Dear Rabbi’s (and other well-meaning religious Jews):

Please Stop with the Miracle Baby Stories. They’re not Helping. Thanks.

By Ruth Levy-Abramson

(The following story is paraphrased from a recently published article in “BeSheva”, an Israeli newspaper.)

A childless woman goes to ask a well-respected Rabbi for advice. He tells her that he feels her pain but God is not an ATM and doesn’t owe anyone anything, He doesn’t even owe her a baby. She thanks him humbly and he then offers her the following advice: “Pray and do lots of good deeds for others above and beyond what you owe them. Then, maybe God will notice and do something for you that He doesn’t owe you.” Upon hearing that, she immediately starts volunteering in a hospital, (in the maternity ward), and wonder of wonders, not a year later, she gives birth to a son. Then, the following year, she has twins. The end.  

Did this like this story? Did it make you feel good, give you hope, or strengthen your faith? If so, I can pretty much guarantee that you are not childless-not-by-choice (CNBC). How do I know? Because miracle baby stories like this one are generally shared with the childless by Rabbi’s, Jewish educators, and other well-meaning religious people who are privileged to have children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren, and therefore have simply never had to consider how these stories sound to people who have tried and failed to have children-people like me.  

“But we only want to give you chizzuk and hope. What’s wrong with that?”

Yes, I know. This surprised, confused, defensive, and slightly annoyed reaction is common. People tend to get upset when their ‘help’ isn’t met with what they consider the proper enthusiasm and gratitude. That is why I wrote this article. I want to explain exactly why this story and all the other ones like it, set up unrealistic expectations and false hopes, and are more harmful and hurtful than helpful. In 2019, it’s about time that these stories go the way of gay conversion therapy stories and become socially unacceptable, inappropriate, and shared only by the unenlightened.  

Before I explain exactly what’s wrong with this story, I need to tell you a bit about what it’s like to be childless because unless you are, you have probably never given it much thought.

Childlessness is an existential and spiritual crisis, and I am not exaggerating or being dramatic. It means experiencing a psychological death, a death of who you thought you would become, a death of what you expected and prayed for, a death of your most intimate hopes and dreams. It is a total identity crisis. Every part of your life is affected when you are childless: your self-esteem, your body image, your friendships, your health, your marriage, your faith, your finances, your career, your social status, your family relationships, where you live, how you live, why you live.

Childlessness means crushing heartbreak, and a black hole of nothingness where adorable little people with your husband’s smile or your wife’s eyes were supposed to be-where joy, innocence and wonder were supposed to be-and where your family was supposed to grow and continue into the next generation and beyond, not end.entirely.forever.

Being childless means always feeling different from your family, friends, community, and from humanity in a way you never expected, asked for, or wanted. It means never getting the chance to create your own family with the person you love and chose for this purpose. It means feeling left behind, left out, and sidelined when your peers say things like, ‘Now my life has true meaning.” It means wondering why you don’t get to do the most fundamental, universal thing humans have always done since the beginning of time: create life.

Being childless is to be asked, “How many children do you have?” by everyone you will meet for the rest of your life, and knowing the conversation will likely come to a screeching halt when they hear you say, “none.” Being childless is to hurt inside, to feel confused, sad, deprived, disappointed, angry, depressed, outraged, bitter, anxious, numb, despairing, resentful, betrayed, jealous, frustrated, criticized, judged, self-conscious, insecure, cursed, guilty, ashamed, shamed, blamed, afraid, lonely, lost. It is to feel like a pathetic failure, a loser, an outsider. It is to feel embarrassed, useless, and unimportant. It means missing out on thousands of things in life, big and small, too many to even list, that others take for granted. It means feeling less than other women who enjoy respect and admiration and command a higher social status for their role as mothers and grandmothers. It means bearing intrusive questions, painful and traumatic medical procedures, and a previously unimaginable array of social, familial and religious humiliations.

To be Jewish and childless means having to walk out of high holiday services because you can’t stand to self-consciously listen to the infertility story of Hannah again, or once again read how childlessness is a curse and punishment from God for sins. It means reciting the words of the Shema “And you shall teach your children” but knowing you won’t. It means going to the neighborhood Sukkah after everyone else has finished their festive family meal and it’s empty-like you feel inside. It means standing in the mikveh waters month after month, year after year, begging God and crying from the depths of your heart, and wondering why He isn’t listening, why He doesn’t seem to want you to be a mother, or why He doesn’t want to make your wonderful husband a father. It means feeling utterly forsaken and abandoned by God and everyone else. Because of course, just when you need your women friends the most, they are off having baby after baby, surrounding themselves with other mothers who know things you will never know and who belong to a club you will never be a member of.

