Elaine made an excellent comment on my post last week, asking how others deal with keeping blogs (or social media or interviews etc) anonymous, and therefore separate from their families. She wonders about how that feels, because such a significant part of our lives is kept separate from them. She spoke out in an interview, and that was really brave. She did it under a pseudonym, but that was still really brave! But her family don't even know. This is a really good point worth talking about. I'd love to hear your views too.
I started my blog about seven years after ending our fertility efforts. So I was less vulnerable at the time when I was gradually quoted in newspapers, or wrote for the Huffington Post, and I decided I could do it under my own name. Likewise, my blog never had those raw emotions from those early days - those were all well hidden in pregnancy loss messageboards from years earlier. So I never had to face the prospect of these being discovered. And there was enormous comfort in that anonymity, and privacy, that helped me work through those very difficult times. Maybe I never would have "come out" from being Mali at No Kidding in NZ if my blog had filled that role. Or if I had, perhaps I would have protected my blog - or the writings from those early days - from being linked to my name. Though I know that my writings here call on all my memories of the emotions of those hard days. The difference is that I no longer feel them with the same intensity.
My parents died before Otherhood came out. My father died before I made any of it really public. I hope he would have been proud of me. I wonder if he would have been a little embarrassed by it. He came from a family and generation that did not talk about these things! But hearing my name on the radio (even if I wasn't personally interviewed! lol) and seeing it in print would have been a thrill for him, as it would have been for my mother, a lifetime listener to our National Radio programmes. She knew I had blogged, and that I'd been interviewed in the past. But blogging was not something a late 70s-early 80s woman could really understand, and she wasn't able to track me down on the internet, unlike parents/grandparents today. My in-laws never discussed it with me, even though we pointed out articles that quoted me. However, more importantly, an uncle-in-law (also childless) thanked me for speaking out on behalf of the childless in an article. I tear up at the thought that I might have been the first person he had ever heard speak about how isolating Christmas can be for those who don't have children. And it was someone he knew. So for that reason alone, I'm glad I came out.
My friends know I blog. One is a regular reader, and we chat about the issues quite openly. She's a parent and grandparent, but was there for me through my pregnancy losses, has always been keen to learn and understand, and has, most importantly, listened to me when I've needed to talk, even if I've ranted about other parents and their pronatalism. Another friend has bought Otherhood and acknowledged how personal it can all be. Other friends and my sisters or sisters-in-law or nieces may or may not read. One sister reads occasionally, but I doubt the other does. If so, she's never said. I don't really mind if family or friends find me here anymore. I occasionally talk about conversations with friends or family, but try to keep them both anonymous, and balanced. I don't mind if people read about my thoughts on a particular issue or comment they might have made. They might get upset with me. But if so, they need to wonder why they would be upset. Maybe it's a teaching moment. Maybe it's just me getting something off my chest. I find it better not to know. And ... so far ... amongst people in my real, offline life, I've never had a bad reaction. I know I'm lucky!
So I suppose I do have a part of my life that is quite separate from many of my family and friends. But then, that's not new to me. I was an exchange student in Thailand at 17, and the only people in my life who can understand or relate to me about that were my fellow exchange students. We form a group on social media. The same with my ectopic pregnancies, and volunteer work. There's a group from my messageboards and volunteering colleagues who keep in touch on social media. We're the only ones who truly know what we have each been through. I have "book" friends, friends who only talk about travel, old school friends, etc. My work has often been overseas, so even my workmates haven't shared the same experiences. And of course, I have all of you - my No Kidding blog friends. I don't find it necessary that all my family and friends should know everything about me. We all share different parts of each others' lives, so it is fine that other parts of my life are relatively separate.
I guess the difference is that none of these experiences are hidden. My childlessness is obvious, given the absence of children. That can never be hidden. That's not news. My blogging is known by friends and family in principle, but I suspect few have actually ventured over to read No Kidding in NZ. I know that occasionally former colleagues have found my blog. When they needed it, I'm happy about that. If they didn't, then I don't need to have an opinion. They either liked it, or found it irrelevant. Cool.
But what if we don't want to share our support groups, our thoughts, feelings, confessions, etc? That's okay too. It's certainly not selfish. It is self-protection, comfort, and provides us with a rare safe space. Speaking out can be done in many ways. We can do it, like Elaine, anonymously, low-key like myself, or as a full frontal assault, like Jody Day and actively promote their blogs and books in their own names. Or we can choose to keep it all private. It's simply a choice. I have often said that people have to earn the right to hear my story, and only when and how I want to tell it. That works for intrusive questions, and also with our blogs. I consider who we wrote for." Ourselves? Our family and friends to understand what we were going through? People experiencing the same things some years later? Maybe all three, or a combination. We're all different after all! And time changes us too. Whilst thoughts today might quite freely be shared with family and friends, our feelings when we first learned we'd never have kids might be intensely private, intimate, shared only due to our anonymity. If we feel we need to keep those private, for our own sake, then we can and should feel free to do so.
So, to state the obvious, the question of when, or if, to "come out" is a tricky one, and individual to each person. I've written about this before, when I wrote No Kidding: Coming Out as Childless, When Telling Our Stories Takes a Toll, and Privacy, Shame and Childlessness. Whatever you choose, if it feels right, then it is right for you. Ultimately, though, I find that time has helped enormously. Not just months, but years, even decades!
As I said in "When Telling our Stories Takes a Toll":
"As time and distance heals, though, I am pleased to know that telling our stories takes a smaller and smaller toll. In fact, I think that at some stage, it changes, and the greater toll is when we don’t tell our stories, when we don’t acknowledge our reality, when we stay in the shadows. Maybe some of that is because people aren’t ready to hear our stories. But that, I have decided, is their problem, not mine."
