Confessions of a Forty-Something: Some No Kidding Thoughts

I’ve just finished reading Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter. I think I put it on my to-read list after Loribeth wrote a review on it earlier in the year. I deliberately haven’t read her review (here) until after I wrote this. Thanks again for the recommendation, Loribeth!

It was an easy and entertaining read, one I could relate to, but I had some conflicting thoughts about it. Brief scenario is that a forty-something woman finds herself back in the UK after splitting up from her fiancé, broke and homeless. Hilarity ensues. It is funny. But it is also sad at times, and as a childless readers, there are a lot of moments when I thought, “I could have written this” or "this sounds like me." And even a “I wonder if she read my blog?!”

There was much to like. Here are my favourite points:

• Other people’s lives are never what they seem – whether in real life, or on social media. We all have hidden pain and loss and struggle.
• Guilt and shame and feelings of unworthiness are extremely common. We all just hide it well.
• A new, older, friend shows that life is to be lived, regardless of what happens to you.
• You will come through the other side of pain and loss.
  
• Her FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) can become her JOMO (Joy of Missing Out). It’s the main message of No Kidding in NZ, and I might adopt JOMO (when it is appropriate).
• There is no one way to live life.
• There is no specific way to measure success.
• There is no plan.
• Humour can help us cope.
• But so too does being honest about our lives.
• Being honest can lift a burden – not just for us, but for friends who feel they can share and be honest then too. 
• Friends disappear, but they come back.
• There is no miracle baby.
• She calls out all the ridiculous messages women are inundated with from social media and the media (magazines/celebrity culture, etc)
• And points out how many of these are contradictory.
• That all these points are relevant to those of us without kids, or just to women/people in general.

However, there were things that annoyed me. None of them are particularly surprising to those of us without children, as we are used to seeing stereotypes represented in the media, both fiction and non-fiction. It’s that tendency to try to play things down, not to rock the boat, maintain the status quo.

Here is what I didn’t like (attempting to keep spoilers at a minimum):

• The single childless woman was the butt of all the jokes.
• Childless friends and aunts seem to have to love their friends’ kids. It's compulsory. And of course, some of us do. But not everyone does. And I dislike the way it is presented, in that it’s almost a requirement of being childless, some way of “proving” that we’re “real women.” (See my recent post).
• The childless friend is hurt, but doesn’t complain. (Talk about not wanting to rock the boat!) I had this issue with another similar book, Emma Gannon’s Olive. It’s almost as if the authors don’t want to antagonise mothers (who might also read and buy the book), so they don’t actually call out the mother characters for their obtuse behaviour towards someone they would claim to love. Yet as I wrote recently here, fair is fair. Our feelings matter too. Of course, I understand that this is fiction, and one character can't necessarily represent all our feelings about being childless. In fact, maybe I'm projecting here. Maybe I wanted the character to say everything to her friends that I couldn't say to mine. Hmmmm.
• We all know that friendships change, and often to the detriment of the childless friend. To see that portrayed was fine. But the rekindling of the friendships were done so easily and without hurt that it seemed unrealistic to me. Will the childless ever feel totally safe in those friendships again? That’s never an issue that seems to be raised. Maybe that's a different book. Or says more about me than the author.
  
• The idea that there has to be some form of a prescription ending that is happily ever after. Unfortunately, life isn't like that, and the book almost betrays its purpose, and the majority of its message, by going there, by defining what society thinks should be a "happily ever after" storyline. And surely, happily ever after is different to everyone.
  

Fortunately, I think the majority of the narrative portrays the feelings of single and or childless women in a reasonably accurate way. It certainly voices our insecurities, our reactions to media and social media stereotypes, and calls out smug celebrities. And of course, just like with Olive, it was very pleasing to see a childless main character and story arc. Still, I hope that future books don't automatically portray a single and/or childless woman as a basket case (or f**k up). I hope that future books aren't so rare that they are comment or review worthy. May this become so common that one day it's just a book, and people both with and without kids can read it on its literary merits. I know, I'm a dreamer. But I can hope.

Finding understanding unexpectedly

I love it when bloggers review books. It sometimes leads me to wonderful books I would never have read. Thanks to Loribeth’s review of Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, I had it on my library wish list, and it popped up in the last week, so I read it. (Given that I have only read 22 books this year, when I had been aiming at 35 at least, that was quite a feat in itself!)

I won’t review it here (Loribeth did such a good job of that), except to say that although it was dark, it was very readable, and not too depressing. There were moments of humour, and some very likeable characters (and some much less likeable, though the reasons for that became apparent at the end), and I read it in just a few days. The reason I am mentioning it here though, is because the issue of wanting or not wanting, having or not having, children became a key point of the book as it went on. And there were a few quotes that I thought were exactly right.

This paragraph, written in the words of the main character, is so perfect. It reflects a number of my experiences in telling people I didn’t have children. It was lovely to read, to laugh at the parented people who apparently say the same things the world over, and to, completely unexpectedly, feel that someone else understands.

“When you are a woman over thirty, with a husband but without children, married couples at parties are interested to know why. They agree with each other that having children is the best thing they have ever done. According to the husband, you should just get on with it; the wife says you don’t want to leave it too late. Privately, they are wondering if there is something medically wrong with you. They wish they could ask directly. Perhaps, if they can outlast your silence, you will offer it up of your own accord. But the wife can’t resist – she has to tell you about a friend of hers who was told the same thing but as soon as she gave up hope … the husband says bingo. In the beginning, I told strangers I couldn’t have children because I thought it would stop them from continuing beyond their initial enquiry. It is better to say you don’t want them. Then they know straight away that there is something wrong with you, but at least not in a medical sense. So the husband can say, oh well, good for you, focusing on your career, even if, to that point, there had been so little evidence of a career being focused on. The wife doesn’t say anything, she is already looking around.”

That last line is a killer. Ten simple words perfectly explaining our isolation, regardless of the reasons why we don’t have children.

Another quote talked about coming out of grief and loss, and putting it in some perspective:

“I could see what I’d had now. Everything people want in books, a home, money, to not be alone, all there in the shadow of the one thing I didn’t have.”

I think most of us can recall being “in the shadow” of the one thing we didn’t have, the thing that had taken over our lives. It’s why I don’t really like the explanation that grief doesn't diminish, that it stays with you but you learn to live with it, as life grows around it. I think our lives are always there. But for varying lengths of time, grief can be so large and so dark that it puts everything else into shadows, in the shade, and we forget what we have. Eventually, as time passes and as we allow ourselves to heal, the shadow begins to clear, and our losses take their place with all the other aspects of our lives.

Finally, I loved this so much, because it is, essentially, the message of this blog.

“You were done being hopeless.You were done, you were done, you were done being hopeless.”

I've been there. I hope you have all been there. And the best thing is that we all found new hope elsewhere.

Infinite wisdom, and a potential gift

A lot of people think that those of us who never had children never lost anything, because we never had anything to lose. My best friend at the time said this to me. and I’ve heard the view elsewhere. But recently, on a silly TV show, the wise comment was made along the lines that losing the past was painful, but losing the future was infinite. It struck me immediately that this is precisely why it is so painful for so many of us.

You all know though that I try (try being the operative word here) to choose not to think of the future I lost, but to focus on the future I have.

Finally, someone a while ago commented on one of my (brief) posts that they wish they had it laminated, and it got me thinking. I’m thinking about producing a simple and short book, or perhaps a calendar, of some of the memes and sayings that have been well received here on the blog. If I can get it done in the next week or so, it would be available for Christmas or the New Year, if there would be any interest in that. If that is, I can work out the technology and the logistics!