Now that the holidays are well behind us, it should be time for us to relax and enjoy a little peace, right? Maybe do some running or swimming laps, or take a motorcycle ride into the country. Maybe volunteer at a shelter, or flee town altogether for the comfort of warmer climes. Or maybe just stay inside and avoid those little creatures who’ve made the holidays such a pain in the arse. You know the little creatures I’m talking about: Kids.
In our cover story this issue, Sarah Klein and Jared Neumark talk with adults who choose not to bring more people onto this planet. Not such a radical concept in New York or Los Angeles, but here in Charlotte — family-friendly capitol of the free world — choosing not to have little reproductions of oneself is tantamount to treason. It’s just shy of calling oneself a Communist or (god forbid) a liberal. Charlotte is, after all, a city where old-timers promptly ask newcomers two very important questions: 1) What church do you belong to? and 2) How many children do you have?
It’s enough to drive folks like Candy Lake, founder of the Charlotte chapter of the childfree group No Kidding, nutty. “It seems everywhere you go in Charlotte there are kids there — even when they’re not supposed to be,” she says in “Childfree in America” (p. 26).
Lake and others who share her lifestyle tell CL how they survive in a culture that tells young adults with no children that something is wrong with them. One way they manage is by finding each other and socializing together. “You never have to worry about people asking you how many kids you have,” Lake says, “because everyone already knows you don’t have any.”
Elsewhere in this issue — in an attempt to help other alternative lifestyles with our post-holiday relaxation — Matt Brunson reviews Brokeback Mountain, the controversial new film about two gay cowboys that tells a universal love story (“Tall in the Saddle,” p. 33); Little Shiva leads us to some mind-bending Web sites (“Hot Linx,” p. 66); and Tricia Childress tells us where to get our sugar fix (“What’s the Buzz, p. 51).
Finally, please let me congratulate one reporter for whom the word “relax” is a foreign concept: Tara Servatius has been awarded 1st Place by the North Carolina Press Association for her cover story “Where’s the Justice for Zachary Montognese?” (Sept. 14). She’ll be honored at the NCPA banquet on Feb. 23.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2006.
