filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
And you’re invited!
I realize that many of you are a good 24 hours travel away from me here in California, but, if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area this Tuesday, February 22nd, I’m throwing a party and I’d love to meet you in person.
It’s a launch party for my book, and there’ll be food, wine, and music. Should be a lot of fun. Here are the deets:
Book Launch Party
At: Pages: A Bookstore
904 Manhattan Avenue
Manhattan Beach, CA
Tuesday, February 22
6-8pm
Last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle Food and Wine section had a big feature article on “Good, fast meals for busy parents.”
Once I’d done grumbling (“Parents aren’t the only people who are busy,” and “Oh great, another mainstream publication excluding the childless and childfree”) I actually looked at the article.
A couple of the recipes were things I might actually try, but I must say, I don’t know too many kids who are going to willingly eat Pan-Seared Tofu & Kale Salad, or Sole with Cara Cara Orange, Avocado and Red Onion Salsa!
I was recently caught in the cross-fire of a couple of mom’s exchanging recipes to feed their little ones. I chimed in with my lemon chicken recipe. It’s quick, it’s healthy, and it’s really delicious.
So it got me thinking…we are all busy women and we all need to eat, and sometimes cook for someone else. So what do you like to cook? What’s your go-to recipe for fast, healthy, tasty, and edible?
I can’t now find my Lemon Chicken recipe, but it’s so easy it goes like this:
1. Take your chicken breasts, pound them, and cut into the size of tenders and soak them in lemon juice for an hour in the fridge.
2. Mix breadcrumbs (I like panko) with salt, pepper, and dried herbs, parsley and/or basil.
3. Dip your chicken into melted butter or olive oil, then into the breadcrumbs, and put them on a baking sheet.
4. Bake at 450 for about 20-25 mins.
Really easy, quick, and delish. J
Please take a moment and contribute your opinion to this poll.
Last Saturday, I met Pamela (Silent Sorority) for the first time. We had lunch and talked. In fact we talked for so long and so easily that I forgot to collect my husband from the airport. No long-term harm done, thankfully.
Pamela and I talked about many things, but we didn’t talk about “the thing” – our infertility – even though that was the common tie that brought us together in the first place.
What we talked about mostly was the future. What’s next? Once you’ve come to terms with a life without children (no short or easy journey, I might add) where do you go next? Once you’ve found your tribe of women who aren’t going to bring their offsring into every conversation, and aren’t going to spring a surprise pregnancy on your friendship, what do you talk about, when you don’t want to keep talking about “the thing?”
Pamela and I batted around some new ideas. She talked about her view of our meeting in a post today, and also put together a poll. Please take a moment and add your two cents.
When you don’t want to talk about “the thing” anymore, what do you want to talk about?
I came across this question on Yahoo Answers recently: “How rare is it to be childless at 30 years old?”
In my world, it’s not rare at all. Thinking back to when I was 30, very few of my friends had children. When I was 30, I wasn’t ready to have children, never mind the fact that I hadn’t found anyone responsible enough to have them with! So, my answer to this woman is, “Don’t worry about. Just live your life!”
And yet…
When I was 30 I had no idea that my fertility was already in decline, and I hadn’t yet seen the freefall that happens on the fertility rate chart when a woman hits 35. Given my own experience with trying to conceive in my 30’s, it makes me want to offer this woman some of my hard-earned wisdom.
But what would I tell her? Don’t wait too long? If you think you might want children someday, consider freezing your eggs now? Think about your long-term goals and priorities? Find a man and hurry up?
Blach! Of course not! When I was 30 I would have rolled my eyes at this advice, too – probably did, in fact. And who am I to tell this woman that life isn’t as straight-forward as it’s cracked up to be? Who am I to tell her she needs to hurry up and take on the responsibility of being a parent?
I was happy being childless when I was 30. I was unhappy being childless from 34 to 40, and now I’m looking at 41, I’m still childless, but you know what? I’m happy again. It’s called life and you can plan it until you’re blue in the face, but sometimes it just happens how it happens, and you find your way. So I won’t offer her any advice (especially as she didn’t ask for it) and I’ll just trust she’ll find her own way.
How about you? What would you tell this woman?
It’s Whiny Wednesday.
Thank goodness, because I’ve been waiting since Moody Monday to get this off my chest.
It’s cold and rainy here. I’ve been fighting a cold all week. And I moved 400 miles to be able to spend more time with my husband, only to have him spend much of the last two weeks (including Valentine’s Day) back where I used to live.
That’s my whine this week; what’s yours?
By Kathleen Guthrie
Wisegeek.com estimates the average family will spend $11,000 each year to raise a child from birth to high school graduation. Bankrate.com breaks out annual expenditures that include child care, a bigger car, a bigger home, plus $600 a year for education (a figure I know is laughable considering the costs of private schools in San Francisco). After taxes, not including the costs of a college education, Bankrate’s grand total is $190,528.
This is a ginormous amount of money.
$190,528 equals 19 cycling tours around Tuscany for me and my fiancé or 1,524 dinners at our favorite French bistro or 15,877 visits to the corner coffee shop for mochas and croissants.
