Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

You’re Not Alone: The Things People Say

shhhBy SparklingRain

Much as I wish to be able to say that I am my own best advocate, sometimes other people’s words would fly into my ears and get lodged in the corners of my heart. There are also times, when against my logic, I would lie awake and think of each of these words, trying to figure out why exactly they hurt so much.

You see, I married the love of my life exactly two months before I turned 34, and this alone was enough for some people to judge me “too old to start having children”.  In the subsequent 5 years of our marriage, when it was clear as day that no child was on the way/on the floor/in our arms, I built a collection of bizarre comments, proof that people can be ruthless with their words.

Here are some of the comments I have collected so far:

  1. From a 53 year-old female colleague:  “Those not blessed with children simply do not have the capacity to handle such big responsibility. You just have to realize that and count your blessing.”
  2. From a 40–something brother-in-law: “So, what’s the deal here? When are you having a child? I know; you’ll wait until your hair turns white, right?”
  3. From 73 year-old mother-in-law (who already has 9 grandchildren from husband’s 4 siblings), on the day I got my PhD: “Of course she can finish school. She does not have children.”
  4. From a 33 year-old female colleague to whom I regrettably confided that we might have male factor infertility: “So have you really accepted the fact that you’ll be childless forever? Why don’t you persuade your husband to get some treatments? Oh I know, you two are too old anyway, right?”
  5. (Same person as no.1): “Having children at your age is just so risky; you’d better stay childless unless you want children with severe ailments.”
  6. From a 60-something female ob-gyn whom I saw once for a regular check-up unrelated to infertility: “Are you sure you don’t want any children? I’ve known people who, in their old age, regret not pursuing fertility treatments.”

My husband, bless him, has the clear logic not to process these kinds of comments in his brain.  I have been trying to follow his example, but I don’t always succeed.  I am a naturally happy person and I certainly don’t carry the world’s burden on my shoulders.  However, comments like the ones above sometimes creep too far into my brain and darken my world.

I know it is up to me whether or not to let others’ ruthless words to affect me.  What I didn’t know was that it might take years before I can gracefully let rude comments slide. I also suspect people will comment without thinking 99% of the time, so I will be in a dark place 99% of the time too, unless I can truly make peace with our childlessness. Which, unfortunately, is not so easy in reality.

Therefore, as for now, whenever a rude comment is thrown my way and I can handle it without punching the offender in the mouth, I allow myself to celebrate.  Celebrations have so far include buying myself new lipsticks, and um, nice clothes.

Please tell me that it in time the comments will disappear/ I will grow a nice thick protective hide/ things will be okay. Meanwhile, somebody just asked whether my marriage was still intact despite the years of childlessness; I think I ought to go and buy myself a nice new bag.

SparklingRain lives with her husband and several outdoor cats in Indonesia. She blogs at  “As Fictional As the Truth.”

 

To learn how to submit your story to “You’re Not Alone,” please visit the Writer’s Guidelines page.

Whiny Wednesday: The Public

Whiny_WednesdayYesterday I took myself down to my local library to do some nice, quiet research. It wasn’t to be. Instead I got a loudly hissed lesson on sentence structure from a homeschooling mom who’d decided to turn the public library into her own private classroom.

I hightailed it to a nearby café and found a quiet corner near a woman who was busily working on her laptop. All was fine until she made a phone call and began loudly exchanging her clients’ confidential financial information. I now know exactly how much money several members of my community have in their retirement accounts. Fortunately, none of them were people I knew personally.

It’s always amazing to me how people lose sight of the fact that public places are exactly that…public!

It’s Whiny Wednesday (hurray!) who or what’s rubbed you the wrong way this week?

It Got Me Thinking…About Labels

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I play a lot of roles in life: friend, sister, writer, daughter, gym rat, wife, aunt, citizen of the world. They are all important to me, but I would argue that not one, on its own, defines me. I think maybe that’s why I get irked when I hear people trying to pigeonhole others by saying things like, “She’s your gay friend, right?” Um, no. She would be my friend, period. The fact that she happens to be gay is only part of who she is. (And, by the way, from an editor’s point of view, I have many friends who happen to be gay, not just one.) It’s like saying someone is an Irish cop or that fat actress or a Catholic conservative. It smacks of bigotry and it feels demeaning, whether the comment is spoken consciously or not.

