A friend posted this picture on Facebook and it made me laugh out loud.
Then it got me wondering how this could work for those women (and it’s usually women) at baby showers and family gatherings who unwittingly assume that yours will be the next belly to be celebrated and adored. I haven’t come up with an appropriate equivalent yet, but I’m working on it.
It’s Whiny Wednesday and I know that for those of you in countries that celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, this week could also lovingly be called Hell Week. So, here’s your chance to let off steam among friends. Feel free to vent at will.
My whine for the week is about these two elected officials in the Town I work for. They are old men, nasty old men. They are unaffectionately referred to as Dumb and Dumber by employees. They do a crappy job. They mess up routine tasks like entering payroll all the time. Every time one of them asks for a budget transfer he asks “Do I have the form for that?” I say “yes, I’ve e-mailed it to you X times.” “I don’t think I have it, send it to me please.” So, now it’s X+1 times. UGH. And they are raising a stink because for two years, their raises came at the start of their term (when all other elected officials get theirs), not at the start of the fiscal year. They don’t deserve what they get. Luckily, one of them is not running again. Thats Dumber. Now if we can only ease Dumb out.
I’m tangentially reminded of Bridget Jones’ Diary: “He’s still divorced” “He’s also still deranged” 😉
It’s mothers day and I don’t want to celebrate but my mother is roping me into spending time with her and my aunt. I’d rather just hide. I feel guilty that I don’t want to spend it with her as she is my mother. I don’t know how I’m gonna fake it.
I’d like state my whine in the form of a question: when did web sites for babies yet to be born become a thing?
Speaking of pregnancy and funerals. I went to my husband’s uncle’s funeral over the weekend and met lots of new family. I was focused on the sad occasion and hadn’t even prepared myself for the “when are you going to have kids” questioning. It never crossed my mind that I’d even be asked. Luckily my husband stepped right up and answered every time. I was thrown off. Will it never end? Is a funeral not even safe? This picture WILL be posted on my fb today for sure!
A funeral is definitely not safe. I had the same experience. Frankly, whenever you meet new people or you see people that you haven’t seen in a long time, it is never safe.
I should’ve known better! After all this time…what was I thinking? lol
At my dh’s uncle’s funeral a few years back, we were in kind of a receiving line after the interrment at a mausoleum. The widow flung herself on my dh, sobbing loudly & saying something to him in Italian. He got a funny sort of look on his face, and as we walked away, I said, “What did she say to you??”
He told me she had said, “Oh, your uncle was always so worried about you! Poor Sam & Lori, they have no children!!” UGH. I may not have understood, but I am sure there were at least 50 people within earshot who did. :p Nothing like being pitied by a woman who just lost her husband….
Oh geez!!! That totally stinks! I seriously wonder what is wrong with people?! Pity is the worst…it’s a reminder that THIS life can’t possibly be good enough.
Exactly my feelings on pity. When my cousins’ mother passed away, her best friend, asked when I was going to have a kid. She did this in front of my mother and father. I told her, I won’t be having children. I told her I’m happy to be an aunt, and she said, “Yeah, but I’m sure your parents would like to be grandparents to your kids as well.” You know, lady… this is very private and this is an inappropriate conversation. My dad, said, “We’re fine, thanks.” Sometimes I’m not sure if they really pity you, or if they are trying to find something that your life is lacking so that they can feel better? I don’t know. I don’t always think it’s pity (which I think is bad enough).
Hell week indeed. I just cant stand the constant hoopla around it and the over-commercialization and it is increasingly difficult to escape. It is everywhere. For the sake of my sanity, we decided to escape in the woods (aka hiking) for the day. I cant wait for this week to be over.
Today is a particularly hard day for me as it’s been one year today that we officially got off the IVF Crazy Train, as I like to call it. We got the news that our last IVF didn’t work and we promised each other that we would not try again. Last year the 9th fell the day after Mothers Day so now this week just sucks for another reason. But on a good note, my husband is taking me on a motorcycle ride up the coast early Sunday morning for the entire day.
