by Andrea Howick               www.whereparentstalk.com

Ever get the feeling there are babies everywhere? Women all seem pregnant. Strollers choke the entrance to every Starbucks location. A mini-baby boom seems to be taking place in our midst.

This perception is, apparently, dead wrong.

According to US think tank The Pew Research Center, nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without
having a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s. Childlessness has risen for all racial and ethnic groups and
most education levels. Only women
with advanced degrees have seen an increase in child-bearing.

Why, do you suppose then, the mis-perception of reality. I have a theory. It is the loud voice of that new breed, the “Mommy Blogger” (of which, course, I am one) Consider this: a 2009 study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners,  found that 23 million women read, write or comment on blogs weekly. Many of them, moms.

We parents in this generation have become so incredibly self-absorbed. Fascinated by the very minutia of every breath our ankle-biters take. We no longer have to book playdates and comb our hair to see other moms and compare notes on our little darlings. The virtual kaffeekatsch is online, and mom blogs are even being consulted by marketing firms and product manufacturers, so strong has their voice become.

Yet all the while, our numbers in real terms aren’t really growing. We are simply drowning out the other reality living alongside us. Neither of course is better, just different. One just seems to have a louder voice.

Childless families, though, have somehow managed to become more
accepted, more “mainstream” despite all this. It seems according to the
Pew Center, that the public is more likely to view childless families
as happy families than we were 40 years ago.