filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
In honor of Thanksgiving, we’re mixing it up a bit. Instead of the usual Whiny Wednesday, I want to ask you this:
What are you grateful for?
Often when we’re in the thick of grief it’s hard to find anything positive, but my Thanksgiving wish for you is to find a patch of sunshine this week.
Next week we’ll get back to whining. 😉
When a reader suggested this week’s topic, I spotted myself immediately. The topic is:
Staying busy to fill the hole of being childless
Work, hobbies, school, projects, friends in need, volunteering: Have you packed your life with busyness in order to fill a gap?
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s on your mind today?
Next Monday is Halloween, which for many of us means streams of cute children knocking on our front doors.
Love it or hate it; it’s hard to avoid it. So the discussion topic for this week is:
How do you handle this difficult holiday?
As it’s Whiny Wednesday, there’s room for your gripes here, too.
By Lisa Manterfield
There was a time when I found it difficult to be around mothers of young children. It was hard to listen to them talk about their kids when I felt I had nothing to contribute, and it was painful to know that I’d never be able to share those experiences with them. I couldn’t bear to hear their sweet or funny stories, and it made my blood boil to hear them complain. What I wouldn’t have given for the chance to be kept awake all night by a colicky baby.
As I’ve progressed on my journey and begun to heal, it’s become easier for me to spend time with mothers, to listen to their stories, to speak up when I have something to add, and even to commiserate about the hard stuff, without feeling resentful.
I’m listening to what they say about motherhood and I’m hearing a common theme: Motherhood chips away at them until they lose touch with the women they once were. They love their children, they love being mothers, but they resent how all-consuming the job is and how much of themselves they lose to their families, until they know longer know who they are.
There are always two sides to every story, pros and cons, gains and losses. When we don’t get something we want and deserve, it’s easy to focus on what’s lost—the experiences, the opportunities, and the stories we won’t get to tell. But what about what’s gained? And what about what’s not lost? What about the sacrifices we didn’t have to make and the women we now get to be?
I may not be the woman I’d once hoped to be—a mother—but I know who I am now, and a part of me is grateful for what I didn’t have to lose: myself.
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!
By Lisa Manterfield
I absolutely love this article by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman about how not to say the wrong thing to someone in crisis. I wish it was mandatory reading for everyone, and I especially wish it came with a note explaining that it applies when talking to infertiles and the childless-not-by-choice.
The gist of their Ring Theory is that the person in crisis is at the center of the ring and those next closest to the person occupy subsequent rings. In the case of someone coming to terms with not having children, she would be at the center, her spouse or partner on the next ring, perhaps closest family and friends on the next, and more distant family, coworkers, and acquaintances beyond that.
The rule is that that if people have something mean or insensitive or opinionated to say, they say it to someone on a bigger ring. When speaking to someone on a smaller ring, they can only listen or—if they must say something—offer help, support, or comfort. No advice, no miracle stories, no blame or shame. No offering of their kids, no suggestions to adopt. “I’m sorry” is all that needs to be said. If they want to dump, dump outwards, not inwards.
I wish people would understand that someone who has just acknowledged she won’t ever have children is in crisis, and what she needs more than judgment and unhelpful help is for people to say to the right thing.
By Lisa Manterfield
Mr. Fab and I don’t talk much anymore about our infertility journey. He’d as soon forget the whole ordeal and I prefer to look forward rather than dwelling on what might have been. But recently it came up in conversation.
“If I had to doit all again, I would,” he told me.
My first thought was “No way!” I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy and I don’t think I could bear to see Mr. Fab go through it again. But when I thought about it some more, I see there are positives that came out of it.
We are tougher than we were before, both individually and as a couple. We now know we can weather a major storm, and we’ll be okay when the next one comes along (and they always come along). I’m more compassionate toward others who might be in pain, now that I know what it’s like to be smiling in public and dying on the inside. I learned a lot about myself and how I handle crisis, and we’ve learned about one another. We’ve uncovered the people we really are.
So if I had to do it all again, I would. Would you?
By Lisa Manterfield
A couple of years ago, I attended the World Domination Summit in Portland, OR, where I spent the weekend surrounded by creative types and some incredible people looking to make a difference in the world. It was truly an inspiring experience.
