Hope vs Optimism

 I was reading something by Rebecca Solnit on social media the other day.  (She wrote "Men Explain Things to Me.") Whilst she was talking about society and politics, something she wrote stood out to me as being totally applicable to infertility and childlessness.

"But hope for me has never been optimism. Optimism is "everything will be fine ..."  

How many times did we have that kind of optimism thrust back at us during infertility and loss? "It'll work out," or "don't worry, it will be fine" comments from either those who got what they wanted, or those who never had to try to have children, or those who were just uncomfortable with the topic and wanted us to be quiet and be happy so they didn't have to worry about us. This is how I see and define optimism, rather than hope. I know not everyone does.

Solnit continued:

"Hope for me is always that there are possibilities. And we have a responsibility to try to realize (sic) them, and to not realize (sic) the worst possibilities."

This is so true, when we apply it to our No Kidding lives. Hope for the childless is hope for something different, for making the best out of our life, for enjoying what we have, for thriving, not just surviving. The worst possibility for us is to always focus on what we lost or never had, rather than our current lives. Because then we will live a life that is sad and lonely. Or to refuse to accept our diagnoses and prognoses, and live on unrealistic optimism which puts our lives on an indefinite hold, until age catches up with us. I also include ignoring our situation or belittling it as unimportant, or being marginalised, is one of those negative possibilities. Someone going through infertility always seems to think that the worst possible outcome is to be childless, but they are so focused on what they want, thinking about an alternative future without children is too scary for them. And so they don't see or (often) choose not to see what other wonderful possibilities there can be in a No Kidding life, or the changes we can make for ourselves and for those coming after us. 

There are so many opportunities to have a good life, to change people's attitudes, to embrace our situations. Simple optimism doesn't really address these.  But hope does.

I tried to explain some of this to a friend a few months ago when talking about our situation now. She was preaching the importance of optimism, and how important it is to recovery and even survival. I am  aware of the studies that show a positive outlook can be beneficial. But to me, you can be positive and feel gratitude, life your life positively and have better quality of life, but at the same time and prepare for the worst whilst appreciating and enjoying what you have. 

I don't agree however that blind optimism is beneficial. It might be fine if you're not aware of realities, of statistics, of science, or prognoses. But if we are people who like information, then we can't ignore science and facts. And so blind optimism goes against our intellects, and even our instincts. It doesn't prepare anyone for what is coming, and most importantly to me, doesn't necessarily allow you to feel gratitude for what you have in the moment, because you're only looking to the future you want, not the future you are going to have. We can be realistic, but still have hope. 

And being realistic doesn't have to be negative either. It winds back around to that idea of acceptance. Acceptance means you're not fighting against a prognosis (eg childlessness), even if you maintain hope that the statistics might fall in your favour. It just means you're not wasting energy railing against things you can't change. That your focus is not negative, but positive on the things you can control, the opportunities that are still open to you, and the life you have left to live and how you want to live it. Hope allows you to make changes that will help you, or others. I believe that being positive in this way improves our quality of life. Optimism doesn't necessarily do that. And I believe that it applies to those with serious or terminal illnesses, just as it applies to infertility and childlessness, and just as it applies to societal attitudes or political situations. 

Interestingly, I searched my blog for the word "optimism." I've used it under ten times in 15 years! But hope - the word "hope" comes up all the time. 550 times, to be exact. Even a post Optimism vs Pessimism really talks about the word and concept of hope! Maybe I shouldn't be quite so pedantic or rigid, though. Maybe I need to simply ask the question, "optimistic for what?" And that's where hope comes in.
 

 

Acceptance in fiction

I recently read Red Clocks by Leni Zumas. Huge thanks to Jess for reviewing and recommending it. It looks at five women – each dealing with different issues around motherhood, including being single, assisted reproduction, wanting to complete your family when a spouse doesn’t, an unwanted pregnancy, abortion, adoption, and more. I loved it. I loved the presentation of the different perspectives, each of them valid, each of them real. (I also love the title.)

One character in particular, who is trying to conceive but trying also to accept that she may not, explores the thinking processes with which we are probably all familiar.

“Acceptance, thinks the biographer, is the ability to see what is. But also to see what is possible.”

That really sums it up. We don’t have to have liked “what is.” But we have no choice, and therefore looking forward to see what is possible makes our life meaningful. And not to see what is possible, but only to mourn what is not possible, is a tragedy. A loss of two lives.

The same character later:

“How can she tell her students to reject the myth that their happiness depends on having a mate if she believes the same myth about having a child?”

and

“There are millions of things the biographer will never do that she doesn’t pity herself for missing. (Climbing a mountain, cracking a code, attending her own wedding.) So why this thing?”

