“get over it”

Will You Ever Find Peace with Your Childlessness? 

Sue Fagalde Lick "get over it", accepting a life without children., childless grief, infertility, menopause for childless women, regret, regret not having children , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Facing a future with no children used to drive me crazy. Back when I was fertile and married to a man who was not, I cried a lot, mostly where he couldn’t see me. I resented my friends whose lives revolved around their kids. I did not want to hear their happy stories or look at their pictures. Baby showers? What do I know about babies? Count me out.

As far as I knew, there was nothing wrong with my baby-making parts, but they were being wasted, evidenced by painful periods every month, reminders I was running out of time. 

Now I’m 72, childless and widowed. Although being alone can be difficult, I have to tell you that I don’t think about childlessness all the time anymore. If you are in your 20s, 30s, or early 40s, feeling bad because you wanted children and might never have even one baby, know that it does get easier. Like any loss, it doesn’t go away, but you do learn to live with it. 

Yes, you will feel breakthrough grief and anger. You’ll see a family at play or hold someone else’s baby and think I could have had that, but as you get older, it will become a less important feature in your life. You will wonder who will care for you in old age, but know that even if you had children, they might not be available to help.

When you’re surrounded by people getting married and having babies, you feel excluded, jealous, and angry at whatever keeps you from having the children you always wanted. Or you resent the people who keep pushing you to have the children you never wanted. You’ll regret it, they warn. What if they’re right? It can be a brutal time. 

The night before my 40th birthday, I had a meltdown that I describe in my Childless by Marriage book. At a Catholic women’s retreat, everyone was talking about their kids. Our guided meditation put me face to face with what I had lost, and it felt unbearable. As the women running the retreat held me, I sobbed in front of everyone. I felt broken. It didn’t help that I really wanted a drink, and there was no alcohol around.

But as I approached menopause, so many other things took my attention. My writing career was taking off. I was performing music almost every weekend. I earned my long-delayed master’s degree. We moved from San Jose, California to Oregon and experienced a very different life in a small coastal town.

My mother died, my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and my father needed lots of help before he passed away. You hear about the “sandwich generation,” about people caught between caring for their children and caring for their parents. Without children, we can be open-faced sandwiches, helping our older relatives without neglecting our children. 

By my 50s, people stopped bugging me about having kids, and my friends were free to do non-kid activities again. Yes, the grandchildren came, but that was an off and on thing. We could still be friends.

Do I wish I was a grandmother? Sometimes. but childlessness is not at the front of my mind anymore. I took a different path, and it’s too late to turn back.

With every choice, you lose the chance to pursue the other option. By moving to Oregon, we lost the chance to grow old in San Jose, closer to family and so many resources that don’t exist here. If I had married someone else or not married at all, my story would be different. You choose one road and let the other one go.

I can torture myself by imagining what it would be like to have children, how they would look, what we would do together, how I would hold my grandbabies in my arms. But my life didn’t go that way, and I suspect that’s how it was meant to be. 

Not having children has given me the gift of great gobs of time that mothers don’t always have. Time and freedom. I don’t have to find a babysitter or take a kid with me if I decide I want to go to lunch, take a walk on the beach, or spend the night elsewhere. I just go. 

Would I trade my freedom for a walk on the beach with my son or daughter, maybe with their children splashing in the surf or building sandcastles? In a heartbeat. But that’s not on the menu for me. And I’m 80 percent okay with it.  

Maybe you’re at that age when becoming a parent would still be possible under other current circumstances and you’re driving yourself crazy trying to decide what to do: Leave your partner in the hope of finding someone who will give you kids? Try IVF? Hire a surrogate? Adopt? You may fight with your partner over it and cry a lot.

I know how bad it hurts. I’m saying that later it will be easier. Childlessness will not be the center of your life, and that makes room for other things, wonderful things. 

That’s not nothing.

