There Will Be No Mention of Biological Functions in This Blog Post (Lucky You)
Before I sat down to write this post, I spent three to four minutes scrolling through Facebook on my phone. In that time, I saw the following:
An acquaintance of mine sharing an essay on “The Benefits of Having Children”
Two pregnancy announcements
The results of two pregnancy photo shoots
The results of three or four newborn photo shoots
Three different posts about how life is so much different (better) now that children have arrived
Ten or eleven photos of various people’s children or grandchildren
About twenty “momma prayers” (seriously, those things are everywhere!)
Fifty memes about how tired parenthood makes people
13 Masterclass Advertisements*
An advertisement for men’s leggings/tights in a variety of funky patterns**
*Like many people (including myself), Facebook doesn’t have a clear grasp on what I do for a living. So it hits me with a wide range of interesting advertisements…
**…but the men’s leggings ad is legit based on my amazon search history
I think you can guess how I feel after mainlining a few minutes of social media. Whatever dopamine I’m getting is far outweighed by the negative consequences (it’s a lot like smoking in that way).
Now: let’s be clear - I don’t fault people for posting and talking about their children and grandchildren. It brings them joy, and there is precious little of that to go around. So go ahead, hit me with those baby photos. Share those toddlers being hilarious. Humble brag about your teenager’s basketball game. It’s all good. I need to self-police my nastier feelings and my social media use. If I start to feel jealous or down about babies bursting out of every womb on the planet at seemingly the same time, that’s on me.
It’s a Club, Bub.
But it’s difficult, ya’ll. Because parenthood feels like a club that shouldn’t be that hard to gain entrance to. And it IS a club - the most exclusive club that doesn’t actually know how exclusive it is.
Again, this all makes sense biologically. We are hard-wired to focus on our children’s well being, and the way that manifests in day-to-day conversation is to shift every topic (usually unknowingly) towards kids. Rachael and I have have been dealing with this since before we even wanted children, but it feels much worse once you actually have the desire for kids. You know how it feels when everyone else is talking about Game of Thrones but you haven’t watched it yet? Now imagine that you have to involve twenty people in your sex life in order to get an HBO GO subscription. Now imagine that your HBO GO subscription costs anywhere from $500.00 to $20,000 a month. Now imagine that your efforts to get an HBO GO subscription are so icky to some of your loved ones that you can’t even talk to them about it. Now imagine that everyone just assumes you’ve actually watched Game of Thrones, and they spoil the ending for you even though you are just reading the books, and it will be about twenty years before the final novel comes out because George R.R. Martin is taking his SWEET-ASS TIME ABOUT IT.*
*That metaphor got away from me, but most of it still applies.
It’s kinda like that.
My wife, of course, has it worse. My male friends, co-workers, and acquaintances talk about their kids, sure. But they also have the cultural freedom to have other discussions - and they do. On top of that, I operate in circles where the majority of people my age either live in vans or tents or wish they did. So it’s kind of different for me - or at least slightly easier.
Rachael, on the other hand, is in early childhood and adolescent education. And in that realm, everyone assumes that the only way for you to know what you are talking about is to have had children. So they assume you have. And when they find out that you haven’t, they condescend to you for the rest of your acquaintanceship. Never mind that Rachael is a highly respected expert in her field, is finishing up her second master’s (in, you guessed it, education), and has spent the last twenty years of her life learning how and why children work. Never mind that she’s raised more teenagers at one time than you and all your friends combined. None of that matters because you have the ability to perform a biological function that we (it appears) do not.
“You’ll understand when you have children of your own one day”
I want to stress again here that I don’t think any of this behavior is conscious. When a group of women stand around at a cocktail party and trades pregnancy war stories, it’s because they have a shared experience and talking about shared experiences is one (baseline easy) way that strangers get to know each other.
But I think we can do better. Here’s how.
People with ovaries - if you are sharing placenta recipes* and someone in your group isn’t speaking up - maybe it’s time to change the subject. It doesn’t hurt anyone to be purposefully inclusive. And it does a ton of good, I promise.
*This is a thing, right? I feel like I’ve heard it’s a thing.
Parents - if your child’s teacher hasn’t had children, please refrain from any variation on “well, you’d understand if you had children of your own.” I can’t think of a single more disrespectful thing to say to the education professional who, I can almost guarantee you, is pouring more energy and work and emotion and heartbreak into your child than you can possibly imagine* (for, likely, much less than you make at whatever your job is). Do that professional the courtesy of assuming she or he has reasonably functioning empathy. No one will ever know your child like you do, that is true. But consider that your child’s teacher might be seeing a facet of your child that you are not - I promise, it happens - and enter into a working partnership with that teacher. You can disagree about strategy without resorting to womb-related condescension.
*Or perhaps you CAN imagine. Think about all the energy and work and emotion and heartbreak that you put into your kids. It’s THAT. It’s EXACTLY THAT.
In social situations, don’t assume that people have children. At its heart, that question - “do you have kids?” - is just small talk. You can find something else to chat about - you don’t have to risk potentially prodding an open wound just because your kids take up 99% of your brain space.*
*I would argue that if this is you, you have a serious problem that will catch up with you the day your kid leaves for college, or otherwise becomes an functioning adult** - but that is a topic for a different day.
**because the point of parenthood is to create functioning, decent, adult human beings, right?
Finally, exercise a little restraint on social media. Consider how “I never realized my life was so incomplete until I was pregnant with Little Timmy,” might read to a woman who’s starting to realize she might never be pregnant. Take joy in your children, but don’t actively bite your thumb at the people outside of your club. I know you aren’t meaning to. But you are all the same. And for that matter - take a minute and check in with your friends on Father’s/Mother’s Day. It’s a shitty day for them. I guarantee you they will appreciate the thought. You could even give a shout out to the people in your children’s lives from time to time (both professional and just friends/family). I know that would make a huge difference to those people.
Ugh, well this turned into something of a rant. If you are still with me, I’ll leave you with this: If you have kids, and you are guilty of any of this (you are), it’s okay. I know it isn’t on purpose. But you should know that a lack of intent to harm doesn’t preclude the harm itself. We can ALL try to move through life a little more gently, a little more purposefully, and a little more mindfully.
If you don’t have kids, and you feel bitter and angry about it, and then you feel guilty and shameful that you feel bitter and angry - you aren’t alone. I hear you, I see you. And if you need to use the comments section to spill your guts - go for it. And if you are child free by choice, and you have to deal with all of the above PLUS having to constantly defend your choice - wow, that’s an entirely different level of hard. I see you as well!
Author’s Note: This blog post is part of an ongoing series on fertility, adoption, parenthood, and the absurdity therein. Use the comments, share with loved ones, post it around. We are, none of us, as alone as we believe we are.