This week I came
across two blogs by mothers who have children. Each mother has written an entry
on other options available to those who can’t have kids – such as adoption,
fostering, IVF, babysitting, and even becoming a primary school teacher.
I’m sure they are
well-intentioned, but, no. No. NO!!!
Having someone who has
had kids tell us how it’s not all that bad because there are other ways to “have
kids” in our lives is just not right and completely inappropriate – to my mind.
I’ve had close friends
and family talk to me about other options available to me and Kirby, but they
know me and often the conversation has been started by me. And even when my
friends or family were the ones to start the conversation, they understand me
well enough to know, most of the time, when to talk about certain things about
not having children and when not to.
The problem I have about
blog entries such as the above is that these women are writing about something
so personal to many of us, so painful to many of us, and they don’t know us. They
have not had the experience of facing the truth that biological children are
not going to come along.
One of the entries even
ended with the phrase that “being told you can’t have
kids is not the end of the world”.
Well…yes it is. It’s the end of the world in which we will look into the eyes
of our children – it is the end of the world in which we will watch them grow
up – it is the end of the world in which we will get to hold them.
I do believe these women
were well-intentioned, but no – they do NOT get to tell us that we have
choices, and options, and that it’s not the end of the world.
2 comments:
Babysitting. Really? Argh! I wanted my own children. Not to temporarily look after someone else's!
You're right, of course. No-one with kids has the right to say that to me, because it is the end of the world in which we were going to be parents, as you so rightly point out. I, on the other hand, have every right to say on my blog that "not having kids is not the end of the world," because there is a lot in my comment that is being left unsaid. Including that we might have felt as if it was the end of the world, and that we are living in a completely different world now, as no kidders. Argh.
It would be nice if these people had reached out to women who don't have children, and asked them to write an entry.
Yes, yes, and yes! Couldn't agree with you more Mali! And yep - it's us that get to say "it's not the end of the world" when and if we are individually ready and as a personal thing...not a coverall for everyone who is unable to have children.
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