How about you? Are you going crazy over being childless? Do you regret the choices that led you to be without children? Did you have a choice? Do you think you will ever be okay with it? Or are you fine with it now? Have you found peace with your situation? How?

I’m great-grandmother old. Tell me how it is for you at whatever age you are.

I welcome your comments.

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If you enjoy this blog, you may want to visit my Substack, Can I Do It Alone?

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Childless Not by Choice: The Grief is Never Completely Gone

Sue Fagalde Lick "get over it", childless grief, childless not by choice, grandma grief, grief over childlessness, grief triggers, Jody Day, never going to be a mother , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Red-haired woman crying. She's wearing wedding rings, has red nail polish and red lipstick, and is holding a tissue. No one is comforting her.

All it took was one word to break my heart again.

That word was “Mama.”

I was down in the dumps anyway as I took my usual walk down Cedar Street. A migraine had dogged me all weekend. I missed a music jam I was looking forward to. I was tired of being alone.

A German shepherd standing in a driveway reminded me of Annie and all the dogs I have lost, including Heidi, the German shepherd I lost along with my first marriage.

Then I passed these two little brown-haired boys, one maybe two years old, the other maybe six.

As the little one stared at me, the big one shouted, “He might call you ‘Mama.’”

And then he did. “Mama!”

Gulp. No one has ever called me Mama.

I smiled and waved. “I don’t mind,” I assured the older boy as tears threatened. “He’s cute.”

What? Like a puppy? It was a dumb thing to say.

I let the tears fall as soon I got out of their sight. The pain of never having children was just as bad 20 years past menopause as it was when I was 35.

That scarred place in my heart breaks every time this happens.

A couple weeks ago at church, I was playing the piano at Mass. The family close to me in the front row included an adorable toddler happily squeezed between her mother and grandmother. Black hair, brown skin, big eyes, dimples. If I had had a little girl, she would have looked a lot like this one, maybe not as brown, but she’d have the same black hair and brown eyes.

Grandma held a big cloth book while the child turned the pages.

Oh my God, I wanted to be one of those women. I wanted to hold that baby. But I never would. I had no claim to her.

All I could do was keep playing the piano.

Back on my walk, I was visiting a neighbor’s dogs a little later when the boys came down the street with an older girl. In trying to keep up, the little guy stumbled and fell. He was not hurt, but he looked at me and cried “Mama!” I kept petting the dogs while the girl scooped up her little brother. She was already a mother-in-training. I missed that class.  

I belong with the dogs, I told myself. I’m a dog person. I’m going to get another dog soon. I will feel better.

Why do I share this today? Because it still hurts. Because I want you to know that while you will feel okay most of the time about not having children and will build a good life without them, it’s still going to hurt when you least expect it. That scar is there, and it’s brittle.

As Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and author of the book Living the Life Unexpected, likes to say, our pain is an unacknowledged, disenfranchised grief. When someone dies, it’s awful, but everyone sees and understands your loss. They hold you while you cry. They bring casseroles. They know it hurts and give you a break. When you get a divorce, lose a job, or crash your car, everybody sympathizes.

But not having children doesn’t seem to count. How can you grieve what you never had? Besides, they say, unless you were physically unable to bear children, you made the choices that led to this situation. Right? So get over it.

It’s not that easy. It will hurt sometimes. It’s okay. Cry, stomp, curse, whatever you have to do. Talk about it with people who might be sympathetic. Try to explain: When I hear the word Mama, it kills me.

It will pass. You’ll go on with the other wonderful things in your life. But it’s never gone.

Listen to Jody Day’s talk on Disenfranchised grief and know that those of us who experience this kind of grief are aware of your tears and your pain and acknowledge that it is real.

Are there words or situations that trigger your emotions? Do the people around you understand why you’re upset? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

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I have a new Substack titled “Can I Do It Alone?” Since my first post on April 1, it has taken off like wildfire. See what all the fuss is about at https://open.substack.com/pub/suelick/p/introducing-can-i-do-it-alone?r=ejjy9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Don’t Hide Your Childless Story; Share It

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Image is mostly text listing categories for stories to be submitted for World Childless Week. Small images on left, white words on blue on right.

