People Magazine is reporting on the latest More Magazine cover story (on newsstands Tuesday) of Celeb-Auntie Kate Walsh, and it focuses on Kate's feelings about being 43 and not a mom.  Like many Savvy Aunties, the Private Practice star always dreamed she'd have a "quote unquote normal life" with a husband and kids.

Now at age 43, and recently divorced after a brief marriage just over two years ago, Kate says: "I feel like a loser [for not having kids]. I would definitely love to be a parent... But I definitely don't think I want to do it on my own."

Like many Savvy Aunties in their early forties, Kate thought her life would look different by now: "I thought I'd be married and have three or four kids," the Celeb-Auntie says.

Melanie Notkin, Savvy Auntie Founder and author of the upcoming Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids (Morrow/HarperCollins) calls women like Kate (and herself) "circumstantially infertile."  While hoping for children, the prerequisites for doing so - finding a longer term romantic partner, for example - haven't fallen into place yet.

Kate, you're not a loser. You're waiting for love. And based on a 2007 study by the University of Florida, women with kids and women without kids report equal levels of psychological well-being well into their fifties, so you shouldn't feel badly about yourself. In fact, far more important that procreating, the study found, were several factors, including education, career, financial earnings, quality of relationships with family and friends, being health and having a loving husband or partner.

Welcome to the Auntourage, Kate!

Published March 21, 2011