HAPPY ENOUGH WITHOUT THE PATTER OF LITTLE FEET.

Byline: Elizabeth Rau Providence Journal-Bulletin

Mary Hallett used to work for a man who considered himself an authority on women.

``A woman is not a real woman,'' he told her, ``unless she has children.''

Hallett, childless but plenty authentic, set him straight.

``I told him he didn't know what he was talking about.''

Bearing a child, Hallett says, does not a woman make.

``I don't think you have to create something in order to be who you are. I don't think you have to go outside what you have to find what you need.''

Hallett is comfortable with who she is now: a 31-year-old single woman who manages the cafe at a funky Providence, R.I., arts center, loves to repair cars (``I've got a 1970 VW bus I've been working on for three years'') and owns a black Labrador retriever named Mike.

If she had lived in the days of Ozzie and Harriet, she would have been expected to marry and bear children, whether she wanted to or not. Today she can comfortably admit that a dog is as much responsibility as she wants.

``I can deal with a dog. Kids - no.''

Hallett is among a growing number of women who are not only shunning parenthood, but are secure they made the right choice. Remarkably, many of the women say they knew as early as their teens that parenthood was not for them.

Since 1980, the number of childless women ages 35 to 39 has nearly doubled, to about 2 million, according to Dennis Hogan, a sociologist at Brown University.

Census figures show that 19 percent of women ages 35 to 39 were childless in 1992, up from 14 percent in 1982; about 26 percent of women ages 30 to 34 were childless in 1992, up from 22 percent in 1982.

And sociologists expect the numbers to keep rising.

Why?

More career opportunities are available for women outside the home, and, for some women, there is less of a stigma attached to being childless.

``We put all this emphasis on having children because it was almost viewed as a biological imperative, and if women didn't fulfill that instinct they would never be complete,'' says Mary Ellen Reilly, director of women's studies at the University of Rhode Island. ``I think that led to the notion of `poor spinster ... old maid ... nobody ever wanted her.'

``Maybe what some women are finally saying is, `I can't do justice to a career and children, or maybe I just don't feel a need in my life to have children.' It's not a selfish thing; it's a choice.''

Some women believe the world is overpopulated with children already, and that it would be irresponsible to produce more. Others offer more philosophical reasons.

``I don't have that weird ego where you have to see yourself perpetuated,'' says Nancy Courtney, 43, owner of the West Hudson Street Market in Providence. ``I think a lot of people feel alone in the universe unless they see their gene pool go on. I don't think things have to go on forever. I think things just have a time and a place and then it's over.''

Whatever the reason, some childless women are still fighting for acceptance.

Leslie Lafayette, founder of ChildFree Network, a California-based national newsletter for women childless by choice or chance, says childless - or as she puts it, ``child-free'' - women are still considered oddities in a society that favors adults with children.

Childless women are expected to work longer hours, get fewer deductions on their income tax and are castigated - or worse, pitied - for choosing a life without children, she says.

``Believe me, it's out there,'' says Lafayette, 51, a former school teacher who is unmarried with no children. ``The assumptions are made that your life isn't quite as meaningful, that you haven't quite grown up, that you cannot understand this great and mystical experience that you've missed. You're not part of the clan of motherhood, an extremely powerful and exclusive club.''

Maggie Longo, a 36-year-old chef from Providence, says, ``People ask me, `How many kids do you have?' I tell them, `None,' and they ask, `Do you want kids?'''

When she tells them, no, they say, ``Oh, you poor thing'' and wrongly assume she's infertile.

Susan Goldsmith, 38, of New Bedford, Mass., a social worker, says co-workers admonish her for nurturing pets instead of children and assure her that she'll eventually change her mind about bearing offspring.

While the comments are meddlesome, both women say, they're confident they made the right decision.

``I don't feel bad by any stretch of the imagination,'' Longo says. ``It never makes me reconsider my choice.''

Many other women feel the same way.

Hallett says she knew as a kid that kids were not for her. She thought it was ``really weird'' when other girls would dote on dolls and ask: How many children do you want to have when you grow up?

``I'd kind of go ... `I don't know,' all the time thinking, `None.' ''