Unexpected sense in a discussion about the childless

I'm sitting here thinking about what I might write this week, and there's suddenly a No Kidding topic on the radio. In real time. How fortuitous! Apparently, there are social media videos trending at the moment saying kid-free couples are luckier financially than those who are parents. (At this point, I stopped typing, and started listening!)

They had an economist on who made two main points:

1)  there is no evidence of this disparity, yet there are poor and rich people whether or not you have children. Double income no kids (DINKs) people are often both in low income jobs, and financial inequality in NZ is all about how much income is coming into the house, not whether they have children or not.

2) welfare support programmes have, in recent decades, been focused on those who do have children (eg, we have a Working for Families tax credit, or there are programmes to reduce child poverty, etc), and therefore there is a compelling case that those without children also need extra support, as they have not had the benefits/financial buffers of these other programmes.

The radio programme has a host, the guest economist, and two guest panellists. It surprised me how very careful everyone was. I was bracing myself for the stereotypes, especially when the host said, "But aren't we always told that having children is expensive?" But the conversation didn't go that way. It was pointed out that maybe those without children spend their money on different things, or might live in more expensive urban areas, so don't have any more savings or wealth than those with children. That they might even "fill the hole" left without children by buying fancy cars or eating out ("or travelling," I silently added to myself).

One person commented how terribly insensitive these videos were to those trying to have children, or those who were unable to have children, and another person mentioned that the smugness of some of these videos might be a backlash to the fact they feel judged by parents. That by bragging about their lives they were making up for the condescension from parents that having children makes someone  "more spiritually whole." 

This was the most balanced, carefully unemotional discussion of a parent vs childless issue that I have ever head. Clearly it was raised as a topic because it usually gets people involved in lively discussion, because everyone likes to defend their position. But the host and panellists and economist all exceeded my expectations. They did not descend into an us vs them debate, but all stood back, chose their words carefully, and considered the evidence. Just as I would want them to do. It was wonderful.

You can listen to it here. It starts at 16.08 minutes into the discussion.

I have one proviso about this discussion. But I'm going to save it for discussion some other time. In the meantime, maybe there is hope if there can be sensible, considerate discussions on our mainstream media?

Language and assumptions

I'm a fan of words. I love the nuances of language, and languages. Language tells us so much about cultures and individuals and history and colonialism and oppression and dominance and, thankfully, change. And language too is so much part of pronatalism, and oppresses and disadvantages those of us who are not parents. How "as a mother" is supposed to convey a degree of sanctity and superiority. How childLESS focuses on the LESS part of our lives, and not on the full part of our lives that we live when we find we can't have children. Etc.

So as a fan of words, I am a fan of those who make words accessible. I bought a great book years ago called The Meaning of Tingo, which shares words in different cultures and languages that have no equivalent translations. And I am a fan of Susie Dent, an English exicographer and etymologist. She has a Word of the Day on social media, and I love these. She introduced me to a favourite word - "scurryfunge" - which means the frenetic cleaning you do in anticipation of a visitor arriving. I'm an expert scurryfunger! In fact, scurryfunging is how my house remains clean. There aren't too many other motivations to do so!

Anyway, one of her words of the day was "ultracrepidarian." It's a 19th century word that means one who loves to give their opinion on matters they know nothing about. It's perfect for the world today. But equally, it is perfect to describe those people who think they know what it is like to be a person living a No Kidding life. Especially parents. 

So now you know. If someone starts assuming that your life is free, with no responsibilities, no regrets, no "what-ifs"  you can stop them in their tracks, and say, "oh, you're an ultracrepidarian!" If they start telling you that you're sad, or that you don't know love, that your life is gloom and doom, or that your life is unfulfilled just because you don't have children, you can respond with, "oh, you're another ultracrepidarian!" 

Then explain what it means. And see if they get it! 

Disclaimers: 

1) I have not tried this, but I'd love to have the opportunity. 

2) I thought it was time to have a fun post!

Forever Stereotyped or Invisible

It is World Childless Week.
Today we are talking about the Childless in the Media.

In the 1980s, when I was just starting to make my way in the world, there was a real freedom for young women. Our lives did not have to be defined by our biology. We could pursue careers and opportunities beyond those of becoming a wife and mother. We could choose if and when we might become a parent. The world was our oyster. Little did I know that whilst opportunities would exist for me that my mother never had, society’s stereotypes and restrictions would manifest again in rampant pronatalism, duplicating the expectations and judgements that she was subject to back in the 1960s.

There are two main stereotypes about those without children that permeate our societies. We are either the carefree and selfish childfree, or the pitiable childless who dwell in eternal misery, regretting the lives we never had, or worse, becoming unhinged, wanting to take other people’s children. These stereotypes are recreated in the media again and again. But neither are true representations of people without children, who are as varied as any other group in society. Those of us who wanted to but couldn’t or didn’t have children – commonly called the childless – learn to accept our situation and to embrace our lives without children. Yet when we do so, we simply become stereotypes again; the “selfish” people without children, with no responsibilities.

