Moving Forwards

I wanted to write a lot more about World Childless Week than I have been able to, due to some other events around me (FIL faded rapidly and died last week).  

The final topic of the week was Moving Forwards. I feel as if that is the topic of this entire blog – showing that it is possible to move forward, to embrace our lives, find new things we love, or find that what we have is enough. There’s no need for a big change if that’s not your style. But if it is, then embracing your No Kidding life might give you the opportunity to do so. We all know that life and obligations (yes, the childless still have obligations!) can get in the way of our ambitions. But finding what is right for us, and learning to enjoy it, is the key to happiness. That’s true for everyone. To live your life, and know that it is enough. You are enough. We are enough.

When I lost my first two pregnancies I was in the process of moving from a career that had been first in government and then a large company. Being self-employed was a dream. I set up a business, which ran for a while then was sadly neglected. Ectopic pregnancies and infertility and other opportunities got in the way. My business was to develop travel itineraries for people who want to travel, but are too busy to plan their travel. I got some clients, and did some free jobs for others, but in the midst of infertility treatments and ectopic pregnancies, found it harder to have confidence in myself, and when other opportunities came along, they took precedence. I still have the business, but it hasn’t been active for years, although I have talked about reviving it – but COVID is really the last straw!

Contract work in my former field of international consulting with developing countries and developing agencies took more of my time. I also gained a couple of directorships in this field, and – right at the time I was feeling most vulnerable around pregnancy loss and infertility – I took on a leadership role on a Board of Directors. I didn’t feel confident at all, but was encouraged by friends into the role. I’m glad I took it. And as I had healed, I changed from being a user of an Ectopic Pregnancy charity website in the UK, to being a moderator/advisor/mentor. As the years went on, I came to love and appreciate this mix of activities and interests, and for one of the first times in my life became familiar with a feeling of contentment!

It wasn’t my ideal plan B. If you can find an ideal plan B and pursue it, then you’re lucky! My life-long dream to again live and work overseas, and the opportunities to do so, could not be pursued because we felt obligated to remain in this city caring for my aged in-laws. Then job redundancy, ageism in the workplace, health issues, parental health issues and deaths and further deterioration all kept us here too. But we adapted. We travelled when we could, and how we could – a highlight was a three-month period (as part of a longer trip) in Italy when my in-laws were still capable of looking after themselves day-to-day, and we took shorter trips when a brother or a cousin and others could step in and help out if necessary. The stereotype of the childless couple that lives a free and easy life travelling the world isn’t actually that common. Because … life steps in. It doesn’t mean that we are not moving forwards. We are. Because we are designing the life we want, as much as we can do so. And to me, that is what moving forwards means.

So we take pleasure in the little things in life. I took up photography, and we appreciated the little things in life – walks around the harbour or through our native bush, short holidays, drinks and dinner with friends, blogging and writing, gardens, golf, etc etc. It has been especially helpful in the times of COVID, when travel isn’t an option anyway. We’ve learnt to adapt, and continue on with our lives, embracing what we have. I see my fellow No Kidding friends doing the same, all over the world, and I am so incredibly proud of all of us. Living our lives, with awareness and gratitude. That’s the very definition of Moving Forwards.

 

We are Worthy - Repost

 I wrote this for World Childless Week two years ago. It still stands. You can find the original here:

Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Am I not worthy too?

The single thought that erodes our confidence is this one. Am I still worthy if I don’t have children? Because I didn’t have children, does that mean I’m not worthy?

And perhaps the single thought that helped me change my thinking was acknowledging the inherent flaw in that earlier thought.

I looked at women who have children easily, who don't have losses, who have never lost their innocence in pregnancy. They have not been judged to be worthy, just as I have not been judged to be unworthy. I look at women who get pregnant when they don't want to. Why does this happen?  Well, just because it does. It doesn't mean that they are better than me. It doesn't mean they are luckier than me. They don't feel luckier, if the pregnancy wasn’t wanted. Those who struggle to cope physically, or financially, or emotionally, with a(nother) baby don't see the baby as a gift, even if that is how we would have seen one. I look at women with children who neglect them, abuse them, or abandon them, who expose them to violent or abusive partners, who pay more attention to their own needs than those of their child. Clearly, the biological act of having a baby is not evidence of their good character, or their good behaviour. These women are no better than me, or you. A child is never a reward for good behaviour, however much some of us might have wished that were so. Not having a baby is not a punishment, however much it might feel like that at times.

This whole idea that only the deserving get what they want is really dangerous. I could discuss its implications in wider society and even geopolitics, but I won’t. I’ll just say that it is wrong, and accepting this makes us see things differently, and see others differently.

It can though, take a while to reach acceptance. Women are very good at blaming ourselves. We search for answers. We expect answers. These days, when so much can be cured, solved, calculated or discovered, we can't understand why some of us can have babies and some of us can't. We get angry, and often, because there is no-one else we can blame, we blame ourselves. Pointlessly. Painfully. Sometimes destructively.

I've lived and travelled around the world. I have seen wonderful people in difficult circumstances. I have seen awful people with family they don't value, with riches they don't appreciate or do anything good with. I have seen beloved, kind, good friends die young, I've seen those who have been tortured and I've seen the torturers, and I've seen the selfish and even the downright evil live till they are very old. None of this is justified or right. None of this happens for a reason. None of this is because one person was judged to be worthy or not. None of this is because they were or were not being rewarded. It just is.