Despite how huge a void it is, there is absolutely no communal acknowledgment of what you’ve lost. The grief of the childless is a disenfranchised one. There are no meal trains organized by the shul, no sympathy cards sent, no notices emailed to congregants: The Abramson’s are saddened to announce the passing of the children they never got to have. Our loss is invisible and suffered in utter silence and isolation.

Being childless is to feel misunderstood, ignored, and marginalized in many situations and conversations without anyone even realizing. It means rehearsing witty comebacks you’ll never have the guts to use and always needing to be on guard for potentially insensitive comments and triggering situations (the park, the supermarket, the yoga class, the shul...the sidewalk). It means over and over having to pretend you don’t notice or care that whomever you’re speaking with is sneakily looking at your stomach throughout the conversation, and doing mental calculations after asking, “So, how long have you guys been married?” 

It means fantasizing about running away to some faraway place in the world where you won’t be surrounded by pregnant bellies and families on shabbat afternoon walks...and then actually running away, to the most wildly remote and unpopulated regions of Chile and Montana, only to discover that even at the ends of the earth, there are still people with their children everywhere. It is the realization that there will be no relief, comfort or escape anywhere on planet earth. The world is filled with parents and babies and even the animals you see are busy tending to their young and teaching them the ways of the world. You are a freak of nature, entirely outside the natural flow of all life.

Finally, (but by no means exhaustively) it means realizing that many people will become so awkward, uncomfortable and even angry when you tell them that you don’t have children and that ship has sailed, that they will actually refuse to believe or accept that you are even telling them the truth. “No, that is impossible,” they’ll insist, as if you’re just being silly. “It’ll happen, I know it will. (really, how do you know?) You just need to have more emunah. You are too negative. Have you tried….?”

It is so strange and awful to see a nice Jewish couple without children-it’s cognitive dissonance. It’s a fate a stigma considered so horrible, it is not to be believed or discussed as if it is real or God forbid, permanent. It is that taboo.  

So, now that you have a slightly better idea of what it means to be childless, you might already understand what’s wrong with this miracle baby story and why it is hurtful and inappropriate to share with childless people. But just in case, let me break it down, piece by piece.

“God doesn’t owe you anything, not even a baby.”

That sentence is like a punch to the gut. It sounds a little like, ‘life isn’t fair, deal with it’ or ‘you can’t always get what you want.” I think that we all know that there are no guarantees in life, and that some disappointment is inevitable. But one of the most basic things in life is the ability to use your reproductive system for procreation. We are all raised to believe that we can and will become parents and are even specifically warned to be careful lest it happen by accident-that is how obvious fertility is.

And indeed, people have children by accident all the time, children they don’t even want and are in no position to care for. People abort millions of babies every year around the world. There is an abundance of human life created that is just thrown in the trash every day, as awful as it sounds, it’s true. Therefore, there is a unique pain and feeling of bewildering deprivation in not being able to have a child when you consciously want and are prepared to care for him or her responsibly. A Rabbi telling you that God doesn’t ‘owe’ you one, is completely heartless.

 “God is not an ATM”

If this story is not the definition of God being an ATM, I don’t know what is. The woman deposits her prayers and good deeds and out come miracle children! It’s completely laughable and almost a chillul Hashem if you really think about it. As if that one miracle isn’t unlikely enough, unbelievably, she also has twins! She has another two miracle babies. Her story makes it seem as if miracles are abundant and easy to come by and not by definition, outstanding and rare.

Why is she childless?

Of course, we are never told how long she has been childless or if there is a known cause. Is it a medical problem with her, her husband, or both? Is she 25, 35, or 45 years old? Those pesky things called the cold hard facts matter tremendously to childless people who are TTC (TTC=trying to conceive in case you’re not in-the-know), and to their doctors who know that age can determine success or failure. But biological facts are irrelevant-this woman floats above facts. She just volunteers and prays for a few months and boop-miracle babies. Ridiculous.