The stereotypes are hard to avoid. The “miracle baby” stereotype is well entrenched in the media. Articles about infertility or assisted reproduction almost invariably end with a “happily ever after” case of a surprise baby or final successful IVF cycle. There is little or no acceptance of a life that doesn’t end this way. Little acknowledgement of the statistics showing most people do not get these results. No challenges to the stereotype that the only outcome worth talking about is the one that ends with a baby. And almost never any exploration of what it might be like to be the ones who go on to live without children. We are ignored. Hidden. Dismissed.

I was once interviewed for an article about Christmas by a national media organisation. They wanted to write about Christmas for the childless, and how isolated we might feel. I said that societal and media messaging concentrates on Christmas and holidays are only for children, and completely forgets those of us without them (or with children who are estranged, or live overseas, etc). My main point was that we can reclaim Christmas – a message I have been emphasising on my blog No Kidding in NZ for more than ten years. Christmas is not just for children, and we can establish our own traditions, do what we enjoy, carve out time alone, and make it special for us too. When the article was published, this point was ignored entirely. The narrative they wanted was that childless people were sad and lonely.

Of course, the “selfish” stereotype is common in articles too. The truth is that people without children – whether childfree or childless or a mixture of the two – help each other, take on important roles in our societies and communities and extended families, volunteer, and give to charity. We do this more widely and frequently than those who are parents. We help the elderly in our family when the parents are too busy to do so, but often with expectation, rather than acknowledgement and gratitude from our siblings/cousins etc. The definition of “selfish” is skewed too. After all, what is selfish about simply living our lives when there is no other good alternative? So what if I can take a trip when parents have children in school? That’s not being selfish, it is simply being practical. Such lazy reporting is sadly too commonplace in today’s media.

Likewise, reporting about elections brings an onslaught of messages about “families” or hopes for “your children’s children” from politicians. In an election here in just a month or two, I have little hope there will be challenging questions from reporters that might consider the needs of all members of society, especially those of vulnerable people who don’t have families around to help them.

Sadly, pronatalism is so strongly entrenched in our society that even journalists, supposedly taught to question and probe and investigate, seem oblivious to their bias. I would be delighted to see this change. But I admit I am not hopeful.

 

We can't escape

After my post about my travel last week, I remember I left a couple of things out.  It wasn't a sneaky strategy to stretch out the post over two weeks, although I appreciate the fact that I haven't had to think of a new topic for today! They're just proof that however far we go, we can't escape from the reminders, even if they were very minor in the scheme of things.

Mother's Day itself passed easily for me. We were in Zimbabwe, on a South African train, and both countries celebrate Mother's Day in May. There was no TV and no wifi for four days, so we didn't get an onslaught of advertising for the day. It was not mentioned on the train I was travelling on. It was not mentioned at the hotel we checked into that day (after disembarking from the train). It was not mentioned by anyone! So much so that I almost forgot it was happening. Until the next day when, finally reunited with wi-fi after the train trip (my longest wifi gap in about 11 years by my reckoning), I opened social media. Oh, the onslaught. The onslaught of messages - even the "for those who find this day difficult" messages - were a reminder that I was not included in this day. It brought me down. Stupidly, I had failed to take my own advice and stay away from social media! Doh! But I wasn't down long. I just posted more photos of luxurious trains and magical elephants from the previous few days as my revenge.

A week earlier, I posted a cute photo of a lion cub gnawing on the ear of a lioness, part of a pride we were watching. My SIL made a comment. "The things mothers have to put up with." I rolled my eyes. She is increasingly saying things like this that don't seem relevant to the post to me, but are clearly top of mind for her, perhaps because her kids are starting to leave home and she's feeling it. I pointed out that the mother was actually behind the little cub (they had wandered in together). She wasn't as tolerant. It was one of the very patient aunts who was being pestered by the cub. (Of course, I got no response to that.) Lions raise their offspring in a community. (I've mentioned this before). I love that about them. If only the human world was quite as inclusive.

"Do you have children?" - how parents might react

Further to my post last week, this week I want to talk about the perspective of parents, both in asking this question, and their reactions to it.

From the perspective of the majority, the people who have children, the question* “do you have children?” seems perfectly reasonable. For them, it is an easy topic of conversation, an easy way for them to find things in common to talk about, with lots of follow-up questions (how old, what schools, etc). It breaks the ice, and allows people to bond quickly when they don’t know anything about each other. “What’s wrong with that?” they think, not allowing themselves to answer their own question. So I'll answer it for them.

