filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
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 Paula Coston
Image courtesy of Ideago/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I’m 59 now, and over those close-on six decades I have mapped out in my mind an entire web of paths untaken. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. And for that reason, Chapter 7 of Jody Day’s book Rocking the Life Unexpected: 12 Weeks to Your Plan B for a Meaningful and Fulfilling Life without Children chimes with me. (Jody is the founder of Gateway Women, a British-based website for women childless by circumstance.)
The chapter’s first two sections are headed “The shadow of the life unlived” and “The dark side of daydreams.” She shares her own experience with searing frankness:
“For many years I’d been living two lives: one in which I was hoping for a baby and making the best of things till then, the other in which I had succeeded and had become a mother….
“At no point in that time… did I fully and completely embrace the life I was actually living—that of a childless woman….
“I think of the ‘shadow life’ as the life you dreamt about while your ‘real’ life was happening and … which … depleted the life you were actually living.”
We all have our path forks. A few of mine happened when:
– Somewhere in my childhood, I believed my family was encouraging me in the single, career-driven life, not a life of love and family.
– Over the years a couple of men proposed to me, both in fun. Friends laughed too, hearing about it.
– It became clear to me that one special lover had serious issues about parenthood, so when the option came up for us, I knew I had to forgo it.
– Neighbors and colleagues at work became grandmothers, and, like a photograph gradually developing, I soon saw that I never would.
Slowly, I’m coming to terms with these losses. These days, what fascinates me more is the way we persist in tracing and re-tracing these ghosts of roads untaken.
I wonder whether, once we surmount the pain, their rehearsal can bring us comfort. Why not trust that we’re living our shadow lives somewhere else close by, if it helps? Maybe the psyche is instinctively drawn to the idea of alternative realities. And if you’re a writer—like me—well, it’s unavoidable.
In 1964, a TV soap, Another World, started on NBC, set in the fictional town of Bay City. It was so popular that it ran till 1999! The co-creator Irna Phillips explained the idea behind it: “We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds.” Bay City and its happenings represented to her the difference between “the world of events we live in, and the world of feelings and dreams that we strive for.”
Over the last four years, my best therapy has been to struggle with, and beat, writing a novel. It just came out on June 27, entitled On the Far Side, There’s a Boy. It tells the tale of a woman who doesn’t know that she even contemplates having children until she begins to dream—of one particular boy in Sri Lanka, whom she has known only through letters, so only half-known—and to see that he is what she wanted: even, what she may still want. It’s a kind of fantasy experience, parallel to her real life.
Aptly, her story echoes much that has happened to me. So these days, I’m learning to live with my shadow lives, to let them be and wend their ways, sometimes even to enjoy them.
I think I’ll term myself an AMo. Meaning “I love” in Latin, it also suggests that I’m a kind of Alternative Mother, somehow living both lives, the one I have and the one I didn’t, in harmony.
Paula Coston’s On the Far Side, There’s a Boy is available in paperback and e-book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/paulacoston
As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
Serious back problems (including surgeries and a year spent in a body cast) in her youth caused Justine to never be able to carry a pregnancy, so she didn’t think much about becoming a mother. Then the gestational surrogacy option became a media darling, and she started to think about new possibilities for creating a family. Justine and her husband endured two rounds of IVF, two transfers, and the loss of three potential babies. She’s 34 now. They have stopped all treatments, know that adoption is not an option, and are actively working to accept a childfree life together. Here’s some of her story.
LWB: What’s the hardest part about not having children?
Justine: Always fighting this feeling of not belonging. In every sense of the traditional woman my age, I will not belong because I am not a mother. However, I have learned that I will always belong, even when I do not feel I fit in, because that is my right and worthiness.
LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received?
Justine: That I will always be a mother. I mother and parent my dogs. I mother and parent my clients as a therapist. I mother and parent all the children in my life. I just mother and parent in a different way, and in a lot of ways, I have a bigger audience than I would have if I’d had my own children. I also get to have different—not necessarily better, but just different—relationships with all of the children in my life because I am not their actual parent.
LWB: What have you learned about yourself?
Justine: I’m a lot stronger and braver than I thought I was, especially in owning my story with courage.
LWB: What’s one thing you want other people (moms, younger women, men, grandmothers, teachers, strangers) to know about your being childfree?
Justine: I think a lot of times we are considered to be sad and bitter women, or people feel major pity for us. I think after we do our work of recovering from struggles we can actually have better and happier lives. It took major work to get to this side. My sad and bitter moments are few and far between, but I have to stay on top of my recovery.
LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”
Justine: I hit people with the truth and take the teaching moment. I usually say something to the effect that we tried to have our own children but can’t. I might say that we are learning to accept a childfree life, but we have a lot of children in our lives through our friends and family.
LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?