I’ve listed the things I’ll never do a number of times. The things I’ll never do because I won’t be a mother (here and here), but also those other things I’ll never do in an old blog here. Like learn to ski, sing confidently, be fluent in a language other than English (which is not to say I haven’t tried), not be afraid of heights, and a myriad other activities that I can’t do. I mourn some of them from time to time (I’d love to be able to ski), but just accept others, and even embrace others I am glad I never did.

At the end of the book, the same character recognises that she “wants more than one thing.”

“She wants to stretch her mind wider than “to have one.”
Wider than “not to have one.”
To quit shrinking life to a checked box, a calendar square. ...
To see what is. And to see what is possible."

I like the fact that this character asks questions of herself, even if for much of the book she isn’t quite ready to give herself the answers she knows are there. Because the character is still very much in the yearning stage, but starting to see what might be beyond that. If there were more chapters, or a follow-up book, then the character could and should develop further. That she could come to embrace “what is possible” and accept the “I will nevers” as dreams that were lost, in order to make way for dreams to come. I’ve seen it happen in myself, and I’ve seen it time and time again with women online, first in my support group, then online with blogs and other communities. We do move on. We do accept, and we live and love the life which is possible.

 

Personal growth: it will change your world

A Letter to my Younger Self

To 30-something Mali

Without any spoilers, I am going to give you some advice for your personal growth over the next 20 or more years. I wish I had known these things beforehand. I am very glad that I know them now, and hope they will help you:

Give yourself permission to feel your feelings and roll with them. By feeling them, you learn to recognise them, understand them, and, ultimately, this knowledge helps you grieve, and it helps you heal. Feeling them is not always pleasant, and there is usually no easy shortcut to get through them, but it is worth doing the work. You’ll come to accept them, and you won’t be afraid of them. That’s a gift.

Take joy, delight, and happiness where you find it – the warmth of the sun on your back, laughter with a friend or from something funny, the luxury of a hot shower or bath, the pleasure of helping someone. Joy in life is in the little things, even when you might be afraid, or sad, or angry. Those big things come and go. But, as your mother will say a lot in the next 20 years, there is always “a good cup of tea” to be relished. And never feel guilty about feeling joy. It is healing. And you deserve to feel it.

Learn self-compassion. You are kind to others. So, don’t you deserve the same kindness from yourself? When you learn to be kind to yourself, and eventually, to like yourself, you will find it easier to stand up for yourself, and to care less about what others think. You will learn to say “no” to things and people who are negative and draining, and “yes” to new opportunities. It isn’t selfish, though. You will find it easier to be tolerant of others and show them compassion and understanding in turn, and you will grow as a person. You become more content in yourself but that also makes you more demanding too, because you know who you want to be, and who you can be.

Speaking of caring less about what others think, it gets easier! I am not kidding, though you won’t be surprised if I admit that I’m still not very good at it. But you know what really helps? knowing that others’ opinions of me or my life almost always says more about them than it does about me.

It is possible to retrain your brain! If you find yourself thinking negative thoughts or going over and over negative experiences (as I know you do, have always done), you can teach yourself not to think about these things. First, you need to recognise these thought patterns as unhelpful and negative. Then you can challenge them. Ask yourself, “are they true? Or am I catastrophising? Can I fix the issue behind them? Or am I self-flagellating for no reason?” Once you know, then you can counter them, and dismiss them.

Write your thoughts down. It helps. It can free your brain from trying to remember something, or from going over and over a particular event. It can and will also help you figure things out –how you feel and what you think, what is important, what you want to do in the future, who you want to be. In fact, it can be quite therapeutic. And it will new open worlds to you. You will learn to love it, even to need it. And you might find you are quite good at it!

Make the best decisions you can with the information you have available to you at the time. Then don’t beat yourself up about them. You can’t turn back time. Hindsight is wonderful, and you can and should grow from it, but there is no benefit in wishing you’d made different decisions.

You know what you’re good at, and what you enjoy, and of course, what you’re not good at, and what you don’t enjoy. Be honest with yourself, both for the good and the bad. You will find that gets easier as you get older. It is liberating to learn to look at yourself without judgement or self-recrimination but with curiosity and compassion. It is liberating to be able to move on with an intention to improve where possible.

Learn to know and challenge your values. Hold them close. I have learned to embrace them without feeling that I was letting anyone down, including, perhaps especially, you, my younger self. Solidifying my world views and values has made a great difference to me, my thoughts, my level of contentment, my authenticity. I let go of a lot of things. But in doing so, I was able to begin to fully embrace myself, and my life.

