The holidays are probably the hardest time of year for those of us without children, second only to Mother’s Day. And this was brought home to me with great clarity when a friend called me last week, practically in tears.
She is one of four sisters, and in the past, her family’s tradition has been to gather on Christmas Eve so that the two sisters with children could spend Christmas Day at home with just their immediate families. This year, the third sister has a baby and it’s her turn to host. She’s decided that she’d like to change the tradition and gather on the 25th instead so that “all the kids can spend Christmas Day together.” All the sisters—and the parents—agreed this would be great fun. All except my friend. She didn’t agree because she didn’t know and, in fact, only found out because her niece mentioned it.
It wasn’t that she and her husband were deliberately excluded from the plans—they weren’t considered at all, weren’t even included in any of the discussions or planning—and my friend feels triply hurt by this. She feels that she’s not important in her family because she doesn’t have children {and her family has proven that to be true}, and she feels slighted because her sister (who was also childless for many years and ought to know better) has given no consideration to how all this makes my friend feel even more rejected.
The final dig is that my friend now can’t spend Christmas with her family at all, because she’s already made plans (per the tradition) to spend Christmas Day with her in-laws. What makes this all even harder was that when my friend called me, she was on her way to watch her nephew’s basketball game. She’s the kind of auntie who goes out of her way to make sure she’s involved in the lives of her sisters’ kids, but it’s clear to her that her sisters don’t see her as part of the “real” family.
This year is the third holiday season for Life Without Baby and I know from your posts and comments over the years that this story isn’t rare at all. How about you? Do you feel your family treats you differently because you don’t have children?
None of my siblings have children so we haven’t really had to deal with this sort of thing. Yet. My mom has already mentioned though *somewhat* tongue in cheek that when my brother and SIL have their kids she wants to move so she can be with them. Right now they live pretty close to us.
But no, none of them get it – no one has any idea the level of suffering, what we went through and for how long, how tough it was to make the decision to stop treatment. If anyone considers it I think they feel we either didn’t try hard enough, or didn’t really want kids to begin with. My mom still feels we’ll be granted a miracle and have kids anyway. I’m going on 42. My family is totally out of touch with our situation.
dear Lisa,
is your friend reading this site? I hope she does… I am sending her a huge hug!
***
Regading Christmas & infertility: the first few years were really really hard. As years are passing by, it does get easier.
(also because I learned how to avoid events for which I know in advance that they will be painful).
I feel badly for your friend. And wonder if she can let her sisters know how left out they made her feel (without causing a family uproar, which is probably what would happen in my family).
I generally don’t feel excluded. This year I will be hosting Christmas Day – so as my husband says, I get to control – for HIS family (the in-laws), which means the aging parents-in-law, and two families. We don’t see the families very often – they live overseas – so I don’t mind hosting, it’s lovely to see them. And I’m pretty good friends with my BILs and SILs, and they enjoy sitting around in the sun with some champagne. I suspect though if the others were hosting, it would be a much more child-focused day. I figure they can do all that in the morning and evening though.
And yes, as Klara said, it gets easier.
I gave up Christmas some time ago. We avoid family at this time. The expectations are generally high and so are the tensions. It’s interesting how it’s fine to give their children gifts and all the extra costs but having an influence isn’t allowed. We prefer to make the most of the time off on a trip and visit family at other times.
Oh yes. I feel this way, though if I were to point that out to my family they’d marginalize me and say I’m either too sensitive or inventing this (mind you, both, my aunt, and my sister had struggled for years of childlessness before they had their daughters).
Gradually since my dad’s passing five years ago, little traditions (like a grab bag, where everyone who shows up walks away with a gift) have gone by the wayside, and now the focus isn’t on everyone, the focus now is on my two nieces. So, since I do not have a child of my own, they’ve pretty much altered what little bit of Christmas cheer I would get. Not that it’s about THINGS mind you, but about being a PART OF THINGS.
Between this, the distance I live, and since I don’t have a child, it’s automatically assumed that it is so much easier for me to attend family functions rather than anyone ever coming to my home (even a pop in visit if they happen to be driving thru my area is out of the question too). Also, my brother’s wife is a total boor and ruins the holidays anyway, so why should I bother?
I know I’m being groused about because I’m just not there anymore. Each year goes by I insulate myself more and more, and rather than everyone work collectively to ensure that the holiday is nice for everyone, their focus is elsewhere. But I suppose it’s super easy to project all their resentment and blame onto me, yanno, rather than ask why I’m never around.
And without my dad there, well, it just compounds the loss even more.
We travel to my in-laws place for Christmas and thing I dread the most is not knowing whether we’re going to get to sleep in a bedroom or not. Since we don’t have children we’re given the worst sleeping accomodations. This usually involves sleeping in the living room so that in the morning while the rest of the adults are sleeping I wake up to the sound of children playing in the living room in the early morning. It bothers me more now knowing that I’ll always be an afterthought since I may never have children. My husband and I have since decided to get a hotel room. Some of his family are not happy about that.
Hotel room will be money well spent. You get to spend time with family, and then have a safe, quiet place to go to before/after to decompress. Happy Holidays to you!
Lisa it would be interesting if your friend’s family were reading this blog.
This time of the year is a double whammy for me. It was just a couple days before Christmas five years ago that I had the emergency surgery that ended any chance of my husband and I being able to have children.
So far just feeling numb about Christmas this year. Will see how I feel on December 23.
That’s a horrible situation – give your friend a big hug from all of us, she must be feeling extremely isolated by this.
You’ve made a really good point about why Christmas is so difficult for people without children (like myself) – it’s being around the people who understand and support the least: immediate family.
While I’m dreading the night at my in-laws, I won’t see my own parents and sister’s family for a similar reason – my parents have just moved away to be near them. Which I expected (as they want to see their grandchildren growing up – who wouldn’t) and as I’m nearly 40, they don’t need to see me ‘grow up’ any more 🙂 However, it was just expected that my husband and I would leave our commitments (and elderly dogs) for days to travel to be with all of them.
It was a tough call – which place did we want to go the least? It seems Christmas is all about doing the ‘right thing’ by other people’s families instead of our own, and I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of people who are a family of one or two maximum (singles or couples). Next year will be different for us. I think we will have our first Christmas by our rules (whatever they turn out to be… not sure yet!).