Lindsay Bane
I once lived in a healthy body. But when my invisible illness introduced herself to me, I became acquainted with some serious limitations.
One - my respiratory system went into emergency shutdown.
Two - my reproductive system went into emergency shutdown.
Three - my endocrine system threw an everlasting tantrum.
I was prescribed a medication that stabilized my breathing but made it impossible for me to conceive. The timing overlapped with my wish to become a biological mother, and so all my attempts at becoming pregnant ended with the necessity to stay alive and keep my hormones consistent instead.
Socially, I was no longer available to people the way that I once was. I went into a social shutdown, aided by an international pandemic where a lot of the world shut down with me between 2019 and 2021.
In those isolating years, when the world fought the CoVid pandemic and I fought Thoracic Endometriosis, I watched a huge divide grow with the people I had been closest to all my life, family and friends.
Simultaneously, I drew closer to strangers in online support groups. I interacted with people who opened upto me about being Childless Not By Choice (CNBC).
The more I leaned into this community, the more I discovered I wasn’t so alone, and neither were they. We could share conversations, writing workshops, chanting circles, meditations - all online. It wasn’t a utopia, but it felt more comfortable and safer. In this circle, no one is going to ask you: “Do you have kids?”
THE QUESTION “DO YOU HAVE KIDS?” IS ABLEIST
I’m producing a project based on the question Do You Have Kids? (Short answer, no.) partly to expose the ableism behind this prolific question raised commonly in new social situations. It seems like the person asking is usually someone who does have kids and might even be eager to use that as a platform for small talk. For someone who almost died trying to have kids, or felt like dying when they couldn’t, it’s not a great entry point for new conversation.
Maybe this question helps you form an opinion about the person you’re getting to know, you’re potentially asking them to reveal a vulnerable side and be judged for it. If the person you’re asking is not a “family person” like you may be, would you be less likely to invite them to future events? The possibility remains, if I don’t have kids, I might not fit in here.
Of course, the person asking this question innocently might be a kind human being, but they need to know it’s not a kind question for anyone who recalls a painful experience when asked whether they have kids. Maybe start with something easier for everyone, not just easy for you.
And if you’re asking me if I have kids, the long and real answer is TMI for this casual space. The question infers I should tell you about my disease.
We can go there, but it’s likely to get uncomfortable fast because we’re going to talk about my lady-parts and how fertility experts would deem them disabled, because I’m facing the extinction of my DNA. I’m a weirdo and your ableist question reveals that with certainty. But I also love dinosaurs and my opinion of you for asking me this worn-out question is not looking good.
Let me help with sourcing new questions that stem from your interest in whether I have kids.
QUESTION: Is not being able to have kids actually a disability?
I do associate Endometriosis with disability because it stopped me from living a full life for several years, and I am CNBC because of Endometriosis. In certain company being CNBC feels like a disability.
We all experience Difference, one way or another, some more than others, it’s part of being human. The Difference I’m focusing on here is rooted in Pronatalism, a belief that family is the center of everything, that the systems we live in centralize the reproduction of human life.
I would contest that a CNBC person is disabled within a Pronatalist society. If their world is enriched with recreation and community, childlessness is not a disability. If their world is deeply steeped in procreation and family, childlessness is “an impairment that substantially limits major life activity” - to quote the ADA’s definition for disability.
A person who is CNBC may need to hold boundaries with others who keep parenting as the focal point of their activities and conversations. It’s not a matter of ‘we have nothing in common’ - it has to do with one person not having understanding for the other person who physically and mentally cannot participate in the dominating lifestyle.
Bluntly: I couldn’t join your club if I wanted to. Cause I did want to, but I was turned away at the door. And you’re obsessed with this club. Can we be friends? Probably not.
I’m not the Anti-Mom but I’m also not pandering to someone who likens themselves in a position of superiority.
QUESTION: Is this the kind of disability where CNCB people need accommodations?
Do what makes you happy. I will do the same, and maybe there’s a place where we meet in the middle and I’ll see you there.
But for people who love a person who is CNBC, please consider making some accommodations if you care to maintain a connection. Maybe you are already doing that, maybe you create a safe place for them. And maybe that’s why they continue to build bridges to connect with you.
However, if you’ve noticed your CNBC family or friend slip away, there’s a chance that you didn’t meet them with a safe space that values CNBC people equally. It’s possible that the way you interact with CNBC people might exclude them, it’s possible you’ve been creating spaces of division instead of inclusion.
Here’s a litmus test. Look at the photos you have framed in your house, on your fridge – wherever you display people of importance. Are they all blood-relatives? Do photos of children and parents outweigh all other visuals? Or do you also have photos of friends, pets and community not centered on family-life? What a person puts on display gives a good read on what and who is valued, who fits in and who falls out.
QUESTION: Can’t CNBC people work towards integrating their differences since this is their personal problem to deal with?
From what I see and hear, most of them have been doing this all along. They have painful stories of estrangement despite their best attempts to fit in with family and longtime friends.
I see CNBC people overextending themselves to fit in, to continue aligning in places that only alienate them and strip them of a sense of belonging. At some point this effort buckles, people are unable to sustain the responsibility of holding relationships together when don’t feel valued.
The Pronatalist world has been sheltered and protected by church and state, because both structures benefited by a growing population. But in that dynamic, society is less likely to appreciate people in their community who are unable to have children.
Childless people are the outsiders. If you’re asking outsiders to make their own way to the inside, I don’t think you understand what it means to be an outsider. And it’s time to start asking better questions.
