On the subject of Child-free and me
I've written about all the things we did to bury the thought of family and move on as a childless couple. There is no shame in it and I fully support couples (and singles obviously) who do not want children and have made that decision and move forward in life, happy with this decision. I see nothing wrong with not wanting or deciding it isn't right for whatever reason to have your own children- it is actually a brave thing to do with societies pressures around you wanting you to procreate. I do hate to see when that not wanting of children can turn into child hate and parent hate- it makes you as bad as people that go on and on about 'little Tyler's potty training' repeatedly, ad nauseum- the worst word I have heard bandied around is 'breeders'. I find it abhorrent to attack those that have children just because you receive odd looks or comments when you explain you don't want children.
Most who are child free and wish to remain that way are not in the hate brigade- thankfully. Most are quite capable of being around children and many love the children of others and make the best actual and actual and pretend aunties and uncles. It is, as always, the minority that are vocal and give others a bad name.
Therefore, perhaps it is understandable why I hate being lumped in with the militant child-free brigade. I have noticed how people with children will avoid talking to us about them and avoid asking us to hold them or look after them while they do something- perhaps they learn to stay away from child free couples as they don't want their ire? Who knows, but I can tell you it is real and it happens and I have often felt like a pariah around other people's children as there seems to be an unspoken rule that they 'don't involve those two' (this exclude one pair of friends here who have literally changed our lives but I will write about that later).
I think child free couples that do not want to be child free fall into a strange little hole that is covered over with a sticking plaster (probably ironically with a Mr Men plaster to add insult to injury!). They can't be defined and put neatly into a box- I guess it is like walking past a argument in the street, you want to help but know that it will cause you trouble or make the situation worse and at the end of the day it is just none of your business- so you pass it by perhaps with a raised eyebrow or roll of the eyes or just dropping your head and trying your hardest not to be seen looking.
We are, after all, an oddity aren't we? A square peg in a round hole (for a nice common turn of phrase). Let me tell you how it feels- to me at least...
It feels like a wonderful meal that you just can't finish- the dessert is there, tempting you but you know there is no way you can eat another thing. The niggling in your brain tells you to try and to lust after that delicious dessert but you walk way from the table leaving it behind- and then you think about it all night, regretting that you were just too full to contemplate eating it. You then berate yourself for buying it in the first place when you weren't up to eating it and think about the waste of money. You have regrets about having that starter- did you really like it that much anyway? Could you have done without it? then there would have been room for pudding- but no, you had to fill up too early and leave yourself with the thought of dessert but int inability to eat it.
Relate that starter to me being in my mid to late 20s- I was most likely more fertile then. pre- diabetic, not as heavy (as I was when I was told I was infertile) and young enough to plan treatment. Why, in hindsight did we not try for a baby right away? Why did we enjoy that starter? We went on holidays and enjoyed spending and having fun, filling years with frivolity... ignoring that the dessert was better in the long run. Why didn't we listen to the 'you won't have room for starters and dessert' line of thinking? Of course it is all very logical and no one can predict the future- we had planned to start trying when we were 30 and planned to have some years together child free. Oh so very organised and sorted and well discussed like a good couple should. That logical argument doesn't mean I don't think about it over and over.
How does it feel around others with children- using the food analogy-it is like we couldn't afford the meal so turned up for drinks at the end. For the people with children they may feel we have missed the party, the bonding, the reason for getting together, for the child free they may see it as the important part of the night, the party getting started, for me it feels like neither- like we missed the main bit yet don't have the stamina to party all night.
I have mentioned the guilt before. There are two sides to this. I cannot describe Karl's feelings, only he could do that as the partner who could make a child. I can only tell you what it is like to be the one who is faulty, the one who has caused the problem, even though no fault of my own, it is, and always will remain, my fault. Guilt is destructive and harmful and no matter how much I could tell others the right thing, I could not accept that advice myself. I was the reason we didn't have a family. Couple that with the fact that I was the one who was very overweight, I have double the guilt on my plate.
That guilt sometimes went away- in fact it was less present in the early days than the later days. I found it easier when time was on our side to ignore it and move on- I was only 30/31 I had time. time, but as we all know, time has a way of moving very fast. I lost weight, I lost a lot of weight- I lost 4 stone over the years and plateaued at 16 stone for a while. Still too heavy for pills or IVF. My last ditch attempt came at 37 where I lost a further 3 stone. Still too heavy for treatment. Please bear in mind that this was a huge task as PCOS and some diabetes medication makes you put on weight. At this point I was barely eating in order to combat my very slow metabolism. I was going to the gym as well. I can lose weight but I have to be just above starvation level to do it. This is no more healthy than being overweight- in fact it is far less healthy. I started worrying about the heartache of IVF and how we would cope if it didn't work- how would we move forward with this? How would we deal with the fact that I couldn't even manage to be pregnant with medical help? (that was more my thought, I believe, than Karl's as I know he would never blame me). I worried and stressed and lost sleep and came to the conclusion it would be far too painful. Karl was incredibly supportive of this. Maybe he was a little frightened of this as well.
My last point about how it feels to be childless when you don't want to be is getting to sleep at night. I can honestly say that for most nights in the last 4-5 years I haven't once stopped panicking and blaming myself for this. A doom cloud that comes and refuses to leave- how I didn't lose enough weight, how I didn't sort myself out quicker, how I allowed myself to enjoy life when I should have been concentrating on one thing only and ultimately how I had let Karl down. This would keep me awake for anything between half an hour to several hours, pretty much every night. When it all went quite, lights were off, I was falling into sleep, there is would be rising from the back of my mind- to taunt me.
