Children and the Childless

I’ve had a number of post topic in my drafts file (which is ridiculously large, so I’m trying to whittle it down) for years. I do this regularly – note a post that has made me think, or one that urges me to put my perspective on it. Occasionally, I pick up on it – sometimes within days or weeks of the original post, sometimes years later!

Five years ago, Mel wrote a post talking about feeling that because she was infertile, she felt the need to prove that she was good at interacting with children. Wow, I can relate to that feeling!

But I’ve never felt that I was good at interacting with kids. I didn’t grow up with a lot of younger siblings or cousins. Most of them were around my age or my sister’s age, just three years younger. I had little to do with the ones that were much younger, and never really knew how to relate to them.  This never bothered me when I was contemplating becoming a parent. After all, parents “grow up” with their children, and their children’s friends. I was confident that would happen with me.

As an adult, I’ve had good relationships with nieces and nephews and friends’ kids when I’ve had the opportunity to get to know them, and often when we’ve been chatting or playing alone. But I have been self-conscious when I do it in the presence of other adults. I’m shy (though some friends would laugh at the idea) and self-conscious by nature – that might explain my feelings of awkwardness. I think that is because I’ve often felt people judging me.

Long before we tried to conceive, there have been the occasional “clucky” comments, simply because I was being a decent person and talking to or playing with little children. That infuriated me at the time. It infuriated me because I resented the gender stereotyping behind the comments. It also infuriated me because the people making these comments didn’t know if we had been trying or not trying, but clearly didn’t even bother to think about it. I remember my sister-in-law telling me once that she had raged at my husband’s brothers who had been making such comments (to me, and to my husband), telling them they didn’t know if we had fertility issues or not, and how would they feel if we had. (She was prescient – we hadn’t been trying at the time.)

Likewise, there are the “judgey” comments. A rather outspoken family member once harshly critiqued something I had said to our niece, taking something out of context when I was simply trying to find something that we might have in common. So, I’ve felt wounded by such judgement, and if anything, it encourages me to withdraw when certain people are around. That is sad for me, and sad for the kids too.

On a more casual basis, I will interact with children if I see them in a queue, or on a plane or public transport, for example, and they show interest. Kids can be curious and funny, and it can be enjoyable to chat or play with them. So when it feels natural, I do it. But equally, if I’m in a café enjoying a quiet coffee and a book, and a child is running riot, I’ll ignore them too. Just because I’m a woman, I don’t buy into the idea that it’s my job to entertain children. I reject it, in fact. I also reject the idea that childless women (or infertile women) need to take a role with children that women who are parents don’t do. In one extended family, I have close relationships with a couple of the children – much more so than the women who are parents. It’s as if they either don’t care – they have their own children to focus on – or they don’t see it as their role. They have nothing to prove. Grrr.

So do I feel that I need to prove that I’m good with kids? I have certainly felt that at times. When I was going through infertility, I genuinely enjoyed interacting with them, anticipating the time when I might have had my own. I liked proving to myself as much as to anyone else that I was good with kids. When I was grieving, it was painful, and so I generally didn’t put myself in the position to have much to do with little children. After all, I was questioning myself so much, I knew I couldn’t bear the judgement from others if I was to come up wanting.

Now, though, I don’t really care what people think! (I hope Mel feels that way now too.) I’ve seen plenty of parents who are both good with kids, or completely ignore kids that are not their own. Why should I be judged when they are not? Why should I feel that I need to prove anything, simply because I've suffered infertiity, or because I don't have children? I don’t. Realising this today is liberating. I have nothing to prove.

Childlessness: bittersweet and also invisible

This is going to be a little self-indulgent boohoo post. I don't post these often, because I don't need to these days. But even though we have grieved and accepted our No Kidding lives, it doesn't mean we don't miss what we might have had from time to time.

