Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About Big Girl Meltdowns, Holiday Edition

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

Meltdowns are no fun, and they’re especially painful when they happen in public.

Recently I attended a friend’s daughter’s first dance recital. It was beautiful, it was funny, it was entertaining. Nothing cracks me up quite like a row of four-year-olds in pink tutus doing their best to tap on a beat.

Except this time I wasn’t laughing. Every tiny dancer made me long for the one I could have had, should have had. I sat in the semi-darkened theater, surrounded by parents, grandparents, siblings, and every form of video camera and cried. Big tears rolled down my cheeks, my nose ran like a fire hose, and when the lights came up, I doubt anyone thought my swollen face was due to seasonal allergies.

I took my first dance class when I was five and tapped, kicked, twirled, and leapt my way through childhood. I loved the magic, the music, the costumes, and even the discipline. I looked forward to one day watching my own daughter glide across a stage, and as I watched my young friend steal the show, I thought about how sad I was to to miss sharing these experiences with a mini-me.

’Tis the season of holiday performances: children’s choirs, reenactments of the nativity (I love Lisa’s description of the drive-through nativity she discovered a few years ago), pageants, caroling, The Nutcracker. I loved them all when I had parts in them, and I still love them. It’s just a little bit harder these days to keep my emotions to myself when I’m in the midst of the family fun.

So, if you notice a gal sniffling in row 12 during the curtain call, kindly pass her a tissue.

 

The holiday festivities can bring up all sorts of painful emotions when you’re childfree-not-by-choice. If you could use some inspiration and encouragement to get you through the tough times, check out the Life Without Baby Holiday Companion available here and on Amazon.

When Your Family Doesn’t Get It

ball-15532_640The 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?

Tough Love

beauty girl cryA number of years ago I got out of a long relationship. At the time I was also between jobs and my car had just passed 300,000 miles and was hinting that it didn’t want to do too many more. It was definitely a dark period in my life.

When I left the relationship, my friend offered me her couch and her daughter’s bed on the weeks her kids were with their dad. Here’s what she told me:

“You can stay here as long as you need and for the next two weeks you can do whatever you need to do. You can stay in bed all day, eat pizza, drink wine, not shower, and never change out of your PJs. You can sob into your pillow all night and sleep all day, if that’s what you need to do. 

“But you have two weeks, and after that, you have to get up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and figure out how you’re going to start putting your life back together.” 

At the time I thought she was being unreasonable, expecting me to get over this in two weeks. But that wasn’t what she was saying, and as it turned out, she did me a huge favor.

I did stay in bed and feel sorry for myself for much of those two weeks. But then I got up, found myself a crappy job (Telemarketing! It was the pits) that got me out of the house, earning a bit of money, and on the road to finding a less crappy job, and a place to live, and eventually, making me desirable enough to find a new relationship.

My friend’s tough love changed my philosophy about grief and I’ve shared it with other people since. If you’re in a place now where you feel as if you’re never going to get over not being able to have children, that your life is going to be the pits from this point forward, give yourself some time. You might not be able to stay in bed for two weeks, but can you clear your calendar of non-essential obligations? Can you line up movies or books and just give yourself permission to feel sorry for yourself? Can you make some time and space to just feel bad and to grieve?

If so, do it. But put a big circle on your calendar for two weeks from now, or however long you can take, and that’s the day you have to get up and figure out how you’re going to start making peace with this.

Look around the site and find some tips and support, buy a book on loss and grief and read it, make a plan for the future that’s something you’ve always wanted to do. Take a small step, just one, and start the process.

It’s going to take a lot longer than two weeks to “get over” this, but you have to start somewhere and you have to start sometime.

If you’re looking for some solace and an understanding voice, I hope you’ve had chance to check out the Holiday Companion. It’s available from this site as both a full-color and printable PDF, and now also available as an ebook on Amazon.

It Got Me Thinking…About Prepping the Feast

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

There’s something about preparing a meal together that opens people up. You catch up on each other’s day, you share memories, you think about the person who first taught you how to level a measuring cup, test a strand of spaghetti, or chop onions without chopping off a finger. All those little moments come together in an emotional vortex when you’re sharing counter space with generations of loved ones and preparing a feast for a holiday meal.

