Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Confessions of A Childless Daughter

I have a confession to make.

My mother doesn’t know about this site.

She’s just now finding her way around the Internet, so it’s probably only a matter of time before she finds me. I’ve even sent her and e-mail with the link in my signature, but either she hasn’t twigged on, or she’s too polite to mention it.

When I was back home in England this past May, I promised my friend that I would tell my mum about my blog, but even when she asked what I was working on, I chickened out. It’s like being 14 again and trying to pluck up the guts to tell her I’ve been invited to a party with a boy.

But I’m not 14; I’m 40, so why can’t I tell my own mother about something I’m really proud of—this website?

Do any of you suffer from being unable to talk about yourself, your work, or your childlessness, even to people you trust?

Kids (Not) Welcome

I’m in the middle of booking our summer vacation, so I’m partly excited to be escaping and partly frazzled from searching site after site coordinating flights, multiple accommodations, car rental, and ferries, and trying to match them with my husband’s and my calendars. But we’re going, and that’s all that matters.

We want to mix some city sight-seeing with a few days in a cottage, away from everything, somewhere where we can pad to the kitchen for coffee in our PJs and sit on our own balcony looking out at a view and not much else.

I found some great places, but there were a couple that were absolutely ideal, except for one thing: Kids Welcome! Any place that had “family-friendly” or “babysitting service” listed in their amenities was immediately struck off the list.

Part of my decision may be because “peacefulness” and “kids” don’t generally go together. I don’t want to risk showing up and finding someone else’s family playing Frisbee outside my window. I want to spend my vacation with my husband; I don’t want to spend it with other people’s kids. And because I don’t have kids of my own, I don’t have to. Peace and quiet, here we come.

Not a Childless Couple

This week I decided it would be a good idea to join a local social network for childfree people. I’m not really sure why I thought it would be a good idea, as I already struggle to find time to spend with the friends I have, but childlessness is at the forefront of my thoughts right now, and so finding others like me just seemed like a good idea, even if only for research purposes.

I found a nationwide group with a chapter that meets regularly in my area, and set about finding out more. The FAQ’s explained that anyone who had never parented was welcome to join. Childless individuals (me) whose spouses had children (my husband) could join, but the spouse could not. He or she could, however, come along as a guest.

I didn’t have chance to assess how I felt about this line of exclusion, because another one of those awful revelations swept up and clobbered me in the head.

My husband and I are not a childless couple.

I realize this should have been obvious to me, but it wasn’t. My husband has adult children from his first marriage and because I’ve never known them as children, I don’t think of them as children, and I’ve certainly never parented them.

This realization left me feeling very alone. My husband is my teammate; he’s the person I turn to first when I need help. We’re a good team and we’ve weathered all kinds of things together. Being childless is one of them. Except that now it isn’t!

I know that this changes nothing in my relationship with my husband. He is no less supportive and it doesn’t take away from his own struggles, but it struck me that our losses are different. I lost something I’ve never had; it was the loss of the chance of an experience. He lost something he’s already known, but something he wanted for me. It’s a subtle difference, but enough to knock me off kilter for a couple of days.

Are there other childless stepparents out there? Does your spouse feel differently about your childlessness?

A Beautiful Essay About Infertility

Every Sunday, The New York Times publishes essays in its Style section, under the heading Modern Love. They’re always worth a read. I recently stumbled across this gorgeous essay about infertility, Alone on a Path Shared By Many, by Allison Amend.

Here is a woman who dealt with the blow of infertility long before she was ready to have children, but she expresses the loss and grief beautifully, and her brother’s well-meaning comments need to be added to our list of the amazing things people say.

Kudos to Allison for her frankness.

Not Exactly Lonely

 

My young nephew has no qualms about asking the most personal questions, and he’s so earnest and compassionate that usually I can’t help but give him an honest response. He’s asked why I don’t have any children, and also what happened to my first husband. I’ve told him the truth in both cases and he’s appreciated that, as far as I can tell.

Recently he asked, “Don’t you and Jose get lonely without any children.”

“No,” I told him. “We have lots of friends, and we have Felicity, our cat, plus we have lots of nieces and nephews.”

Somehow though, this response didn’t seem to satisfy him. Perhaps because it doesn’t satisfy me either. Do I get lonely because I don’t have children? Not really. Most of the time I wish I had more time alone with my own thoughts, rather than less, but do I feel a sense of loneliness sometimes, even when I’m around other people? I do. Sometimes.

Sometimes I feel that the connections I have with others are more tenuous than they would be with a child. My brothers have their own children and, while we’re still close, our connections have weakened as the bond with their children has grown. Somewhere inside me is a tiny empty hole that nothing can fill. Most of the time I’m not even aware of it, it’s so small. But every now and then I’ll experience a melancholy sensation that feels like loneliness and feels as if it could only be filled with children.

Guilty of Prejudice Against the Childless

A friend recently announced her engagement. At 44 she is getting married at last. I know this woman’s story intimately. She is someone who dreamed of motherhood, but never met the right man. She seriously considered having a baby alone using a sperm donor, but realized that it wouldn’t be the responsible thing to do in her situation. So she started making peace with her childlessness. Then she met a wonderful man—and realized that what she really wanted was a loving adult relationship and time with him, and that children were no longer her priority. And he didn’t want children anyway.

When she announced her engagement to me, she speculated as to how long it would be before some tactless bozo raised the subject of kids. To my absolute horror, I realized that during our entire conversation I was wondering if the engagement had changed their attitude about having children. The tactless bozo was very nearly me!!!

So, despite my thoroughly modern, feminist attitude to living child-free, deep inside of me lurks a traditionalist, who at some subconscious level still believes that first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage. Yikes!

Our natural instinct is to reproduce and continue the survival of the species, so it’s no wonder that so many people can’t get their heads around someone’s decision to not reproduce. Maybe we need to cut those people some slack after all.

Or maybe not. Because, while man cannot fight his natural instinct, evolved man can learn when to voice his opinions and when to keep his (or her) big mouth shut.

Issues for Childless Men

My husband’s cousin recently commented that she would never become a grandmother because her only surviving son was gay. Her comment then prompted my husband to ask me if this website included gay men in its audience. The whole interchange inspired several threads of discussion regarding potential grandparents, modern families, and whether this site was a place that childless men would come, or if the female readers would be as open if men were lingering around. All this is material for future posts, but the thought that bubbled to the surface this time was: What about childless men? Which of the same issues do men and women face and are there other issues that are unique to men?

My husband has grown children from his previous marriage, so I’m not able to ask him about being childless, although he’s more than able to talk about the frustrations of infertility and of having a wife who is unable to have the children she wants. So, for those of you with male partners, what issues do you think men face? Do they feel the same pressure from family? Do their friends (and complete strangers) ask the same tactless questions? Do men feel the same sense of loss that we women sometimes feel. And is it easier for a man to make the decision to be childless?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject.