Being Older and Childfree

Ever obsessed with getting other people to marry or remarry and have children and completely baffled that there are people who want a different life from his, Dennis Prager asked (rhetorically, not as a call-in topic) during Hour 1 of his Wednesday, May 22, 2024 radio show what childfree people think as they get older.

I’m not childfree. I invite anyone who is “older” and childfree or has heard from someone who is, to leave a comment.

I’ll give a few examples of what I’ve heard:

Wow, I am enjoying retirement so much. Staying childfree allowed me to retire, and do so with enough money and freedom I can do the things I want.

Thank goodness I don’t have to deal with problematic children or grandchildren, like my classmate, who’s always talking about the drama she’s going through.

It’s great having the house I want and having it the way I want. It’s clean, orderly, set up for adults, and not all run down and dirty.

So glad I didn’t have to pay for college and weddings for kids and grandkids like my coworkers did. They’re still working while I’m retired.

Go ahead and add what you’ve thought or heard.

Privacy For Nuclear Families and Empty Nesters

Dr. Laura has this thing in which she says once the youngest kid is 18, they should be be out. She's also against adult siblings and elderly parents moving in to a husband & wife home or even onto their property in a separate dwelling. She says this is because the husband and wife need their privacy.

I scratch my head with this one. Almost everything Dr. Laura says makes a lot of sense, especially when you know her reasons. I don't recall hearing her reasons for this.

The grown kids should be out, from what Dr. Laura has said, for their own good. They need to spread their wings and get the hang of flying on their own. Adult siblings, like everyone else, should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and live independently. As far the the elderly parent, I can't help but wonder if this is somehow related to Dr. Laura's own personal experience.

She doesn't say that, though. She says the husband and wife need their privacy.

I can understand that some people want their privacy. They want to live alone with their spouse and nobody else. Fantastic. They should have their privacy.

But she makes it as a blanket statement for everyone.

What if both spouses sincerely WANT the sibling or the parent(s) there?

My guess is that Dr. Laura's position is that, deep down, the unrelated spouse can't possibly want their sibling-in-law or parent-in-law living on the same property.*

Inspiring Couple

Ready for an uplifting story? Kate Linthicum of the Los Angeles Times writes about a couple that has been married or 72 years, and are becoming an viral sensation. Barbara "Cutie" Cooper is 93 and Harry "PopPop" Cooper is 98, and they inspired their grandchildren to tell the world about them.

The-OGs.com — short for Original Grandparents — has its own theme song (lyrics: "Oh wow, oh gee, it's the OGs!") and a handful of regular video features. In "PopPop's Adventure Corner," viewers look on as he discovers modern marvels like the iPod (He calls it his "music box.") In "Ask Grandma Anything," they get style advice from Cutie, a bold fashionista who was recently kicked out of the dining room at the couple's retirement home for wearing leggings that were, Kim admits, "too sexy."

Here is no doubt some of secret of their success:

At Hollenbeck Palms nursing home in Boyle Heights, they still sleep in the same twin bed and kiss more often than teenagers.

"If I walk by, he kisses me," Cutie says. "We kiss when we say hello, goodbye, when we're going to bed and waking up."

Good for them. Read the whole thing.

Remove Your Dentures First

FEELING USED IN BELLEVILLE, ILL. is an 84 year-old woman who has been a widow for ten years. She wrote in to Dear Abby:

I am torn about accepting requests from a man I used to work for to "come and visit" him. This is not an invitation for a date -- dinner, a movie, a drive. It's nothing but "a visit."

This happened before when I was divorced and living alone. The "visit" consisted of hugging, kissing and sex. That's all.

Booty call.

It made me feel cheap.

1) Did you not enjoy it? If you were just showing up because he is your boss, that was either sexual harassment or you trying to get an advantage at the office.

2) What’s the price supposed to be? (The correct answer is... marriage. But if you put out for dinner, then don’t try to make it sound like anything other than what it is.)

Although I would love to be kissed and hugged by a man as handsome as George Clooney, I feel he is trying to use me.

I’m not sure what she means by this. Either he’s very good looking, or his treatment of her would be okay in her book if he was.

There is never any mention of a "date."

Of course there isn’t. He’s getting what he wants as it is. If you aren’t, then don’t go.

Dear Abby responded:

The next time "Prince Charming" calls and asks you to pay a house call, smile into the receiver (which will make your tone warmer and friendlier) and tell him you'd be "delighted" to see him -- when he picks you up, takes you to dinner or a movie or even for a drive.

Notice that Dear Abby didn't tell her not to fornicate. She just tells her how to negotiate to get the other things she wants. Well, if that’s how the game is played, then he's going to move on. At that age, the numbers are decidedly in his favor as women outnumber men. Let's see... today's women in their mid or early 80s were 40 or so in the late 60s/early70s, when the "sexual revolution" was in full swing. There are probably some rather easy ones out there. And the letter writer can sit at home watching "Matlock" and "Murder, She Wrote", still not going to dinner or a movie or a drive and not having sex.

My grandfather outlived my grandmother in senior living. The women were like vultures, waiting for my grandmother to pass away.

It's nice to know the octogenarians are still getting it on. I hope my wife and I make it that long. In senior living, my grandparents had their own bedrooms but that could have been for the actual sleeping.

Yeah, I believe sex outside of marriage is a lesser experience and devalues sex (and is morally wrong). But I think a lot of people toss around the words "cheap" and "used" inappropriately, trying to describe their feelings of wishing things were different or wanting something to be more than it is. Sex is supposed to be consensual, and when people keep engaging in casual sex and then saying they feel used or cheap, then I think it has more to do other things than the sex itself - like with this letter writer, who apparently wouldn't feel used as long as the guy drove her around before bedding her.