Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Missing My Re-Education

Last night my husband asked me, “What’s coal tar?”

I didn’t know exactly, so I did what I usually do, which is to piece together the bits of information I do know about coal and tar and try to fudge an answer. As is also common (and one of the things I love about my husband) this turned into a discussion about how coal and oil are formed and if all living things are carbon based. But it still didn’t answer the original question about coal tar.

I decided that I’d look it up when we got home, but something else came up and I got busy and so I never did get my answer, and neither did my husband. It occurred to me that if I had children, I’d have found an answer. I’d have done the research until I could give them a good explanation. So I wonder, am I missing an education because I don’t have kids? Or am I just missing my re-education?

I used to know about a lot of things. I could identify birds, knew the names of all the dinosaurs, and knew which color paints to mix to make the colors I didn’t have. I knew how to French knit, do a cat’s cradle, and build a model theatre out of cereal boxes. I also learned most of the periodic table and could list all the kings and queens of England in historical order. And I used to know the difference between how coal and oil are formed. But now I just can’t exactly remember. If I had kids, I’d have to learn all that stuff again and I’d be glad to.

I realize that this isn’t life-saving information I’m missing, but it would be nice to be able to pop out in conversation that Edward VI was Henry VIII’s son and heir, and that coal tar is a by-product of converting coal into coke.

The Mother-Daughter Bond

Last week my mum went home to England after spending six weeks with us. It’s always a bittersweet departure. While she’s here, my life is disrupted, work doesn’t get done, my daily routine is all off, and I never seem to see much of my husband. By the time she leaves I’m ready to get my life back, but I’m never glad to see her go. I know it’s going to be at least six months before I see her again and I know that if she ever really needed me (or vice versa) we are 24 hours away from one another. I often worry that one day that will be too far. But I’ve chosen my life and she accepts it, and we both know that even though we only see one another twice a year, over the course of a year she actually spends more hours with me than with either of my brothers. Somehow the arrangement works out for us.

I live by the beach, (so naturally, I seldom actually go to the beach) and over the course of her visits we’ve developed a tradition of going to the beach on her last day here. It’s always a glorious day, even if the weather has been mediocre for the rest of her trip. We walk down to the beach, get an ice cream, put our feet in the ocean for a while, and then lay on the sand in the sun.

This time we dozed for a while and at one point I woke up and looked at my mum asleep beside me. I was overcome by just how much I loved her.  It’s such a deep, binding love, different to the way I love my husband, or my friends. She is my mother. I am a part of her and because of that we will always be inseparable. It was an almost primal feeling.

And then of course, the other feeling struck me. I realized that no one will ever feel that way about me, and likewise I will never know what it feels like to love my own child.

It was a fleeting thought, not one to linger and bring me down, but I daresay it’s a thought I will have again, probably the next time I say goodbye to my mum.

It Got Me Thinking…About Women in the News

Lately I’ve observed a troubling trend. The bleeding news that leads frequently starts with something like “A mother of three…,” as in “A mother of three was found murdered in her home” or “A grandmother was brutally raped.” And it got me thinking…are only tragedies involving mothers newsworthy? Would it be any less tragic if the victim was, say, for example, me?

It’s not just in the primetime news slots that I see this occurring. Three recent shows in Oprah’s final season were titled “The Bravest Mom in the World is Set Free” (9/22), “The Mom Who Fathered Her Own Children” (9/29), and “One Mom, 20 Personalities” (10/6). In each case, I can’t imagine the story would be any less impactful if we substituted the word “Woman” for “Mom.”

Who’s behind this? Did some big marketing study show that “Mom” is a buzzword that attracts viewers (and advertisers)? Is there some sinister plot afoot to further ostracize women without babies? What does it say about our society that being a mom makes you a better story? And how does all this make us, women who are childfree, feel about ourselves?

Me, I’m kind of pissed. But I’m not ready to carry a sign, write angry letters, or start an impassioned campaign online. I already feel marginalized, and I don’t want to subject myself to the “you-must-be-a-child-hating-anti-mom-bitch” response I fear would come.

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in AAA’s Westways, GRIT, Real Simple, and 805 Living magazines. Read “How to Be the World’s Best Aunt Ever” on eHow.com.

