Robyn Jamieson-Voss
Dear MsD,
Writing this letter is going to be very therapeutic for me because I’ve never fully dealt with what happened. You will never get to read this, but perhaps where you are, you will get the message anyway.
I’m not sure if you remember the situation. You were so flippant about it, so you may not remember at all. It was 2015, and we were in a boardroom together with K and S. We were meeting on the Municipal Development Plan’s 50/50 growth target and its importance for our redevelopment plan. We stressed its importance, and you challenged us. You had a different perspective than we did, and we didn’t see eye to eye. We kept pressing, and you didn’t have a strong argument for not meeting the target. That’s when you made it personal.
You turned to me and asked me: “Are you married, and do you have kids?”
I said, “I’m married.”
You then said, “Yes, but do you have kids?”
I replied, “No.”
Then you dropped your bomb, “Then you cannot possibly understand the kinds of decisions a family with kids has to make when they decide where to buy a house, in a new community, or an old community!”
I looked at you and I had no words. You found my weak spot and struck me.
Essentially, you told me that not being a parent limits my ability to exercise sound city planning rationale, as if being a parent is a pre-requisite to being a good, professional city planner.
You couldn’t possibly have known that my husband and I were talking about whether to stop trying to have a child after over a decade of trying. You couldn’t possibly have known that I had been diagnosed with unexplained infertility years before. You couldn’t possibly have known how deep of a wound you had cut in me that day because of my circumstances. You did, however, know exactly what you were saying, and that you were trying to inflict pain because you knew you didn’t have solid rationale for your position. You were on the defence, and you struck at me where I was weakest.
It was the first time I had ever been exposed to pronatalism and the depth of judgment that people without children face. In that moment, you showed me just how far someone will go to weaponize parenthood status on another person.
Your words broke me,and when we left the boardroom, K asked me if I was doing ok. I burst into tears when I got back to my desk. And thus began my deep mourning and depression of never being able to have the children we wanted. Within weeks, I went to a psychologist because I had no idea how to deal with the pain of it all. For a long time, I believed that I was less than because I couldn’t get pregnant. You were the first to show me that being less than because of infertility is a perspective that some people do believe. It took me years of work to begin to accept my life as a childless woman, and lots of money spent on therapy.
What’s sad is that you had the opportunity to apologize. I reported your bullying up the chain, and our director told you to apologize. The next time we met you said, “I apologize for what I said, but….”, and you went on to further rationalize your position on the issue. The “but” negated your apology. You had no empathy for me at all.
You let me down. You were hailed as a wonderful female leader in our department, but I and some other female colleagues knew that you treated some of us horribly. For the next year, I became afraid of you. I feared running into you, or having a meeting with you. You had a weapon that I had no defence against because I was deep in mourning and hadn’t developed my defences yet. You wielded the power of your position – both as a manager and as a mother. You carried on as usual and left me behind with nothing but pain.
It's now 8 years later. You are no longer here, and I’ve come a very long way in my journey toward acceptance in being childless not by choice. If you had said this to me today, my weapon would have been drawn, and you would have lost. It would be a very short battle. I’m not the same woman I was then. I have an entire army of childless not by choice friends standing next to me. We advocate and fight for each other. Their friendship and support are what saved me from being lost to depression and mourning. Now, I speak at equity and diversity events at our corporation, and I share my story with colleagues. I’ve even shared my story about how a manager (you) said this to me in a meeting, and people’s jaws fall to the floor in shock. I never name you, and I never will. I would never publicly undercut you the way you did to me. Because of you, I’m actively trying to change my little corner of the world by helping to educate, remove bias, and bring awareness to employees at our corporation.
I wish I could have had the courage to say something to you back then, to push back, and help you to learn the impact of your words. I was too scared of you, and I wasn’t yet confident in my childless voice. If there’s a good thing to come out of this, though, it’s that it forced me to face my reality. I’ve done well coming to terms with my life, and I’m turning it into something good by being an advocate for our community.
I don’t hate you anymore for what you did. But what you did caused a lot of pain, depression, and anxiety. I learned a lot from you about how I want to be a different leader than you were. I want to lead with empathy, not strategizing for the power angle. I know you can’t change what you did, and you can’t do anything different now. But wherever you are, I hope that you see the impact that you had and can rest in peace while being kinder to others around you.
It's time to let you go. I’m done holding onto the past in hurt and anger.I’m taking back my peace, my dignity, and my power. Goodbye Ms D.
Photo by Louis Galvez on Unsplash