Jess Tennant

When we lived in the house we thought our child/ren would grow up in, we frequently ran into this same lady on walks. I’m pretty sure she had amnesia.

More than once, she would talk about her kids, about summer, about getting ready for school, and then ask, “You guys have kids?”

And, in the middle of the most painful time to have to answer that question, we would have to say no.

But, more than once, she would then laugh good-naturedly, point at her toy-and-playset-festooned yard, and say, “You want mine?”

Things we did NOT say:

What the hell is wrong with you?

Why did you HAVE kids if you’re so eager to foist them on strangers?

Who decided this is a joke?

No, lady, we want OURS.

I think we laughed awkwardly and made our excuses to leave out of misguided politeness.

It was annoying. It was hurtful. I think it was supposed to be ha-ha funny, but the humor was lost on us as we walked slowly after whatever umpteenth loss we were recovering from.

It’s a comment that I don’t understand, much like “well, you’re lucky,” or, the bizarre comment we received from MULTIPLE people, “you can adopt me!” (Yes, we want to adopt someone who is older than us. That makes a lot of sense.) These are comments that trivialize our grief. They trivialize the difficulties we endure/endured to try to have the children that are apparently so annoying that they can be offhandedly gifted to others, or wished away.

It’s unthinking, insensitive, and nonsensical.

Although, this same person asked us repeatedly where our greyhound was and that she hadn’t seen us with him for a long while. She couldn’t seem to remember that the first time she asked, we had let her know that, actually, he had died rather suddenly. That didn’t stick either. Where did she think we were stashing our dog? It pointed to a larger problem than one very stupid comment.

A while later, after we knew we’d never have children, we ran into that same woman in line at Target. She was griping about school supply lists while in line with her two kids.

“Still no kids, huh?” she said between arguing about whether different colored folders were truly necessary.

“Nope.”

“You want mine?”

And then my husband, in his frustration and irritation, said, “YES, actually. We’ll take that one. Come on, you heard your mom, you’re coming home with us!”

The child looked confused. The mom looked horrified.

My husband said, “oh, I thought you were serious this time,” and we switched checkout lanes, trying really, really hard not to laugh until we got to our car.

We never saw her again. I’m hoping, though, that the final response stuck and she never subjected another person again to the hideous “want my kids?” comment. We wanted our kids. We never wanted yours, especially not when you’re tired of them, frustrated with them, and using them as an offhanded “joke.”