Motherhood Becomes Issue in Gubernatorial Race

We saw it earlier this year, with Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination, but now the issue of motherhood as a qualification has raised its ugly head again, this time in Oklahoma’s race for governor.

NBC News reports that Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, claimed her experience as a mother made her more qualified to run the state than her single, childless opponent, Lt. Gov. Jari Askins. Fallin said:

“I think my experience is one of the things that sets me apart as a candidate for Governor. First of all, being a mother, having children, raising a family…”

Really? While I can see how coordinating lunches and settling tantrums could certainly be useful in state politics, I curious…HOW does being a mother really qualify a person for the job of running a state? How dare she suggest that a childless woman couldn’t possibly be up to the job?

Sorry, but it smells to me like another attempt to use “family values” as a selling point, suggesting that a woman without children has none. Shame on you, Mary Fallin, for playing the motherhood card. As a woman, you should know better than that.

A Beautiful Voice for the Childless

Monica Wiesblott just closed a beautiful exhibition of her artwork in her show Barren: Life on Infertile Soil. If you didn’t make it the show, you can view it in her online gallery of the show.

I didn’t go to the show, even though I wanted to meet Monica and the gallery is just a couple of hours from my home. My mum is still here with me and I just wasn’t ready to take her with me nor was I able to get away alone. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that, although my mother knows about my infertility, we don’t really talk about it, and I’m okay with that. I get to talk to you about it instead. J So I wasn’t ready to open up that Pandora ’s Box with my mother by taking her to the show. Maybe one day, maybe not.

But I did view Monica’s show online, in the privacy of my own room. It’s beautiful and frank, sometimes even raw, but most of all it is courageous. Monica has put out there in photographs and sculpture, what many of us who have dealt with infertility, or who are otherwise childless-not-by-choice, have felt and experienced.

Monica told me:

“I have received a lot of wonderful positive response from the show, many people have cried in the gallery and many, many others have trusted me enough to share their stories of loss. I am usually approached with the words, “I have never told anyone this….”

It’s my hope that if people like Monica keeping talking and showing, fewer women will have to say, “I have never told anyone this….”

Please check out the show online. Monica is hoping to take the show to other galleries, so if you happen to move in artistic circles and can help, please let Monica know.

My Ex’s Kids

It’s happened to me a few times over the years. The first time an ex resurfaced was pre-Facebook through a site called Friends Reunited. He was my first true love and it was fun to see his face and remember the good times we had when we were way too young (and thankfully smart enough) to do anything more than fantasize about getting married and having kids together. When he told me about his wife and two little girls, I felt a little melancholy for the life I could have had, but knew I made the right choice when we broke up and I pursued a different life.

The next run-in was in-person with the ex-fiancé who had never wanted kids. I ran into him with his new wife and daughter when I was right in the thick of my infertility madness. That time I was livid, furious, jealous, feeling that the world had done me wrong, thinking how he’d wasted five years of my life and frittered away my chance to have children of my own.  Fortunately my husband was with me at the time and I was instantly reminded that my ex’s lack of desire for children wasn’t the only reason we were no longer together.

This week another ex resurfaced on the dreaded Facebook. He was a high school boyfriend and we “went out” for a few months, as I recall. Nice guy, but I think I was probably about 15 at the time. He friended me on FB and I accepted, and of course went straight to his photos to look for evidence of his current life. There were photos of two little blonde girls and him playing board games with them, and I felt…nothing. No envy, no sadness, not even relief.

We all choose our paths in life. Sometimes the path choses us, but even then we still have choices to make about how we walk that path. I didn’t plan to have a life without children, but I always planned to have a good life, and I do. When I look at the lives I might have had with the men I might have had them with, I realize that they weren’t the life I wanted. I like my life, it’s a good life, and even if it’s a life without children, it’s still the life I want.

The Secret Society of Childless and Childfree Women

I was at a cocktail reception last night. A couple of times a year I dig out my high heels from the back of the closet, assume the role as Executive Wife, and spend the evening shaking hands, eating things on sticks, and trying to remember the names of people’s spouses (and in some cases the names of the people themselves.) When stuck for small talk, I always turn to the subject I know will get people talking; I ask about their children or grandchildren. In many cases, I’ve known these people for many years, and I’m glad to hear updates; in others it’s a ploy. In know that all I have to do then is sit back and let them talk instead of having to come up with anything new and witty to say.

