Liz C

This topic triggers all sorts of thoughts and emotions for me. Merely a year or so after ending our journey of trying to become parents, we were leaving a friend’s place after enjoying a fun afternoon with their kids. What I didn’t expect to hear was her husband saying “well, you’re welcome to our kids!”! What particularly stung was that he knew our infertility struggles and they had also experienced challenges in becoming parents. At the time, it took all of my will power to say as calmly as possible “I can’t believe you would say that to me knowing what we’ve been through!”. He was appropriately embarrassed as he felt he was being humorous.

I always think that if it was really that easy to get or give away a child, there would not be hundreds (if not thousands!) of children in orphanages, in the foster care system or worse, on the streets or being mistreated in their own homes.

When I meet someone new who has kids, I know that the inevitable question of “do you have kids?” is bound to be asked in the first 10 minutes or less. Even when my answer is a simple “no”, there’s a range of unhelpful responses such as:

Oh, didn’t you want kids? I just couldn’t imagine not being a mother!
Did you try adoption or fostering?
I have a friend who …..<insert miracle story of child bearing success>
Wasn’t there that <insert name of random celebrity> who had a child when she was in her 40s or 50s?
Don’t give up, it’s not too late!

I don’t understand the need for people to make such statements or ask such personal questions. Of course, once I tell them I’m well into menopause, that often shuts them up!

What never ceases to amaze me is that there are so many parents are constantly complaining about how tough it is to raise children. This was prevalent both before, during and since the pandemic. Do they ever consider that there may well be people they know or even family members who have tried everything humanly and medically possible to have even one child?

It’s when people complaining about their children add insult to injury by saying “here, you can have mine!”, isn’t that just a blow to the guts? So their children are annoying or difficult but somehow the person without kids is so desperate that the parents can dump their brats onto someone else? What a way to be a good parent!

Being a practical person and having nearly a decade since realising I will never have a child, I have thought of different ways to respond to that cruel phrase:

Great thanks, I’ll take them but you’ll never get your kids back again!
Sure, can do…..but make sure you have saved up enough money to give me to raise your kids in the way that I would have wanted to raise a child. Oh oops, did you forget to I can’t have a child? Note that I have very high expectations of the life I would have been to give my child.
Why you don’t just put an ad up on social media or a local community board so that someone who really wants kids will not only take your kids, but you just might get reported to the authorities!

I only ever wanted to have a child made from a genetic combination of my husband and I. While I do care a lot for the kids of certain friends, I have absolutely zero desire to take their kids. Besides, if you could hand over their kids to me, how would I explain to your kids why their parents no longer wanted them? I’m not paying for that therapy bill! Having someone else’s kids dumped on me implies that I’m some kind of charity case and that “any kid will do” to fill the hole left in my heart by the babies I lost.

It is interesting that in the last few years and certainly the last few weeks (with the US presidential race), topics such as childlessness, infertility and what constitutes a family are now being more openly spoken about. There are a number of celebrities who speak openly about their struggles to have a child, such as Jennifer Aniston. There are celebrities talking about their miscarriage experiences. What I haven’t heard is any of those people unable to have kids or who had miscarriages crying out to the world “is there anyone who doesn’t want their kids? If so, I’ll take them”!

Education should be provided to all kids and to all parents to help them understand:

Not everyone can have children
It is never okay to ask someone “do you have kids” unless they volunteer that information
It is never okay to keep asking someone who doesn’t have kids “but why/why not?”
Fostering a child is difficult and not permanent
Adoption is near impossible and most times, you don’t get a baby (did you know that you can’t apply to adopt if you are undergoing infertility treatments?)
Not everyone gets to meet that someone special to raise a child with
Happily ever after doesn’t happen for everyone and it doesn’t automatically include children.

In conclusion, it’s time to CHANGE our conversations!