I work as a mental health therapist, my supervisor is a MH therapist/supervisor for 20 years, and there’s a MH doctor (with Ph.D) for over 30 years..yet… when they started to talk about a co-worker’s newborn baby and starting to show baby photos, I said “I’d not rather talk one went about his wife having children despite having an ovary removed (definitely not helpful), and the other going “Maybe it was meant to happen at your age..” Gah… they are therapists yet did not GET me. I cannot help but find this ironic… and mom sent me a happy mother day card, “happy mother day” from your dogs…and I tore it up. I’m this close to snap and go Sweeney Todd on someone.
CLARIFICATION- I went “rather not to talk about it” and so one went… you get the rest.
I was seeing a therapist after my dad died and we ended up talking about my inferitlity. My therapist also kept pushing adoption on me and I told her that we have moved on and I didn’t want to go down that road again. She told me I based my decision on fear and asked me to reconsider it. I was a little insulted by her opinion but we actually did think about it for a few months and then came back to the same decision that it was not right for us. My husband also felt too old to be starting out as a Dad at his age. But in doing so, it reopened on old wound, caused me to put myself back in anxiety mode, made me doubt myself, got me excited that it might happen, and created some new hurt by my husband’s solid feeling that he was absolutely a no go– all unnecessarily caused by a well meaning therapist who did not understand what we ladies are going through. There should be special training for therapists to help people like us.
I agree that therapists should have special training for dealing with infertility. I was lucky enough to find a therapist who almost got what I have been going through. I say almost got it as she was lucky enough to have a baby once she used a donor. For the most part, she really helped me – she understood the pain that I was feeling as she had experienced it at one point in her life. But, as time went on, I just never really felt that she was 100% understanding. After going for 1-1/2 years, I finally stopped going to therapy. I feel that I get more out of this site then I did towards the end of seeing her. But it definitely makes a difference going to someone who has experienced a bit of what you are going through.
Ugh!! Not long ago I saw some childhood friends who I had not seen in many years. Of course my childless status came up in the form of “when are you going to have kids?” I never bring it up, it is always brought up for me. I simply said, it is probably too late for that. I meant that to be the end of the conversation. I wasn’t asking for their input, but one said, I had mine at 38. I said, I’m 43, there is a difference. And then the conversation turned into all the kids that are out there to be adopted. Of course, neither of them had adopted. The thing is one of them is a medical doctor, I would have assumed that maybe you knew a bit about infertility if you were a medical doctor, and that it is a sensitive topic (do doctors, not go through any sensitivity training?) and that maybe I didn’t want to talk about this. We had male factor problems. Of course, I’m biologically old for motherhood now, but I hate it that people make assumptions about “my age” as if that were the issue explaining why I don’t have kids. It is “my fault” for putting it off. Sorry about the dogs. When you have dogs and kids, your dog is your pet. You love him, but he is your pet. When you have dogs and are childless, people want to say this is your compensation, your substitute for a child. I think having pets can be very rewarding, but I find something condescending about this differentiation.
I’ve been on the receiving end of that advice too and I’ve said the same thing and then I get the hard sell on adoption. I really hate it too — deciding not to adopt involved a real struggle after thoughtful consideration — I don’t want to explain all of it to people I hardly know. I also think people blame me for “waiting too long.” I wasn’t waiting for anything, it wasn’t hapenning. There is only so much I have control over in my life. I also hate when friends ask me about my pets when everyone else is talking about their kids. I have told people, you don’t need to ask about my pets, and they have responded, well those are your kids! And I say, no, they are pets, they are not children. I know these people think they are being nice, or kind, or helpful but they are not, They are being intrusive and/or stupid.
Maria, we need to get together and have coffee and rant!! 🙂
Iris – where do you live? I’m in NJ….
