I’m childless, single, and never married. And I wanted a partner and children. I wanted to grow a family and create my own pod of people who I would belong to forever. Being single is the reason I will never have children.

Comments about singles go right to the heart of my value as a human being...the unspoken phrase hanging in the air is “What is wrong with her?” How do you answer “Why are you single?” without feeling defensive and worthless in the eyes of a casual observer? Even I notice that question crop up when I meet a coworker who tells me she lives alone in her 40s. “Why is she single?” floats into my mind, an automatic delayed judgment to save for the next time something unusual occurs. Ohhh, that must be why she’s alone. Admit it, this creeps into your mind, too.

Being childless and single, never married feels like you don’t fit in anywhere. Even sometimes among other childless women. I don’t fit in during conversations about how grief impacts a marriage or partnership. I grieved when my relationships ended, each breakup hitting harder the closer I got to 40. The last one meant the end of my dream, my children. Now I face the black abyss of a path I never wanted, and I face it alone.

I don’t fit in conversations about infertility - I have no idea if I’m infertile because I never had the chance to try. I don’t grieve my body’s inability to get pregnant; I struggle with my body’s inability to attract a good partner (aging doesn’t help this). I never met someone who wanted to create a baby with me. Do you know how it feels to spend decades dating and not find anyone who wants to start a family with you? It isn’t so much that my body is broken, it’s the fear that I’m broken. No one can see my value (if they did, I’d be partnered, right?), and on dark nights it feels like maybe that’s because my value isn’t there.

I don’t fit into discussions about hopeful Plan B futures as a family of two. I don’t have someone to build with, no partner’s income to rely on while I take time away from work to heal or to help fund a Plan B future. I don’t have someone here to notice and ask me “You seem down lately, is everything ok?” I don’t answer questions with “We” or “Our” (“We had a lovely dinner at X restaurant”, “Our plans for the weekend are…”). It’s just me.

I don’t have a companion during long pandemic days of isolation. How long have you ever gone without a hug? How many times has your heart stung on zoom calls where partners pop in to give their loved ones a kiss goodnight? Childless people understand how calls with parents are a minefield...did you ever think about how the calls with partnered people can hurt just as deeply to a single woman? Just seeing someone pop in to ask about the grocery list...oh, you have someone there with you. Wow. That must be really nice. God, I’m so alone.

When I share how hard it has been to be alone, partnered people defensively try to prove that their experience isn’t all that great, their relationship has flaws, they don’t enjoy it all the time (eerily similar to mothers’ responses, no?). As if being partnered is a mysterious experience that people who’ve had roommates, friendships, and even dated could never understand. They tell me how they haven’t had any alone time, or how they are exasperated with their partner. In my snarky moments I want to ask: well, are you exasperated with your partner’s income? If you hate it so much, why don’t you leave?

It is a special sort of isolation to hear insensitive phrases coming from my own childless community. A community who deeply understands what it is like to be dismissed. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad, but sometimes talking to childless partnered women (yes, even the consciously childless) feels like talking to my mom-friends: “Oh, you’ll meet someone someday!” and “Being married isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”. Instagram is full of: “Families of 2 are still families!”, where accounts for childless focus on infertility and couple support. If families of 2 are still families, what does that say about me?

The partnered childless seem to scramble for the last dregs of social cachet to distinguish themselves from the singles. The message is loud and clear - at least we still have each other. Some broadcast their fear of being left, framing the single existence as the worst possible outcome...that one hits a bit too close to home. I’m a living boogeyman. A cautionary tale even among the childless.

Being othered doesn’t mean you can’t other someone else.

What helps? I much prefer hearing: “I don’t know what to say, that sounds really hard and I’m sorry you are dealing with that,” or “My experience has been different from yours, and I want to understand better. Can you tell me more about it?” These feel so much more accepting and understanding.

We all know what it feels like to be misunderstood. We want our parent-friends to ask us how it feels to be childless because it shows they want to understand us better because they care about us. It is so easy to tell when people get uncomfortable after I bring up something hard about being single - that awkward silence sounds exactly the same as the silence when moms get uncomfortable when we share about being childless. Instead of withdrawing, it is a kindness to put away the defensiveness and invite some discomfort and understanding.

We didn’t all get here from the same path. We can use our experiences of being othered by so much of the world to realize how we unknowingly dismiss and isolate each other.

Ask questions. Say you don’t understand, but want to know more, and then learn more.

Anonymous

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash