Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Our Stories: Lee

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our StoriesLee is in a painful phase of her journey. She always wanted children, but was never able to conceive. Now 49, she describes her current feelings as somewhere “between sad and depressed.” Read on for more details, then, if you’ve been in her shoes and have made some progress toward acceptance of a life without children, please take a few minutes to offer her encouragement in the Comments.

LWB: Please briefly describe your dream of motherhood.

Lee: I was the oldest of five children, and we had many foster children in our home over the years. I always knew I’d have children, most likely a combination of through birth and adoption.

LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?

Lee: By chance, I was never able to get pregnant. We [she’s married] did not pursue any fertility interventions.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Lee: I’d say I vary between sad and depressed, but resigned, angry, and attempting to embrace Plan B.

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

Lee: There are so many facets to the sadness I feel. Sometimes it is things like not getting to feel a child growing inside of me, never getting to take those lovely baby bump photos, not having a baby shower. At other times it is things like missing the chance to raise children the way I think is the best, breastfeeding, baby wearing, co-sleeping, teaching my children to be confident and independent, compassionate and caring.

LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”

Lee: I was never able to have children. I do have a foster daughter who started living with us when she was 17. She is now 25.

LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?

Lee: The freedom to get up and go whenever and wherever we want, not having to worry about children in this changing and often scary world.

LWB: What’s one thing you want other people (moms, younger women, men, grandmothers, teachers, strangers) to know about your being childfree?

Lee: The fact that I did not bear children does not mean that I do not have knowledge about children. I babysat from the time I was 13 years old, and I have spent 28 years as a pediatric physical therapist. I have a lot of knowledge to offer.

LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?

Lee: To get my house and life in order so that I can do my crafts and have people over without stressing over my house!

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Our Stories: Justine

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our StoriesSerious 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.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayIt’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.

Our Stories: Kay

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our StoriesAfter 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.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayLast 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.

Ms. Cellophane

By Lisa Manterfield

Orate Mirror in the Corner of a RoomHave 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?

Age and Attitudes

On a flight recently, I sat next to an elderly woman who was on her way to visit her granddaughter. Before long the conversation veered towards children and she asked me if I had any.

For a second, I got that sinking feeling. Here was a woman with children and grandchildren, who wasn’t going to understand why I didn’t. But I told her anyway, and even headed her off at the pass by explaining why before she asked.

But the thing is, she got it. She understood that the battle with infertility can be endless. She understood that sometimes you have to walk away. And she also understood that parenthood isn’t and shouldn’t be for everyone.

This is a trend I’ve been noticing lately. I’ve found that older people are often more likely than younger people to understand that motherhood isn’t a certainty for everyone.

Maybe it’s the wisdom that comes with experience, or maybe it’s that perspective older people sometimes get about what’s really important in life. Whatever it is, I’m always glad to find that safe haven when it comes along.

The “Do You Have Kids?” Conversation

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how “Do you have kids?” is such a natural part of polite, “ice-breaking” conversation, and yet it’s such a loaded question for so many of us.

When we meet new people, we’re looking for something in common to talk about. People with kids know that when they talk to someone else with kids, they automatically have a topic of conversation – their kids. And asking this question is presumed to be okay because the answer is usually anticipated to be either “Yes” or “Not yet.” People just aren’t prepared to hear “No.”

So, imagine you’re at a function, wandering around with a glass of wine in one hand and a shrimp on a skewer in the other and you strike up a conversation with someone you don’t know. You talk about the weather, she asks where you’re from or what you do for a living, and then she asks, “Do you have kids?” Assuming this is someone you don’t want to offend, you resist a snarky answer and instead say a simple “No.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that this response is usually met with a horrified silence (although occasionally I’ll get, “You’re lucky,” or “You can have mine.”) People just don’t know what to say when I tell them I don’t have kids, and in order to fill the silence I find myself explaining why I don’t kids, and imparting some very personal information about myself.

So, let’s help these poor people out. No, seriously. Instead of the stunned silence, what do you wish people would say? Do you want them to ask if you’re childfree by choice? Do you want them to ask if you’re ok with not having kids? Or would you prefer them to change the subject to someone or something else so you don’t have to talk about you anymore? Assuming someone opens this conversation, what would you want her to say next?

16 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a CNBC

I’ve been cruising around the Internet looking for interesting sites to share on this blog. There are plenty of good ones out there, but I’m finding myself drawn to blogs that have humor, with just a tinge of bitterness thrown in.

La Belette Rouge has just such a blog and I found myself laughing at this post: 16 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a CNBC (childless not by choice.) Granted my laugh was the type you blow down your nose with your lips pursed, rather than an all-out belly laugh, but sometimes a laugh is a laugh is a laugh.

Dealing With: Do You Have Kids?

Last weekend I was invited to a dinner party along with some people I’d never met before. There were five couples, including us, four of whom had children, so I knew that at some point in the evening, someone would ask the question: Do you have kids?

In the past I would have squirmed and mumbled something apologetic, such as, “Um, no, unfortunately not,” and been given the “ah, poor thing” look. But thanks to you, dear readers, I was armed and dangerous this time.

When the woman asked me, I smiled and said, “I have a cat and a fish.”

She did give me a look, but not the sympathy look. She was utterly bewildered for a moment, repeated “a cat and a fish” with no question mark, and when I didn’t elaborate, she promptly changed the subject.

It was great!! So great that I’m seriously considering keeping photos of both my cat and my goldfish in my wallet so that I can whip them out and proudly show them off next time anyone asks.

So, thank you for all the ideas about how to handle this sticky situation. If you have more suggestions of how to answer the dreaded question, please keep them coming.