I've probably noted before, but there are a couple of children in my family that always make me think. On my side, I have a great-nephew. His mother (my niece, she was my flower girl at my wedding) and I were pregnant (briefly in my case) at the same time. On my husband's side, a niece was born just a few months before my first ectopic. As I was still bleeding and having HCG measurements taken I had to watch my BIL doting on his daughter. This last week, BIL and his family have been in town, and I have had the pleasure of getting to know niece K, now 16, a little better. It's been a joy - especially to discover she is a bright and thoughtful young feminist, something I did not expect given the views of her parents! But it's also been bittersweet, obviously.

Last night was Guy Fawkes. My SILs and I were out on the town, as we are hardly ever together at the same time. So my husband went out to his childhood home, and got together for an evening with his three brothers (we can't remember the last time all four of them were together - decades, probably), and with the niece and nephews. DH decided to pick up some fireworks on the way, and apparently they all - young and old - had a great time letting them off last night. I'm glad DH had that bonding time with his brothers, niece and nephews. It sounded like fun. But I'm sad too that he doesn't get to do it every year, with his own children, or even every year or so with nieces and nephews.

Finally, on Saturday we had a family function to farewell MIL. Oldest BIL made the only speech, and he did it very well. But twice it was as if DH and I were invisible members of the family, simply because we didn't "grow up and have our own families." Yet we are the ones who have been here, reliably, and very supportively, for the last twenty or so years, for MIL and FIL. But it was as if we didn't exist. The Invisible No Kids. I felt it keenly. But on the bright side, DH said he didn't even notice. I wish I could be more like him!

Happy families?

Life has been pretty hectic here, and the last couple of weeks I've neglected both my No Kidding and A Separate Life blogs, even to the extent of missing Microblog Mondays, and so I apologise, and hope there are a few people who will stick around!

I did manage a quick post on my daily blog (under two months to go!) that is very relevant here. Last week we made the seven hour drive north to look after my niece for three days, when her parents were attending a conference on her health problems. As delightful as my niece is - and yes, she even admitted we spoil her! - her life is not at all easy. She complained, "I just want to be normal" - a complaint I am sure we can all relate to. Because of her cystic fibrosis, she can never be normal, and that also means that her parents' lives are far from easy as well.

I think that this is an important reminder. Not everyone is living the "happy families" dream.

How to love well

I read a beautiful poem the other day. What struck me was the first 25% of this long, but compelling poem, Hymn by Sherman Alexie. The first three lines captured me:

Why do we measure people's capacity
To love by how well they love their progeny?
That kind of love is easy. Encoded.

They express a sentiment I’ve often thought, but could never articulate as beautifully as the poet has done. Read the rest, the author elaborates on this idea.

Being a childless aunt

I’m enjoying having our twin nieces and their parents in town for the first time in over eight years (see my post Scattered Families on A Separate Life). I’ve bemoaned the fact (many times!) that we have no siblings living in this town, and my husband has no siblings in this country. It makes it harder as we have sole responsibility for caring for his parents, we won’t have the companionship of siblings here when we age so will be faced with decisions (friends vs family – perhaps another post to come), and we lose out on relationships with nieces and nephews too.

I was keen to spend as much time with them as I can. And then got thinking the other day about the depth of feeling I have around spending time with and getting to know the girls during the all-to-brief time they’re here in New Zealand. Mostly, in the past, I’ve put this down to the fact that they live so far away. After all, missing them and wanting to see them is a perfectly normal emotion. It’s not just on my side either. I know they feel the loss of not having any relationships with their father’s side of the family. Aside from us and their grandparents, the girls have never met any of them, including their cousins, and I find that really sad.

Then I stepped back, and thought about it some more. Do I feel this way because I don't have children? Or because I don’t have the luxury of having many other children in my life? If I had children myself, would I feel this real need to get to know them, and for them to know me?

I know that I would always want to get to know them, to +an extent. But I doubt that the need would be the same. If I were a parent, my primary relationships with children would be as a mother. But my primary relationships – actually, my only relationships – with children are instead as an aunt through my nieces and nephews, and through a few children of my friends. (Though as friends’ children grow, their parents’ friends see them much less. With nieces and nephews, that relationship always exists.)