Writing about being childless is not always easy. Sometimes just talking about it is a challenge. Even though I am a writer, sometimes I just want to shut up about the whole not-having-children thing. It’s easier to try to blend in. Dwelling on it hurts, and people often react in ways that make it worse.

You shouldn’t have married him. You shouldn’t have let him deny you children. You should have seen another doctor. You should have adopted. You’re lucky you don’t have children. You’re lucky to have so much freedom. Look at all the money you’re saving. Are you still whining about not having kids? Etc.

But we need to say it out loud so that others in the same situation know they are not alone and so that people who do have children begin to understand what it’s like for us.

It’s not our fault. Or maybe it’s a little our fault, but it’s a done deal now. Adoption is hard and not the same and we decided not to do it. Some days, we do enjoy our freedom and the extra money, but other days we cry our guts out when we see a woman playing with her grandchild or hear about a friend having a baby. And no, marrying a person who already has kids is not the same, not even close.

I’m just riffing here, but does any of that sound familiar? Well, here’s a chance to speak up in a safe space without those negative responses.

World Childless Week, Sept. 11-17, is coming up. Organizer Stephanie Joy Phillips has been gathering personal stories to share on the website. Each day has a different theme.

Sept. 11: Your Story

Sept. 12: Being a Stepparent

Sept. 13: A Letter to the Person Who Hurt Me the Most

Sept. 14: Childless in the Media

Sept. 15: You’re So Lucky to Not Have Kids

Sept. 16: I am Me

Sept. 17: Moving Forward

Stephanie is looking for 800 to 1,000 words, but the stories can be longer or shorter if that’s how it works out. For full guidelines, click here.

I submitted a piece on being a stepmother. It felt good to say it out loud, the good and the bad, in a place where my stepchildren will never see it. It might feel good for you, too. The deadline is Sunday, Aug. 27. I know that’s not much time. But try writing something about your childless experience. The only people reading it will be other childless people like you and I, so you won’t get all those garbage responses from people who don’t understand. You don’t have to use your real name.

If you miss the deadline or find you have more to say, send something to publish here at Childless by Marriage. Guest posts are always welcome. You can use a false name to tell your real truth. Use the guidelines on this page.

Or maybe just try writing something for yourself that you will never show to anyone. Spelling and grammar don’t matter. Just let the words flow. Sometimes writing out your thoughts and feelings helps to make sense of things. If you’re worried about someone reading it, you can delete the file or burn the pages when you’re done.

Even if you don’t get anything written, do plan to attend some or all of the World Childless Week discussions. They’re all on Zoom and free. Every session may not apply to your situation. Choose the ones that do. Your face and name will not appear on the screen.

I will be one of the panelists for the Sept. 14 talk on how childlessness is portrayed in the media and again on Sept. 15 for the Nomo Crones’ fireside chat about aging without children. Both should be a lot of fun and very interesting.

As always, I welcome your comments and thank you for being here.

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What If Your Partner Dismisses Your Childless Grief?

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Does your partner really understand how you feel about not having children? Do they sympathize or tell you to “get over it?”

I got to thinking about this after listening to a podcast about “disenfranchised grief” and childlessness with new Lighthouse Women leader Katy Seppi and Dr. Nisa Darroux. Darroux, who specializes in the subject, made some excellent points. I recommend listening.

Disenfranchised grief happens when other people don’t recognize your loss. To them, it looks like you haven’t actually lost anything. When someone dies, it’s clear. People offer cards, flowers, sympathy, and casseroles and gather around for support. But when it’s ambiguous, like losing the possibility of having children, they don’t know how to relate. With death, you had something and lost it. But with childlessness, well, you never had it.