That’s why I think it stung when someone recently referred to me as “circumstantially infertile.” Have you heard this term? It means a woman who has not had children due to life circumstances: hasn’t met the right guy, opted not to be a single parent, ran out of time on her biological clock. This in part describes my life path, although I’ve become more comfortable with the term we use around these parts, “childfree,” which I’ve now been informed means someone who has “chosen” not to have children.

Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes?

I suppose labels help people better understand me, possibly be better able to relate to me, but it feels like they are used more often to separate and isolate us. I am a human being who happens to be circumstantially infertile. Emphasis on “human being.” There’s so much more to me than that one little label, and I hope people will take time to look beyond that and get acquainted with all the other parts that make me, well, me. I promise to do the same.

Meanwhile, I’d like to hear what you think about the whole label issue. What, if any, label do you use to describe your status and how do you feel when you hear others use it to define you?

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

 

Hunting for the Old Me

thoughtsI’m doing really well at being at peace with not having children. But some days the darkness comes over me. Do you know what I mean?

Ordinarily, the darkness is a tiny ball. I carry it around with me wherever I go, and usually it’s safely tucked away and I don’t even notice it. Then something happens to flip the lid and suddenly the darkness has crept into every open space within me.

I’m tired of carrying the darkness around and I’m ready to let it go. I don’t want to feel bitter or sad about not having children, because honestly, I’m okay. But sometimes I can’t remember who I am any more. When I look in the mirror I don’t see me. I see a woman who looks tired and overweight, and very, very serious about life. She doesn’t laugh easily or live with abandon, like the real me used to. She’s cautious and unwilling to let herself go. She feels like a square peg in a world full of round holes and it’s lonely sometimes.

Our experiences make us who we are, but what happens to who we were? In a universe where energy remains constant, the old me — the laughing, carefree joyous me — must still be around. I catch glimpses of her sometimes, and like a huntress, I follow her into the woods. And yet, so often, she manages to evade me.

So, all I can do is be patient, keep an eye on her and keep moving towards her. I know she still exists, and one day, if I keep hunting her, I know I’ll catch up with her again. Then maybe we can stand together again and let the darkness go.

Decluttering Baby Stuff

releaseIn her blog Baptism By Fire, Wolfers wrote a wonderful post about our emotional attachment to clutter, and how she wasn’t yet ready to let go of her baby-related items.

It’s been a couple of years already since I reached the point of being ready to let go of my baby clutter, so I was surprised by the emotions that stirred up when I read her post.

As I never actually became pregnant, I accumulated only a few baby items. It took me several years before I had the courage to say goodbye to them, but when I did let them go, it was sad, but not difficult. I was ready.

The things that brought on the strongest wave of emotions were all the books I’d bought over the years as I’d tried to uncover the magic formula to my fertility. I had books on Chinese medicine, diet, mindfulness, you name it, and I can remember feeling so angry when I put them in the donation box. I felt as if I’d been taken for a ride by these authors who had promised me a miracle. I felt duped and cheated—and really, really mad.

They’re out of my life now and largely out of my mind, but even though they’re gone, they’ve still left a mark where they used to be. And sometimes that mark gets sore again.

What have you held onto and what have you been able to let go?

The Universal Assumption of Eventual Parenthood

Maybe BabyBy Maybe Lady Liz

At the tail end of a pretty stressful week at work, I picked up a call that I really should have let go to voicemail. It was a colleague – let’s call her Chelsea – at another university, wondering if I might be available to act as a panel speaker for a last-minute student event she was throwing that Saturday. Luckily, it coincided with my volunteer work at an animal shelter and I didn’t have to scramble for some bogus excuse. Chelsea then asked if my newly-married co-worker Evelyn might be available. I said I wasn’t sure of her weekend schedule on such short notice, and that’s when she dropped this little gem into the conversation about my boss:

“I’d really love to have Nancy there, but I know she’s got a toddler at home and I feel bad asking someone with kids to give up part of their weekend for work, so I thought I’d at least try you and Evelyn.”

What?

Did that really just happen? Stunned, I gave a polite laugh and said I understood as she went on to complain about missing her own daughter’s soccer game for the event. But you know what? I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all how not having children of your own somehow makes your free time less valuable, open to being taken advantage of.