As humans, we survive by adapting to new situations. We can find happiness without achieving the big goals, whatever they might be. I’m sorry to say that you won’t win the lottery! But you don’t have to have the perfect family, career, body, or mind to be happy. You just need to be able to appreciate what you have in your life, whatever that might be, wherever you can find it. You can achieve acceptance and contentment. It is easier than you think. And you are much more resilient than you think too. Take pride in that! I do.

Your next twenty plus years will be full of joys and adventures and scary times and love and sadness and disappointment, of mistakes and wonderful decisions. That is inevitable. That is life. Embrace it! It will be amazing. I am not kidding.

With love
Older Mali

 

It is World Childless Week. Learn more about it and see all the other submissions on this topic here.

 

Embracing ALL of my No Kidding life

Almost 20 years have passed since my efforts to become a mother ended. I’ve written a lot about acceptance, about learning how not to think about the what-ifs, about being generally successful at that though not always, and yet I still write about the way other people’s comments or societal attitudes can hurt. At my age, I no longer yearn to have children, or to be a mother. It’s obviously not possible, so instead I embrace my life without them, and enjoy it as much as I can. But that doesn’t mean I am always pain-free. And I’ve been thinking about that a bit recently.

How can I say that I am “over it” and yet continue to write and think about the pain (or discomfort) of not having kids? Are the two mutually exclusive? Not at all. Does it matter? Not really, but I think about this because I once had a correspondence with a woman who argued that not all of us (No Kidding bloggers) had “come to terms” with our situation as much as we had claimed. It has been impossible to forget her words, and the scathing tone of her judgement that was so obvious even in an email.

It's the point I make here a lot. Just because we have embraced our lives without children, it doesn’t mean that we don’t remember what we have lost. Acceptance doesn’t mean that we didn’t care, or that we have not mourned our losses and do not continue to mourn those. Embracing my life without children means embracing all aspects of my life – my past and my future. It is, as Lori Lavender Luz likes to say, a BothAnd situation. It isn’t just the superficial enjoyment of spontaneity, going out on a “school” night, or sleeping in on the weekend, though all those things are good. But one of those aspects of a life with no kids is that I know I am more aware of social nuances between the parented and non-parents, between those who have given birth and those who were unable to or never had the opportunity to do so, and in a wider societal sense, to any of those who feel left out or ignored. 

I welcome that knowledge, that heightened awareness of the differences in our society, as well as what binds us. For example, those of us who are embracing our lives without children are more aware of the way policies or practices in the health system or businesses can result in injustices or inappropriate conduct, and a sterling example of this is Pamela’s extensive work in examining the infertility industry. When we embrace our lives, we embrace all of ourselves, including the grief and loss that we have felt, and the growth and understanding that has come out of that. And of course, it makes us think. And that’s a good thing!

In fact, I feel sorry for those who think that “coming to terms” with our situation means not caring, means forgetting what we have been through, and means that we ignore everything we have learnt. I hope that they figure it out, and can consider this process in themselves as well.

In thinking about this process of embracing my No Kidding life, I’ve recognised that my pain these days is less the absence of the child(ren) I might have had, or the role I intended to fill, but more the feeling that I am “other.” This pain comes from being judged, from being isolated from the community at large, from being ignored by policy makers or marketers or, on a more personal basis, in conversations, in family arrangements, etc. It is the loss of a legitimate place in society. It is being told that we “chose” our situation, and that we should go away and keep quiet as a result. It is, therefore, how OTHERS make us feel, the boxes they try to put us in, the pronatalist society we live in. It is not how we ourselves feel, our sense of self-worth, or what we do in society.

 That’s what is harder to come to terms with, to accept, and to recover from. Because the jibes are too common, and are never-ending. That’s what I brace myself against. I expect I’ll be on the receiving end of this – to varying extents – for the rest of my life. It is also why I do so much thinking about society and my place in it. The more I am sure of my thoughts, the easier it is to deal with these feelings. The more I am confident in my self-worth, the easier it is to dismiss their judgement. The more I can show self-compassion and develop self-confidence, the easier it is to deal with isolation. I only wish that these “others” need to think about that, and the place they play in making us feel like this. Perhaps they are the ones who need to come to terms with our situation, and accept it as legitimate, not us!

So that’s why I blog, and why I cherish the relationships with my fellow No Kidding thinkers and writers and readers, who are helping all of us, Kidding and No Kidding alike, to understand those who do not have children, to provide solidarity and comfort, and to try to make the world more inclusive.