WORLD CONFERENCE ON CHILDLESSNESS

This Submission is an extract from a longer article

Being older.....

From the 1980’s when I began on the journey along this less travelled road -it seems to me that much has stayed the same. The expectation of most couples starting out- i.e.that they can plan if ,when and how they will bring a child into the world-seems to be as high as ever.The shock and devastation when things don’t go to plan is no less than it has ever been, or will be in every generation.

There really doesn’t seem to have been much change in Fertility services. IVF is still offered as the one size-fits-all remedy for which no one can be adequately prepared..If meant to provide assistance and offer guidance in overcoming such personal difficulties and resolving problems. Counselling fails as miserably now as it ever has. Contrary to why it is intended, it is for many couples just another interview, test, or hoop they must jump through to be deemed ‘suitable’ or ‘qualify’ for treatment.

Ditto the Adoption process. The hope of becoming parents to a healthy newborn in the UK is overshadowed by the widely accepted cultural norm of abortion .The ease with which terminations are sought and supplied astonishes me. Of course there’s nothing like being infertile to make a girl ‘Pro-Life’ critics might say. That’s true but given that contraception is freely available it really saddens me.

Societal pressures seem to dictate that for a woman who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy it is in fact, easier to pop out in her lunch hour for a clinical appointment and never speak about it, than to be allowed to say “I can’t keep this baby but I’d rather not kill it”. From a feminist perspective then- so much for a womans right to choose.

Family, friends and random strangers we meet still come out with insensitive, stupid and sometimes downright insulting questions and or remarks:

“Didn’t you want any then?” “I envy you I really do”

The Jokey: “That’s why you don’t look your age”.

The comforting lie: “God if I’d known how expensive having kids was going to be I wouldn’t have bothered” Or assuming it was a choice not to have children “Do you have any regrets now?” The thoughtlessness at family occasions like weddings, funerals and the being completely invisible to 99% of the planet on Mothers Day? It’s all still there.

So what if anything has changed?

Everything. Everything that is about my perception.My reality had to change. From the hapless young girl, so distraught and unable to cope with the nightmare I had been hurled into, I gradually emerged and found forgiveness. How could I have known that it would take forgiving myself before I could even think of moving forward with a life -if it was to be lived fully. I had blamed myself for so long -an emotional self-harming which was mentally exhausting and spiritually diminishing.

So what happened?

One day at a traffic light stop right outside a Church (Episcopalian I think) I saw the sign that really did change my way of thinking and whole life:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5 is apparently one of the most familiar verses in the Bible.

Well, I had always thought of Cliches as rather Cliched -just tired verbal mishmashes and had always avoided their use but then found myself- instead of wondering the usual “why me?” thinking “Why not me- after all I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy” It was as if a weight had been lifted.

Looking back I can see it was only when I could begin the process of forgiving myself, that I was able to look at others and forgive them their stupidity, thoughtlessness etc. All those verbal arrows that had been fired, unwittingly or intentionally, had hurt so much in the past but that was over -I had donned my armour!

I searched then for inspiration -more words of hope or wisdom: I read and reread anything that would remotely resonate with me:

Life begins on the other side of despair - Jean-Paul Sartre

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear - CS lewis

That which does not kill us makes us stronger - Friedrich Nietzsche

Nobody can hurt me without my permission - Mahatma Gandhi

To mention but a few!

We Childless go through our Soul Searching when we are young-imposed on us early in our lives by

A simple twist of Fate - Bob Dylan

Compensation comes later for us. No “Empty Nest Syndrome’ for starters. I have helped friends and relations through their: mid-life crisis, menopause, divorces, infidelities, parental disappointments etc.etc.listening and counselling where /if possible.

I have witnessed good parenting and parenting that falls very short of what is considered ideal. I see now-grown kids who bring joy & pride to their Mums and Dads but I see also those who have brought and continue to cause heartache and worry-sometimes within the same family.I see couples blatantly used as unpaid childminders to their grandchildren-one friend is exhausted but can’t upset her daughter by refusing- and the financial responsibility of many parents I know does not seem to have been lifted from them by their grown up kids -even when married with families themselves. I make no comments but of course I sometimes can’t help but play out in my head the “I know what I’d do if they were my kids” game.

The Waltons of Waltons mountain are a fiction I know and truly Happy Families are a rarity. I still love watch ‘This Wonderful Life’ every Christmas -which will always be a sad time for me. Funnily enough Mothers Day has never much bothered me, but of course these are personal feelings which vary individually.

I enjoyed a long and successful career in business and continue to take on voluntary projects.I have had a long and happy marriage and I look forward to whatever the future may bring with hopeful optimism. I know how Blessed I am but of course everything is relative. Would I still be feeling that now if we’d had four kids? Impossible to say but I’d have loved to be able to try!

I do believe developing a powerful perspective on life can only be gained by humbly reminding ourselves of our mortality and impermanence.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path - Buddha

Gillian Ferguson