On inappropriate questions and moving on
Some time ago the weekly magazine of an Italian newspaper—in an issue entitled “Suspended Mothers”—invited its female readers to write and tell the story of how they ‘used’ their ‘share of grief’ for not being able to conceive. I was struck by the term ‘used,’ as if grief was some kind of purposeless accessory one bought almost accidentally during a shopping trip, for which one had to find a practical purpose to justify its presence in the house. ‘The pain of a betrayed hope,’ so the text went, ‘is perhaps the greatest one can feel. Especially when it is not because of a lack of will or enthusiasm that we do not manage to make our dreams come true. Sometimes, simply, life has other plans for us.’ I was irritated—massively. I found the tone patronizing: for addressing women only (men do not suffer because of infertility?), for assuming that motherhood can at worst be ‘suspended’ or delayed—what if, as in my case, it never happens?—and for reaching the taken for granted conclusion, as again the phrasing went, that anyway ‘suffering always provides some teaching.’ As if this was a consolation for having my life turned upside down! ‘Yes,’ I thought ‘I really have a story to share here.’ So I wrote this letter (originally in Italian):
Dear Editors,
Who would have thought that in the liberal Norway, land of equality and women's rights, it would have taken an Italian to break the silence around involuntary childlessness?
My name is Cristina Archetti, I am Professor of Political Communication and Journalism at the University of Oslo. I moved to Norway 5 years ago after spending 16 years in the UK. My husband and I were diagnosed with “unexplained infertility.” As in the case of many other involuntarily childless individuals—a group that makes up practically a quarter of the adult population of the Western world—we could not become parents. What have I done with my grief? 4 and a half things.
One. I wrote a book about it, Childlessness in the Age of Communication: Deconstructing Silence (Routledge 2020). With this work, which combines research and biographical experience, I wanted to solve a mystery: how is it possible that, with all the communication platforms we have, we know so little about involuntarily childless people, a global "minority" of millions? I also wanted to make the point that overall, as devastating it is, not having the baby is, really, the least of our evils. The real problem is that terrifying "rest" made up of existential questions, invisibility, and silence. For example, if only a mother can call herself a "real" woman, then what am I? If being happy, as the messages echoing from ads on TV screens to all friends' Instagram pictures of “first day of school” tell us, means having children, then will we ever be happy? Infertility is not “just” a medical problem concerning conceiving or not conceiving. When virtually all societies are organized around family, then not having children becomes a social and political issue. Another example: the national health services of many countries tacitly (and overwhelmingly) rely on the help provided to the elderly by their adult children. So who will take care of us? This question scares me.
Two. I founded the first Norwegian association, Andre veier (Other Paths) for the permanently childless and opened an online discussion forum Den hemmelige hytta (The Secret Cabin) for childless women.
Three. I am the spokesperson for Norway for World Childless Week, an online event that lasts a whole week and is dedicated to people who are involuntarily childless. This year it will take place between 14 and 20 September.
Four. I transformed my research about childlessness into a theatre performance: because I realized that the statistics say nothing about life, about hopes ground to dust, and the pain that lies behind figures’ poker faces. Then the academic presentation format simply didn't deliver. When I tell you that not having children produces a reaction comparable to bereavement, with the difference that the wound of childlessness remains open indefinitely because there is often not even a body to bury, I see that you still do not understand what I am talking about. Your face is confused. You look at me as if I was from another planet. And the irony is that you are right. I don't live in the same world as yours. I feel invisible, unrepresented, insulted by politicians who always address themselves to families, as if I didn't exist, and by those who assume that I must be selfish or that I only think about “having fun” because I don't have children. But let's get back to the point: I needed theater to let my audience feel something, because if you have not gone through the experience of infertility yourself, then you have absolutely no idea of what it means, and at most you envy me because you think I must have a lot of spare time.
(Five. Actually, I also participated in the documentary about involuntary childlessness Mammaen i meg [The mum in me], which is to be released shortly, by Norwegian director Hilde Merete Haug, and organized two public debates in Oslo and Kristiansand, but the list was long enough).
In Norway, as in the rest of Scandinavia, the whole society revolves around children. It's wonderful. If you don't have them, though, you are cut out. Not being able to have children, far more so than in southern Europe, is a source of profound shame. Nobody wants to come out and talk publicly about it. So I do it.
Trying to break a taboo in a foreign land requires the same determination—or rather, madness—of talking to walls. A Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, asked me to write an article about my book when it came out. Some of the comments the piece received were offensive — 'depressing' as some friends euphemistically put it. But to tell you the truth, I haven't even read them. As I have learned from the Black Lives Matter activists, when you have a mission, protecting your well-being to keep on fighting is, in itself, an act of resistance.
Some days are better than others. I am in contact with sister organizations abroad. We childless researchers and activists are also an international network of friendship and support. Sometimes, when we discuss on Zoom, Skype, or Messenger comparing our experiences, trying to bring some of our parallel and hidden reality into the “normal” world, it feels like planning a revolution, albeit a slow-motion one. Other times you just feel alone.
Telling my story and that of the participants in my research helped me to “digest” the trauma of infertility, to make sense of it. I also understood that grief can never be overcome. As time goes by, however, I learned to contain it and give it shape. It is no longer the pain who defines me.
And yet there are still moments, especially in these days of COVID-19 lockdown, when I am struggling. I should write a post for our association's Facebook page, but I feel crushed, unable to move. In fact, I don't even know why I should get out of bed.
Then I remember that I have many brothers and sisters without children, like me, here, in Italy, and across the world. They are all my family. My pain has become a commitment to break the silence that weighs on us and make our voices resound in a more open world. Okay then, I’ll get up. And if that’s the way it goes today, tomorrow it will be better.
Thanks for reading my story and best regards from Oslo,
Cristina
In case you wonder, I was thanked for my ‘strong’ contribution. My letter, however, was never published. There could be many reasons for that, of course. I suspect, however, that it did not provide the only “acceptable” happy ending. Additionally, beyond the rhetorical façade of openness, “learning from pain” clearly is not supposed to mean becoming stronger and wiser, let alone fighting back towards that society that somehow finds it reassuring to see us shamed and silenced. Instead, I am expected to turn myself into another reminder that, as a woman, without a child, I am an empty shell sitting among the shards of broken dreams. My learning curve, for the onlooking “majority,” is just too steep. The greatest challenge at this stage of the journey through the land of childlessness is indeed to be believed: yes, it is possible to live without children, we can have a meaningful existence and feel realized.
I am grateful for having “my people” to share my story with—others in similar circumstances who can understand and who have been my greatest source of inspiration in my struggle to find a life for which there is still no script. Being there for each other: perhaps that, ultimately, is the best ‘use’ for our grief.
Cristina Archetti