baby pictures

I’m an Alien from the Planet of No Children, Only Dogs

Sue Fagalde Lick Annie the dog, baby pictures, childless dog owners, childless women and baby pictures, lives without children , , , , ,
To illustrate how I prefer dog pictures to baby pictures, the photo shows a big yellow dog with a white face on a beat-up green sofa, fireplace and laundry baskets in the background.

My friend, whom I love, insisted on showing me a video on her phone of her grandchild babbling nonsense. I reacted in much the same way my father would have. A head nod and “yeah, cute,” but she stood there waiting for more. Another woman came over to look. Right away, she started gushing and oohing and couldn’t get enough of it. I don’t know how to do that. I come from a planet without children. That visceral response just doesn’t happen. Yes, she’s cute, and yes, I know she was a preemie and it’s wonderful that she’s growing and learning like other babies now. But I can’t give you that gushing mommy reaction.

When we met a one-year-old Lab-Golden Retriever named Bella at the vet’s office yesterday, I got plenty gooey. Oh, you’re so beautiful. Oh, what a cute puppy. And when my Annie, who doesn’t usually relate to other dogs, walked over and touched noses, I was beside myself with happiness. But human babies? It just doesn’t happen. 

The other night, I was rewriting an old essay that carries a food theme through my life from first marriage to first apartment post-divorce to new marriage and widowhood. It’s about tuna noodle casserole, not the one with potato chips. Basically neither husband liked it, so I cooked it for myself whenever I was alone.The essay covers a whole life, but when I read it over, it seemed to be missing something. Married, alone, married, alone–

Where are the children and grandchildren? Wouldn’t I be making tuna noodle casserole for them? Would they like it? I’m thinking they wouldn’t because it has mushrooms and nuts, but it doesn’t matter because they weren’t at the table. Children were not a factor in this life story. If I were being 100 percent accurate, I might mention the stepchildren, but I probably never served them my tuna noodle casserole. I knew they would hate my favorite comfort food.

My dog would love it, but she didn’t make it into the essay either.  

On what planet does a life not include children? Mine. Yours. We’re approaching a quarter of American women who reach menopause without giving birth. Their life stories don’t revolve around children, and their lives don’t revolve around Betty Crocker casseroles, with or without potato chips. 

On this planet of no kids, we do not learn to speak Mommy. We don’t develop the gushing-over-baby-pictures  area of our brains. We fill that area with pets or other things we enjoy. There’s a widowed man in my church who goes nuts every time he sees my Martin guitar. Babies not so much. I don’t know if he was always from the Planet of No Children, but he lives there now.  

Maybe, male or female, we are like the old “bachelors,” the unmarried fellows the aunties were always trying to marry off. In the cliched picture, they’re into work, cars, and maybe women, but not kids, oh no, not kids. They wouldn’t go all soft at the photo on the phone either. Being guys, they might be more interested in what type of phone you’re using. 

These days, I’m pretty much indifferent to baby pictures. My fertility ended long ago. For you, the sight may cause deep pain because you’re still trying to deal with the possibility–or certainty–that you will not have children. You can’t really refuse to look at the doting mother’s or grandmother’s pictures. If it makes you want to cry, I say go ahead. Let the tears fall. Admit that it’s hard for you to look at baby pictures because you don’t get to have any of your own. Maybe, just maybe, they will realize that not everybody has to see the baby pictures and no one should be forced. If their reaction is not pure adoration, there’s a good reason.

Then again, it’s quite possible people assume you don’t want to look when you really do.A few years ago, when a family member said, “Sue doesn’t do kids.” I was so hurt. I don’t have kids, but it doesn’t mean I don’t do kids.

What’s your reaction when someone shoves a phone in your face to show off baby pictures? Are you able to gush and spew praises or do you just hope to move on as quickly as possible? Does your life story look a little empty with no little ones? Or are there plenty of babies in your life, just not your own? 

What is your favorite comfort food? 

I welcome your comments. 

Happy New Year!

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Where do we “childless by circumstance” people fit in?

Sue Fagalde Lick baby pictures, Being Fruitful Without Multiplying, childless by circumstance, childless not by choice, childless stepmothers, Facebook groups, militantly childfree, uncomfortable around mothers
In preparing to write this blog, I look at the posts in the various related Facebook groups I belong to. It always makes me uncomfortable. The posts at the Childless Stepmothers group burn with anger. The stepmoms seem to hate their stepchildren as well as the kids’ biological mothers. They resent the fact that they have to take care of these “brats” while they don’t get to have their own kids. Although my own relationship with my stepchildren has not always been smooth, I am always aware that by giving me a chance to interact with his kids, my husband gave me a family. It’s an opportunity to be a mother in some ways. I am lucky that the kids’ mom is a great person, and we all get along. It doesn’t always work out that way.
At the Being Fruitful Without Multiplying group, the overriding theme seems to be that people who have babies are idiots. Not smart enough to use birth control. Look how pregnancy ruins your body. Look how it ruins your life. How dare these breeders make us share our world with their “spawn?” And how could a doctor refuse to sterilize a person in his or her 20s, saying they’re “too young?”
At Childless Not by Choice, the grief fills my computer monitor with tears. Some members are childless because their partner can’t or doesn’t want to have kids, some don’t have partners, and some have struggled with infertility, including multiple miscarriages, stillbirths and failed attempts to get pregnant.They’d give anything to have children.
I feel most comfortable with the Childless Not by Choice group, but it’s not easy to face all this sadness.
In real life, too, it’s hard to fit in sometimes. At my new dentist’s office last week, the dental assistant went on and on about her children and grandchildren—as well as her husband. She didn’t ask if I was married or had children, and I couldn’t tell her because of the sharp instruments in my mouth.
At lunch last Sunday after church, I sat with four friends, all mothers, three of them grandmothers, as they passed around baby pictures and talked about their families. I love these women, but I felt like a papaya at a table full of apples. I sipped my iced tea and hoped our food would arrive soon.
I have other friends I meet at writing workshops and other events who are militantly childfree. If I say anything about kids, they proclaim that they never wanted them, thank God they don’t have them. They shudder at the thought of being mothers while I quietly hope the program will start soon.
It’s a crazy time. In my mother’s generation, everybody had children if they were physically able to do so. They were all happy apples. Now, with so many choices, it’s one big mixed-up fruit cocktail.
What are your experiences dealing with the moms and non-moms? Please share in the comments.
(If you want to join any of these Facebook groups, search for them by name. Most are private so people can share freely. If you need an invitation to get in, let me know.)