Justine: Continue my recovery, especially getting stronger in it. I will continue to work on my blog, Ever Upward [see below]. I hope that it can reach more and more women and continue to open up the conversation to the other side of infertility.
On Ever Upward, Justine shares more of her story and addresses how we can “really own” our own stories. Learn more about Justine—and about her upcoming book—here.
Won’t you share your story with us? 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.
It’s Whiny Wednesday, your opportunity to rant on a theme.
This week’s topic is:
Caring for elders and wondering, “Who’s going to do this for me?”
Feel free to add your own whines, too.
As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
After a first marriage to a man who was “never stable enough for us to have kids,” Kay* met her current husband when she was almost 42. They got busy trying to create their family, but three pregnancies were lost early, and adoption didn’t work (they weren’t against it, but the reasons it didn’t work were “complicated”). Now 52, Kay still struggles with being childfree by chance and circumstance. After reading her story below, I hope you’ll take a moment to offer her some encouragement in the Comments.
LWB: Please briefly describe your dream of motherhood.
Kay: Oh, the Waltons. I wanted a big family with lots of children, maybe with foster kids as well.
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Kay: My parents didn’t have a clue how to show love and fought a lot, and we children felt truly unloved and unwanted. From a very young age, all I wanted in life was to be a mama. That I will never have that is crushing. We are not close to any of our nieces and nephews. We have tried, but we live too far away from them to be very involved.
LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?
Kay: I don’t have to discover that I am just like my parents in parenting, in spite of my best intentions.
LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”
Kay: I really, really struggle with this because I so want/wanted to be a mama, and I want to relate to other people. Trying to explain, however, becomes complicated. I frequently get, “You could always just adopt,” which is a more complicated conversation. I’ve found it best to just answer, “No.”
LWB: What’s your Plan B?
Kay: I still very much want children in my life, and it doesn’t matter to me now that they won’t be my own. We unofficially mentored a family for a while. We called them our “Rent-a-Kids” and they liked that. But they moved away, so now I’m looking for something similar. I would like to find a way to connect “aged out” foster kids with people who would be family for them, to give them someone to care about them and a place to go for holidays and other momentous occasions. I don’t quite know how to get this started, but I’ve recently come across a couple of possibilities.
LWB: Where are you on your journey now?
Kay: I still struggle with hearing pregnancy announcements, and frequently give a big sigh when I read stuff on Facebook about friends’ kids/grandkids or their parenting stuff. Early on I told myself, “This is not how your life will turn out. You will not have this.” It was an attempt to work for acceptance, but I eventually gave it up as it was turning into a self-pitying whine instead of acceptance. Sometimes I’m angry, more often I’m wistful. I frequently quote Agatha Christie: “Life is badly arranged.”
*To protect respondents’ privacy, we allow each to choose a name for her profile. It may or may not be fictitious.
Won’t you share your story with us? 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.
Last week I asked you to share topic ideas for Whiny Wednesday. Quite a few of you were glad to oblige. Thanks for the great ideas.
So, this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is:
Other People’s Pity
As always, you’re free to vent on your own topic, too.
If you have Whiny Wednesday topics you’d like to see voiced, please drop me a line.
By Paulina Grace Hay
One thing I’ve felt and heard many times is about being locked out of the “Mommy Club”—a club we felt we had a natural right to join, no special requirements necessary. Then infertility, illness, age, or time black-balled us. We stand wistfully outside trying to get a peek of the mothers inside living their ideal lives. We imagine all the judgment about our “child-free” lives will be washed away once we walk through those golden Mommy gates.
I live in an odd situation where my life straddles having no kids and having one kid. I have a teenage stepson. He was a toddler when I started dating his father. I am not a full-time stepmother and my son’s mother is very active in his life. Due to this unexpected loophole, I have been granted a “special guest pass” into the Mommy Club. But with restricted privileges. I’ve been outright ignored, given the once over, and warmly greeted. Sometimes by the same person.
I found my place at the club in the fly-on-the-wall seat. I’ve done my share of listening and observing over the years from this post. From the moment a woman is pregnant, people have lots of opinions to share in front of her face and behind her back. I’ve watched the awkward “Congratulations” and subsequently more awkward baby shower for the 19-year-old who got admitted too soon. I’ve watched one mother look down her nose at another for paying for lunch milk rather than packing it. I’ve heard one mother refer to another’s young child as “homely”. In return came an insult about their son’s need for a haircut. I’ve watched smiling faces drop like lead balloons after having an unexpected insult directed their way. I’ve heard the voices lower and eyes begin shifting as a group insult gains momentum.
If anything, admittance into the Mommy Club only ramps up your potential areas of judgment. Some are the old stand-bys. Your age. Your weight. Your hair. Your outfit. Your car. Your house. Your husband. Your ex-husband. Your job. Your decision to stay home. Then multiply all of those things by your child and husband. Possibly your parents and your dog, too. How you raise your kids has the highest potential for conflict of all.
