The Childless Writer

Finding meaning as not-a-mother

I have seven brothers. One of them is dead. Two of them married their high-school sweethearts. One of them was arrested. One of them is liberal. The rest of them are not. I am the only girl.

Raised up in a house brooding with boys, a mother who joked about being pregnant or nursing for near twenty years straight, a father who sulked until he shouted and …