I love the presents, decorations, music, and traditions of the holiday season as much as anyone, but what I miss the most as a childfree woman is the kitchen fun. As a family of two (and as a family of one until my early 40s), we don’t need six side dishes, two gravies, and a trio of pies. Even if we’re invited to join other family members or friends, I may be asked to bring an item, but I probably won’t be invited to spend the day in the kitchen.

Some women complain about the hours, if not days, spent shopping and preparing for an elaborate meal that will be gulfed down during halftime. I’m not one of them. I’d love to be included. I’d love to—even if it was just for that one day—feel like I was part of a big family again.

 

Just in time for the not always happy holidays, Lisa Manterfield and Kathleen Guthrie Woods have released Life Without Baby Holiday Companion, a collection of classic blog posts that offer inspiration and encouragement for getting through the season when you’re childfree. Order your copy here.

The Holiday Companion is Here!

Cover Final HiIt’s here!

The Life Without Baby Holiday Companion is now available—just in time to get you through the not-always-jolly holidays!

We know from personal experiences—and from stories shared by the wonderful readers of this site—that the holiday season can be especially painful when you wanted children but didn’t get to have them.

So we put together a collection of humorous, healing, and thought-provoking posts and tips, including “All I Want for Christmas is Wa,” “Baby Chitchat,” “Holiday Survival 101,” and “Top 10 Benefits of Childfree Holidays.”

As a member of the Life Without Baby community, you get to preview Holiday Companion before the ebook is released to the world on Amazon next week. PLUS, when you order your copy here, you’ll receive both the full-color PDF and a black and white printable version.

Our hope is that this book will give you inspiration and encouragement as you make your way to a happier new year and a happier new you.

Cheers!

Lisa & Kathleen

Making Peace With Other People’s Children

peaceI love children again. I find myself cooing at babies, talking to little kids in restaurants, and enjoying interacting with other people’s children. Hurray! I’m back!

It wasn’t always this way. When it first became apparent that children weren’t going to be in my future, I went through a period of not liking other people’s children at all. I didn’t appreciate the joy of children—in fact the sound of children’s laughter didn’t make me smile; it about ripped my heart out. I didn’t want to interact with children and so I made a point of avoiding places where children congregate.

The trouble was, I didn’t like the me that didn’t like children. She wasn’t who I was. She was grouchy and bitter, the kind of woman who gives childless women a bad name! But I couldn’t help myself.

Now that I’m back, I realize my anti-kid-ness was a defense mechanism, my psyche’s way of protecting me while I got on with my healing process. Children reminded me of what I didn’t have, and it hurt to be around them. So I stayed away.

During this whole process of coming-to-terms with my infertility, I’ll admit to many unpleasant emotions and thoughts I wouldn’t want to share with anyone. But that doesn’t make me bitter, it doesn’t make me dark, and it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It’s just part of the process of protecting ourselves until the hurt starts to subside.

Have you noticed changes in yourself as time passes? If your old self was lost for a while, have you seen glimpses of her return?

The Life Without Baby Holiday Companion is out tomorrow. In case you can’t wait, you can pre-order yours here.

It Got Me Thinking…About “Just” Having One

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

I’m at my wedding reception, all aglow in my big gown, overwhelmed (in a good way) by all the attention and love in the room. One of our guests comes up to me and says, “I’ve been watching you with your little nieces and nephews, and you’re so good with kids. Why don’t you have just one?”

Just what? Are you kidding me?! Like it’s so easy. Just like that, I’ll get pregnant, stay pregnant, pop it out, and the next 18-plus years will be a breeze.

The craziest part is when I told the story to my brand-new husband the next morning, he said, “Well, maybe we should try for a year and see what happens.” So much for all of our discussions about why we couldn’t have children (did I mention I was a 45-year-old first-time bride?) and why we wanted a family of two.

By the next day we were back to our senses and back on track to the beautiful life we’d planned together. Later I got to thinking about all the annoying “Just…” statements that people make. Like:

“Just adopt…just relax…just quit smoking…just get a job…just cut out sugar/carbs/fat/meat/anything that tastes good.”

Maybe I’m just feeling feisty today, but I’m pretty sick and tired of people—especially people who don’t know me well—who offer unhelpful advice. You know what I’d really like to say to them? “Just shut the f— up!”

Just in time for the not always happy holidays, Lisa Manterfield and Kathleen Guthrie Woods are releasing Life Without Baby Holiday Companion, a collection of classic blog posts that offer inspiration and encouragement for getting through the season when you’re childfree. The book will be available here on this site next Tuesday! 

