filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
As the New Year begins and everyone around you is posting about goals for the year ahead, do you find it hard to envision a future that doesn’t include children?
This is the topic for this week’s Whiny Wednesday:
Feeling lost
Tell us what’s going on with you.
A reader sent me a wonderful blog post that I wanted to share with you as we go into the New Year. It begins with this quote:
“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.”
I really relate to this quote because, in the past, this is exactly how I’ve approached the New Year. I’ve gone room-to-room looking for all the things wrong with me and resolving to fix them in the New Year. Come year-end, I’d look at my goals for the previous January and inevitably find that I’d fallen short, let myself down yet again. So, I’d resolve to do better the next year, to make it the year I improved myself.
I’m not sure whether it’s facing the reality of infertility that’s made me realize there are things about me that just cannot be fixed, or if I’ve just reached an age where I’ve decided to be kinder to myself. Whichever it is, I’ve adopted a new philosophy about New Year’s resolutions.
I no longer resolve to fix my flaws. I’m not going to aim to lose weight or organize my house or try to be more stylish. Nor am I going to compare myself to others—especially women with children—and find myself falling short. I am who I am and, even though I’m far from perfect, I don’t need to be fixed.
Instead I’m looking for ways to tap my potential and be the best version of me I can be. Instead of resolving to be who I’m not, I will try to nurture the best of who I am. I will set goals that point me in the direction I’d like my life to go and not worry about whether the “me” that arrives there is perfect.
As you head into the New Year, will you be making resolutions or setting goals? If so, are you being kind to yourself or are you treating yourself like something that’s broken and needs to be fixed?
It has been a pretty wild year, hasn’t it? I am certainly hoping that 2019 shows some big improvements.
But, before we close out this year, here is your last opportunity to rant this year. It’s an open forum (within reason), so feel free to get things off your chest so we can start fresh next year.
Happy whining!
My overarching message around the holidays has always been this:
Do what you need to do to protect yourself when your emotions are still raw. Back out of the holidays all together, if that’s what feels right. Create new traditions that suit who you are now. And most of all, hang in there, because it does get easier, and eventually you’ll find a way to make the holidays joyful again.
But, this year, I want to make an amendment. Because, the truth is, for some of you, the holidays might keep sucking for a long, long time, and my being all Pollyanna about it, isn’t going to change that.
For years, I have followed my own guidelines for holiday survival. After a couple of years of trying to force the Christmas spirit, we chose to opt out of Christmas because it was too sad. Then, for a number of years, we made a point of going away and doing something totally non-traditional. It wasn’t “Christmas” as I’d envisioned it, but it felt right for us, and we enjoyed the season again.
I thought I had a different attitude about Christmas. Mr. Fab and I like staying at home, just the two of us, and keeping it low key. We put up a tree and decorated the house. We’ll keep up our new tradition of celebrating on Christmas Eve and it will be a “nice” Christmas, not perfect, but good enough.
I’ve talked to several friends, fellow bloggers who, like me, are several years into being at peace with not having children. They each talked about plans for a quiet celebration, of an adapted holiday experience. And each of them also added that some part of their plans had triggered the old sadness or poked at a tender spot. Not one of us gushed about the jingly joyful celebration we were planning. Instead, we talk of an “almost-but-not-quite” Christmas.
As I was rooting around in my mind, trying to find a point to this post, I suddenly thought about my dad. My dad hated Valentine’s Day, not because of the commercial tackiness, but because his own father had died on February 14th. Even two decades later, he couldn’t find joy in the day, and none of us expected him to. I tiptoed around him and, by February 15th, he was his old self again. As a young girl, hoping to get Valentines in the mail, I couldn’t understand why my dad felt this way. But, of course, I understand it fully now.
I stand by all my guidelines about the holidays: It does get easier. You will find a way to get through the holidays and even enjoy them again. But, odds are, they will always tap a sore spot and serve as a reminder of what’s missing. It might always be “almost-but-not-quite” Christmas.
But, before you know it, it will be January again, a new year and a fresh chance to live the life you do have to its fullest. I don’t know about you, but the New Year is fast becoming my favorite holiday of all.
By Lisa Manterfield
“Are you the adult you dreamed of becoming?”
I laughed when I read this question on Facebook. No! Of course I’m not. The adult I dreamed of was an international engineering consultant, living in a large house with a circular driveway, with a fabulous husband and four beautiful children, including one set of twins.
Aside from the fabulous husband, that adult is almost the polar opposite of the adult I am now. I’m a writer, who works from my very small rented beach cottage, and of course, there are no children in my picture. And yet, once I stop to consider my friend’s question, I realize that I’m a lot happier as this adult than I would have been had my expectations been met. I’ve met the person I’d once dreamed of becoming; she wasn’t a very happy person and she definitely had more grey hairs than me.
Half the battle of coming-to-terms with a life without children is letting go of our expectations—and creating new ones. This is never more true than during the holiday season, one of the most difficult times of the year to be childless.