And so I feel the loss. I’m not so much mourning the loss of my own children, because I’ve come to terms with that. But I do feel the loss of the relationships with nieces and nephews. They’re my only connection with the next generation, and I value that, when I can get it. They’re the only people who will remember me when I’m gone. I’m not sure that worries me too much – being forgotten, I mean. But it is nice to know that there will be some people after I’m gone who might have valued having me in their lives.

Still, I can’t do much about it. And I know to try to fill that void by pressuring myself or the girls (or other nieces and nephews) to intensify our relationships wouldn’t work for any of us. The best is to take it naturally, and enjoy it when it happens. Which is what I’ve been doing over the last few weeks.

Coping with children in our lives

Saying “it gets better” may at times feel meaningless to a grieving childless person, because it is so vague, not specifying how, or when, it will happen. So I’m going to try to articulate something that I realised today, after reading two different blog posts about spending time with children.

When we’re infertile, and going through the initial grief of childlessness, every child and every pregnant belly we see are reminders of the children we wanted, the children we have lost, the children we will never have, and the parents we will never be. They feel so close, such an intimately painful part of us that has been wrenched away, that having them around us is at times unbearable. We’re acutely aware they are not our children, the children we wanted, but yet … in ways … all children are the children we wanted, our children. 

As we heal, I think we manage to put a distance between ourselves and our wounded hearts, and other people’s children, recognising that there’s a difference between the children we wanted to have, and the children who are there in front of us. That separation in my heart and my mind certainly got easier over time, as children who were babies at the time we were pregnant (or trying to get pregnant) grew and developed their own unique personalities and bodies that didn’t and couldn’t have come from us, even in our imaginations.

These children are not the precious, unformed beings we had hoped to have and had already loved with all our hearts, but I now see that this is a good thing, as it gives me a freedom to love and appreciate these children for who they are, untainted by my ideas of who I wanted them to be, and without the awful yearning for them as my children.

Those unwanted reminders

Last night, I opened up Facebook, and saw photos of my friend’s sons, as her eldest headed off for his first day at high school. He is the same age (give or take a month) as my great-nephew. I was pregnant, briefly, at the same time as their mothers, 13 years ago.

I’m not often floored by photos, or stories. I actually love knowing or talking with these boys – though I know one much better than the other – and seeing them grow. Occasionally I think about the fact that we could have a son (or daughter) the same age. But that thought comes only as a theoretical reminder, and doesn't bring pain with it. I don't let it.

But for some reason last night - perhaps because it is on the eve of my wedding anniversary that my husband and I will today celebrate on our own - I was struck by what we could have had, and what we don’t. Emotionally, and completely unexpectedly, it bowled me over.

Though it will pass, too. This I know.

Our relationships with other people's children

I have a blogging friend who is a fantastic teacher. I wish I'd had a teacher like her. Her students adore her, know that she listens to them and that she sees them, truly and deeply. She acknowledges their existence and treasures their uniqueness. For some of them, this is the first time they actually feel heard, feel really understood, by an adult. Their parents see them primarily as their children, not always as real, unique, human beings. Other teachers might ignore them or let them just slip by.

My friend commented that, in general, “adults don't get to know children, beyond their own children.” You can read her entire post here. It's worth it.

I have addressed this idea previously when I wrote about my relationships with my own aunts, and now with my nieces, in my post on the joy of being an aunt when you don’t have children of your own. I never had an individual, one-on-one relationship with an aunt, though as an adult, when I first moved to this city, I got to know the aunt-from-another-planet more as an individual, and I think she got to know me more too. If only she'd been around when I was younger, she could have been a great mentor. I think I needed one. 

As I've contemplated life as an aunt (in the family, or as an honorary aunt), and a never-to-be mother, and as my relationships with my nieces have grown, I've realised that this relationship is unfortunately not the norm. To have these relationships, parents need to see that there is value in it for their children. I don't always see that, and I don't want to "push in." Perhaps part of society's emphasis on the nuclear family, or the societal isolation of people without children, I find that parents can be quite possessive about their children, holding them too close, and not inviting others in. I can think of several motivations for this, but the outcome, I think, is sad for everyone.  Parents miss out on a wider support network. Children miss out on learning and growing in different ways. We miss out on sharing our experiences and love. The reality is that children have enough love for everyone. They're not going to love their parents less, simply because they love their aunts or uncles. They're going to be happy and open, and their world will expand.

