baby showers

Your Childless by Marriage Survival Guide

Sue Fagalde Lick baby showers, Childless Woman's Survival Guide, envying families with children, grandparent envy, nosy questions, questions about having children , , , , , , , , , , ,

Survival guide? I can hear the naysayers now. “What’s so hard about not having children? You’ve got nothing to worry about but yourself.”

Wrong! In a world where most people become parents, those of us who don’t procreate face a few special challenges, including feeling shut out by your friends with kids, getting dumped on at work because everyone assumes you have nothing else to do, and the mother-in-law who keeps buying stuffed animals for her unborn grandchildren.

In this second to last new post at the Childless by Marriage blog, I offer a few suggestions.

1) The question: Do you have children? For most people, it’s just a conversation starter, but answering “no” may start the conversation in a direction you’d rather not travel. So have a reply ready. I used to tell people I had three stepchildren, which usually satisfied folks, but since I no longer see the steps and I’m considerably older, I just say, “No, I never had any children.” My friend Jill replies, “I have dogs.” Another friend just looks them in the eye and asks, “Why?”

2) The next question: Why don’t you have children? Telling folks you hate kids will not win you many friends. If you wanted children but your partner was unwilling or unable, it’s not cool to put all the blame on them. This is a person you love, right? You’re in this together. (If you’re not on the same page, you need to figure out whether you should stay together). For a few years, you can say you’re not quite ready yet, but after that, you need a better excuse. You could say, “We decided children were not for us,” “Our lives were already so full,” or “We tried, but it didn’t work out, so we got a dog.” If you have fertility issues, talking about them may earn pity, but who needs that? I just say, “God had other plans for me.” Then I change the subject. You can always turn it around and ask, “Why do you have children?”

3) Baby showers: Men don’t have to worry as much about this, but it can be a nightmare for childless women. The longer your friends live with babies, the more you wonder if they have lost their minds. At baby showers, women who have given birth terrify the guest of honor by telling harrowing labor stories. They play obstetric word puzzles and hold timed doll-diapering contests before enjoying a long orgy of unwrapping gifts. You will be the only woman who puts the diaper on backwards, who has nothing to contribute to the conversation, and who buys a doll-sized lace dress the child will be too big for at birth. You have two choices: tell someone else’s birth stories and sip as much fortified punch as you can, or decline the invitation, pleading work, a funeral, or some other obligation you can’t get out of. Send a card with money tucked inside. Cash always works.

4) Baby lust: No matter how comfortable you may be most of the time with your status as a childless person, once in a while you are going to want to cuddle an infant and talk baby talk. Borrow a baby. A sibling, co-worker or friend will be delighted to pass her child to you for a while so she can take a break. Borrowing an infant is like renting that Lexus you could never afford to buy. In both cases, when they need servicing, you give them back.

5) Baby talk: In their reproductive years, your friends and co-workers will spend hours discussing their children’s schools, illnesses, and annoying or endearing habits. Later, they will talk about their grandchildren’s schools, illnesses, and annoying or endearing habits. When you mention your puppy’s new chew toy, they just stare at you. Find a child you can talk about. Stepchildren work well, also nieces and nephews, students or the neighbor’s kid down the street. Collect stories you can share when the talk is all about kids. Worst case, reminisce about your own childhood.

6) Acting like a child: Ever pass an arcade and want to drop in a few quarters but everyone there is either a child or a parent? Ever miss playing marbles, jacks or Barbies? Play them alone, and people think you’re nuts. Play them with a child and you are helping, teaching, interacting. So, borrow a kid—with his parents’ permission—and have fun. You’ll get a reputation for being great with children, and their parents will be grateful because they’re sick of playing video games and searching for Barbie’s itty-bitty high heels.

7) The empty nest syndrome: Everyone has an empty nest eventually. Kids grow up and move away, and parents suddenly wonder what happened to their lives. You’re way ahead of them because your nest was never full. If you need something to feed and clean up after, get a dog. The dog will never learn to drive, never get married, never tell you she’s embarrassed to be seen with you. Dogs never ask for money or bring home bags of dirty clothes for you to wash. Overall, dogs are more fun than kids. And I’ll bet most of your friends who are raising tiny humans would agree.

8) You are not alone: With more and more people opting not to have children (or get married), you are not the only person without offspring. When you find someone else who is childless, talk to them, invite them to a meal, do things together. Eventually, the parent-people will look up and see you again when their kids no longer need constant supervision. Meanwhile, you don’t have to be alone. If you look around, you’ll find that people without kids are part of the new normal.

