Reports say we’re headed for a crisis, but are we? Maybe it’s time for reframing.

How can we apply the nature of the forest to our own human nature? We seem stuck in a harangue about why everyone needs to have kids, how those of us without them are problematic.

A nurse log in the forest (also called a legacy log) adds nutrients to seeds dropped into its bark from the mother tree. While the nurse once stood tall, she now lies on the forest floor supporting a host of new growth. What she offers is different from what the parent tree provides.

In her wisdom, Mother Nature has devised a cooperative system for forests to survive. We humans reap the benefits—clean air, abundant natural resources, and respite from our workaday lives. Likewise, we humans reap benefits of diverse reproductive output. Parents and non-parents alike contribute to our collective health and wellbeing.

In August the UK’s Office of National Statistics released a report titled, “Living longer: implications of childlessness among tomorrow's older population.”

In a flurry of articles following its release, the popular press had a field day reporting its findings with hyped headlines:

“Soaring number of childless women creating care crisis”

“Childless children of the sixties will have no one to care for them”

“Don’t get old if you’re childless”

What strikes me as odd about these sensational headlines is something both demographers and those individuals covered by these statistics have known for years: no offspring will be caring for their dotage. Since the beginning of time adults living in our midst have not, for a wide variety of reasons, had no children of their own.

Call me sensitive, but especially during this time of social, political, and health unrest, wagging fingers at female elders for not having kids is harsh and unproductive. Sure, the demographic projections are on point, but I think we’re focusing on the wrong issue.

Instead of seeking to assign blame for what simply is, I see a wake-up call to us all to take stock of our plans for our futures. How well equipped are we for what may come? Have we identified options and resources? Are they at the ready to mobilize? Answering these questions is what the business of aging is all about. Sharing our care is what love is made of.

Parents, too, benefit from widening their scope of care beyond progeny. Some people’s children are remote, estranged, incarcerated, or otherwise unavailable to shoulder oversight responsibilities. We don’t hear about them in the news. Even though not one of us is getting out of here alive.

Let’s strengthen connections, share interests, and rely on one another. Little does it matter whether or not one had children. What matters is how we engage with those we love and who, in turn, love us.

We’re all free to form families of the heart, where blood lines and heart lines circulate to offer options for elder care and companionship that may not be obvious. Everyone is well served when we make arrangements for our elder years.

Yet how seriously do we take the inevitably of aging? Less than half of all Americans have a will, even fewer a medical power of attorney. Caring.com’s 2020 Estate Planning and Wills Survey found that “24 percent fewer people had a will in 2020 than in 2017.”

Sure, it’s easier to procrastinate expressing our cares and making arrangements, although that puts everyone in an untenable position when the inevitable occurs. Where do we start?

The Conversation Project began in 2010 with the express goal of facilitating frank exchanges about what we want and don’t want related to our care. While most of us (92 percent) want to talk, few do (32 percent). So the organization developed an easy-to-use guide to pave the way.

After my decades-long marriage was completed a few years back, I used the guide with dear ones who agreed to help me with my future finance and health care needs. Although I was scared to ask, everyone said yes. I then shared the same information with my physician. I left these conversations feeling calm and well cared for, confident that my wishes were captured and heard.

Back in the woods, as seedlings take root and find purchase in the soil below, the nurse log decays and is incorporated into the forest floor. Growing trees are destined for different outcomes, many dropping seeds of their own. Later some will tumble to the forest floor and someday provide support for that which follows. It’s a beautiful synergy, one we can choose to appreciate and mimic.

Kate Kaufmann

Do You Have Kids? Life When The Answer Is No

This essay was originally published in Psychology Today on September 10, 2020