Most of the people I knew in the room have children. Some of their grown children were there. At one point in the evening, I glanced around the room of maybe 80-100 guests and spotted three visibly pregnant women (and spoke to another, although I didn’t know it at the time.) It wasn’t until I bent down to admire the shoes of a little girl toddling around that I was suddenly aware of my childlessness. I wondered if people who knew me well enough to know about my situation noticed me and thought, “What a shame she can’t have children.” But I shook the thought off quickly and got on with my job of working the room.

At the end of the evening, one of my husband’s employees found me. She pulled me aside and told me that she had seen this website and that she got what I was all about (I’m paraphrasing.) She told how she loved children, but had never wanted children of her own, and she told me about the amazing volunteer work she does fundraising for a local children’s organization. Talking to here was like finding a lush tropical island in the middle of the sea of parents. It was like being a part of a secret underground organization and hearing someone else speak one of the code words.

So maybe we childless and childfree women need an identifier so we can find one another at social gatherings. Maybe we need our own secret masonic handshake, or a piece of jewelry with the Life Without Baby crest subtly showing. Because wouldn’t it be great when we find ourselves at mixers and receptions and other social gatherings to be able to find just one person to talk to and not have to talk about their kids?

More Than Just an Infertile Couple

Over the summer my husband and I went with a group of friends to see one of our favorite bands in concert. We’ve seen them several times in that last couple of years, but this concert was a small outdoor venue at a winery in Sonoma County, the heart of California’s Wine Country.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, the wine flowed, the picnic we brought was delicious, and when I suggested to my husband that we get up to dance on the lawn, he said yes. We danced through the entire show, until I was perspiring in a most unladylike manner and we’d just about worn a bald spot on the grass. Our other friends (who all have children) have “husbands-who-don’t-dance” and the wives, I’m sure, coveted my husband for a couple of hours. After the show we bought a CD, got it autographed by the band and even chased down the drummer, who I have a small , strange crush on. And we laughed. We danced and laughed and ate and drank. It really was a perfect day.

Two months have passed and I’m still thinking about that day. We’ve been to other concerts and events since and had a good time, maybe even been to better concerts, but that day sticks in my mind. That day my husband and I were the people we used to be before we were an infertile couple. Somewhere along that journey, little bits of who we were chipped off and we forgot why we ever got together and wanted children in the first place. That day reminded me.

If you’re childless-not-by-choice (or even not-exactly-by-choice) has the experienced changed who you are? And when was the last time you did something with your partner that made you both happy? If it’s been a while, can you plan something in the upcoming weeks that will break you out of your “infertile couple” state and remind you why you got together in the first place?

Earlier this year, Vicki at A Woman Without Children wrote about a hiking adventure with her husband. Maybe this will give you some inspiration, too.   

Ten Things I Love About My Body

Sparked by a suggestion from Jennifer on yesterday’s post, Happily Childless, Not-So-Happily Infertile, I’ve decided to cut my body some slack. So, it didn’t do exactly what I wanted it to do. Like Jennifer said, maybe it did the best it could. In truth, my body has been good to me and even it would never win a medal in the Reproductive Olympics, it would at least make the team in other areas.

Here are my top ten things I love and appreciate about my body:

  1. It’s never had a major illness that’s caused me to be hospitalized or aggressively treated
  2. My immune system is a ninja when it comes to fighting colds and flus.
  3. My digestive system is built like a nuclear fallout shelter, allowing me to eat just about anything
  4. My brain can do a Sudoku or Ken-ken  in pen
  5. My 40-year-old hair is still dark and shiny, except for a couple of grey rebels
  6. My shoulders are flexible enough that I can scratch my own back almost anywhere
  7. My legs can run, propel a bike, and do ten sets of stairs at the beach
  8. My boobs are closer to my chin than they are to my bellybutton
  9. My heart has the ability to swell to twice its normal size in the presence of someone I love
  10. My rump has superhuman magnetic powers for my husband’s hand

Be good to your body. Tell it (and us) what you love most about it.