Okay. Let’s go. Again. I appear to be writing about not having had babies. Again. Not because I particularly want to revisit the worst thing that has ever happened to me in, I might say, a lifetime full of death, grieving and all the shit – but because it seems many people still don’t get it. Still. They still don’t get how extraordinarily painful it is to be childless not by choice — and so they continue to be extraordinarily insensitive/cruel to the childless not by choice.
Last Sunday’s Dear Mariella column was quite the example. Oh, the agony that aunt threw out to the 1 in 5 of us who won’t have kids.*
Her ‘advice’ was so shockingly smug and thoughtless, I simply had to respond. I wrote:
Dear Mariella
Why won’t you let your childless reader grieve?
I’m 53, Mariella, and would say I’m pretty unshockable. But your column on Sunday – dismissing a grieving woman’s agony as a midlife crisis – drove me close to the Sertraline edge.
‘It sounds like a midlife crisis, so visit your GP and focus on what you’ve achieved — not what you haven’t’
For the childless-not-by-choice women and men who are reading this and have been hit hard by Mariella’s ‘#AsAMother’ words, perhaps pick up some Diazepam while you’re there.
Seriously Mariella? You’re seriously so entitled – what, the parents’ monopoly on exhaustion isn’t enough? You can’t even recognise or acknowledge or allow a childless person’s grief?
This line: ‘Instead of rueing your misfortune, write a list of all the amazing things you can do now you’re mature and solvent’… Do you know how this line reads to me? Do you want to feel how I feel when I read it?
Well, Mariella, imagine one of your beloved children had died. And I wrote you this: ‘Instead of rueing your misfortune, write a list of all the amazing things you can do now X has gone. How you could spend the money you would’ve spent on his university fees, perhaps. Or what you can do with his now-empty bedroom. And, Mari, look, no more annoying teen “Harry Enfield character” moments. Lol!’
Yours,
Sick Of Saying This of Hove
So let’s do it again. Let’s go through this one more time. To educate Mariella, to stop my ulcer burning, and to in some way help the many women and men who DM me every time I write on this subject to tell me about their heartbreak — very much worsened by their family and friends’ inability to talk to them – in any kind way – about what they’re going through.
PLEASE DON’T SAY…
If you’d really wanted children, you would’ve had them
I really wanted children but I didn’t have them. For many reasons that are really none of your business. You don’t know someone’s situation – or what they went through trying to have kids – so keep your cliché-chewing mouth shut.
Why don’t you adopt?
Why don’t you try to understand the emotional process involved in accepting you won’t have your own biological child? And why don’t you also try to not see babies as commodities.
At least you can have a lie-in. I’m exhausted!
I was talking to my aunt about needing to talk to my sister (a mum of two) about something. ‘I wouldn’t call her now. She’s shattered. You don’t know what it’s like – you don’t have kids.’
Well, thank you for kindly stating the obvious, Aunt of the Year. And thank you too for completely negating my fatigue. I mean, sure, I often don’t sleep due to depression over not having children – and not wanting to dream (again) about holding a baby and waking up in visceral pain.
And, yes, living with infinite grief is debilitatingly exhausting. And, of course, parents have the gorgeous joy of their gorgeous child to counteract their crushing tiredness. But you are right: I don’t have children and my enervation is not valid. Thank you for pointing out that parents have the monopoly on tiredness. Good to know.
I was reading about womb transplants…
Or ‘Some clinics abroad help older women…’, or ‘Janet Jackson had a baby when she was 50…’, or ‘Here, here’s The Secret. Tell the Universe you want a child…’ You’re trying to give us hope – thank you – but hope is the last thing we need. Believe me, any unhappily childless person has thought about every possibility. But there comes a time when you have to give up on ‘prolonging-the-pain’ hope and concentrate instead on healing. I think I got that from Oprah. And Oprah knows.
Have mine for a weekend. Haha!
Shut up.
Look on the bright side
Oh boy. A (former) friend of mine – my age, 53, also with no children – took it upon herself to give me a pep talk.
‘We’re in the same position,’ she said, ‘and I’m happy. It’s about attitude.’
‘But you never wanted children,’ I replied.