So I feel rather sorry for those children who don't or have never had an aunt (or uncle) who understood them, who could mentor them, who might see the world differently than their parents, or have different experiences that she (he) could share with them. I feel sad that I can't have that relationship with more children/young people, as so many of my nieces and nephews grow up overseas. I think of friends who don't have the chance to have this relationship at all. Not all of us can. Many people will tritely say that we should surround ourselves with children, but it's not always that easy.

I feel sorry too, for the mothers who miss out on playing that role, but simply don't have the time or energy to give. A comment on my previous post noted, " Now I have my own child, I really miss my special time with my nieces and nephews."

I think too, that the relationship is a special one, because mostly, it's a role of love and joy and connection, rather than of duty, responsibility, or stress. 

I have wondered too, if in extolling the virtues of fabulous aunties, I'm just trying to boost myself, to make myself feel better about not being a mother. So I was really glad to see that my friend expressed similar thoughts to mine about adults interacting with young people - or not. Perhaps particularly, I felt pleased to see my view validated by a teacher, someone who is experienced in working with children and their parents.

(Perhaps a little sadly too, the fact that she is also a mother probably contributed to my feelings of validation. It does make me feel a little sad that, in our society today, I feel this need for validation, that I feel exposed by suggesting that an adult without kids might have a different but still close, in ways more intimate, relationship with specific children. It’s true, though - I do feel vulnerable. I choose carefully what I say about children, when I am around adults who are parents, and I choose carefully whether I even make a comment, depending on who I am with. I choose very carefully my words and phrasing, feeling so open to criticism, waiting for the hurtful comments. Yet – as I’ve written elsewhere – shouldn’t my comments be just as valid as those of any other person?)

Back to my point (and my friend’s point). Adults don’t tend to get to know children other than their own. And even then, some of them don’t really get to know their own.

My friend added,

“Can't I approach someone, some underage someone, with love and respect simply because of our shared humanity? Perhaps even more so, because we are called to protect the vulnerable.”

She didn’t say, “as a mother …” and I love her for that. She is wiser than that. I wish everyone was. She emphasised simply our shared humanity. So often, this is forgotten.

But I digress again - apologies! In our relationships with people of younger generations, perhaps as an aunt or uncle (by blood or marriage, or through friendship as an honorary aunt/uncle), I think that we are privileged to be able to hear their thoughts or dreams, their hurts and their hopes. No, it is not the same as having my own, but that's exactly the point. It's different. And it's not all about me. It's about them. If I can give them something they don't get in their relationships with other adults, then that is a privilege.

I feel very grateful to have these relationships, even if I see these special people only once a year (if that often). I’m learning, too, to feel grateful for playing a part in their lives, at a time when they need it. I'm learning not to feel hurt if our relationship alters as they grow and change and become more independent, establishing their own support networks, spreading their wings, hopefully with a little bit more wisdom or self-belief or courage as a result of my relationship with them. 

I see them. I saw them. I see them still even though they may no longer need me as much. In turn, they have seen me, too. And that really is a gift.

#MicroblogMondays: No Kids to Promote

One of the things I miss about not having children is not having activities to support, sports to watch and cheer from the sidelines, music lessons and practice to supervise. But on the plus side, I don’t have to hit up friends and relatives and neighbours for fund-raising for Plunket, for the schools or sports teams or overseas trips. I don’t have to sell raffle tickets or Girl Guide biscuits, or the fund-raising chocolates that seem these days to be ubiquitous in workplaces. I don't inundate my friends here or on Facebook with these fund-raising requests, or ball photos or bragging about sports teams or exam results or what they cooked me for breakfast on Mother's Day. I don't get to do any of that.