Bye-bye, Baby Pictures

Sue Fagalde Lick baby pictures, childless actress, childless and baby pictures, Dame Helen Mirren, getting rid of online baby pictures, Sarah Rainey, Sue Fagalde Lick quoted in the Telegraph, Telegraph UK, unbaby.me

Does seeing baby pictures all over Facebook and other social media drive you nuts? I often read comments here and elsewhere from childless/childfree people who can’t stand looking at other people’s baby pictures. Either they don’t enjoy babies or looking at these photos hurts because they can’t have them.

It’s not just online, of course. We can’t do much about our friends and relatives who insist on showing us pictures of their children and grandchildren. These days, they don’t need actual photos; they just click them up on their smart phones and make you look. Then of course, you feel pressured to say something complimentary about the wee one. Is it only me or are some babies ugly?

Sometimes friends start to realize you don’t want to see their baby pictures, but they get all huffy about it. Don’t show it to Sue. She’s not interested. Or Don’t show it to Sue. She hates babies. Not true. Babies are amazing, but I admit that I get more of a warm squishy feeling looking at puppy pictures.

Anyway, in some online situations now, you can get rid of the baby pictures. At http://www.unbaby.me, you can download a program that replaces baby images with dogs or a tropical beach or whatever makes you happy. Apparently it only works for the Google Chrome operating system so far, but it might be worth a try if you can’t handle anymore baby pix. Go to the website and try it just for giggles.

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Dame Helen and me:

I woke up to a pleasant surprise the other morning when Sarah Rainey, a writer for the UK’s Daily Telegraph, e-mailed me for an interview. She had 20 minutes before deadline, and by the miracles of the Internet, I was able to receive her questions and send back answers in time to be included in her article. That article, which focuses on childless actress Dame Helen Mirren, is now online, titled “Helen Mirren confronts the final female taboo.”  I’m so flattered to be in such elegant company, and I think you will enjoy the article.

Baby pictures?

Sue Fagalde Lick baby pictures, childless, ultrasound

I lay back on the bed in the small dark room at the hospital and stared at the screen. As I have seen in so many TV shows and movies, there was the fuzzy image in the shape of a windshield-wiper swath. My pants were open, coated with gel, and the technician was running a wand over my belly. Although I knew it was impossible, I wanted to see a baby up there.

The image looked just like the screen on our old black and white TV when Dad was up on the roof trying to get the antenna to work. If you stared at it long enough, you started to see things that might be there. In this case, I pretended I could see a fetus. But no, it wasn’t there. One more time, I felt the loss of the children who might have been.

An hour earlier, my doctor had felt something irregular in the area of my left ovary and ordered an immediate ultrasound. The good-looking male technician pointed out my bladder, my uterus, and the places where my ovaries supposedly were, but I couldn’t see them. I sure hoped he could interpret all that black and white fuzz.

Having seen it done so often on TV, the first part of the ultrasound was familiar and physically painless, interesting even. The writer in me was already constructing my prize-winning essay and wondering if I could get a photo to take home. But then he announced Part 2, which consisted of inserting a long wand into my vagina and poking around for a while to get close-up pictures. Not so fun. Do they do this with pregnant women? I have no reference.

The good news is that my doctor ultimately determined that everything was normal. “Normal” is such a beautiful word, isn’t it? I still have all my baby-making equipment, even though they are too old to use. Still room for a miracle.

Or maybe I just had mine.

Mom Club strikes again and so do the dogs

Sue Fagalde Lick baby pictures, Mom Club at the bar, puppies in timeout

My puppies are in timeout right now. They were so cute sleeping together atop the spa cover–until I looked out the window and saw them shredding it. I took a cue from Supernanny and shut them in the laundry room, not so much to think about what they did–they’re dogs–but to give them time to find something else to chew up and me time to stop being angry. Think they’ll get through the duct tape I used to patch the cover? You bet. And wait till their father gets home.

Still on the dogs, Chico literally chewed off Annie’s collar day before yesterday and chomped it into little pieces. I saw it hanging from his mouth, ran out and gathered the bits of cloth. I thought I got them all, but yesterday morning, I discovered that during the night he had barfed up the rest of the collar, including a plastic clasp. Yikes. I hear they calm down after the first year. I hope so. At least human babies don’t have teeth.

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I opened my blogger screen this morning and what did I see? Baby pictures. Come on, Blogger, some of us don’t want to see babies right now.

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At last weekend’s conference, I was having a fine time at the bar with a bunch of other writers when suddenly the conversation turned to children and I found myself sitting alone with my beer and basketball on the overhead TV screen while the others were huddled together talking about school, obedience, shots and other kid topics. Once again, the Mom Club had gathered and I was left out. Ever feel that way?

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I did meet with agents and editors about the Childless by Marriage book at the conference. No good news yet, but it’s coming.