Feminist concerns don't end with childlessness

My littlest niece turns 16 next week. 16!!! I’ve been more disturbed by that than my other nieces/nephews growing up. Maybe because I’ve had more to do with her. Maybe because she’s the last niece/nephew. There are already great-nephews on the scene; the oldest has his 21st birthday next week too. Good grief!

I was recently watching a teen drama, and couldn’t stop thinking about my niece being in each of the situations portrayed. Then yesterday morning, I read a NYT article that shocked me. I guess the fact I don’t have kids has protected me from the realities of teen life in the 2020s! Then again, because I don’t have the same bond and bias as a parent, maybe I can look at all these events and social patterns without quite so much personal involvement, and certainly without the fear of judgement of my parenting skills, or the often-delusional belief that “my child would never xxxx” that I have heard in the past from so many friends and family. I sent the article to my sister and chatted about it with her – she’s open to my comments as long as I’m restrained and tactful about my opinions! (It helps if I keep them generalised, rather than niece-specific!)

The thing about this article that disturbs me though is the lack of progress that women (or young girls) have made in terms of their sexual relationships. And men too, for that matter, as the article talks about peer pressure to perfect these acts. It stuns me that still, in 2024, certain acts are prioritised over female consent and pleasure, even by the young women themselves. And that what we might have seen as abuse is accepted by a majority today. Is it because they think it’s cool? That they have to, to be seen as desirable? That it fulfils some kind of female role? And some kind of male/female dominance/subservience role? Argh. Or is it just a lack of education, of discussion about gender and sexual roles? Is it just ignorance and peer pressure? In the meantime, in the practice discussed in the article, women are suffering ongoing health implications, and even death.

I don’t have to be a mother to be disappointed and disgusted by that. I don’t have to have a genetic stake in the next generation to be concerned about the future for young women and girls, and the way formerly abusive behaviours are being normalised. I despair that so little progress has been made. I could start into a much longer rant about my views on this, but I will spare you that. I'll just say that in this case, my bond with those who are subject to society's still biased gender assumptions and roles is far closer than any perceived distance between those who are parents and those who are not.

Thinking about life when you're childless

In recent conversations over the last few weeks, I have been reminded how readily my husband and I think and talk about ageing, about the natural progression of life (and death), about infirmity and about dying. And I have been surprised by how others do not do this.

In particular, we know we have been forced to think about this in two ways. Firstly, we couldn’t ignore the realities of ageing because we did the bulk of the elder care of his parents, watched their decline week by week by week over 20-30 years, and inevitably recognised that we too would be largely unable to avoid this. It always surprises me how many people aren’t willing to confront this, who think by exercising and keeping healthy they will avoid all the health problems that may crop up in their 70s and 80s, if not earlier. They are in denial, because they don’t want to face the fact that almost all of us will, if we’re lucky enough to survive to old age, have to deal with physical or mental decline. Of course, one of the reasons we were responsible for so much of the elder care was our No Kidding situation. We had no excuses for not visiting, for “not having the time” to care for the elderly parents, to think that a letter or Skype call once a month was sufficient to keep the relationship going.

Secondly, we can’t ignore the realities of ageing because if we don’t plan for our future, no-one will. We can’t rely on children, or even nearby nieces or nephews, because we don’t have any close by. We can’t ignore these issues, of not thinking about where we might want to end up, especially not if we want any sort of choice in the matter, and if we want to avoid the distress and fear we have observed in other elderly people who leave everything too late. Yet our guest seemed to be more concerned about where we would end up when we are dead (ie our ashes), than when we are still alive but in need of help. It is bizarre.

I confronted him about it, mentioning that his inaction might limit his choices when he does need help, that by not thinking about things he was – consciously or unconsciously – deciding to leave the burden on his children, and that it was quite selfish to do so. I also pointed out we didn’t have the luxury of doing this. And now that he knows, it is no longer an unconscious choice he is making to ignore his old age.

He does not even have a Will – can you believe that? He must think he is immortal! We’re not perfect. We know we need to update our Will. And after these conversations, I’m keen to do that early in the New Year.

Ultimately, being childless has forced us to think about these things. Ectopic pregnancies forced me to confront my own mortality, and doing so has brought me some peace. Accepting the randomness of life has made me accepting of whatever may befall us. And the ease of having compassion for others, knowing how easily misfortune can occur to anyone, and knowing that judgement often comes through ignorance and an inability to put  ourselves in other people’s shoes.

Learning to enjoy the little things in life, to feel gratitude, to continue to learn, to try to improve myself, all these things will make my life easier as I age, as they make my life easier now, and as they were a result of infertility and loss and survival. I am not kidding about any of life’s inevitabilities. I’m glad about that. I’m at peace. Whereas this person who wants for nothing materially, who has children and a wife and friends, is uncharacteristically ill at ease with his age and afraid of the future. Maybe, the grass is not always greener on the other side.

The road to Ithaka

I’ve posted today about the loss of an online friend on A Separate Life. Over the last few days I’ve been looking through his comments on my old blogs, and this one spoke to me. I’d posted back in 2008 about the directions my life had taken that I hadn’t expected, including my quest for motherhood, here. At the time, I was almost five years into my No Kidding life, but as you can see, didn’t talk that much about it. It was another couple of years before I began writing here, where I could be much more open. However, the theme of my post was very much along the lines of what turned into No Kidding in NZ.

Deloney got it. He and his partner didn’t have children. I don’t know (he never said) if it was by choice, or not by choice. It was never something he touched on. But regardless, his philosophy of life was similar to my own. And his comment to my post was the following poem, which sums up my feelings about our No Kidding lives. The first verse could sound like a version of “wishful thinking” but to me is the warning of getting stuck in the sorrows of the moment, and dread of the future, rather than opening up to what might be. It helps me to read it, not just because of the beauty of the language, but also because Ithaca, for me, is not the motherhood I had once intended, but a final nonspecific destination that is taking me on a beautiful journey. I hope you like it too.

 Thanks, D.

ITHACA
                  by Constantine P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon -don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbours you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.