filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
It’s Whiny Wednesday, your chance to gripe about the issues you’re dealing with this week. This week’s suggested topic is one we’ve all had to deal with:
An over-abundance of work pregnancies
I can relate to this one. When I was trying to conceive, I managed a small department of about eight people. One year we had three simultaneous pregnancies…and none of them was mine.
Whine away!
One of the earliest posts I wrote here was about the trend at the time in baby doll tops that, on me, looked like maternity wear.
This week, a reader offered this Whiny Wednesday topic about shopping for new clothes. Her whine is:
“The need to go shopping for new clothes and trying to find something I feel good in vs. something I think screams ‘infertile and has a poor sense of style.’”
She may not have a great sense of style, but at least she has a great sense of humor.
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What can you laugh about this week?
If you’re new to the site, you might wondering what Whiny Wednesday is all about.
A few years ago, some readers commented that they couldn’t express how they felt around friends and colleagues, as they were always made to feel as if they were whining. So, we created Whiny Wednesday as a place to complain and grumble about whatever’s on your mind each week. It can be an issue surrounding living without children, or just a general grumble about life, work, family, the world.
I used to start each post with a gripe of my own, but lately I’ve found I’ve covered most of what bothers me, so I put out a call for Whiny Wednesday topics, and you, dear readers, came through! So, each week, I offer one of your suggested topics as a starting point, but as always, any topic is fair game.
So, let’s kick off with this week’s topic:
Parents who complain and complain then ask “Do you want my kids?”
Happy whining!
P.S. If you need something to cheer about instead, check this fun list of quotes from famous childfree women.
If you have a topic that hasn’t been covered yet, please drop me a line, send me ideas, or a list of ideas, and I’ll include them here. You can reach me at: lisa [at] lifewithoutbaby [dot] com.
Thanks to everyone who has contacted me with Whiny Wednesday post ideas. I have a good list now, but keep them coming. You can send topic ideas through the Contact page.
This week’s topic is another tender subject:
The constant struggle of feeling my life is imperfect because of not having children.
How do you feel about this? Has that feeling changed with the passing of time?
As always, the floor is open for any other whines and rants you need to get off your chest.
It’s Whiny Wednesday, your opportunity to rant on a theme.
This week’s topic has been brought up by several readers:
Feeling that you’re expected to carry a disproportionate responsibility for the care of aging parents because you don’t have children to worry about.
Feel free to add your own whines, too.
Graduation season is upon us and social media has been abuzz with snapshots of proud parents and their offspring. So it seems like a good time for this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic:
Feelings of jealousy when friends and relatives celebrate the milestones of being parents and grandparents.
As always, your other whines are always welcome.
By Lisa Manterfield
Have you ever been around people who behave as if you can’t possibly know anything about life because you don’t have children?
I’m sure that all of us have heard the old chestnuts, “You wouldn’t understand; you don’t have kids” or “I didn’t understand until I became a mother” (which implies the same thing) or even “Only a parent could know how this feels,” as if being childless strips away all capability of empathy.
And then there are those situations where you just feel invisible, when the conversation about children and parenting is swirling around you and no one even bothers to make eye contact with you because what could you possibly contribute?
These instances make me think of the wonderful “Mr. Cellophane” number from the musical “Chicago.”
And even without clucking like a hen,
Everyone gets noticed now and then,
Unless, of course, that person it should be,
Invisible, inconsequential me.
Personally, I’m done with feeling insignificant because I don’t have kids. It took me a long time to get to this point, but now I hold my ground in conversation. I contribute when I can and simply listen and nod when I can’t, just as I would if I found myself in a conversation on any other topic on which I’m not an expert.
I also keep a list of amazing childless women in case I ever need to remind myself that we don’t need to be parents to make a difference. On my personal list is Amelia Earhart, Dian Fossey, Julia Child, and Juliet Gordon Low, who started the Girl Scout movement. If you need your own role models, Jody Day has put together an outstanding collection on Pinterest.
You’d be hard-pressed to call any of these women insignificant. I remind myself of this when I find myself allowing others to make me feel like less than who I am.
So what do you do when you start to feel like a Ms. Cellophane? Do you feign boredom, try to hop in with an intelligent anecdote, change the subject, or do you slip away and hope no one notices you’ve left?
As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
Although she came from a very close extended family, Karin didn’t really think about motherhood until she experienced infertility in her early 30s. Then it became a “dream.” Now 41, she and her husband of 19 years find themselves in a place of mostly acceptance, but she feels somewhat alone in her concerns about the future. If you can relate, please reach out to her—to all of us—in the Comments.
LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?
Karin: We were first childfree by chance and now it’s by circumstance. After years of unexplained infertility, various drug treatments, one horrific miscarriage, and lots of ovulation kits, my husband and I decided to stop trying for children. At that point, I began a very intense hatred of my body. My [menstrual] cycles were very long and painful, and as I grew older, they got worse and worse. This only intensified the self-loathing I was carrying around. It got so bad that the only option I had left was a hysterectomy. Knowing that I was not going to be able to conceive without massive medical intervention, and knowing that path was not for us, I decided to go through with the hysterectomy. It was the best decision I have ever made. I feel like I got my life back! Thanks to mindfulness training, yoga, and that surgery, I’ve been able to accept my body again and, more important, regain peace.
