever. I think my father is fine with this. He probably wouldn't have had children anyway if he was born in this generation. He just happened to be born in a generation where people just had children...he didn't have as much choice as we do now. I think my mom will miss the experience, and it's too bad. But, you never know, my sister might have children yet.

I did have thoughts about what it's going to be like when my husband and I are old folks. I thought through the whole thing. I would never want to have children for that reason, because children are their own person, and you can't expect anything from your children. It would be wonderful to have a nurturing kind of relationship in our older age, but I don't think that is a real reason to have children. I'll have friends, I'll have things around me, I'll have my own satisfaction, I'll have my own self. We can build intimacy in a lot of different ways. I feel that I have that. I think if you just naturally love people, and trust in an extended family, you'll have one.

My parents live in Chicago, and I've been in California for 15 years. My mother always taught me that when you have your children, that your children are their own person, and they have their own lives to lead. She taught me that from a young age. My mother is one of the most undemanding people I know. She's not one of these people who say, you've got to spend time with me, why don't you write me, why don't you call. I would do the world for my mother. And my husband loves my mother. I wish she'd come live with me. My mother could have a room in the house. My father too. She is self-sufficient in a way. She's happy to stay home, watch the birds and cook good food for my dad and her friends. It gives her a lot of joy and satisfaction. I feel I picked up this love of food and way of giving from my mother. Nutrition was a natural path for me to follow. I feel if people eat well, and they feel better, they will be able to do more conscious things. They will be better and more productive in everything that they did.

I think a lot of women might go through "Should I or shouldn't I?" or "Am I missing out on something?" or "Is it really okay if I don't?" Because we've been brought up that way, it's a cultural thing. We are women, and we have a body that has a cycle every month and has very strong maternal tendencies. I think for the next generation, it will probably be much easier, because people will grow up seeing a lot of childless women and couples.

It will be a choice, and a healthy choice. People can live very fulfilled lives and not even get married. They could lead a very satisfying single life. Almost like a monastic life, but not within the walls of a cloister. We can devote our lives to the larger cause, which is really what monastics do, giving and parenting the world. And the world really does need it. A lot of people are starting to think globally. There are groups where the Soviets are coming over to America, and the Americans are going over there. They have groups of children going over which are really touching people. I see extended parenting coming through like that.

I have been having the feeling for the last couple of years that I just want to give myself to the world like that. I just want to be used up. I pray to be guided to be used up... this little piece here for whatever the world needs and for myself.

The way I feel most comfortable giving is in teaching, healing and just being a friend to people in a personal way, like touching, or talking or going out and giving lectures about nutrition. I would like to have every day of my life just to be kind and loving to people everywhere. Even the guy in the toll booth. It's so important. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It doesn't have to be a big project. You really can do a lot just from that. But it takes a heck of a lot of strength. When you dedicate your life that way, you have to really work on yourself. Because you're challenged every minute. You have opportunities to go either way. Commitment to being a good person is what my life is really about. And that is what I really hope to do in this world.

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