Free Republic

The population is shrinking, but why should I care, says Lionel Shriver. My life is far too interesting to spoil it with children. ___ Meet the Anti-Mom. A story of motherhood gone dreadfully wrong, my seventh novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, has drawn fire from Catholic websites for being hostile to "family", while grotesque distortions of the book's underlying theme ("It's all right to hate your own child, and if they turn out badly it's not your fault") have spored from article to article like potato blight. Devastated mothers send me confiding letters detailing horror stories of offspring...

WASHINGTON - Anne Hare and her husband made a momentous decision three years ago: They would not have children. It's not that they don't like kids, she says. They simply don't want to alter the lifestyle they enjoy. "With kids, especially young kids, infants and toddlers, you really can't do the active stuff we like to do," said Hare, 43, a fitness program coordinator from Gainesville, Ga. Hare is among 26.7 million women aged 15 to 44 who are childless, a record number, according to new Census Bureau (news - web sites) data from a June 2002 survey. They represent...

Imperial wars, then & now Posted: August 13, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Having found neither weapons of mass destruction nor a link to 9-11, the White House has retreated into its fallback position. It now defends Operation Iraqi Freedom as a necessary war to rid the Middle East of a brutal dictatorship and replace it with a democracy. That is, this was a war of democratic imperialism, as some of us said all along. The neocons exploited America's rage after 9-11 and steered the president into invading Iraq, in order to reshape its political system...

April 14, 2002 EDITORIAL OBSERVER Celebrating One Hundred Years of Failure to Reproduce on Demand By GAIL COLLINS A century ago, American women were experiencing a spectacular burst of energy and opportunity. For the first time, they were going to college in large numbers. For the first time, they could choose from an assortment of professional careers. The number of female doctors was higher at the beginning of the 20th century than it would be at any time until the 1980's. Most of those suddenly liberated, high-achieving women did not marry or have children. Almost instantly, the country started worrying...