‘But we’re in the same situation.’
‘But you got the life you wanted,’ I stressed. ‘And I got the life I dreaded.’
‘But we’re exactly the same now. And I’m happy. Be positive!’ she sing-songed.
And she then did what she called ‘a positivity dance’ in front of me. Actually danced in front of my actual face. How I’m not in prison for murder is a testament to my willpower. And Catholic guilt. And her quick running.
Kids are expensive. Look at the money you’re saving!
I’m sure raising children is expensive. And so is grieving therapy. But you wouldn’t swap your children for the money they cost you, would you? I thought you couldn’t put a price on happiness.
It’s not for everyone
I tell this story too often — but I cannot get enough of it. Because it is just. So. Eugh.
I was at a funeral and a woman I’d apparently met before came over to me. No ‘Hello’ or ‘How are you?’ Nope.
She went straight in with: ‘So, did you ever marry?’
Me: ‘No.’
Her: ‘Did you have kids?’
Me: ‘No.’
(Pause) Her: ‘Oh. Well, well done anyway. It’s not for everyone.’
She was lucky the casket was closed.
At least you don’t have stretch marks!
I do.
PLEASE DO SAY
Anything that lets the unhappily childless talk about how they feel. This list is way shorter than the ‘don’t say’ one — but a trillion times more important because it doesn’t close the childless not by choice down; it doesn’t ridicule their pain; and it lets them (start to) grieve.
That is the unexpected (for me) agony of childlessness — the disenfranchised grief on top of the ‘no baby’ pain. For reasons you’ll have to educate me on – because God knows it makes no sense to me – people do not let the childless not by choice grieve. And if you don’t grieve, you don’t move on. And you’re stuck in this Hell forever.
A friend on Twitter asked what I thought Dear Mariella should’ve said or done in her reply to her devastated childless reader.
I responded thus…
‘It’s impossible to “nutshell” this. But… She should not have shut down the woman. She didn’t address her grief at all. Instead she made light of it by going the “at least you don’t have noisy teens” route. This woman would’ve killed to have any children. No matter how loud!
‘She could’ve suggested specific childless grief therapy. Or joining childless organisations like Gateway Women. Or finding her Tribe, as Jody [Day, founder of Gateway Women] suggests. Or suggesting she not shut herself down by not reaching out. Or… Or… Or…
‘Her reply was smug and dismissive and totally showed how the grief of childlessness is disenfranchised grief. It is not recognised; let alone allowed. And if you don’t grieve, you don’t find a life beyond. [Her words] Also reeked of pronatalism [worshipping at the altar of motherhood — a mother’s grief would never have been dealt with in this way]. Fancy bringing her own – more important – issues into it?
‘I repeat what I said in my reply: if her child had died – if she was grieving – it would be some kind of b*tch to tell her “Look, I understand but, joy, look at the food bills you’re saving!”’
Whatever you say, please don’t do the ‘so sorry’ head tilt (we want your love and support; not your pity) and don’t, in your untilted head, define us just as people who didn’t have children.
I have friends – lovely friends – who mention me not having kids every time I see them. Seriously, every single time. Why? Is that all they see when they look at me? No baby on my boob or toddler on my hip? Something about me is missing? Or is this about them? Perhaps being a parent is the only way they define themselves. Either way, it smacks of tragic.
A Twitter friend wrote something so amazing to me recently — and I hope she won’t mind me sharing it. She wrote: ‘It’s about seeing more in the person than the lack of something. I see you, Beebs, and all your greatness. I will honour the sad in you while celebrating the overflowing fabulousness.’
How beautiful is that?
You know, thinking about it, I reckon the ‘do say’ list only needs to be one item long — How are you feeling? pretty much covers it.
Gateway Women, the global friendship and support network for childless women
*Source: Jody Day’s book Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children (published by Bluebird/Pan Macmillan, out in March) — ‘According to the UK Office for National Statistics, 18 percent (one in five) of women who reached 45 in 2017 in England and Wales ended their childbearing years childless.’
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/01/if-you-really-wanted-children-you-wouldve-had-them-and-other-things-not-to-say-to-childless-women-12161437/
0 Comments