This is not news to most of us. We’re familiar with people who say things like “why don’t you just adopt?” or “why don’t you . . . ,” with people who tell you it’s your own fault if you don’t have kids, that you must not like kids or want them bad enough, that you didn’t fight hard enough, or the ever-popular “you’re better off not having kids; if I had it to do over, I wouldn’t have any.” We have heard the relatives asking when we’re going to get pregnant, making us feel guilty for not producing grandchildren, or comparing us to our siblings who do have children.

Friends say look at my adorable baby pictures, come to the baby shower, or this Halloween party is just for “families.”

People, society, the family don’t acknowledge your right to grief, but what if your partner does not recognize your grief as valid? What if he/she is the one who says, “Aren’t you over that yet?” “We’ll get you a puppy, okay?” “You knew I wasn’t going to change.” “Don’t cry over spilled milk—or spilled sperm?” “Look at all the money we’re saving.” Or, “Hey, I’m the one with the bad sperm/eggs/whatever. What are you crying about?”

You know?

What if your partner does not acknowledge the magnitude of your loss? It seems to me if a person really loves his or her partner, they would do whatever it took to make them happy, including having a child even if they’re not really into it. Maybe that’s stupid because they might be resentful and unhelpful throughout. Or maybe one of those TV miracles would occur and they’d fall in love with the child and wonder why they were ever reluctant.

But I have to ask: How can you love someone who dismisses your tears as foolish or invalid? I was lucky. I think my husband truly felt bad about my grief, although I tried to hide it most of the time. At least he didn’t dismiss it. And he did come with those three offspring for me to stepparent. “I can’t give you kids, but you can share mine.”

What if the one most dismissive of your grief is your partner? I don’t know what to tell you, except to try to make them see how it is for you. The only other possibility is leaving, and I’m not suggesting that. Or am I? I don’t know. Your partner should be the one person you can count on. If you can’t, that compounds the grief, and you shouldn’t have to carry it alone.

All I can say is talk about it, cry about it, yell if you need to. Don’t deny yourself the right to feel what you feel. Acknowledge it and hold it like the baby you didn’t have.

What do you think about this? Please share in the comments.

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Is It It Better to Keep Hoping for a Child or to Move On?

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My husband is 23 years older than I am and had a vasectomy 20 years ago, during his first 20+ year marriage. When we initially got together I told him I could not imagine not being a mother someday. I also told him that I was absolutely okay with adoption and that I had never been incredibly attached to the idea of carrying and giving birth to our children.

Cut to several years later. My husband and I went through two rounds of IVF (very begrudgingly on his part). After that, we had an adoption fall through very late in the process. My husband then made his opinion very clear that he was done trying and had absolutely no interest in trying anything further to have a family with me. He unfortunately made it very clear that he was only attempting everything up to this point for my feelings; he never wanted children with me.

My husband is the love of my life and I could not ever imagine spending my life with anyone else. Time has passed and I have acknowledged that children are not in the cards for us. Largely in part from your blog and books, I have realized that there is more to my life than childlessness.

My husband and I were talking yesterday about a coworker who had had a miscarriage (after having one healthy child). I asked, “Is it better to have no hope at all? Or is it better to have hope? Hope that today may be the day?” I often wonder this now that I have in large part accepted the facts in regard to my childlessness. I wonder if it is better to have this hope that your situation will change and that you may finally get what you long for so dearly? Or is it better to have no hope at all about ever having children?

–Lynne

Hope. It can be the thing that keeps you going. Maybe next month. Maybe next year. Maybe he’ll change his mind. But how likely is it? When do you give up hope? Are you putting your life on hold just in case things change?

I was looking up quotes about hope last night. There’s a long list at Goodreads.com. I was struck by this one by author William Faulkner: “You cannot swim for the horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

That could be interpreted as: if you don’t let go of the dream of being a parent, you’ll never discover the other wonderful things you could be. Or in the words of UK childless guru Jody Day, you’ll never find your Plan B.

