The misogyny of ignoring the childless

Too often, women who can’t have children are dismissed or, at the very least, their emotions are dismissed. We all know that the world is uncomfortable with emotions. The world is especially uncomfortable with the emotions of women. And that subset of women who aren’t mothers?  Well, even some mothers who went through infertility with us are uncomfortable with our emotions, hearing us express our losses, and the reality of our lives. They don’t want to be reminded they could have been us. It’s as if we have to be silent, never mention the fact we don’t have children and what that means for our lives, because it will discomfort the rest of society. They want us to be content being ignored and isolated.

The inherent misogyny that sees women’s emotions dismissed in society in general – “don’t be so sensitive”  “you’re imagining it” – makes many women self-conscious about their emotions, feeling that there is something wrong with them. It’s gaslighting, and this concept has, fortunately, been brought into the mainstream lexicon in recent years. My own mother often said “you’ll think I’m crazy, but …” and would then tell me something she did that was purely an expression of her particular preferences, and of course, not crazy at all. She said this more frequently after my father died, maybe because she was making more choices on her own, or because she didn’t have him validating their combined interests. On reflection, though, I can remember him – from time to time - dismissing her choices, her emotions. Mainly, I think, because they made him so uncomfortable. And the thing is, he wasn’t an unkind or selfish man. It was just the way he was, the way society was when he grew up, and sadly, often, the way it still is today. Women are still taught that our emotions, our likes and dislikes, our “ways” are slightly crazy, not quite rational, defective, and easily dismissed.

Decades ago, I contracted dengue fever on a business trip to the Philippines, though symptoms did not develop till I was back in NZ. My wonderful GP picked up on it, and tested me for dengue and malaria immediately. I thought she was crazy. Weeks went by and I tried to get back to work, but was still having a lot of time out. Then I got the phone call that confirmed my dengue fever. (It’s so rare in NZ that it took four weeks – or thereabouts – for the tests to come through.) My boss made the comment that he had started to think it was all in my head. Would he have said that of any of his male staff members? A few years later, one of my colleagues also contracted it in Asia, where he was living at the time. Of course, there they tested him for dengue immediately, admitted him to hospital, gave him lots of fluids, and he had a speedy recovery. But the care and concern given by that same boss and all the other staff was dramatically different to their reaction to my illness. My illness was dismissed as psychological, rather than serious, simply because I was a woman. (And I might add, extremely stoical about the whole thing! Turns out period aches and pains are similar to the bone-breaking aches and pains of dengue fever.)

These double standards are carried over in all areas. A few years ago it was reported that a study at Otago University said that they found no real evidence that emotional disturbances are caused by PMT. The researcher explained that women are conditioned to dismiss any strong emotions around the time of their period as PMT. Any concerns they raise at this time are often seen as invalid, because they are supposedly hormonally driven. Yet in fact, women have similar feelings and reactions across their entire cycle. It’s just that we, and our men, are conditioned to dismiss any strong emotions at “that time of the month.” (I don’t know how convinced I am by this, “conditioned” as I am. Especially as I saw the dramatic difference in my temperament before and after HRT.) I know that over the years, almost nothing has made me angrier than when my husband would dismiss a concern I raised simply because it was “that time of the month.” Or these days, the equivalent is, “have you been taking your HRT?” The comment is only ever defensive, and fortunately 99% of the time he doesn’t think that way, but occasionally (once or twice a year?) he slips back into his conditioning. Or maybe HIS hormones are out of kilter the few times he reverts to this gaslighting?

Dealing with infertility, or coming to terms with our no kidding lives, is no different. When we’re told to “get over it” or that we’re “dwelling on our issue” or “too sensitive” or “self-pitying,” I wonder if that is simply a discomfort with our emotions, or whether it is actually just another example of misogynistic “gaslighting” in action. What I do know is that it is both unkind, and particularly painful to hear. By dismissing our emotions and feelings of loss over infertility and the life we now have, we are being told our feelings are not important. Or worse, that we are selfish, or lucky, and should be quiet! That is hard enough to deal with normally. But when we are now living lives that some people feel – just because we don’t have children – are less important, it reinforces that feeling of invisibility, of worthlessness, that so many childless women have to battle against.