When we do have a conversation with strangers, rather than ask the question bluntly, some throw in a casual comment or comments about their children that are often a seemingly natural part of conversation. This is perfectly natural – we talk about what we know. But it also might be that these comments are in fact a fishing expedition, a call-and-response process. Those making them might mention something as an aside, but they are also often testing the waters to see if there is a response that tells them whether they can continue to this line of discussion. It tells them whether they can delve further into the world of parenting and kids or not. I’m actually fine with this approach. It allows parents to choose whether or not they want to volunteer information about their children. And it is a much more subtle way of asking “the question,” and one which doesn’t require a direct response. It is more sensitive, and less intrusive, and allows me to show interest in their lives, without throwing myself into a whole “I have kids too” type of conversation.

We all follow this “fishing” technique in multiple ways – talking about work, or seeing if there is an interest in travel or sport or even politics or reading or gardening or any other topics of conversation – without directly broaching the issue which might cause conflict or make someone feel awkward. I, for example, am careful about talking about travel with people I don’t know (and people I do know) … though not so much on my blogs! I’m conscious that there are people who would love to travel, but can’t because of financial issues, fear of flying, child or parental care issues, health issues, work issues, partners who refuse to travel, nervousness, those who can’t travel because they don’t want to travel alone, or those who just aren’t interested! And so I take my cues from others. Just as anyone, casting out small comments about an issue to see if anyone takes a bite, needs to watch for those bites or their absence. Their absence is just as informative as a confirmation. People who are fishing like this need to read* the room, as do the others in the conversation. We all need to be aware.

To state the obvious, in a conversation amongst adults who have just met each other, if someone does not respond to a comment or several separate comments about children, or responds referring to their niece(s) or nephew(s), there is probably a very good reason for it. If anyone is not volunteering information about their children or nonchildren, then they are clearly not wanting to bring up the issue in that group. At that point, a tactful conversation can easily and gently continue in other directions, without making anyone feel awkward. It doesn’t even have to go as far as making anyone feel very awkward.

I’ve heard it suggested that asking "the question" allows shy parents to join in on the conversation, when otherwise they might feel excluded. In my observations, however, parents don’t generally hang back from mentioning their children, unless they don’t want to, and it is common for parents (even shy ones) to say, “mine too” or offer some other anecdote about their children, simply to establish a mutuality of experience, show that they understand, or that they are part of the club too, or to invite other conversation about kids. It’s an issue of where is the most or least harm. Parents who are shy about joining a conversation are rarely going to feel as excluded as those of us without children when asked a pointed question.

But those of us who are childless or childfree are not the only ones who might bristle at being asked this question, or feel excluded in a conversation. 

• Perhaps they are trying to have them and struggling? 
• Perhaps they have lost a child or pregnancy
  
• Perhaps they just don't want to talk about their kids that particular day
  
• Maybe they have special needs kids and so can’t join in on parts of the conversation and don't want to go through the explanation yet again
• Maybe they have a difficult relationship with their children. 
• Or perhaps they've just had a terrible day and need a break 
• What if their children are really struggling at the time?
• What if their kids have behavioural difficulties?
• What if their kids are diabolical teenagers at the moment/the last two years? 
• Let's not even touch on the conversations amongst women about vaginal births, breastfeeding etc which can isolate those with C-sections, adoptive parents, those who used surrogates, couldn’t breastfeed, etc.
• Maybe parents don't feel comfortable sharing anything about their children to strangers
• Some parents just don’t always want to talk about their kids all the time.
• Maybe a mother is sick of being categorised as a mother before everything else. 
• Maybe they want to be seen as a person in their own right at a particular event or in a business context
• Maybe they're my SIL, who told me how a colleague used to discuss business or clients with her when they were on the same train commuting home, until she had her first child. Then she was only asked about her child, even though she was a new partner at their law firm. She was put in a box, and was not treated as an equal. It infuriated her.
  
• Maybe parents go out to meet new people as an escape or break from parenting?
• Maybe not every parent is ecstatic about their parenthood
• Perhaps they don't want to be identified as a parent
• Perhaps they lost custody of their children
  

I’m sure there are many other reasons why some parents might not want to be invited into a conversation about their children.

It’s a question, then, that people ask from a place of privilege. Not just the privilege of being parents, but of being parents who are happy to talk about their kids, to share with others the fun stories, or the details of where they go to school, or play sports, or how well they’re doing at university or in their chosen careers. I really wish parents would think about that. After all, they might be more compassionate to their fellow parents than they are to the No Kidding!

Of course, having said that, I do have to acknowledge that parents might be so busy parenting that there is little else that they think about, or even have the capacity to think about. When parenting is so all-encompassing, they may feel uncomfortable in discussions about other issues - they don't have time or energy to travel, or read the latest news or listen to music or watch the latest Netflix shows or see plays or play sports or eat out. Maybe they don't work, or work is just a means to an end. I understand that. And I could talk about that with them, or even about what they wished they had time to do/see/read etc. It's not as if I am totally against discussions about children. Of course, although I'm especially interested in my friends' children, I'm happy to hear about other people's kids. But not to the exclusion of all else.

