My husband and I were sitting in our living room under the hot white lights of a CNN crew. We had just fielded a number of softballs, like "Describe your typical Saturday," when, unexpectedly, we were asked to respond to accusations of creating "a nation of immigrants," subverting God's plan for marriage, and somehow screwing our generation out of Social Security checks. No, we aren't terrorists or Enron accountants. Our crime? Not wanting to have kids.

When I wrote Baby Not on Board: A Celebration of Life Without Kids, it was not to stir up controversy—plenty of sneering, anti-child books and websites do that already—but to provide some upbeat moral support and practical advice to the growing number of people who are opting out of the family track. Living in San Francisco, where lifestyles of every stripe are accepted almost without question and child-free households are in the majority, I certainly didn't want to write an earnest manifesto on the subject. So rather than defend the choice, attack pro-family government policies, or try to lead a movement, I packed my book full of playful quizzes, top 10 lists, and humorous illustrations. In a section on babysitting, I explained how to change a diaper the real way and how to do it if you never wanted to be asked again. (Hint: it involves duct tape.) A list of alternative ways to spread your DNA included everything from organ donation to cryogenic freezing. I even published under my first and middle name, a nom de plume I reserve for my less serious projects.  I figured if we could all have a good laugh about the whole thing, it would mean we had truly arrived.

My timing could not have been better. The child-free lifestyle is suddenly hot news. Nationwide, the number of women of childbearing age who are child free has increased almost 10 percent over 30 years, and here in San Francisco 80 percent of households are childless.

Media requests began pouring in. The BBC was planning a show on being childless by choice; could I speak with the producer? The Chicago Sun-Times ran a photograph of me alongside a piece on the pleasures of not having kids. The journalists, many sans baby themselves, were mostly sympathetic if not eager to get quotes from an articulate expert. With each interview, I was refining my sound bites and honing my message, thrilled that my little book was reaching its audience.

But while the media response was glowing, I was shocked by e-mails and blog posts I received from appreciative readers. Not everyone in the country, it seems, has it as easy as we do here in San Francisco, where hardly anyone has kids, anyway. Childless readers young and old, religious and secular, blue state and red, thanked me for reassuring them that they were not, in fact, freaks. I received one e-mail from a Christian couple whose fellow churchgoers accused them of disobeying God, and had a conversation with a thirty-something woman who went through several doctors before convinving one that, yes, she really, truly did want her tubes tied. I read harrowing tales of

flying, slobbery breadsticks at the local Olive Garden, and heard from a single guy who said he'd rather eat the contents of a Diaper Genie than blow yet another Saturday afternoon and 30 bucks on some friend's baby shower. With each story, my amazement grew.

Still, when you write a book touting any unusual lifestyle, you should be prepared to defend your position. So during one call-in radio interview, when a father from Beaumont, Texas, accused me and my husband of being selfish and said we deserved to die alone, I said I hoped his children weren't listening. When several journalists asked if I was being un-American, I patiently explained that a dependent would seriously cramp my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.  Admittedly, I was caught off guard when nationally syndicated DJ Mancow Muller of Chicago's WKQX aggressively demanded, "Are you a lesbian?" But in retrospect, what was I to expect from an established shock jock?

When a friendly producer from CNN's popular Anderson Cooper 360° called and expressed interest in interviewing me about my book, I saw a way out of this mess. Here was my chance to show the world what a shiny, happy, mainstream child-free couple looked like. So I agreed to let them film me and my husband walking Hallmark-style through Golden Gate Park and interview us in our living room. Once people saw how nice and normal we were, they would have a harder time judging us.

Alas, rain thwarted the camera crew's attempt to capture our romantic stoll, so they asked us to do what we normally do in the evening. We decided to pretend to cook dinner for the camera. The kitchen got an instant G-rated makeover: the framed Art Chantry safe-sex poster bearing the word penis was hastily removed from its perch above the butcher block. We scrounged up the only ingredients we had on hand—two withered Japanese eggplants—and proceeded to sauté them in some slightly rancid oil, garlic, and oyster sauce, the whole time worrying that this was guaranteed to get us lumped in with Marin hot-tubbers. I introduced one of my "feline child substitutes" as though she were a furry, four-legged person, realizing that I sounded like one of those crazy cat ladies. Luckily, most of the interview questions were easy. Could we describe our usual routine? What did we do for fun?

Everything seemed to be going fine, but just when things were winding down, they asked us to respond to those nasty accusations that we'd fielded from the fringe. Some people say we're violating God's commands, helping to create a nation of immigrants, or at the very least being selfish. And isn't this really just about preserving our right to sleep in? The latter question, which came up several times, implies that we're shallow, not to mention extremely lazy. Ugh.

Thankfully, CNN edited our comments down to a few upbeat sound bites, so we didn't come off as self-absorbed, baby-hating liberals. Better yet, the Christian guy who expressed the "other side" came off as seriously out of touch.

Next to them we appeared to be something approximating clean, decent people, so much so that CNN decided to end on a positive note: maybe we would have kids after all. Sigh. While I've always contended that the ability to change one's mind is among the benefits that being child free confers, it was hard not to roll my eyes. Cultural assumptions die hard, and being the person who's doing the killing isn't aways fun.

As I write, I'm waiting to hear back from an NBC news producer who wants to do a piece on you-know-what. This time we'll be sure to stock the fridge with good old-fashioned hot dogs and don our sneakers for a casual stoll beneath the trees. And if the big questions come up, we'll shake our heads, laugh, and say, "Gosh, God has a plan for our marriage? Funny, we never got the memo."