A brief sojourn

I've been silent the last few days - not just here but on all your blogs too - because I've been away celebrating a special occasion.  I've written about it on A Separate Life here.  http://aseparatelife.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/togetherness-a-tally/

The dilemma of No Kidding blogging

When I started this blog, I both wanted an outlet for my thoughts and feelings about navigating my way through life without kids.  I didn’t want it just to be about the tough bits of my life; I wanted it to reflect the good things about my life too, the things I can do and enjoy precisely because I don’t have children.  I wanted it to be honest.

I wanted to show others that the world doesn’t end when you can’t have children.  The world goes on, and our lives go on and become fuller, more meaningful.  There’s a lot of room to fill up when we say good-bye to infertility, and I think many of us fear we will never fill our lives.  But we do.  You can.  In my years of volunteering, I felt very valued and fulfilled.  I knew I’d already learned a lot, and by being honest about my own feelings and experiences, I knew that I was helping others.  And I hoped to continue that here.

But there’s a dilemma when blogging the No Kidding life  Because even though I’ve accepted my life, and love my life, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t still a few twinges of pain and loss.  And whilst it is cool to be the beacon of hope that life will be good, I think it is only right to be honest and acknowledge those ouch moments too.  Which is why I wrote my previous post. 

I don’t usually focus on the difficult parts of my life, the parts that remind me that I don’t have children, because ultimately that’s not the way I think or feel anymore.  I don't want to be pitied, I just want to be understood.  And I’ve posted before (here and here and many others besides) about the positives that come alongside those losses.  But there are times, when we hear things in the media or others say things to us, where I just roll my eyes or sigh in frustration, and respond. Sometimes, life, society, individuals give us no choice!

"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?

Those throwaway comments

My habit in the afternoons is to listen to a National Radio programme as I work on my computer.  As I expected, having seen reportage of yet another article commenting on whether people with children are happier or not than people without children, this was inevitably raised in a panel discussion.  (And yes, I've blogged about it before.)

It's becoming tiresome to me, this focus on these studies, as parents always react with a sense of indignation.  How dare anyone suggest they might have been happier without children?  Yet they seem perfectly happy to declare that their lives would have been more miserable without children.  And they seem incapable of looking at empirical research objectively, rather than deciding that if it disagrees with their own experience, then it must be wrong.

The announcer - a man who is usually sensitive to different people and lifestyles - then said, "people who don't have children don't miss anything.  Their lives don't change."

This is, I believe, a huge injustice to people without children.  It's not uncommon though, such a throwaway comment dismissing our lives. I know certainly that life at 50 without children is vastly different to life without children at 25 or 30.  So even if he and his guests knew what it was like not to have children earlier in their lives, they don't know what it would be like now.  They don't seem to realise that it is very different negotiating life in a pro-child pro-parent society through your 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.

One man said "I would not be the man I am today if I didn't have children."  That's very fair.  Of course having children changed him.  But my point is that he doesn't know what kind of man he would be today if he didn't have children.  He only knows what kind of man he was before he had children.  

And they completely ignored the issue of those who might not have children, but had not intended that this was what their lives would be.  They ignore the fact that couples and individuals who go through infertility or pregnancy loss or stillbirth, or who never find the life partner they want to have children with, find that they have to adjust their beliefs and expectations for life.  And they do.  We do.  And in doing so, we often go on to live very happy and fulfilled and engaged lives.  Because we know we want to make the best of our lives, whatever they deliver.  So I ask people who are tempted to make throwaway comments about those without children, to please don't ever dismiss the loss and the heartache and the personal growth we have gone through to get here.

PS.  And as I write this, they've gone on to discuss the electioneering that has begun, focusing on families not individuals, and now they're talking about school requirements for tablets or laptops etc.  I wonder if they'll discuss anything (other than Lorde at the Grammy's) that is relevant to people without children?

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.