"Have you any children?"Now I have answered the last question many ways, usually with a forced smile.
"No"
"Why not?"
"We are working on it."
"There's still time yet."
"It's just not happened yet."
Now I realise these questions are not designed to cause offence, but if you are childless, not by your own choice, those 2 questions in combination can stir up so many emotions.
"Have you any children?" I take this pretty normally, as it's just a polite conversation point, but in conjunction with "Why not?" it can be interpreted so many ways, depending on my outlook that day. On a bad day the 'why not' can sound like:
- Are you strange, do you hate kids?
- What failure!
- Are you defective.
- Explain more, I'm nosey.
Since I turned 38, the cut off point for IVF in my area (which I went for, but wasn't allowed until my blood sugars were 'perfect', which as any other Type 1 diabetic will tell you is near to impossible), I've felt the likelihood of becoming a mum ebbing away, and it becomes harder each day to give a jovial response, so I find the easiest way to curtail the ensuing conversation is to have a standard response ready that generally stops any more Spanish Inquisition style questions.
Mine is:
"Why not?"
"His sperm and my eggs don't like each other."
Believe me, a quick mention of downstairs plumbing issues stops them in their tracks.
I don't sit around wallowing in my childless misery, most of us don't, but I do have bad days when the little things can get to me, so…….
I would like to share a couple more phrases us childless types hear over, and over, and over again, but would prefer not to.
"Stop worrying about it, it'll happen once you just relax."
Oh really! Could you produce your medical board certificate, so I know that you are qualified to diagnose my stress induced infertility.
"It must be great not having kids, you can go out without having to plan around the babysitter."
My 46 year old husband and I just love getting on our glad rags and heading down to the bars and clubs to hang out with all our other childless pals until the wee small hours, where all we do is chat about how 'great' it is not having kids.
Wait a minute, do we have any other childless friends?
Errrm, not many. So unless we always want to go out by ourselves, living the obviously charmed, never monotonous, life of constant coupledom, we also have the same problems as you because we have to plan our lives around your babysitters, your school pick ups, your school plays, your kids parties and your kid's illnesses.
Yep, so great, really great.
"With you not having kids I bet you can afford great holidays/new cars/ a big house."
Actually you'll find that most of childless couples aren't rolling in the cash or living the high life in Monaco. If they haven't spent a small fortune chasing the IVF baby dream, they'll probably be trying to stash money away in pension plans, or some other way to make retirement a pleasant experience when you won't have children to look after you.
And finally the one that truly makes my blood boil!
"You don't understand, you're not a parent."
OK I know becoming a mother will most definitely change your outlook on allsorts of subjects from education to a serving a balanced meal, but What The F***!!!,
Do you think that we live in an entirely different universe from you?
Do you think our personal inability to create a little bundle of matching DNA makes us idiots?
A lot of us are, or have been, aunties, uncles, godparents and babysitters, and all of us have been children, so I really think we can have a reasoned understanding of all your parenting trials and tribulations without you throwing out the parent's grande finale of 'cutting-you-off-a-the-knees' statements.
All I ask is that whilst you go about in your 'blissful' child-full lives please think before you say something that may upset to a childless couple who want children.
Remember they really know how lucky you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment