Jacqui Knight

It’s really hard not to feel the knife that goes through my heart when someone makes a thoughtless comment that ignores the hurt of my childlessness. It’s easy to believe that the person delivering the remark should have known better. “If you’d walked a day in my shoes you’d know how much such a comment cuts deep.” And there-in lies the problem: they haven’t walked a day in my shoes, and thank goodness for them that they haven’t.

Often, the comment comes from the awkwardness of a “no I don’t” response, to the dreaded question of “So, do you have children?”

Yes, of course I realise that what they may be saying is that being a parent isn’t always a bed of roses, that it’s hard and there are times when they look at their life and wonder how it might have been if they hadn’t had children. I get that. I get that because it’s a familiar story; it’s portrayed in movies, spoken about extensively on social media and widely represented in our society. 

My story, however, is more nuanced and hidden. My story includes how it feels to not have long-term friendships that were forged in antenatal classes. How it is to never know what it’s like to wait at the school gates. How it is to live without ever feeling the unquestioning and unconditional love of my child. I have to believe that if they got that, if they could imagine it and sit with it for just a moment, then they wouldn’t say something so thoughtless. Instead they would sit in compassion and support with me, wouldn’t they? 

I guess what I’m saying is: I realise that, in most cases, when people say these thoughtless remarks that they aren’t really talking to me, they are simply talking from them. It maybe that it comes from an embarrassment, an unknowing, an ignorance... Is that an excuse? I don’t know. Yes, everyone can educate themselves; we shouldn’t have to walk in each other’s shoes to be able to imagine what it must be like. I guess I’m saying that there are many people who simply don’t know what they don’t know.

The challenge, of course,is that every one of our stories is nuanced and in some way hidden. Am I therefore expecting too much from the person with children to know how it is for me, when how it is for me is so different to how it is for the next childless or childfree person. Maybe wanting others to navigate and be sensitive to my story is asking too much. Maybe the best person to hold me safe is me.

And then there are those in my life who want to know this part of me, so that they can do the joint work of holding respectful boundaries. The ones who have taken time to sit with the reality of my situation. The ones who speak more carefully and considerately; who include my childlessness rather than just ignore it. The ones who speak with a softness and a caring for my hurt. I couldn’t live without these people.