LWB: Where are you on your journey now?
Karin: I’ve been in the acceptance phase for quite some time. I have a wonderful husband and a very fulfilling job. But the residual feelings of isolation and fear of the future are what dominates my infertility issues now.
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Karin: The fear of who will take care of me when I am old. My grandparents were in wonderful assisted living facilities toward the ends of their lives, but they were still attended to by my mom and my aunts—everything from shopping for basic needs to handling the finances. I cannot think of anyone in my life now who I could rely on to help us in our old age. My husband is an only child, and my sister has only one daughter. I do not have the nieces and nephews that many others have and will hopefully rely on when the time comes. And this truly terrifies me. This is, by far, the most difficult issue for me now. I feel quite alone in this. I don’t think many other people who are childfree have this worry, or, if they do, it is not as intense as mine. Also, I am the only person in my immediate social circle who does not have children. I feel like all the feelings of loss and isolation will resurface when my friends become grandparents.
LWB: What have you learned about yourself?
Karin: That I’m stronger than I thought I could ever be. You read that going through infertility will make you a stronger person, but until you actually feel it, it’s hard to believe. I’ve also learned to live life as consciously as I can with as much compassion as I can muster. Living a life with as little harm as possible toward others, including the environment around me, is rewarding and purposeful. I didn’t feel it this intensely prior to trying for children.
LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”
Karin: I say “NOPE!” And if they ask why not, I simply say “We tried and it didn’t work out.” That usually stops people. Occasionally, people will ask why we didn’t adopt, and I say adopting does not cure infertility and we believe adoption is a calling that we just didn’t have.
LWB: How has LWB helped you on your journey?
Karin: It was the first community that got it!! Besides Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos’ book Silent Sorority, what else did we have? LWB has been so incredibly integral in my journey that it’s hard to put into words. I would, however, like to see more information or discussion by others about being childfree in old age and the new dynamics that will come into play when we are not just non-moms but non-grandmothers!
We’d love to hear your story! Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.
As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
Kara, 34, was one of those little girls who mothered her baby dolls and younger siblings. “I always knew I was going to be a mom with a lot of kids,” she says, but circumstances led her down a different path. These days she experiences the all-too-familiar cocktail of grief, guilt, and anger, with hints of acceptance, as she and her husband pursue their Plan B. Here’s what she has to share about her journey.
LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?
Kara: Childfree by circumstance. After trying for 10 months, my OB/GYN thought it was because my cycle wasn’t regular. After we “fixed” me and I still wasn’t pregnant, my husband was tested. His sperm count came back zero and he was diagnosed with no vas deferens [a congenital condition in which the tubes that carry sperm fail to fully develop].
After doing our own research, we talked our primary care doctor into having my husband tested for Cystic Fibrosis (CF). He was diagnosed with CF, but in what is called a “mild” case. Mild cases are where the mucus builds up somewhere other than the lungs, usually either the sinuses (my husband’s case) or digestive tract. Because of his having CF, I had to be tested before a fertility clinic would see us. I don’t have CF, but I have 5T Polymorphism. For me that means nothing, that is just how my DNA is “strung” together. But 5T doesn’t “play” well with CF, and we would have a 50% chance of having a child with a classic CF case (in the lungs). That was something we didn’t want to do to a child just to be parents. We stopped the journey after only four years, and we already knew adoption wasn’t a calling we felt was for us.
LWB: Where are you on your journey now?
Kara: I still go through the stages of grief, usually skipping denial and spending more time than I should in the angry stage. We’ve moved on to Plan B, but sometimes I feel guilty being there.
LWB: What was the turning point for you?
Kara: After meeting with the fertility doctor and seeing how all they wanted was my money and not caring how the process was difficult for my husband, we just stopped cold. They didn’t care that my husband was the one with the issues. We could get donor sperm and that would make a baby. I didn’t want any baby, I wanted my husband’s baby. After much prayer and talking, we decided it was healthier to stop.
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Kara: Seeing others mistreat their children. Or parents complaining about their kids for selfish reasons.
LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?
Kara: Being able to do Plan B: travel around the world. Sometimes, when I’m in the angry grief stage and a mom complains to me about my travels, the best part is saying, “You got to multiply and replenish the earth…I get to travel the earth.” (Sometimes being the big B word is mentally healthy for me.)
LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”
Kara: It usually starts with a quick no. How sarcastic my answer is depends on who is asking and what stage of grief I am in that day.
LWB: How has LWB helped you on your journey?
Kara: It gives me a place to read about and to vent to others who know how it feels to go through life without children.
If you’ve been feeling that you’re all alone on this journey, I encourage you to read other members’ stories here. There is a lot of wisdom and support in the stories themselves and in the comments. Then, when you’re ready, I hope you’ll share your story with us. Like Kara, you’ll find a safe place to “vent to others who know how it feels to go through life without children.” Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
Bitter. Desperate. Pathetic, sad, and lonely. That’s Hollywood’s typical childfree woman.
But don’t worry, in the end she’ll get her man and, of course, she’ll get her baby.
This week’s topic:
The way the media portrays childless women
Happy whining, my friends!
~ "a raw, transparent account of the gut-wrenching journey of infertility."
~ "a welcome sanity check for women left to wonder how society became so fixated on motherhood."