I’ve found though, that the older I get, the better fortified I am to defend myself. Because of the writing I do here, and reading all sorts of other No Kidding writers, I have statistics, evidence, facts, to legitimise my feelings. (I wish I didn’t have to, but we all know the pronatalist, patriarchal society we live in.) It is easier to stand up for myself. But I know too that it can be very difficult for childless women (in particular) to have their losses, their experiences, their very lives dismissed. It’s difficult to be told that they’re over-reacting or super-sensitive all the time – by friends, family, and the men in our lives. In many ways, it is misogyny taken to an extreme. Very sadly, this dismissal of our feelings is something we have in common with women all over the world, whether infertile or not, whether childless or not. It’s 2024. Women have legitimate thoughts and feelings. Even childless cat ladies! It’s time society accepted that.

 

Living life

It was my birthday yesterday. I went somewhere fun. Doing distinctly childFREE things. Enjoying the opportunities I have because I did not have children. Yes, I might have still done these things if I’d had children (especially as any children would now be at university or graduated). But my priorities might have changed. My expenses would be different. My life would have been different. Neither life is better. But I’m glad that there are days when I can embrace what I have, rather than bemoan what I don’t have. That’s what life is all about, isn’t it? 

At Petra, 11 years ago

No Kidding: My Otherhood essay

Months on from Otherhood’s release, and I am now able to share my essay with you. It’s lengthy, and if you’re a regular reader here, there won’t be anything new. But I wanted to share it. It focuses on my life now, and recent years, rather than those early years of coming to terms. IDon’t forget, Otherhood is available internationally!

No Kidding

It was Mother’s Day 2014, an unusually warm, sunny day in May. I was lying in a hospital bed post-hysterectomy with the windows wide open, and I could hear chattering families getting in and out of cars outside. My husband had visited earlier. My surgeon’s nurse had also popped in, happily chatting about the meal she was about to have with her family. I felt very alone. No flowers, cards or chocolates for me. Never my favourite day, Mother’s Day, but this year I felt even more isolated than ever.

It was more than 10 years earlier that the door closed on having children, on my forty-first birthday. There was no party, no special dinner. Only a sad, tear-blurred drive home from the clinic where a last-ditch diagnostic test had surprised me with its finality. After years of trying and losses, I was not going to have children.

……..

I was a feminist from way back, even before I had ever heard the word. Growing up on a farm, with no brothers, meant that I never felt that girls were inferior. My sisters and I drove tractors, rounded up the sheep, and threw around hay bales just like any farm kid in New Zealand. Help inside the house was compulsory, too. None of it was gendered.

The feminism of the 1970s and the gains of the 1980s confirmed my belief that we were equal, and we all had the right to choose how to live our lives. I met my husband at university in Christchurch and we married young. But I wanted to embrace the opportunities that presented themselves to young women in the 1980s, and children were not something I thought about in my twenties. So, I was surprised when, in my mid-thirties, I actually felt ready to start trying for them. I was even more surprised by the devastating sense of loss I felt when I discovered I would never have children.

Coming to terms with this was not easy. I had to learn to accept this news, and then rebalance. I had to adjust my perception of what life might be like. I could not think, My kids would look like this, or wonder if they would be clever, or musical, or sporty, because it just was not going to happen. It was too painful to think about the ‘what-ifs’ and ‘should-have-beens’, so I didn’t let myself.

I had to deal with the guilt I felt at having a body that denied my husband and me children. I had to deal with the feelings of failure at not being able to do something that everyone assumes they can and will be able to do — ‘the most natural thing in the world’ as some people put it, or ‘the reason we are here on earth’, as a friend once said to me. And I had to deal with my fear of judgement from family, friends and acquaintances. I say ‘fear of judgement’ because a lot of that judgement was in my head. But not all of it.