We are cruel to ourselves for all sorts of reasons. We torture ourselves about silly, insignificant things. We replay conversations and build them up to mean far more than they really do- we all do it from time to time. There came a day, I am happy to say, where these thoughts stopped. More about that later but I am currently living cloud free.
Most who are child free and wish to remain that way are not in the hate brigade- thankfully. Most are quite capable of being around children and many love the children of others and make the best actual and actual and pretend aunties and uncles. It is, as always, the minority that are vocal and give others a bad name.
Therefore, perhaps it is understandable why I hate being lumped in with the militant child-free brigade. I have noticed how people with children will avoid talking to us about them and avoid asking us to hold them or look after them while they do something- perhaps they learn to stay away from child free couples as they don't want their ire? Who knows, but I can tell you it is real and it happens and I have often felt like a pariah around other people's children as there seems to be an unspoken rule that they 'don't involve those two' (this exclude one pair of friends here who have literally changed our lives but I will write about that later).
I think child free couples that do not want to be child free fall into a strange little hole that is covered over with a sticking plaster (probably ironically with a Mr Men plaster to add insult to injury!). They can't be defined and put neatly into a box- I guess it is like walking past a argument in the street, you want to help but know that it will cause you trouble or make the situation worse and at the end of the day it is just none of your business- so you pass it by perhaps with a raised eyebrow or roll of the eyes or just dropping your head and trying your hardest not to be seen looking.
We are, after all, an oddity aren't we? A square peg in a round hole (for a nice common turn of phrase). Let me tell you how it feels- to me at least...
It feels like a wonderful meal that you just can't finish- the dessert is there, tempting you but you know there is no way you can eat another thing. The niggling in your brain tells you to try and to lust after that delicious dessert but you walk way from the table leaving it behind- and then you think about it all night, regretting that you were just too full to contemplate eating it. You then berate yourself for buying it in the first place when you weren't up to eating it and think about the waste of money. You have regrets about having that starter- did you really like it that much anyway? Could you have done without it? then there would have been room for pudding- but no, you had to fill up too early and leave yourself with the thought of dessert but int inability to eat it.
Relate that starter to me being in my mid to late 20s- I was most likely more fertile then. pre- diabetic, not as heavy (as I was when I was told I was infertile) and young enough to plan treatment. Why, in hindsight did we not try for a baby right away? Why did we enjoy that starter? We went on holidays and enjoyed spending and having fun, filling years with frivolity... ignoring that the dessert was better in the long run. Why didn't we listen to the 'you won't have room for starters and dessert' line of thinking? Of course it is all very logical and no one can predict the future- we had planned to start trying when we were 30 and planned to have some years together child free. Oh so very organised and sorted and well discussed like a good couple should. That logical argument doesn't mean I don't think about it over and over.
How does it feel around others with children- using the food analogy-it is like we couldn't afford the meal so turned up for drinks at the end. For the people with children they may feel we have missed the party, the bonding, the reason for getting together, for the child free they may see it as the important part of the night, the party getting started, for me it feels like neither- like we missed the main bit yet don't have the stamina to party all night.
I have mentioned the guilt before. There are two sides to this. I cannot describe Karl's feelings, only he could do that as the partner who could make a child. I can only tell you what it is like to be the one who is faulty, the one who has caused the problem, even though no fault of my own, it is, and always will remain, my fault. Guilt is destructive and harmful and no matter how much I could tell others the right thing, I could not accept that advice myself. I was the reason we didn't have a family. Couple that with the fact that I was the one who was very overweight, I have double the guilt on my plate.
That guilt sometimes went away- in fact it was less present in the early days than the later days. I found it easier when time was on our side to ignore it and move on- I was only 30/31 I had time. time, but as we all know, time has a way of moving very fast. I lost weight, I lost a lot of weight- I lost 4 stone over the years and plateaued at 16 stone for a while. Still too heavy for pills or IVF. My last ditch attempt came at 37 where I lost a further 3 stone. Still too heavy for treatment. Please bear in mind that this was a huge task as PCOS and some diabetes medication makes you put on weight. At this point I was barely eating in order to combat my very slow metabolism. I was going to the gym as well. I can lose weight but I have to be just above starvation level to do it. This is no more healthy than being overweight- in fact it is far less healthy. I started worrying about the heartache of IVF and how we would cope if it didn't work- how would we move forward with this? How would we deal with the fact that I couldn't even manage to be pregnant with medical help? (that was more my thought, I believe, than Karl's as I know he would never blame me). I worried and stressed and lost sleep and came to the conclusion it would be far too painful. Karl was incredibly supportive of this. Maybe he was a little frightened of this as well.
My last point about how it feels to be childless when you don't want to be is getting to sleep at night. I can honestly say that for most nights in the last 4-5 years I haven't once stopped panicking and blaming myself for this. A doom cloud that comes and refuses to leave- how I didn't lose enough weight, how I didn't sort myself out quicker, how I allowed myself to enjoy life when I should have been concentrating on one thing only and ultimately how I had let Karl down. This would keep me awake for anything between half an hour to several hours, pretty much every night. When it all went quite, lights were off, I was falling into sleep, there is would be rising from the back of my mind- to taunt me.
We are cruel to ourselves for all sorts of reasons. We torture ourselves about silly, insignificant things. We replay conversations and build them up to mean far more than they really do- we all do it from time to time. There came a day, I am happy to say, where these thoughts stopped. More about that later but I am currently living cloud free.
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