When I think of my expectations of what Christmas should be like as an adult, those four children are always there, gathered around the tree, gathered around the dinner table, and then gathered around me as the day comes to a close. Even when I realized that children wouldn’t be part of my life, I still strived to make Christmas live up to my expectations. Consequently, Christmastime was very sad time for a number of years. I knew there was no way my expectations could be met, and eventually I stopped making an effort to celebrate.
The worst year was when my husband and I found ourselves sitting at home, with no Christmas tree, no plans, no celebration, and we knew we’d allowed our lack of children to take over our lives. We also realized it was time to set new, more realistic expectations.
When I took a step back and looked at what I really wanted for Christmas, not on the surface of gifts, family, and decorations, but on a deeper emotional level, I discovered that my spiritual wish list included love, peacefulness, companionship, and a good dose of silly fun. I needed to explore new ways to get what I really wanted.
It took a couple of false starts to find a new way to celebrate Christmas, but a couple of years ago we nailed it. Mr. Fab and I rented an apartment for three days in a nearby beach town. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a lovely dinner at an historic hotel with an enormous Christmas tree, roving carolers, and even an outdoor ice rink (in Southern California!). On Christmas Day, instead of sitting at home feeling sad about a pathetic Christmas for two, we went to the zoo, like a couple of big kids, and had a whale of a time. I even got to feed a rhino and have an ice cream. We both agreed it was the best Christmas we’ve had for a long time, plus there were no tantrums or mountains of dirty dishes to deal with.
It’s hard to let go of our expectations, especially when they’re often so deeply engrained, but if you’re struggling to find your holiday cheer this year, I encourage you to look beneath the obvious losses and examine what’s really missing for you. Even if you can’t meet your tangible expectations of what the holidays should be, you might be surprised to find you can satisfy your true needs in unconventional—and unexpected—ways.
Even the most festive among us has to hit holiday burnout at some point. And if you’re trying drum up your holiday spirit and keep coming up empty, you may have hit this point sometime around Halloween.
So this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is simply:
The Holidays Without Children
Feel free to unleash your inner Grinch…or not.
My friend was recently sideswiped by sadness. Like me, she’s been off the “baby train” for several years and has truly come to terms with the fact that she won’t have children.
Then she had a birthday and found herself totally sideswiped, caught off-guard by her grief, and in the kitchen having a meltdown.
What happened?
She’s not sure and neither was I. Maybe her birthday signified moving one step closer to menopause and the final loss of the possibility of motherhood. Maybe spending time with a friend’s son reminded her of the missing part of her life. Maybe she was feeling alone in her family-oriented community.
The point is that sometimes, even when we’re sure we have it together, even when we’ve done the grief work, even when we’ve cried an ocean and think there’s nothing left to resolve, sometimes we just get sideswiped.
Has this happened to you? What unexpected trigger has caught you off-guard?
This topic came up on the community forums a while ago and I thought it was a great topic to explore here on Whiny Wednesday.
Not being treated like a “real” adult because you’re not a parent.
I’ve certainly experienced this myself and talked to friends who say they’re still treated like a kid because they don’t have children of their own.
How about you?
By Lisa Manterfield
Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving here in the U.S., perhaps the official start of the holiday season. I’ve been hearing holiday music in stores for weeks, and know of people who’ve had their Christmas trees up since early November!
For many of you, the festive season might not be such a fun time. Traditionally, whichever holidays you celebrate, they include family gatherings, which might mean facing insensitive relatives and prying questions about children. It can be one of the most difficult times of the year, with social gatherings, kid-oriented activities, and constant reminders of the many ways we don’t get to celebrate the holidays.
I love that this community includes new readers and seasoned pros, so let’s help one another out this year by sharing ideas on getting through the season with our hearts intact.
What are some of the issues you know you’ll face this holiday season? What events are you dreading? What’s going to be hardest for you?
And perhaps most important of all, how to do plan to get through the season with minimum emotional damage?
If you’re looking for some guidance from those who’ve walked this path before you, make sure to add yourself to your gift shopping list this year. Here are some books written by members of our community. Please consider supporting their work, so that they can continue supporting all of us.
Jessica Hepburn has two books on offer. Her first, The Pursuit of Motherhood tells her own heartbreaking story of her quest to become a mother. In 21 Miles: Swimming in Search of the Meaning of Motherhood, Jessica tells the “next chapter” of her story, her quest to find meaning in her own life and shares inspiring conversations about motherhood with some female powerhouses.
Civil M. Morgan offer a 31-Day devotional, 21st Century Hannah: 31 Days of Encouragement on her Childless Not By Choice site.
And I’d be remiss if I din’t include my own books on this list: Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesn’t Happen, and Life Without Baby Holiday Companion, a compilation of stories and advice to get you through the holidays, written together with Kathleen Guthrie Woods.
~ "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."