Miami. 🙂
I read this piece in the New Yorker, “The Case Against Kids: Is Procreation Immoral?”. The article offered a variety of views from scholars in different fields. Bryan Caplan discussed the rationale to have children from an economics perspective, arguing that the ideal number of kids to have varies according to different stages in life. He mentions ideal numbers for people in their 30s, 40s, and then he gets to this quote, “Finally, once you pass sixty and prepare to retire, you’ll have ample free time to spend with your grandchildren. Five kids would be a good insurance policy against grandchildlessness.” Whatever else was in that article, and much of it debunks the “rationale” for having children, this quote depressed me. The scholar was making an academic, statistical observation, but the wording, “good insurance policy against grandchildlessness” just threw me back to that sense that living without children is “so out of the norm” and undesirable, so something that people think “needs to be fixed”. Life would be so much easier if one lifestyle were not so much more valued and elevated over the other.
I have been feeling really good lately and my whines have tapered off. I give credit to this website for it. My whine of the day is not so much a whine but to recognize a loss. The end of April marks 5 years since I lost my dog, Guthrie, my best friend for over 13 years. He was almost 15 when he died. My cousin lost her 15 year old cat a few days ago and I talked to her a lot about it because no one else seemed to understand how terrible she was feeling. Talking to her brought back some very sad memories of the day he died. He was such a good dog.
Yes Mother’s Day is a bad time of year which is made worse being in Australia as its a time when the Government passes down the budget for the year which invariably contains a LOT of concessions for people with children. A friend at work with 2 children was thrilled that she would be on the receiving end of over $2000 benefits and payments just for having her kids. What do childfree people get… a tax rise! Not impressed! Just once I’d like to see a budget that acknowledged people who haven’t taken maternity leave and who aren’t in receipt of family benefits get some sort of financial bonus for contributing tax continuously through our work lives…. Ok rant over now!
I am off work this week, so you would think I shouldn’t be whiny… but dh & I have been bickering about everything from household clutter (he’s a neat freak, I’m a bit of a packrat… but I am NOT ready to be featured on “Hoarders,” despite what he might think….!) to Costco (he HATES going there). We have a wedding to go to this weekend, too. Nornally I enjoy weddings, but I’m not overly looking forward to this one for a number of reasons… for one, we’re not particularly close to this side of the family, & for another, You-Know-What-Day comes right afterward. SIGH.
Anyone with premature ovarian failure out there? That’s my whine for today: having this condition and the ramifications of it like: super low energy and sex drive; tendency to feel depressed at times, etc. I’m only 30 years old and my body’s going through menopause. Yahoo..!
I’m sorry Andrea. I have a friend that went through this.
OMG Mothers day is this weekend, I almost forgot. It does get easier. Unfortunately I have facebook, and some mommies are displaying their sentiments of “saint hood” exclaiming there contribution to life. I am really thinking about shutting facebook down for the next week. Silly, right?
I think it’s a great idea. I think I will shut it down as well.
Not silly at all. Quite sensible, actually! Or temporarily block the “saint hood mommies” until after Sunday.
I’ve on a selective media/ social media blackout since last week! No shame in it. I really don’t want to see anyone’s babies, hear how being a mother is equal to sainthood, see celebrity moms, or even worse bad moms until the dreaded M day is over.
My whine isn’t much of a whine at all really. I just can’t believe it is Thursday (here in NZ we’re way ahead of you guys in the US) already, and another weekend is almost upon us. The weeks are whizzing by, I never have time to do what I need to, and I’m not even working full-time. Time seems to have accelerated in the last few months. Argh, I really am old.
I usually try to avoid Mother’s Day, and spend the day nesting at home. (Easy to do now that winter seems to have arrived.) This year we’ll be seeing MIL (usually we see her the day before M Day), but hopefully the focus will be on DH as it is his birthday too.
Sometimes when I go through and read all your comments I want to beat my head against the wall. Do people think before they open their mouths? Apparently not. And when it comes to infertility I do no believe that doctors (or therapists apparently) have appropriate sensitivity training. Hands up anyone who received a life-changing diagnosis over the phone from a medical assistant. Mine went something like, “Your XYZ test results came back and your numbers are low so Dr. X is recommending IVF. Call us on the first day of your next period.” Just like that, no explanation, no gently counseling of what to expect, nothing! Ugh!!!
Now that I’ve had my tubes tied, I keep waiting for this pop up. But it hasn’t.
I’m almost disappointed.
When you think of something, I’ll be great full to hear it.