So when I saw that the daughter of a friend of mine was involved in a campaign, I decided I should support her. I’ve only ever used my blog one other time to try to garner support for someone doing something I believed in. So I’ll keep it short and sweet. But you can read more about Maddie and her campaign here.

Please indulge me just this once.

"People without children don't miss anything."

So I emailed in to the radio station after my previous post.  The host, to be fair, responded quickly to my email, qualifying his comment.  What he meant to say was that "people without children don't miss anything."  He removed the comment that our lives don't change.  I actually think that's worse.  Does he really believe that because people without children have never had children we don't miss anything?

1. Those who have suffered loss mark the birthdays or due dates or EDDs of the children they lost, marking their lives that never were.  My first child, lost to ectopic pregnancy, would have been 11 by now.  My second pregnancy would have seen a 10 year old.  They would have played with their cousins this Christmas, the ones of a similar age.  
2. Every Christmas, I decorate my tree on my own.  I buy a Christmas cake rather than make mine to give to the kids to decorate.  I gave away the knitted Christmas stockings I had bought in anticipation at a market in Thailand many years ago. Every Christmas, even if for just a minute or two, often when I put the special "ectopic" decorations on the tree, I miss my never-born children.
3. Whenever there is a fireworks display, I feel silly going on our own.  
4. I know I'll never go back to Disneyland.  I would, if I had children.
5. I'll never teach a child how to bake, to knit or crochet or make their own clothes, how to high jump or long jump or play netball or tennis, or how to play the piano or flute, or to tap dance, or introduce them to the joys of lbooks and language and languages - Thai, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese - or show them the world.
6. I wrote here about some things I'd never do.  Still, every time I bake a cake, I think about how much I enjoy baking, and how I would be baking more if I had children.  
7. My husband and I are about to celebrate a major wedding anniversary.  We will celebrate it alone, rather than with children and grandchildren around us.
8. It's harder to make friends, new friends, without children, a connection to school or to sports teams or dance classes etc.  And often we lose our friends when they have children. 
9. We see our partners interact with other children, and wonder what they would have been like as parents.
10. The house can be deathly quiet.  And some times of the day, or week, or year, we can almost hear the sounds of the children we never had.

I'm going to stop there.  (Because this blog isn't about indulging the "what-might-have-beens" and this post will require a follow-up).  

But could he read this, could anyone, and still say that because we didn't have children, we don't miss anything?  Seriously?

Is society really baby-obsessed?

Mel asked the question: Is society really babyobsessed?  Initially I was surprised she asked this. Of course it is!  But then I thought (as she did), perhaps it’s just my perception?  After all, perception is everything.  If you asked someone (in NZ) if there was more crime today than ten or twenty years ago, then they’d say yes.  The media is obsessed with reporting crime and bad news stories, there have been well-publicised efforts to educate children about keeping themselves safe, and politicians frequently like to claim they're "tough on crime" in a hunt for more votes.  So we all have this feeling that there are more dangers than there were in the past.  Yet crime statistics show that crime is going down.  This is not our perception.  So which is real?  Statistics damn statistics?  (They can say anything we - or politicians - want them to say.)  Or perception based on our own experiences? 

Mel also used the comparison of discussion in the media about weddings vs marriage.  I can see her point - there are more magazines, features, etc about weddings than marriage.  Weddings are big money.  But how often do we hear about brides who are obsessed with their weddings, thinking more about them than about the marriage?  How often do we see people marry in a big, fancy wedding that they spent a year planning, then a year or two or three later quietly dissolve the marriage?  The obsession is with the wedding.  How many people put the same effort into preparing for and planning their marriage, as they do the wedding. Rational people put their energies and desires into the marriage long term.  But we're not obsessed with the marriage.  It's an ongoing state (we hope) for starters.  But we are obsessed with the wedding.

So is society really obsessed with babies and pregnancy?  And how can I answer that without doing some empirical research? (Which, by the way, I have no intention of doing right now.)  I can't really.  I can only look at my experience, and my observations of society, and try to be objective.

