Childless find sanctuary with club

By Susan Weidener
July 27, 2003

The group of women, members of No Kidding, a social club for couples and singles without children, had gathered at a Devon restaurant, where the conversation had turned to the annoyances of being asked by people - as it invariably happens - as to why they don't have or want children.

"You get tired of talking about it. When I come here, I know I'm not going to be questioned," said Joy Johnson, 33, of Downingtown.

Several of the women, who did not want to give their names for fear that their reasons to remain childless would be misinterpreted, were relating experiences with friends who have children. They said they had to explain that being childless was a choice, not a medical problem as friends often assumed.

In a lighter vein, they explained how some people have children and some people have pets. "Pet ownership runs rampant in the group," said Tracy Nocks, who started the chapter for Chester County and surrounding areas a year and a half ago because she wanted to meet other childless adults.

The club, she said, is a chance for people to talk about things that interest them, without feeling "sidelined" as others their age describe everything from their children's grades to temper tantrums.

She and her husband, Jason, who live in a secluded section of West Bradford Township in Chester County, have two miniature pinschers, like their peace and quiet, enjoy traveling, and "love to sleep late," Nocks said.

The issue of why people have not had children is "a nonissue" with the No Kidding group, Nocks said. "It doesn't come up. It's irrelevant."

Men join the group for weekend outings to Baltimore's Inner Harbor or bowling nights, but, for the most part, it is the women who come to socialize, Nocks said.

Wendy Finn, 39, of St. Davids, the group's cofounder, said she, like most of the others in the club, "live in a traditional suburban neighborhood."

"I didn't fit in," said Finn, a marketer who relocated six years ago from Boston with her husband, a researcher. Now, she has met dozens of other people who "have similar interests and lifestyles."

Since Nocks and Finn started the chapter, more than 300 people have been added to the mailing list. Activities range from book discussions to weekend outings where husbands and significant others can join in the socializing.

Nocks, who graduated from Interboro High in 1988 and then from Shippensburg University, where she majored in communications and journalism, said she started the chapter after surfing the Internet and finding the club's Web site.

No Kidding was started in 1984 by Jerry Steinberg, a teacher from Vancouver, British Columbia, and has 85 chapters in five countries. Steinberg, who calls himself the group's "founding non-father," is 58 and married. He has had a vasectomy and is emphatic when asked whether he regrets not having children.

"Not for a moment. I absolutely cherish my freedom," he said in an e-mail interview. "Freedom to take a job that is extremely enjoyable and rewarding, even if it doesn't pay enough to support a family of four, five or six."

Steinberg said he also liked "the sense of social responsibility that I get from not breeding - knowing that I am not contributing to the overpopulation problem and everything that it causes."

According to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics, 16.2 percent of women between ages 40 and 44 have not had children, as of 2000. That figure is up from 9 percent of women in the same age group who had no children in 1980.

Nocks said that while there is always "a tiny little chance" that she might change her mind and have children, she does not foresee that happening. She quit her job with a magazine last year and is working for a temporary agency, while contemplating her next career move.

And her parents, while they would enjoy grandchildren, support her decision to remain childless.

"I'm an only child, and they are fine with it as long as I'm happy with it," she said.