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.

Survive the happy-family-with-kids media blitz this year by remembering and reconnecting with the peaceful heart and spirit of this special season.

Abby Lee is sharp, large, outspoken and childfree – an unusual female type in television. The producers and writers of this show seek to make her an unsympathetic subject. Sadly, they seem to be striving at every turn to make her appear ridiculous, temperamental, and over-the-top.

Questions about being childfree can often be rude and intrusive. The most important comeback, and the most subversive, is the simplest. Wait and accept the shocked silence. Weather the looks of hurt reproach. Stand tall and proud and answer, “ I just don’t want any kids. Period.”

What do you do with your time? What will you do with your time when you get old? Who will remember you after you die? Don't you feel you missed out on life's most important experience? Don't you get bored without someone (kids, grand kids, great grand kids) to worry about?

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.

Many people think that childfree people have a more difficult time with the loss of a beloved life partner without the support of children. Former newspaper lifestyle editor Cara Swann has a different take on the subject. She lost her spouse several years ago and is childfree by choice.

Discovery LLC claims to be the media voice of the people yet glaringly apparent is a distinct support for large families, active breeding without self-reflection and social conscience, and absolutely no attempt to showcase anyone with a positive childfree lifestyle.

The New Year is a great time to do some housecleaning so here is a collection of year-end observations and notes I made for articles that haven't come to fruition but deserve to be addressed: Childfree dating sites, the "purity" of parents, and acting locally while thinking globally.