The Mommy Club is not for the faint of heart. Often I saw these women enter with full armor on, even if it looked like yoga clothes, in the chance a battle may begin at any time. Very different to the rose-colored version I imagined, where a new mother would be greeted with open arms and loving support once inside the club walls.
My biggest lesson from access into the Mommy Club is this: Being a mother does not make you automatically connect with another person. I’ve found the same holds true for infertility. It just might give you something to talk about for a few minutes or a few get-togethers. We are more complex and interesting than our children. Or lack of them. I choose to instead consider that we are all part of the Human Club. And for that, there is no special admittance required.
Paulina Grace walked away from the infertility roller coaster six years ago. She hopes to help other women let themselves grieve and then let themselves live. Outside of running her own business, Paulina fulfills her need to nurture by being an involved aunt and caring for her aging parents.
As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
Gwen*, now 44, has endured a rough journey of loss and infertility treatments, but she still hopes for a miracle. Like many of us, she dances around the pros and cons of being childfree as she considers what her Plan B might look like. Do you see yourself in her story? If so, take a moment to reach out to her in the Comments.
LWB: Please briefly describe your dream of motherhood.
Gwen: I told myself that if it didn’t happen by 36 I would not pursue it. It wasn’t until I was 39 and reconnected with an old flame—who I eventually married—that I wanted to try for a family. My husband had been a victim of parental alienation for over a decade, has had no connection with his own children for over eight years, and it was very important for me to be able give him a child we could raise together in a very loving family.
LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?
Gwen: It was by choice until the age of 39. Then, after three years of trying and having over a dozen conceptions/zero pregnancies/one early miscarriage, I sought infertility treatment. Two failed IVF (in vitro fertilization) cycles into two failed IUI (intrauterine insemination) converts; the doctors could do nothing for me. We can’t afford and are not morally on board with egg donorship. We are too old to adopt a young child, and I do not to want to put myself or my husband through the grueling process of rejection through adoption.
LWB: Where are you on your journey now? (For example: still in denial, angry, hoping for a miracle, depressed, crawling toward acceptance, embracing Plan B, all of the above.)
Gwen: All of the above. I still hope every month, still time intercourse for a possible miracle while fully knowing the eggs are bad and the outcome will most likely never change. Just this month we had a conception that failed. I now joke that my uterus is made of Teflon.
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Gwen: Feeling like a social outcast. I just cannot get past that one. I’ve never followed the status quo my entire life, was a “late bloomer” with all things social growing up, and became a statistic as a child of divorce and divorced twice over myself. So giving up the battle and becoming yet another statistic is the hardest part for me. “Everyone else can have a child, why not me?” is what goes through my head every day.
LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?
Gwen: Not having to dedicate the next 18 years to being responsible for another human being. I can continue to “do my thing”, come and go as I please, work on my crafts whenever I want, enjoy life on my terms, and not lie in wait for what my offspring needs right now. Oh, and being able to get a full night’s sleep every night. That’s a biggie.
LWB: What’s your Plan B?
Gwen: As I am just coming to terms with being childfree forever, I guess it is wait and see. After three years of marriage we could apply to be a licensed foster home and hope to find an older child who will fit into our life. But that is another year waiting, and my thoughts on adoption might change by then. I’ll leave that in God’s hands.
*To protect respondents’ privacy, we allow each to choose a name for her profile. It may or may not be fictitious.
Won’t you share your story with us? 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.
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?
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
I am a huge fan of watching kids of all ages participate in just about any kind of sporting or performing event. I don’t care if a player is running toward the wrong goal or if the opposing team scores the most points or if the knight in tin-foil armor has to have his lines whispered to him from the teacher behind the curtain. I applaud and enjoy it all.
Watching my own kids was one of the activities I most looked forward to participating in as a proud parent. Alas…no kids for me. And since it would be weird if I showed up to watch a random game at the park, I put the word out to siblings and friends to let me know when I could come watch their kids.
“Send me the game schedule,” I said to a friend after she complained to me about how much time she spends chauffeuring her boys to practices. “When’s the next match?” I texted to another friend after getting a video clip of her daughter scoring a game-winning point. Despite multiple requests, I rarely got a response. Finally I pinned one friend down. “I’m serious!” I said. “I really really want to go watch your daughter play.” “Really?” she said. “We didn’t send you the schedule because we didn’t want you to feel obligated, we didn’t want to burden you.”
What followed was an open chat about how much I loved watching kids play, how much I missed being able to watch my own kids play, and how I hoped I could ease my feelings of loss by watching her kids at play. She got it. She finally heard me, and a couple of weeks later I had a seat in the bleachers.
It’s not easy or fun putting ourselves out there like this, but if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines too long, I encourage you to persist. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be part of the fun.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
~ "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."
