A while ago, I asked you to share topic ideas for Whiny Wednesday. Quite a few of you were glad to oblige. Thanks for the great ideas. If you’d like to suggest a topic, please leave it in the comments below.
This week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is this:
Other People’s Pity
As always, you’re free to vent on your own topic, too.
..We just need compassion…
This is a good one. I administer an infertility support group. Every Mother’s Day someone posts that they are considering suicide due to infertility. I asked a group of friends to pray for strength for the men and women who would like to have their own children but can’t for whatever reason. Naturally it immediately became “you poor thing of course I’ll pray for you” when it was not about me personally. One of the reasons I share so little about my infertility is because people immediately begin to pity me. The truth is I’ve been dealing with this a long time, have processed most of my pain and now support men and women who are where I was for years. When I tell my story people just feel sorry for me and I’m over their pity. What I’d like to see instead is acceptance and understanding. What Christians call grace.
Mary;
Don’t forget compassion…
I did not talk about my involuntary childlessness because I absolutely hate “pity”. Whether it is right or wrong, for me it often just feels like it comes with a smugness I resent.
I don’t talk about it because then I have to make a big deal of either *thanking* the other person for their pity, or giving THEM pity (I will NOT tell my mother because it would be all about HER loss!! and she’d expect a massive pity party… bleh.) so yea, I just avoid that.