I am an elementary school teacher. Last year, there were seven teachers at my school who had a baby. Seven!
We have a “party person” who organizes all the staff celebrations. The only things that are ever celebrated are marriages and births. (They acknowledge funerals too.)
I can’t tell you how many emails I received relating to the pregnancies and plans for the baby showers. Oftentimes these messages had references to “there being something in the water” at our school. Funny, the water never did anything to me! Their “cute little growing baby bumps” were also pointed out. Meanwhile, I looked the other way whenever one of those bumps walked by. When the post-birth photos were emailed out, those babies’ beautiful faces were daggers to my heart.
For each new mother or father, we were encouraged to give a gift and attend the celebrations. I gave gifts to the two teachers I work directly with, but not to the others who I barely even see in passing. I am single and on one teacher’s income. I can’t afford to keep giving gifts to colleagues for the next 20+ years I have left in my career. I did not attend a single shower either. I’m sure my colleagues wondered why, but I’m not ready to share anymore. I once told the childfree “party person” that baby showers are hard for me because I am grieving being childless. A few months later, she asked me if I wanted to take over the party
planning!
I know I need to speak up at some point. This is an invisible diversity and inclusion issue. At the least, I could ask that baby announcement emails come with a trigger warning in the subject line, so that I don’t have to open them in the morning and walk around dejected the whole day. But I’m scared. What will they think of me? “How dare she not be happy for us?” If only they knew that it’s not that I’m not happy for them. It’s that I’m not happy for me.
Anonymous
Photo by Nicolas Ruiz on Unsplash