Like everyone in my position, I had to make this adjustment while surrounded by fertility and pronatalism. Pronatalism is when parenting is prized over non-parenting, and as a result, those who parent are awarded a superior status over those who do not. Friends and family were creating and raising families, the ever-present emphasis on motherhood in the media seemed to grow, commentators and advertisers alike made me feel invisible, and of course, politicians focused on ‘the average family’ and talked about ‘your children and your children’s children’ in election campaigns. It was almost impossible to escape the feeling that I was in some way considered marginal to society, ‘other’ or ‘less than’ because I wasn’t a mother.

It was very painful to hear ad nauseum — sometimes blatantly, often subliminally — from society at large that I was not as important, that my life had less value, that I didn’t know what love is, and that I wasn’t a ‘real’ woman. (Someone actually said this to a friend of mine. Ouch.) Many women really struggle with this. Throughout their lives they have been conditioned to believe it. There is so much shaming involved. Men get similar messages.

‘C’mon, be a man, get your wife pregnant,’ my husband’s brothers said to him. At first, my own thoughts parroted these ideas back to me. But fortunately, with my innate sense of logic, I came to see how false these thoughts are. There are examples in the news every day of people who are parents but should never have had children. They have not been judged ‘worthy’ to be parents — biology simply allowed them to be — just as I have not been judged unworthy.

As I learnt to dismiss those internal negative voices, it became easier to dismiss the loud, external voices too. I came to see that unhelpful and judgemental comments told me more about the person making them than they did about me. Most fell under the category ‘how to tell me you don’t understand without saying you don’t understand’. The ignorant ‘just adopt’ comments; the cruel ‘here, have my kids’ said whilst laughing uproariously; the dismissive ‘at least you can <fill in the blanks>’ comments that either came from a degree of envy of my freedom, discomfort at my situation, or a wish to silence me because it just made the conversation too awkward.

Oh, and on top of all that, we are told we are selfish. Yet many generous, giving people do not and could not have children. And many selfish people have them.

……..

I gradually managed to develop an inner belief in myself, rejecting the messages and judgements that were all around me. An online community I joined after my first ectopic pregnancy loss was enormously helpful in making this transition. Talking to others who understand was, and always is, immensely helpful. We shared our fears and our victories, gained hope from those who were a few years ahead of us, and provided hope for those coming behind us. We had  a lot of fun, too. If I couldn’t sleep or was upset in the middle of the night, there would be someone up and ready to chat in Coventry or Dorking or Indiana or Vancouver.

As the years passed, we became firm friends. Some of my UK friends travelled here, and I travelled there. Together with other volunteers and users, we celebrated the organisation’s 10-year anniversary at the House of Commons in London. These online and now in-person friends and I ate cream cakes, looked out the window at the Thames, and educated British MPs on ectopic pregnancy.

Back then, online support was relatively new, and people didn’t understand it. But if you don’t have friends and family in real life who have been through similar experiences, then many people need to look online. However hard some of my friends tried to support me, they were never going to ‘get it’ at the same level as those who had been through it.

Of course, in real life, many people do not even try to understand, don’t broach it with us, and don’t in any way acknowledge our lives without children. They worry about upsetting us (even though silence is always more upsetting), they think it is easier to ignore the issue, or they suggest adoption as if that is easy (it isn’t) and solves everything (it doesn’t). I was once at a women’s business networking lunch, where a woman next to me asked if I had children. When I said ‘no’, she muttered something and turned her back to me — for the rest of the lunch, which was supposed to be all about business networking. Sadly, this reaction is not that unusual.

Deep down, I knew I was not to blame, that my life was as valuable as that of any other individual and, most importantly, that my life would still be good, despite the societal messages that seeded guilt and doubts when I was at my lowest. I came to accept the hand I’d been dealt, even if at first I didn’t like it, and I felt like acceptance was a betrayal.

