The holiday season can be difficult for people without kids. It helps to remember that it's the rhetoric, not the reality, that makes for trying times. There are many ways to experience the joys of the holiday season - without children.

A speaker at one our local college graduations dubbed the students the �S Generation,� S for Sustainability. Unfortunately, no mention was made of the one sustainable practice in which significant change can be made in one generation � choosing to have smaller families - or, no children at all

Some psychologists suggest that we seek to deny death, and reduce related anxiety, by turning our lives over to a symbolic power that we perceive as being greater than ourselves. This can be a god, art, a hero, anything really � even children.

Many childfree individuals and couples live in communities surrounded by cloistered nuclear families, with few or no childfree contacts or friends. These people may feel especially frustrated and alone in the midst of shrill Mother’s Day advertising chatter perpetuating mothers as near-deities.

Mothers may feel smug and empowered by perceived elite societal status but they are also being dehumanized by and in the media.

How much does it really cost to have kids? Money is one childbearing decision-making factor that people with kids, and the child free, are reluctant to discuss. Many people seem to opt for a magical thinking strategy when planning for the cost of having children.

Is ethical or unethical to have children? A bioethics professor explores this question. People are always optimistic that human existence gets better with time - each generation improves on the last. Religion supports this commanding us to "Go forth and multiply."

Is ethical or unethical to have children? A bioethics professor explores this question. People are always optimistic that human existence gets better with time - each generation improves on the last. Religion supports this commanding us to “Go forth and multiply.�

Obviously, Mother�s Day can be stressful for the childfree by choice or circumstance. It helps to reflect on the origins of Mother�s Day to defuse some of its irritating power.

This season, the Rachel Zoe Project attracted my attention because the main storyline features her family (husband, sister, parents) launching a concerted attack to convince the childfree Zoe to reproduce. In spite of fur and an unhealthy aversion to food, I feel empathy with Zoe in this situation.