Dear friends, what would you add to this list? What is your best advice for childless by marriage readers?

One more post to go before I stop posting regularly here at the Childless by Marriage blog. What would you like to read here? I will keep up the website, with its reference list and an index of the 900 posts I have published over the years. You can still comment. I will read your comments and respond.

The Childless by Marriage Facebook page will continue. If you haven’t visited there, give it a try.

If you want to know what I’m up to these days, visit my “Can I Do It Alone?” Substack at https://suelick.substack.com or friend me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/suelick. 

Thanks for reading Childless by Marriage!

Bowl brings back time before I was childless

Sue Fagalde Lick baby showers , , , , , , ,

Maybe it was the chocolate Easter bunny I had just finished, vowing to start my diet again as soon as I ate the last bite. Maybe it was the lingering effects of my second Covid shot. Maybe I should have listened to my mother when she told me it was bad to leave the dishes in the rack to dry.

I was pulling the tray for the toaster oven out of the dish rack when I upset the delicate balance and watched my 47-year-old Pyrex mixing bowl slide into the sink and shatter loudly enough for my half-deaf dog to hear.

“No!” I screamed. Looking at the green and white glass in the sink, I wanted to cry. It’s not just the bowl, which was the biggest one in the set. I have other bowls. It’s the history behind it.

It was 1974. I was going to be married in a few weeks. I was sporting a tiny diamond on a white gold band. My engagement picture had appeared in the San Jose Mercury-News and in the Milpitas Post where I worked part-time as a reporter, writing features in a rustic old house-office with a bunch of hard-smoking, cursing reporters pounding away on manual typewriters on layers of leftover newsprint with carbon paper in-between.

I was also finishing my last semester at San Jose State, where I would graduate with my degree in journalism two weeks before the wedding. In my spare time, I was setting up the apartment where Jim and I would live. I had already papered the shelves where my bowls would be stored.

The shower was supposed to be a secret, but my grandmother spilled the beans when I answered the phone in my parents’ kitchen. She told me about someone who could not attend the shower at my aunt’s house on Saturday night. I played it cool, said something like, “Oh, that’s too bad,” then rushed to the bedroom to confront my mother. “Is there going to be a wedding shower for me on Saturday night?”

“God damn it,” said my mother who never swore.

Grandma never could keep a secret.

So many of the women who were there that evening have passed on, including the grandmothers, the aunts, my mother and mother-in-law, and my best friend’s mother, Ella Shope, who gave me the nested set of four Pyrex bowls, half white with green flowers, half green with white flowers. My friend Sherri gave me matching baking dishes. I have been using them ever since, through two husbands and 11 different homes, from graduation into Medicare.

Now those bowls are considered vintage and sell for over $50 each in the antique stores. Will I buy another one? Probably not. I’m at an age where I need to let go of things.

But the memories of that wedding shower remain. In those days (maybe still?) the number of ribbons you cut opening your gifts was supposed to predict how many children you would have. That night, everyone, including me, assumed children would be coming soon. Yes, I was getting a degree and working for a newspaper, but I’d be a mother, too, and such a good one. My own mother would be the best grandmother. My grandmothers would still be around to be great-grandmothers . . . None of us had any idea that it would never happen, that we would not gather again in a year or two for a baby shower, at least not for me.

Wedding showers are difficult if you’re not in a good place relationshipwise, but baby showers are the worst torture. To sit there watching the pregnant one celebrate the upcoming birth and all the moms comparing experiences that you might never have hurts so bad. I know you can indentify.

When everybody’s in the same mindset and the same stage of life, showers are a lovely tradition, making sure the younger, less financially stable person has everything she needs to start the new phase of life. Very nice. It’s just that some of us are going in other directions. We might need support, too, but it’s not built in like baby showers.

I haven’t been invited to a shower in years. That’s fine. Fewer hours squirming in the Planet Mommy. But I’m still jealous of that outpouring of support, the presents and the cake, and the man who shows up to help carry the loot home. I’m jealous of it all.

It’s interesting how material things last longer than people. I miss those older women who gathered around to share their wisdom and make sure I had everything I needed as I began my grownup life. All those women in dresses, nylons and pearls moved on, and now I’m the old lady. I miss that time when all was rosy and possible.

And I miss my green and white bowl.

What has been your experience with wedding and baby showers? Torture or fun? Have you received items that you will treasure all your life? Please share in the comments.

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