While I took something of value away from every speaker who presented, every story I heard, and every person I met and talked with, there were, as always, standouts.
One speaker, Shannon Galpin, told her story of traveling to Afghanistan to provide education programs for women and girls in conflict zones. She talked about going into a women’s prison in Kandahar to interview some of the women and girls being held there. She was concerned that these women, already in danger because of their actions, would not be willing to speak to her and tell their stories. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
So many women wanted to talk to her, she ended up spending hours over the course of several days sitting with them and recording their stories. At the end of her time, one woman unclipped her elaborate hair clip and offered it as a thank you gift. “No one has ever cared enough to hear our stories,” she said. This experience prompted Shannon’s wonderful TED Talk on pity, apathy, and the power of voice, which I encourage you to watch when you have 10 minutes to spare.
The sentiment also struck a deep chord in me as I thought more about this idea of sharing stories and having a voice. It made me think about some of the conversations I’ve had about why I don’t have children, how the topic is met with pity or apathy, or handled with platitudes about whether we tried x or y treatment or if we considered adoption. Even people who know and care about me have expressed their own discomfort about the frankness of what they’ve read in my book or one of my blog posts. It has sometimes felt as if no one really wants to hear the story of what happened and how much the loss of not getting something I really wanted—having a child of my own—has rippled into every aspect of my life.
But that isn’t going to stop me talking because, for every person who’s squirmed, I’ve come across ten who’ve said, “I appreciate your honesty” or “That’s exactly how I feel” or “Thank you for giving me a voice.”
Since launching “Our Stories” on this site, we’ve featured dozens of your voices. Firstly, I want to send an enormous hug to everyone who had the courage to share her story. I also want to give a massive shout-out to Kathleen who created the column and works one-on-one with every storyteller.
Gwen shared her story and told Kathleen, “Putting my story out there and reading responses from women who have dealt with the same exact problems and feel the same way as I do… I am comforted and I do not feel so alone.”
And Maria said, “I felt like people connected with my story and it gave them hope. I feel like we are all here for a reason and that is my purpose right now—to take what I have learned and share it with others.”
This is the power of voice. This is why we keep telling our stories, even when it gets uncomfortable for us and even when it sparks pity or apathy in others.
We’d love to share your story. You can find a questionnaire to get you started and details on how to submit on the Our Stories page. I hope this will help you to find your voice, inspire others, and know that you’re not alone.
By Lisa Manterfield
This post is an oldie, originally posted on April 26, 2012, but I think it’s worth a rerun. You can see what others had to say in the original comments here.
There are two questions I get asked frequently: How did you come to terms with not having children, and how long did it take?
The answer is something akin to “how long is a piece of string and how many knots can you tie in it?”
Believe me when I tell you that if I could write down ten easy steps to making peace with being childfree-not-by-choice, I’d do it, but the answer isn’t that simple. Yes, there were many things that happened along the way that helped me make some peace, but it took closer to 10,000 steps than ten.
Writing down my story was hugely cathartic, venting about the injustices on this blog helped, too. Realizing I wasn’t alone in this and that people like you were out there wanting to talk through the minefield has helped immeasurably. Drawing a line in the sand and saying, “This is where that chapter of my life ends and this is where I start healing” also helped. And frankly, telling myself a big fat lie that I was better off not being a mother actually helped me to realize that in many ways I was. Setting new goals, appreciating the benefits of not having kids, and allowing myself to feel bitter and badly treated when I needed to. All these things helped.
I don’t think there’s a formula for working your way through this, and it’s definitely a journey of making forward process and dealing with inevitable setbacks.
As for how long the process takes? How long is that piece of string? It’s been three years for me and I consider myself largely at peace with my situation. I have closed the door on the idea that I will have children someday and most days I’m good with it. Everyday it gets a little better and a little easier. Some days there will be reminders of what I’ve lost and sometimes a flicker of a thought of “what if…”
The truth is, in many ways, I expect this piece of string to go on forever. The experience of infertility has changed me. It is one of the most significant and life-changing events of my life, and I don’t think the repercussions of that will ever stop reverberating. It doesn’t mean I won’t find harmony and even happiness in this new life – I already have – but I don’t expect this journey of coming-to-terms to ever fully end.
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?
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