Jess Tennant
10. I wanted to have kids, so badly. But now, that’s not the life I want anymore. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t dedicated to being a parent, it just means that I have passed the point in my life where that is what I currently want. I have embraced my life without children. The older I get, and the farther I move away from the raw pain of loss, the more I appreciate our life as it is and not as we imagined it would be. Moving to a house that did not have ghosts (mythical children around a tree at the holidays, my office overlaying a nursery, imaginary toys cluttering a floor) was extraordinarily helpful for dividing our life into the dreams we had before and now the life we lead now.
9. Embracing a life without children does not mean that I do not still grieve my alternate life. Grief is not linear. It’s also not omni-present – it lurks beneath the surface but is just as likely to pop up and hit me over the head with a big stick now as it was 9 years ago when our childless reality was fresh. I’m just not bashed over the head with it as frequently.
8. My sensitivities around not having kids keeps evolving over time. 8-9 years ago, it was so, so fresh. Everything that reminded us of the life that we’d wanted but that eluded us so completely hurt. A LOT. But now, it is not as hard to be around families or children, or to talk about other peoples’ kids. The exception is the grief sneak attacks that come with seeing kids grow up that came to be during our own journey, those parallel-life, almost-but-not-quite reminders. BUT, it’s not as raw as it used to be. It is strange to have several sets of these parallel children go through the middle school where I work, because time is weird.
7. It can still hurt to be in a group of people and ALL they talk about is their kids. It can be so hard to be with a group of peers whose lives took a typical timeline and to feel so completely isolated from their experiences. I will smile and nod, but it is a great way to feel terribly lonely in a group of people. You don’t have to NOT talk about kids, but talking about other things as well is so helpful. Otherwise I leave feeling a bit hollow and unseen.
6. Just because I don’t have children myself, doesn’t mean that I don’t know anything about children or can’t connect with children. Part of this is that I am an education professional – my entire work life is centered on kids at a time in their life that most parents are glad to pass through. 13-14 years old is a special time in life, for sure. I have years and years of experience working directly with kids. BUT, even if that was not my profession, just because I don’t have children doesn’t mean I can’t understand them.
5. Even small efforts of inclusivity are noticed and appreciated. It is irritating at best when sitting in a meeting and it’s assumed that everyone is a parent. OR that the only way you could care about kids is if you yourself are a parent. It is one of those things that is casually thrown out in education in particular, and it is tone-deaf. There are a lot of us who don’t have kids for a variety of reasons. Being a parent is also not an automatic “I’m a better person” transformation. Unfortunately, there are lots of people who are parents and absolutely terrible people. Perhaps “we care about kids” or “the next generation is important to all of us” are easy adaptations from “we all know what it’s like to be parents.” Nope, we don’t.
4. I really wish that the media would spend as much time on profiles of people who didn’t have children as they do on “miracle baby” stories. I totally get that there are “miracle baby” situations, but they are so far and few between. There is so little coverage given to those who wanted children and didn’t get to, and how it’s not a worst-case, nightmare scenario. I know for me, I believed that if I just kept trying it would eventually happen, because there were so many miracle stories. I get that those are more “happy ending” ish, but it paints a picture that persistence WILL pay off, but sometimes persistence just breaks your body and spirit. Representation matters, and it helps so much in not feeling so alone. Having equal representation of stories where people survive the grief of a dream unfulfilled and thrive in a new iteration of their life would be so very helpful
3. The word “miracle” is a trigger, because of the converse. The more I know about human conception the more it seems any conception is a feat of probability. “Miracle” implies that somehow there was a bestowment, a deservingness that skips over others. During my infertility and adoption striving, I faced a lot of “I did this this this and this and here we are!” that made me feel like I was doing all the wrong things, or if I just TRIED HARDER the miracle would come for me. “Miracle” is also problematic with adoption, where a miracle for one is a loss for others (including the child). I do understand that if you have achieved your desired family, it may feel like a miracle. But that word to me, for better or worse, casts everyone who wasn’t “successful” as living in this dark Mordor-y place, devoid of blessing.
2. I am realizing just how much advance planning is going to go into aging as a person without children. Having kids doesn’t mean that they will take care of you as you age, but most of the time it helps. We really have to think out our aging plan – downsizing, planning for possible future care needs, having a support structure where we don’t end up in a place with no visitors, or without help with things that tend to require assistance in your older years. My parents are young relative to my friends’ parents, but seeing all the coordination of services when things go awry and realizing at this point there’s no one to do that for us is sobering. So we must plan, plan, plan to make sure, should we be so lucky, that our golden years aren’t lonely or neglected.
1. I am happy with my life. Not because I tell myself so, although that doesn’t hurt, but because I’ve rebuilt my life from my original dream into something beautiful. There was a time I didn’t think this was possible, that a life without children could only be a sad, gaping-baby-sized-hole existence. I am so glad I learned that that is not what my future post-infertility-and-adoption has to look like. I truly feel fortunate for the life I lead right now, just as it is.