Reality check:

For every ‘miracle’ story there are many more stories of those who did everything they could, and still ended up without a baby, including those who tried fertility treatments. Childless people, who have been through hell, who have had every intimate detail of their lives probed and dissected, don’t need their lived experience reduced into some factless, fantasy, fairyland story to ‘give them hope’. This is not hope. It’s cruelty because it is pretending miraculous success is just around the corner when in reality it is highly unlikely or impossible. Author and founder of Gateway Women, Jody Day, explains it best when she writes, “Offering a childless woman this kind of ‘hope’ is akin to suggesting to someone with financial problems not to worry as they are going to win the lottery.”

 Fault and faulty connections:

While the Rabbi does not explicitly say that this woman’s childlessness is her fault, his advice to do prayer and good deeds so that maybe God will pay attention to her and give her a baby, essentially amounts to the same thing. As she is, he implies, she is lacking in good deeds, undeserving in God’s eyes. Despite the many prayers and good deeds she undoubtedly did in her life already, she is not worthy enough. She is to blame.

The Rabbi wrongly, illogically, and dangerously connects becoming a mother to prayer, good deeds and spiritual worthiness. But this is not only cruel and erroneous thinking, it is absurd. Most people in the world have children and there is no way that they are all more spiritually worthy than this woman in the eyes of God. What about child abusers, pedophiles, terrorists? Why don’t they have to go do extra good deeds before they are able to reproduce? It does not make any sense.  

There are many ways to become childless, but a lack of prayer and good deeds is not one of them. Not even a Rabbi should have the audacity or the chutzpah to suggest such a judgmental thing. Just as cancer patients should not have to smugly hear, ‘you got cancer because’, and the bereaved should never have to hear, ‘your loved one died because’, also the childless should not have to hear ‘you are childless because’-especially from those for whom having a baby came naturally, easily, eventually, or at all.  

It is disrespectful and the height of hubris to suggest from way up high on your moral pedestal surrounded by your children, that you know what may be the spiritually lacking reason for the unfortunate circumstances childless people find themselves in. Furthermore, there are much more compassionate, considerate, useful, and frankly, professional ways to counsel a childless person than telling her to try to impress God and hope He notices.

To be clear, I am not saying that sincere prayer and doing good deeds is not good advice for a Rabbi to offer in general, for the purpose of character refinement and self-improvement. I am saying though, that a Rabbi does a great disservice by dangling these things in the faces of childless people as if they are legitimate or likely ways to get pregnant.

Intention and motivation:

What are we supposed to learn from the Rabbi sending a woman off to pray and do good deeds to get God’s attention to give her what she wants? What is this supposed to teach us about how we should approach prayer and good deeds and what our intention should be? Where does the Rabbi remind her that we pray or do good because it’s the right thing to do, not because we’ll get miracles from it? What’s more, where does he counsel her against potential disappointment? Where does he let her know that it’s highly likely doing good deeds has nothing to do with getting pregnant? Where does he tell her to seek medical advice or join a support group so she feels less alone? If this Rabbi wants to be genuinely useful to childless people, he’ll need to update his responses and suggestions.  

Stampede of volunteers at the Maternity Ward:

Should childless women run to volunteer at the maternity ward because she was ‘successful’ there? It sounds silly, but isn’t that at least partially what the story hints at? What about helping the poor? Can that get you a baby or two or three? What about helping the blind or visiting the sick? It is impossible to know which good deeds will get you a miracle. There is no end to the good deeds. And no one can do them all. You can’t be everywhere doing everything at the same time. You have to choose. But can you choose the wrong ones? Will God bless you for some and not for others? Who knows, but this story certainly gives that impression.  

Infertility Amnesia:

The woman in this story gets to spend the rest of her life believing that she got a triple miracle. She did so good and God rewarded and blessed her. She gets to share her amazing story with the paper and walk on air forever on a fluffy cloud of worthiness.

But in her self-righteous bliss of good fortune, she has abandoned her infertile sisters. She already forgot what it’s like to hear these kinds of stories. She already forgot that their pain was also hers moments ago. It’s called infertility amnesia-flaunting your ‘miracle’, and being oblivious to the pain you cause.