In the midst of my early grief, I sat on a clifftop looking out over the Tasman Sea on a bright summer’s day, listening to the waves crashing below me. I felt the sun on my back. It made me smile, and I knew even then I would be okay.

Over time, I found renewed joy in life. And I was lucky. My friends were mostly professionals, had their kids at different ages, and always felt that  being a mother was part of who they were, but not the only thing. It made it easier to spend time with them, because we always had other things to talk about — politics, books, travel, work, houses, art, wider families, fashion, social change, you name it. Perhaps inevitably, one or two friends dropped away, as they increasingly spent all their time with the friends they had met through their children’s schools or activities. It hurts to be dropped. But that was their loss, too, as we would have gladly supported them and their kids in those difficult, growing years.

……..

My husband and I became that classic cliché of a couple without children, travelling internationally. I had wanted to travel since I was a child, it had been a large part of my career, and it was one of the things I had looked forward to doing with children. But now we had to do it alone. It wasn’t that we had a lot of extra funds. A friend once talked about the fees for her daughter’s private school. ‘See, that’s my annual travel budget,’ I pointed out.

During one trip, on a gorgeous island off the Queensland coast, we were talking about where to go next. We could hear the waves lapping against the beach as a gentle tropical breeze cooled the balcony where we were enjoying a lunch of beer-battered barramundi and champagne. How could we top this? ‘We need to put together a ten-year travel plan,’ my husband suggested. My heart lifted. I set to my task with enthusiasm, and over the next 10 years we saw many new places and had many new experiences. Every cloud has its silver lining.

Life was good. I had left full-time employment and was thoroughly enjoying freelance consulting, serving on boards, chairing a government-owned company, and volunteering for the ectopic pregnancy charity’s online support services. After six years my volunteer role ended, and I looked for a way to replace that. I found several women blogging about being childless. There are a vast number of supportive communities online that bring people together, provide valuable information, and offer an understanding ear. This was certainly true of those who were involuntarily living life without children. I had found my tribe.

In 2010 I began blogging myself, as No Kidding in NZ. I was perhaps the first person blogging in New Zealand about living a childless life and accepting it. Others were still trying to conceive, and even now, newspaper or TV articles tend to focus on people who hope that they will still have children. Then there are the stories that end in the ‘miracle baby’. They are the exception, not the rule, but they disproportionately dominate infertility stories in the media. Because the idea that you might not have children when you wanted them seems to be too awful, too final, for both media and the public to confront. We are everyone’s worst nightmare, and those going through infertility find it almost impossible to believe that we might be happy. But for exactly that reason, it is important to talk about our stories, the tough times, and even more importantly, the good.

So, I blogged. At first I wrote under a pseudonym, but I have since nervously spoken out in several articles, internationally and nationally, under my own name. I was receiving well over a thousand hits a week to my little blog, so I knew I was reaching people. I talked honestly about the positives and the negatives of my life. My mantra is ‘I’m not kidding’ (pun intended). The feedback from people who needed to hear that they were not alone, and that this life can and will be good, made sense of the isolation that I used to feel, and the loss that I had endured.

Because that’s the thing that is rarely recognised. There is ongoing loss, no matter how well I have healed, no matter how much I am enjoying my life, no matter how it seems that I am now ‘over it’. A friend once said, as I was losing my second pregnancy, that I hadn’t had anything, really, so I hadn’t lost anything. This was a common refrain. But it didn’t feel like that. I miss the lives that my children would have had, their growth, difficulties, victories, their future. I miss their interactions with their cousins of the same age.

