Minor annoyances

I am feeling frustrated today. I'm part of a social media community about Ageing without Children. It includes both childfree and childless-not-by-choice. The last few days, a vehemently childfree man has been ranting, refusing to recognise the grief that CNBC might feel, trying to convince them that choosing to be without children is the best choice. He is tone-deaf to their loss, and has even ranted on Jody Day's page, fast becoming a troll. She gave him short shrift, to my pleasure. 

What annoys me is that people seem to think that we should buy in to their world view, whether it is pronatalist, or the complete opposite. I'm in a contented place where I am very happy at the moment with my No Kidding life, but where I see difficulties in the future which I wouldn't necessarily face if I had had children. I can see the advantages and disadvantages.There's no need to pit childfree against childless, when the rest of society judges us all, condescends to us all, and discriminates against us all.

A different, and very welcoming, social media group for Australia and NZ childfree/less members wondered what policy changes we might want to see made to consider our positions. I noted how frustrating it is to see policies made and services provided (whether by government or corporates) that are very difficult for the elderly childless person (or person with no younger people in their day-to-day6 lives). I'm including issues like elder care and housing, as well as the increasing assumption that every elderly person is proficient using the internet, or has help to do that. My father-in-law was an early adopter, with personal computers in his house from the 1980s. Yet even he really struggled as he aged, and could do little with the computer unless we did it for him. People forget that the elderly unlearn technology in their later years, or at least find it hard to learn new apps or websites. And they don't all have young people who can help them. My husband and I are doing our best to remain computer literate as long as we can. But no-one is immune to the effects of ageing, and we'll have to figure out ways to get through these challenges. If only the government services/corporates could understand that. Maybe the people writing their policies have never had to care for elderly people. Grrrr.

Then Loribeth highlighted some interesting articles on her Monday post here. There are some excellent reads, and I appreciated them. (Thanks, as always, Loribeth!) But one article made me want to scream and shout, and so I ranted a little on her page in a comment. It finished a useful article about the fact that Father's Day (or other holidays) might be difficult to get through for a range of reasons, and gave tips about how to cope. Then it undid all the good it had attempted to give, by finishing with a story about a couple struggling with infertility and hope, then becoming parents (by adoption). How tone deaf that article was. The writer really didn't get it! Fortunately, Sarah Chamberlin, formerly of Infertility Honesty, commented on the NY Times and pointed this out. She received a comment that expressed my exact view - "Father's day can be hard when articles discussing how hard it can be end with a miracle baby."

I have been wiser this month with Father's Day in the US, and have just scrolled past or ignored the many mentions I have seen. To be fair, some of them are directly to their own (still living) fathers, but there are also many mentioning their dear departed dads. It has been a very minor annoyance, and I'd almost forgotten about it until I read the aforementioned article. Fortunately, it passed unnoticed by my husband. That day will turn up here (and Australia) in a few months in early September. Then we can forget about them till March next year!

 

Accurate thinking

 I was just listening to an interview on our national radio station. It was aimed at how to help anxious children (and parents) but there were many points that were equally relevant to us. My favourite point, though, was:

"Don't teach positive thinking. Teach accurate thinking."

Isn't that perfect? (And not only because it has given me a topic for today! lol)

I'm not overly negative or cynical (despite being told by a colleague once that I was "quite cynical for one so young" when I made a comment that he agreed with) but I'm also not someone with a glass-half-full attitude all the time either. I like to think I'm realistic. (Though once again, this comment is tempered by remembering friends of friends on Fbk who think that they are politically objective, then spew all sorts of hate. Sigh!) Perhaps all these qualifications about who I am or am not just back me up. I hope I'm realistic. I think I was realistic when I saw the infertility and loss statistics for and against my age and my history (first after one ectopic, then after a second) and the evidence we (me, my husband, and my fertility guy) were faced with during IVF cycles, and assessed these without emotion (or rather, with emotion put aside) to determine what if any our next steps might or might not be. It doesn't mean that I didn't have hope. But hope - and for a while, despair - were tempered by evidence, science, and brutal (from each of us at different times) honesty.

I think this is what we ask for when we ask that the "think positive never give up" brigade understand our positions. We don't want our positions dismissed, or the evidence to be ignored. We just want people to understand or at least, to accept our situations. 

In exactly the same way, it is not accurate to assume that a life without children will be never-ending gloom, loss, or sadness. Neither is it accurate to say it will be perfectly happy, and that everything we've all been through will be forgotten. Of course not! It is accurate to say that our lives can and most likely will be good, happy, with some wonderful experiences. Looking on the bright side, embracing the good things we have already, or have because we don't have children, is not blindly optimistic. It is simply realistic. Life is full of balances, trade-offs, pros and cons. The joy is there if we look for it. That's accurate. And I'm not kidding!

Losing my Microblogging Mojo

I have a number of posts brewing but none of them will be brief, so I have to confess that I have (temporarily, I am sure) lost my Microblogging mojo. So somewhat predictably, I’m resorting to a list of miscellaneous thoughts, which I am a little surprised to find are falling into the “ouch” category. Maybe it’s just time, and maybe this post balances out my more positive post on A Separate Life.

Our political parties in New Zealand are gearing up to election mode, and I am already starting to feel isolated, as the focus is on “family, family, family.”

Yet I feel guilty about that too, as I hate the reality of children growing up in poverty, and agree that this is an important issue.

One of my elderly in-laws has been ill recently, and so – unlike any of the other siblings – we are feeling the full brunt of the responsibility that is on our shoulders. Of course it has raised issues, and we are talking to each other about how we will manage such situations when we are old, and hoping that we will recognise we should make changes in our lives before we actually need to.

For the first time in a long time, the other day I found myself on the receiving end of a terse comment that had the unwritten subtext, “you’re not a mother, so be careful what you say.”