Holiday Comfort

Cover Final-imageMr. Fab and I are starting to make plans for the holidays. Thanksgiving isn’t a big deal for either of us, but Christmas is, especially for me. After years of attempting to recreate my happy childhood Christmases and ending up disappointed, I finally gave up last year. Instead, we went out of town, just the two of us. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a nice quiet dinner at a fancy restaurant, and then spent Christmas Day at the zoo. Honestly, it was the best Christmas we’d had for many years, and we vowed to make it a new tradition.

It’s easy to say that our (geographically and emotionally) scattered families have been the cause of our previous holiday gloom. But I know that, if we had children, things would be different. We would stay home with our little family and Christmas would (I imagine) be much like the Christmases of my memories. But without children, we find it hard to get into the spirit of the season or to muster our holiday cheer. That changed when we recreated the holiday to suit the people we are, rather than the people we used to be or wished we were.

The holidays are probably the hardest time of year for those of us without children. And this was brought home to me with great clarity recently as I was going over some of the posts and comments from the past three years of this blog. Alongside Kathleen (who writes Friday’s It Got Me Thinking… column) I’ve been compiling and editing a collection of some of these posts about the holidays, as well as some of the ideas and tips that readers have shared with us. As I sifted through the posts, I was struck by some of the struggles so many of us have and some of the solutions we’ve come up with to make it through this difficult season. I was also touched to see how this community rallies around one another when things get tough. It’s as if we’ve created our own family of understanding and empathetic friends, when so often our own families don’t get it at all. It’s a wonderful thing to see.

The result of all this sifting and compiling will be available next week in the form of an ebook we’re calling the Life Without Baby Holiday Companion. Our hope is that it will be provide inspiration and comfort at your fingertips when the holiday season gets tough. It certainly did for us as we were putting it together.

The ebook will be available on this site next Tuesday, November19 and on Amazon the following week. I’ll post details as soon as it’s up.

Whiny Wednesday: When We Were Kids

Whiny_WednesdayA college friend just posted a photo of her son and his date all dressed up for the homecoming dance.

It got my attention because the “kids” weren’t much younger than my friend and her now-husband when I first met them, and, as the boy looks like his father, the photo reminded me of them and how flipping long it’s been since I was in school.

It also caused a pang of sadness for another experience I won’t get to have. I won’t get to send my teen off on his first date or take a photo of him and realize he’s a carbon copy of his dad.

It’s Whiny Wednesday, and today I’m feeling whiny about how unfair life can be.

It Got Me Thinking…About Aunties

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

I’ve been diving for treasure! Which means I finally pulled out the boxes from under my desk and started going through the articles, photographs, scribbles, and other items set aside for “some day” projects. Much of it is going straight into the circular file, but here and there I’ve found something worth keeping.

This is how I rediscovered a treasure called The Complete Book of Aunts, a little book by Rupert Christiansen with Beth Brophy that celebrates brand name aunts (Jemima), X-rated (Gigi’s Alicia), those who helped raise their siblings’ children (when Coco Chanel was orphaned at age 6, her aunts took her in and taught her how to sew), and many others real and imagined (Spider-Man’s Aunt Rosemary).

In addition to historical factoids (“auntie” meant “prostitute” in pre-18th century India), there are tips for good auntie-ing and delightful quotes, such as this gem from Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther:

(Aunt Hetty) “What on earth d’you think I’m here for, I should like to know?”

To be a pattern and example to all aunts, thought Mrs. Miniver; to be a delight to boys and a comfort to their parents; to show that at least one daughter in every generation ought to remain unmarried [and to] raise the profession of auntship to a fine art.

I’m not keen on the “ought to remain unmarried” part, but “raise the profession of auntship to a fine art”—doncha love that?!

Many of us have the pleasure of being aunties, and because we aren’t responsible for little darlings of our own, we’re free to lavish our attentions on our nieces and nephews. I must be doing a decent job because the inscription on the title page, signed by a beloved sister-in-law, reads “Behind every niece or nephew is a ‘great aunt.’” It is nice to know my efforts are appreciated, although I freely admit that I nurture these special relationships because they make my heart sing.

Whether you’re called auntie, tante, tia, shagazi, or an honorary term of your own making, I hope you are finding joy in practicing this fine art too.

 

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is wrapping up her memoir about being a temporary single mommy and how it helped her come to terms with being childfree.