Every Christmas, I decorate my tree on my own. I donated the Christmas stockings I had bought in hopeful anticipation at a market in Thailand years ago. I will never teach a child how to bake, knit, crochet or sew, how to swim or play netball, how to play the piano, or introduce them to the joy of books, languages and travel. I will never fall about laughing with my child over something ridiculous. My husband and I celebrate major wedding anniversaries and birthdays alone. We travel alone. And when we cared for our elderly parents through illnesses, distress and confusion in their last years, we felt the gaping future loss that we won’t have children to be there and care for us in the same way. Don’t ever tell me I haven’t missed anything! I love my life. But it has come at a cost.

By the time I was in my late forties and perimenopause was making its presence known, I was not afraid. For me, it was a great leveller. It was a shared experience with women in the way that motherhood had never been. An experience that gave me permission not to focus on the differences between mothers and non-mothers, but our similarities.

……..

After that difficult Mother’s Day in hospital, there was real cause for celebration in my hysterectomy. Some women find it devastating. They question their own womanhood. But by the time I had surgery, I had already done the hard work. I had long dismissed society’s gaslighting, refusing to accept that an issue with my body meant that I was in any way a second-class woman. For more than 10 years, I had dealt with the issue of who I was without being a mother. I knew more about myself, about other people, and about my personal values. Working as a volunteer with women had taught me about resilience and growth. Writing had led to deeper thinking, sorting out my values and beliefs. Maybe this was simply a result of being in my fifties and knowing myself better. If I’d had children, I would have undoubtedly changed, too. But going through those years of loss and rediscovery led me to a new stage of self-knowledge and understanding.

So, for me, my hysterectomy was a welcome liberation. After all, my uterus had — it seemed — actively conspired to kill me, first with not one but two ectopic pregnancies, and then with fibroids, leading to urgent blood transfusions. It had never been of any use to me, and I did not miss it when it was gone. I knew that a uterus, or what I might have done with it, did not define me as a person, and definitely not as a woman.

This meant that I could move into my fifties and the rest of my life feeling confident and free. Menopause, for me, meant that my reproductive status was no longer relevant. That was liberating. It came at a time when friends and family were facing empty nests and were more available to socialise. (Although this is not the same as being childless!) Our respective reproductive status is, for the time being, completely irrelevant.

Of course, my husband and I are now also beginning to think about our old age. Caring for his parents taught us much about the preparations needed, and the mental and physical declines that we may experience. Unlike many who are parents, we can’t ignore it and leave it to our kids. It is easy to be afraid. Most childless people worry, ‘Who will look after me when I’m old?’ There will be no one else around on a day-to-day basis to help us. So, we need to prepare. We’ve seen too many elderly people, both with and without children, fail to do so. It causes angst — for them and their carers. We know that we need to decide where we live, and what help we might need. And crucially, we need to act before it is necessary, because by then it is already too late.

That is an unexpected advantage of ageing without children, I think. We are less complacent. We cannot afford to be. We know life does not always go to plan. We know we cannot leave it to someone else.

Even writing wills as a childless couple is more complicated. I made this admission in front of a friend who clearly found it too much detail or saw it as a complaint, and — although I was already 50 — responded with ‘Well, you could still adopt!’ But there are so many questions to answer. Who will have power of attorney? Who will be executor of estate? How well do we know all our nieces, nephews and great-nephews? Do they need our help? Do we want to leave a legacy in other ways? For us, the answer to that last question is yes, and we have made provision for scholarships and medical research grants among other things. But it isn’t simple.

……..

Almost 20 years on from that drive home from the clinic on my birthday, I am happy with my life without children. Mostly childfree now, rather than childless, I can see and embrace the positives in life without children. If I did not, if I simply mourned the life as a mother I never had, then I would have lost two lives — the life I wanted, and the life I have now. The only way to honour my losses and everything I have been through is to grasp this life, appreciate it, and thrive in it. I owe it to myself, and to my husband. I am not kidding.

I was asked recently what gives meaning to my life. I talked about my husband, my writing, and how I have been able to help others also on this path. But ultimately, my answer was that the most meaningful thing in my life is simply my life itself — living it, enjoying it, feeling gratitude for it. Shouldn’t that be what gives every life meaning?