As Jews, we are taught to be mindful and take great care not to show off, not to make anyone feel bad. And yet by publicizing her story, that is exactly what she does. A little tsnius would go a long way here. If she is lucky enough to get what she wants times three, she could also be a little more considerate and tone it down. It’s nice for her to believe she got a miracle but to the still childless who read this story in the newspaper (for whom these stories are mainly intended), she sounds like she is showing off, and no one likes a show-off. As Dorian Corey says in the movie “Paris is Burning”, “If you shoot an arrow and it goes real high-hooray for you.”(now, please, shut up)

Are you suggesting we shouldn’t praise God when He performs a miracle? Are you saying she shouldn’t share her miracle? (Talk about sour grapes!)

I suggest that yes, she can share her story as long as it is made perfectly clear that there is no correlation between her good deeds and her children, and that the way she tells her story doesn’t imply in any way that people without children are somehow less deserving than her.  

Because what if she wasn’t successful? What if she prayed and did good deeds but still, no baby? According to the Rabbi’s message in this story, if she failed it would have to mean that she’s essentially and irreparably not right with God. If getting a miracle means you became worthy, then the opposite would have to be true, not getting a miracle means that you did not become worthy. That is a horribly negative, insulting, and hurtful message both to the wife and the husband, whose worthiness we can only presume must also be severely lacking. It’s high time we collectively decide that worthiness should play no part in any conversation about childlessness. 

“Maybe you just weren’t meant to have children. This is God’s will for you and you need to accept and believe it’s all for good. This is your nisayon, your challenge.” 

These condescending lectures from people who have children don’t make any childless people feel better about their circumstances. You don’t tell a person with cancer, “cheer up, at least you don’t have heart disease” unless you are joking or incredibly stupid. It’s high time to do away with the sanctimonious moralizing.

But I get it. The Rabbi only meant to help, and so does everyone. Everyone wants to see a miracle baby to reassure them that indeed God is good, He cares, He’ll deliver. In our tradition, after all, childlessness is literally considered to be like being dead unless your last name is Schneerson. “Look at him, look how much good he did for the world’ we are told, as if we are in the same league. On top of being childless, we are suddenly also held to a higher standard.

We are told not to worry and given pat assurances that we can still halachically be considered ‘as if’ we had children because in our Jewish tradition, just teaching Torah is considered the same as having a child. Really, it is? This advice has been given to no newlyweds by any Jewish grandparents or parents anywhere in the history of the world. Can you imagine? “Don’t have children, why bother? Just teach Torah instead. It’s the same!”

We are reminded that also the matriarchs faced infertility challenges. But newsflash, all of their prayers were answered for good. God always swoops in and saves the day with a miracle baby. So, for those of us who never get a miracle, all we learn from these stories is that actually, God doesn’t care-not about us.

Is this getting heavy? Welcome to childlessness. We are not carefree couples sleeping in, dancing around, sipping champagne and planning luxury vacations unburdened by the responsibilities of ‘real’ life. Our real life involves daily reckoning with serious, expensive, grave, hopeless and heartbreaking feelings. Painful reminders and triggers of what we have lost are everywhere and unavoidable. It takes tremendous energy to grieve and process being CNBC. It’s exhausting and depressing. And, while in time, maybe a hope for a plan B will emerge from the ashes, and maybe we’ll begin to eventually start to create a new life for ourselves, we are not the same people we were before. We are forever changed by what we have gone through and the scars will always be there.

By now, you might be tired of this subject and wondering why you should even care. After all, you have enough things to think about what with your daughters engagement and your sons bar mitzvah coming up. Childlessness is not your problem. Well, I hate to break it to you, but it could be.

One of your children or grandchildren might be childless-not-by-choice one day too. And if that happens, I know you will want better for them than for Rabbi’s and other well-meaning religious Jews making them feel that God didn’t think they were good enough to continue your family lineage.

I hope that by that time they won’t have to read miracle stories in the newspaper that only add to their grief. I hope that they will not have to sit at simchas with tears in their eyes and pain in their hearts and go unnoticed by everyone around them. I hope that by that time, Rabbi’s and other well-meaning religious Jews will be more humble, kind, respectful, inclusive, and compassionate toward childless people and I hope there will be a long overdue consciousness revolution-a radical shift in the way childlessness is viewed and treated in the Jewish community.

I hope this article paves the way.

  

Ruth Levy-Abramson is the host for Gateway Women Israel Meet-up and Facebook Groups-to date the only support network for childless-not-by-choice women in Israel. She is also the creator of www.holisticsinginglessons.com empowering women’s voices on stage and in life.

Ruth has recently joined World Childless Week as a champion.

This piece was edited on 17th September to correct an error regarding Chafetz Chayim