I don’t think Chelsea said what she said because she’s insensitive to those without children. The truth, I think, is a little more unsettling: that Chelsea saw me and Evelyn as those who didn’t have kids YET. Who would someday join the ranks of the protected, but needed to pay our dues now while we’re childless. Perhaps an okay system for those who DO go on to have kids and later reap the benefits, but what about those who choose not to? Or worse, those who desperately want to, but can’t?

The universal assumption that everyone will go on to become a parent can be a dangerous one for those of us who won’t, for whatever reason. It can mean, at times, that we’re paying into a system that’s distributing unequal rewards. And some of that is just life: unfair by nature, and often unchangeable. But it doesn’t do us much good to just come home and complain to our spouses or cats (or glass of wine) about it. I’m sure we’ve all done enough of that. Which is just one of the many reasons I’m glad there are sites like Life Without Baby that allow us to share our stories and connect with one another. The further along we can get in the conversation, the more likely we are to take it from the digital world out into the real world – with our friends, our family, our co-workers – and hopefully, someday, springboard towards real change in understanding that everyone’s life has equal value, regardless of how many tax dependents you claim. [Speaking of, does anyone know if the aforementioned cats count as dependents in the eyes of the IRS?]

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayI always get a chuckle when I see how many comments Whiny Wednesday generates. It is undoubtedly the most popular post of the week.

I don’t have much to whine about this week, but I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of your weekly rant, so please, be my guests and whine away.

It Got Me Thinking…About Parental Complaints

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

“I have to spend all day Saturday at soccer games. Gag!”

“I hate wasting weekends at my kid’s swim meets.”

“Wanna trade places with me?”

I’ve heard every variation of the above from friends who for whatever reason think it’s okay to complain to me about the “burdens” of being a parent. My responses have ranged from “Sounds like fun to me!” to “Dogs are so the way to go.” to “I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

I don’t use that last one very often because it pretty much shuts down the conversation, but when I do, I hope it makes them think. It’s bad enough that this person is complaining about something s/he had to know about before signing up for the whole parental gig, and don’t even get me started if this ding-dong complains in front of their sweet child. Most of all, I wish they’d think for a moment about their chosen audience: childfree-not-by-choice woman who loves kids.

I loved playing sports as a kid, I was thrilled when my parents were on the sidelines cheering me on, I have great memories of those years, and I looked forward to the day when I could create similar memories with children of my own. Girl Scout leader, Team Mom, 3rd base coach—I woulda been all over it!

Maybe I don’t understand because I’m not a busy mom, but I do understand how much it hurts to be on the receiving end of a busy mom’s thoughtless complaints.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

Meeting People Locally

world handsAfter my recent post about finding help, Maria asked about meeting people locally, and how to find other LWB readers who live close by.

She mentioned regional groups on the community forums, which reminded me to remind you that if you’re looking for people in your region, that’s a good place to start.

In case you’re not familiar with the private community, you can find Groups on the drop-down menu or here. The community is password-protected, so it’s a safe place to share information about where you live and you can also “friend” people to exchange messages.

There are already groups formed by readers in Canada, Austin, TX, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., Washington State, San Francisco, Southern California, and Australia. If you’d like to find people in your region, feel free to create a group of your own.  You can do that by clicking the Add Group button at the top right.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet face-to-face with several people that I’ve got to know through this site, and there’s much to be said for chatting in person over coffee or wine. Please report back if you do manage to connect with someone near you.

“Perfect Red”: A Valentine’s Day Interview with Author Jennie Nash

Jennie Nash bookIt’s Valentine’s Day and what better day to talk about the topic of passion—not necessarily the romantic kind, but the “courage to follow your dreams” variety.

I had the opportunity to talk with my good friend, author Jennie Nash about her new novel Perfect Red and about her passion for encouraging dreamers and creative types. And by the way, she was instrumental in prodding me to follow my own passion, to write my book and create this site!

You can see the interview below and read Chapter 1 of Perfect Red here.

Jennie NashI have my own copy of Perfect Red, and if you’d like one too, Jennie has generously offered to give away three signed copies. All you have to do is email her and on Sunday February 17th she’ll select three winners at random.

You can reach her at: jennie.nash [at] gmail [dot] com.