Now I know $190,528 is not going to drop out of the heavens and into my bank account, but if I had kids, I would “find” that money. Wouldn’t you? I would work an extra job, streamline my holiday shopping list, cut back on nonessentials, become more diligent about investing. And this got me thinking about what I’m doing—or not doing—with my childfree money.
Instead of funding participation in the soccer league, I could be learning how to sail. Instead of supporting an 8th grade class trip to Washington DC over spring break, I could be planning my own off-season visit to the Smithsonian. Instead of covering room, board, tuition, and pizza, I could return to college for an advanced degree in art history or learn how to play the ukulele, make sushi, and become fluent in Italian.
Kind of fun to think about the possibilities, isn’t it?
Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is learning to embrace her childfree status.
Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope that love is in the air for you today.
By way of celebration, I thought I’d share a list of some of the things I love.
I love:
1. Jose
2. Felicity, my cat
3. My mum
4. My brothers and their families
5. My amazing friends
6. My garden
7. Fresh picked vegetables
8. The first spring bulbs
9. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate
10. Cask Ale
11. Small knitted things
12. Clean sheets
13. Chicken Tikka Masala
14. Storybook Mountain Zinfandel
15. Lavender
16. Walks in the countryside
17. Thunderstorms
18. The Atlantic Ocean
19. Laughter
20. Fast internet service
21. “Hello”
22. Leonardo diCaprio
23. Salty French Fries
24. A good book
25. Furry slippers
Please share some of your.
The worst thing about moving 400 miles to the northern part of my state is leaving all my LA friends behind. Through my husband’s job, I know three people up here, plus one good friend who is an hour’s drive away, so I’m working on making new friends.
Jose was traveling last week, so I spent much of the time alone, and frankly I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.
Then, on Monday, I received a copy of Lori’s new book in the mail. I read a couple of chapters and it made me laugh. On Tuesday I spoke of the phone with Lily, who was snowed under in Indiana. I’ve never met her, but we’ve become phone friends over the months. Later in the week, I chatted by email to Monica and Sonja, and made plans to have coffee with Kathleen. I also finalized lunch plans with Pamela, something we’ve been trying to accomplish for months now.
I share one thing in common with all these women, and that is that we are childless, but beyond that I’ve discovered we have so much more in common and that these women have become my friends.
I know that many of us feel, or have felt, isolated in our childlessness, and that the web has enabled us to find our tribe. But beyond that commonality are the possibilities for friendships, and I encourage you to find those opportunities.
On the main members page, I’ve recently added a chat feature; the forums are always buzzing; and you can send messages to other members or say hello on their walls. There are plenty of ways to make connections and hopefully to make some new friends.
Report in on friends you’ve made through this or other sites.
How are you celebrating Valentine’s Day this year? Do you celebrate, or is it just another day you can’t get a seat in your favorite restaurant?
I had vowed to not be a holiday poop this year, but a friend moved their dinner party to this Saturday and mucked up my initial plans of a big Valentine’s get-together at our house. Now my dearly beloved is traveling on Monday, so my Plan B has taken a dive too.
Undeterred, I am planning to celebrate on Tuesday. I’d love to hear what you’re up to so I can steal all your best ideas and impress my lovey with my ingenuity. 🙂
Pamela posted this Huffington Post article yesterday and I saw it circulating around Facebook, so I’m sure many of you have seen it.
I thought it was a very intelligent and insightful piece and I was so glad the author was talking about infertility as a disease and how it’s something that needs to be talked about and better understood.
Of course, many of the comments just served to prove the author’s point that infertility is misunderstood, that it’s about so much more than selfish reproduction of oneself, and that the mental health aspects are hugely underestimated. If you decide to read the comments, be warned that they are not kind.
I read the article and I read as many of the comments as I could bear, and then I shrank down in my chair and reached for the mouse to close the article. I was upset, but I didn’t have the strength to add to the discussion. I didn’t want to get involved. I just wanted the whole thing to go away and leave me alone.
I’ve been feeling this way all week, which is why my posts have been creeping in mid-morning, instead of at 6:00 a.m. sharp. Because this week, I’m one of those women mentioned in the article who doesn’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to announce my infertility to the world; I don’t want to have to defend myself against people who would rather say something spiteful than engage their brains and think beyond their own little worlds for just a minute. I don’t want to speak up.
Taped to my computer screen is a quote by Amy Goodman. It says, “Go to where the silence is and say something.” It’s the mantra I use to remind myself to push the writing envelope and dare to say something that hasn’t been said before. I try to do that when I write, but it’s uncomfortable and painful, and just plain easier to not do it.
But the quote applies to my infertility too. It’s painful and uncomfortable to talk about it, and it’s so much easier to stay quiet and say nothing. But there is a silence out there and it’s damaging. As long as we stay quiet, the stigma, the misunderstanding, and the hurtful comments will prevail.
I didn’t want to, but I left a comment on the Huffington Post article and I’m reposting the article here. It’s not much, but it’s my way of going to where the silence is and speaking up until we are heard.
~ "a raw, transparent account of the gut-wrenching journey of infertility."
~ "a welcome sanity check for women left to wonder how society became so fixated on motherhood."