So my point is that it should never be a one-sided conversation, ignoring those who can't or who are uncomfortable participating. Conversations should be an exploration of experiences, views, commonalities, information. They should invite people in rather than leave people out.  Some questions don't do that. "Do you have children?" might be one of them.

* Yes, I know, I’m in danger of mixing metaphors, and I hope this is not too obscure for my English as a Second Language readers. 

 

 

 

Feminism and childlessness

 I was prompted to write* this by a BBC article on a UN Gender Study which “found that 90% of people hold some sort of bias against women.”

 “How depressing,” I thought. “How depressing that it is so unsurprising.”

 I think I’ve been a feminist since I was a little girl. I was certainly a feminist before I was officially “No Kidding” or childless, before I entered the workforce, and before puberty. It’s how I see the world. How the world has seen me. And so of course, reading these articles, my mind immediately went to how frustrating it is in our lives when we are pigeon-holed by society, in business, politics and government, healthcare, sport, the arts, domestic arrangements, etc. You name it! We are further constrained by our parental status – whether as a mother, or as a childless, No Kidding woman. I took it a bit further, seeing that discrimination against us, as women without children or as mothers, is a form of misogyny. It does not see us as individuals, but as objects, and judges us by our biology, rather than by our personalities, our characteristics, our flaws and our talents.

Motherhood, as great as it may be, has been a way of keeping women in control and at home. It is seen as “women’s work” and isn’t paid. It is belittled, generally by men, who seem to – in general – escape the really hard work that mothers do. How often do we hear praise for a man doing – for maybe an afternoon, or a couple of days – what their partners/wives have been doing for years? Even now, even in 2020? In pandemic lockdowns, who has been doing the childcare and home-schooling, even whilst trying to hold down their jobs when working from home?

 I’ve often wondered why, in the last twenty years or so, there has been such a rise in the cult of motherhood, even at the same time that there has been a rise in expectations of what women need to do to be considered “a good mother.” It seems as if we can’t win. You can’t win if you are not a mother. You can’t win if you are. You can’t win if you are anything less than “perfect.” And who decides what is “perfect?”

People, even women who have achieved things no other woman has achieved before them, struggle with change. I wrote some time ago about working with New Zealand’s first woman trade commissioner. Like so many women who achieved in the 1970s and earlier, Frances never married. There was no legitimate reason for her to stay at home. There was no legitimate reason for them to discriminate against her at work – they couldn’t argue that sending her to an overseas posting was going to mean that her husband’s career (like husband’s 20 years later) would suffer. She was so accustomed to the system and the times that she was surprised when she discovered I hadn’t changed my name when I married. I wasn’t the only woman in my department who had done that – many of my best friends were there, and didn’t change their names, or never married their partners – but maybe I was the first she asked about it. “Is that legal?” she said. Then, still struggling with the concept that my “maiden,” unmarried, name was simply my name just like her name was also the name she was born with, she asked what name my passport was in.

She struggled with change. Many women struggle with change, and struggle to see women in positions of authority, or women expecting help at home with the kids. “I didn’t have that, and survived okay,” they may think. Sometimes I wonder if it is jealousy. Or disappointment that they didn’t have the options. Women who have not had careers (either by choice or forced by society’s strictures) or those who have always worked for men, may struggle with the idea that one woman can be above them, when they are accustomed to seeing men making the decisions, getting all the power. They still use the old misogynistic standards of success and power because they’ve been brain-washed. They cannot imagine that women could be just as powerful. (And I haven’t even touched on the whole sexual objectification of women. That would keep me here all week!) Men, of course, struggle with the idea that they may lose their place and privilege. However powerless they might be, they like to feel that someone is beneath them. Power systems are taught, on both sides of the power gap. Discrimination is taught. Ultimately, misogyny is taught. 

And I think that’s why some women with children often look down on those of us without. So they infantalise us, pity us, put us in a box that is lower than them. They want to feel a little superior to someone else, when they may feel constrained or judged. I’ve written about that elsewhere. I think it’s why some of the vehemently childfree object to those of us who are No Kidding but don’t want to be called childLESS, usingthe label childfree. They don’t think we deserved it.  

But my point of all this is that we women** have so much in common. None of us wants to be judged because of our biology and what it can or cannot do, or to be restricted because of who society perceives us to be. We should remember that. We’re all women. We don’t need to turn on each other. We’re in this together.

 

 * Apologies to any No Kidding writers who covered these articles already. Let me know in the comments if you did.

** Further apologies to any male readers of my blog. This one was just for the women. I’m sure you can relate to a lot of it though.