filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
Thanks to everyone who has contacted me with Whiny Wednesday post ideas. I have a good list now, but keep them coming. You can send topic ideas through the Contact page.
This week’s topic is another tender subject:
The constant struggle of feeling my life is imperfect because of not having children.
How do you feel about this? Has that feeling changed with the passing of time?
As always, the floor is open for any other whines and rants you need to get off your chest.
By Lisa Manterfield
Last weekend I attended the 2014 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.”
Earlier this year, we launched “Our Stories” on this site. Since then, we’ve featured almost two dozen of your voices. Firstly, I want to send an enormous hug to everyone who had the courage to share her story. I always want to give a massive shout-out to Kathleen who created the column and worked 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.
Our Stories will be taking a short hiatus in August, as I take my customary summer break and rerun some of the year’s favorite posts. But we’ll be picking up again in September and we’d love to share your story.
You’ll 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.
This week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is that old chestnut:
The baby shower!
A reader wrote:
I would like to know how others handle baby showers. I have vowed to not go to any more baby showers after leaving the last one in tears and disappointed in myself because I felt so strong before I went. Do others have emotional issues about other people’s baby showers or am I alone?
After assuring her that she definitely was not alone in feeling this way, I thought I’d turn the topic over to you.
Please whine, rant, empathize, and even advise on this most delicate of topics.
By Paulina Grace Hay
After living through a second miscarriage and the brink of divorce within a matter of months, I’ve gained some new crucial resources in my emotional toolbox. Here’s one lesson taught to me by a therapist that I come back to repeatedly. It made a huge impact in connecting with husband while I was dealing with the emotional roller coaster of infertility. When I begin to feel disconnected today, I come back to these basics.
Know Your Love Language
Have you ever felt like you were speaking to someone you love and feel like they didn’t understand you at all? I remember feeling like I spoke Chinese and my spouse French. We basically had no idea what the other was saying. As you can imagine, it’s hard to connect if you can’t communicate clearly or you don’t think you’re being heard.
Enter Dr. Gary Chapman and his best selling book called The 5 Love Languages. It’s truly the one book I think every person on this planet should be required to read. (The original version is about marriage, but it applies beautifully to dealing with human beings in general.)
According to Dr. Chapman and his extensive experience as marriage counselor, there are five love languages. Each one is a way to show love and to be shown love. You might have a primary and secondary one and even speak another. Here’s a brief overview with examples from my marriage and life:
Words of Affirmation:
If you like being praised or receiving a beautifully written note, this could be you. If you enjoy talking or writing, this might also be you. If someone criticizes you, it can feel like a slap in the face.
This is definitely my primary love language! I’m very verbal and my husband very quiet. When we would argue he would stop talking and shut down. Now he knows I’d much rather receive a personal note over a gift like jewelry.
Physical Touch:
This is not just about sex. It might be a hug, stroking hair, a pat on the back, or holding hands. This is my husband’s primary love language. When we would fight I’d say, “Don’t touch me” and “I want to be alone.” Total disaster for both of us! Now I make a point to give him several hugs and kisses during the day or just sit with him on the couch.
Acts of Service:
If you like doing things for other people, this could be you. This is a love language my husband uses to “speak” his love to me, even though I didn’t realize it for quite a while. It was my sister-in-law (who is married to my husband’s brother) who commented that “acts of service” is the love language that her husband “speaks” to her. It was like a light bulb went off. Now I make an extra point to say thank you and appreciate when my husband does things like walk the dog, take out the trash, and help my parents.
Receiving Gifts:
If you like giving gifts, small or large, this could be you. If someone doesn’t give you a gift (or doesn’t like your gift) and that upsets you, this could also be you.
My sister-in-law (married to my brother) is this love language. She would always bring me a trinket or something when they came to visit. (We have very different taste so I rarely enjoyed the gifts.) I’d exchange a holiday gift if I didn’t like it. I’d give my gifts to them with a gift receipt and didn’t think twice about it if they exchanged it. They never did. We were never very close. The following Christmas I saw a little statue with a mother and two young boys and it instantly made me think of my SIL. I bought it for her. When she opened the gift, which wasn’t extravagant, she cried like a baby. I knew I’d tapped into her love language. I stopped exchanging their gifts and told her how much I liked them. It’s gone a long way in improving our relationship.
Quality Time:
This one is all about giving another person your undivided attention. For women this often means face-to-face attention. Talking to your spouse while he’s watching television or staring at his phone is not undivided attention. My husband is really great now at pausing the television and talking to me when I need it. I try to be clear when I need his attention and say, “Is now a good time to talk? Let me know when you’re free.” It’s more respectful of his time and energy.
I’d love to hear what your love language is and if this information gives you new perspective on the relationships in your life. Not sure which one you are? Start here with the 5 Love Languages online quiz at:
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/
If you’d like more information on the 5 Love Languages, visit Dr. Chapman’s website at:
http://www.5lovelanguages.com
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.
This hot-button whine was sent in from one of our readers:
When you read an interview of some celebrity or hear someone say
“I never knew what love was until I had a child.”
So…is she saying that because I’m childfree I’m not capable or “real” love, or because I’m childfree I will be denied the experience of the highest expression of love?
Whether this makes your blood boil or cuts you to the core, whine away, sisters!
And if you have another great whine you need to get off your chest this week, here’s the place to let it rip.
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
I stumbled upon this fantastic interview of Gloria Steinem in which she addresses—among other thought-provoking topics—how she felt about being single and childfree during a time when “women weren’t seen as much as a voice but more barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
I don’t want to print any spoilers, so I hope you’ll read it for yourself. Let me just say she inspires and empowers me and, like her, I am a “hope-aholic.”
Ms. Steinem is someone we would call a chero here, a hero who happens to be childfree. She is one of many included in the PBS documentary MAKERS: Women Who Make America. You can learn more about the Makers initiative and the documentaries here.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
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.
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.
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.
~ "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."