And with that introduction, I will still say that I certainly believe society is more baby-obsessed now than in the past.  Even twenty or thirty years ago, children and babies weren’t the centre of attention or focus or obsession.  Babies were accepted for what they were.  Tiny, noisy, uncontrollable little things who would grow into fascinating children and adults.  But in the meantime, there was still a belief that children (and babies) had their place.  Their needs, or their parents’ desires, didn’t dominate.  Parents wouldn’t dream of taking their babies (and children of a certain age), to fine dining restaurants or often even cafes, and never movies.  Consideration for others – other diners, movie-goers, etc – was paramount.

Having babies was considered a normal, unspectacular part of life.  Babies were something good, something assumed and expected (sigh), but completely ordinary.  It was taken for granted. And so having babies was celebrated on an intimate, personal level as appropriate.  Parents did not trumpet their achievements in having children.  In New Zealand at least, it would have seemed arrogant and inappropriate to talk about your children, or yourself (ie I’m blessed), in that way.  “Who do you think you are?” would have been the response.  And in the 80s there was much more focus on seeing what women could achieve, not only as mothers, but also in career, business, creative, and sporting terms.* 

Now though, it certainly seems as if society is more obsessed, and much more vocal about it.  And that creates a perception, and perception is after all reality.  The media – which both reflects societal norms, and creates them – is relentless in its adulation of mothers and babies.  With changes in technology, mothers now have outlets to talk about their lives, their children, their pregnancies and their babies that they wouldn’t have had in the past.  Looking for validation and support, mom blogging and other support websites have boomed.  Celebrity pregnancies and babies (the best of two obsessions – a pregnant celebrity) are big news, more so than a new movie or album or book or award win or gold medal.  Advertisers follow in their wake, both tapping into existing demand (ie the market they can reach), but also in setting expectations (and hence creating demand) as any good marketers would.  And in doing so, they begin creating a demand.  In feeding the obsession, it becomes more and more prominent.  Peer pressure has always been a powerful force, and is important in selling products, services, magazines, movies, etc.  (The obsession with “pink” for little girls’ toys is an example.)  So the more stories there are about celebrity babies, the more people decide they want to know about celebrity babies.  Politicians – who are after all just marketers really –jump on the bandwagon too, and focus on family-friendly policies, and always, always talk about the future in terms of “the future of your children.”  So a politician who might have a broader view finds themselves talking about “your children and your grandchildren” to tap into that market, and soon enough voters are going to reject a candidate who doesn’t cover this.

I think the perception is there, and it reflects reality.  It hasn’t always been like this.  And it might change in the future.  But I certainly believe that society, these days, does find itself obsessed over babies, for whatever reasons.  (I haven’t got time/space to talk about it here.)

It concerns me, this obsession over babies and women having babies, though not as you might think, not only as a childless woman.  I may not appreciate the child-obsessed society I live in, but I can handle it.  What worries me more is the way this obsession continues to stereotype women into one particular role, limiting choice or the acceptance of different choices, and does it in a more insidious way than the blatant sexism of the past.  And the place of women in society is an issue that has been central to my sense of who I am since I was a child. 

I hate seeing the increased sexism that goes alongside this society-led baby obsession.  I hate seeing women being once again reduced to simply being a body, or worse a uterus, when my generation and especially the generations before me fought so hard for women to be seen as more than their body.  I believe that women have taken a step backwards in many ways in the last 10-15 years.  Or at least, we haven't taken the steps forward we would have expected and hoped for.  And many younger women, being raised in the age of unrelenting pink, and obsession with body shape and looks and overt sexuality, and celebrity babies, don't realise that they're being brainwashed into behaving in particular ways, that they're being stereotyped into certain roles, as much as my older sister and cousins were back in the 70s.  My 22-year-old niece – who would profess herself as a strong, independent young woman – appears to me to be more bound by societal attitudes – and far less aware of feminist issues and arguments - than I was at the same age.

And so, at the same time that society is becoming more diversified, more open and accepting of varying lifestyles, the idea of choice (and the acceptance of different choices) for women seems to have suffered.  And that makes me sad.

Note:  You won’t believe how much I had to edit this.  So apologies if it sounds like a rant.