No Kidding women and men are worthy. They are valued members of society. Their contributions to the world are different to those of parents, but are not lesser. Their very being shows that not everyone is the same, and that this is okay. Being different does not mean less worthy. In this world we need to understand that.

Finally, I’ll leave my system of banishing negative thoughts (below) that always reminds me that I’m a decent person, deserving, worthy. We are worthy. Don't forget that.

World Childless Week

Today World Childless Week begins. You can find more about it here, including the events being held around it. For weeks I've been planning to write posts on the daily themes for this year, because I'm always looking for new topics to write about. They are:

Monday 14th - Our Stories
Tuesday 15th - Diversity
Wednesday 16th - Ageing without Children
Thursday 17th - Men Matter Too
Friday 18th - Comments that Hurt
Saturday 19th - We are Worthy
Sunday 20th - Moving Forwards

However, as the Childless Week dawned this morning, I acknowledge that the truth is that I've already written about many of these topics, many times. They're all important topics. Topics that are real, that are ongoing issues for us all living our No Kidding lives.

When I started writing this this morning, I was planning a few days away with my husband, something we've been meaning to do for almost a year, but caring for my father-in-law and then COVID-19 means it has been put off on a regular basis. We're now able to move around the country, and we were looking forward to a short road trip to a sunny wine region. So I was planning just reposting on these topics. However, since then, we've had to cancel our plans, so I might have more time to write something new.  Today (in a separate post) I have updated My Story.

I applaud Stephanie Phillips, Founder of World Childless Week, for bringing the issues and joys of our minority to the world. And I applaud everyone who is writing this week, or speaking out on social media or via interviews, podcasts or videos, or who are joining the webinars. There's going to be a lot to read and absorb, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure you'll all find someone's words at #worldchildlessweek that you can relate to, that provide comfort or inspiration, or simply help you feel less alone. Because you're not alone. We're all here with you.

 

 

World Childless Week: Comments that hurt

This year’s World Childless Week’s Comment that Hurts is: "You never know true love until you have a child."

The thing is, anyone who makes this comment, or other similar comments, is saying it to raise themselves up. Perhaps they’re feeling overwhelmed with love for their children, and speaking mainly about themselves. That seems reasonable, but still, the choice of language in this very commonly used sentence is thoughtless. Or worse – perhaps deliberately unkind. Maybe they are feeling defensive for some reason, and need to retaliate. Maybe they are feeling jealous or insecure, and need to make themselves more important, and so figure that the best way to do that is to belittle someone else. Maybe they’re just feeling smug, and self-important. But whatever their motive for saying it, this comment is not accidental, not casually thoughtless. It is putting us in our No Kidding place – our (in their view) inferior No Kidding place, where we don’t (apparently) know true love.

But that’s the thing about my No Kidding place. It isn’t where the speaker might think it is. And it is certainly not inferior. It’s in a good place, a more compassionate place, a place full of love – for ourselves, for what we lost, for others in similar positions. My efforts and love is spread wider than my nuclear family, shared in multiple places, for the elderly, for my No Kidding community, and for children who are not my own. It's not a selfish love, but is still love, still protective, still nurturing. That is not the same No Kidding place that the speaker was before they were a parent either. No, my No Kidding place is a place of growth, wisdom and confidence.

So from the start, I do not accept the premise of their comment. That enables me to take back some power, the power that is stripped away when we first hear comments like this.However long it has been since we knew we wouldn’t have children, such comments can still hurt, they’re still judgemental; they imply that we are selfish, or not mature enough to be parents, that we are not fully developed human beings. Ultimately, they imply that we are lacking somehow. Those comments bite into us, and leave scars.  But my scar tissue is pretty well healed these days, and I recover quickly. I might say, "I'm glad you got to feel that love." Or perhaps I'll ask, "did you mean to be so unkind?"

There are many types of love in the world, and none of us can judge how another feels. Who is to say what true love is? No, I have never known and will never know the love that a mother feels for her child as she raises them. I knew the love I felt when I was so briefly pregnant, and the love I felt for my unborn children when I was trying to get pregnant, but I know that anyone who makes those comments will not count that love. I do, however. 

 

But to end on a positive note, so do others. Not all parents feel this way. I’m going to go back five years to this post, where I link to a post by a woman who was parenting post-infertility. She noted that infertility defined how she felt, and that the hardships of parenthood were similar to those of infertility. More particularly, she acknowledges that those of us who were unable to have children know love. Just in a different way. These were her words, worth repeating:

"When my love for my daughter literally steals my breath and makes my heart feel like it's going to explode, when the fear of something happening to her rises to the level of spiritual warfare ... I remind myself that my infertile friends do know that love and that fear.  Many of their worst fears have been realized.  They love their miscarried and stillborn babies every day of their lives.  Many others know the agonizingly ambiguous loss of their dreams.  They love the children in their imaginations.  It is a real, powerful, mama bear love that should never be dismissed or minimized."

Note:      There has been a post topic every day this week, but I have been travelling and busy, so haven’t been able to address every topic. You can find the topics here, and the links to posts from No Kidding women from all over the world.