Author Pearl S. Buck wrote: “Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”

Fashion designer Coco Chanel put it more simply: “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”

And Greek philosopher Epicurus wrote: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

I could go on, but you get the idea. There are just as many writers who preach holding on to a dream no matter what. Without hope, they ask, what’s the point?

But which will make you happier today, tomorrow or next week? For me, menopause ended my angst over whether I might maybe somehow still be a mother. The baby factory was closed. Before that, while I still had viable eggs, I fantasized about getting pregnant. I had hope. But I was running out of time, and it drove me crazy. Now that the possibility has ended, I feel more at peace. Sometimes I also feel grief or regret, but I often feel that my life turned out the way it was supposed to. I didn’t have babies, but look at all the wonderful things I have had.

Lynne, thank you for sharing your story. It will resonate with many readers.

What about you? Is it better to keep hoping? Does the hope keep you going? Or would it be better to know there’s no hope for that dream, so you could let it go and look for a new dream?

I welcome your comments.

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The books Childless by Marriage and Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both are now available not only through Amazon but at any bookstore via Ingram, the biggest distributor of books in the U.S. Why not support your local bookstore by ordering a copy?

I’ll be joining the Nomo Crones—childless elderwomen—in an online chat again on September 15 as part of World Childless Week. The Crones start gabbing at noon Pacific time. Check the website for information on all the week’s activities happening on Zoom from all over the world. You’re sure to find something that grabs your interest. The sessions will be recorded so you can watch them at your convenience.

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Do You Have to Read This Blog in Secret?

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Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova on Pexels.com

Last week on a whim, I asked whether Childless by Marriage readers felt they needed to hide their participation in the blog, Facebook page, books, etc. I had just had a vision of a spouse looking at the computer and asking, “Why are you reading this crap?” or “Aren’t you over that yet?”

It turns out some of the folks here do have to hide their participation in Childless by Marriage and anything else related to their childlessness. Anon S said it’s her “dirty secret.” Jo, another frequent commenter, said she shares a laptop computer with her husband and can only read Childless by Marriage when he’s not around. She can’t join the Facebook page without him knowing about it.

Holy cow. I don’t know why it took me 738 posts to think of this. I guess I have had the luxury of a private office for so long I forgot that most people don’t have that. I am so sorry.

I have always had my own computer, and my late husband Fred took little interest in what I was doing on it. If I wanted to share something, I called him in or handed him a printed copy. I didn’t start the blog until he was well into Alzheimer’s, so he had no idea. But I’m sure I was journaling and reading about childlessness throughout our marriage. My annual Mother’s Day tantrums were not invisible. I remember him saying “Oh, babe.” That’s all. No further discussion. But I hid most of my tears from him. I didn’t talk much about it with anyone. What good would it do?

Anon S, featured quite a bit in the Love or Children book made from the blog, said she was worried about being found out. She won’t be. Even I don’t know her name or where she lives. With the exception of a few friends from other parts of my life, I don’t know who anybody here really is. All I know is what you tell me, and that’s fine. I want this to be a safe space.

Last week, I attended the first Childless Collective Summit. Most of the speakers talked about infertility. Our main focus here is on our problems with partners who can’t or won’t make babies with us. I feel bad for those with both kinds of problems. I can’t imagine your pain.

Some aspects of childlessness are common to us all—grief, feeling left out, dealing with rude questions, worrying about our future, etc. I wonder how many women attending the Summit, which lasted for four whole days, felt they had to hide what they were doing. If so, it took real courage just to be there, even on Zoom. And God bless Katy Seppi of Chasing Creation who organized the whole thing.

I hate that some (many?) of you have to join us in secret. If we’re ever going to find peace, we need to be able to talk about our situations, admit to our grief and claim our efforts to make sense of life without children. To put it in psych talk, we need to “own our stories.”

In Jody Day’s keynote speech at the Summit, she said that 10 percent of people without children are childless by choice, 10 percent by infertility, and 80 percent by circumstance. That’s us. We need to be free to talk about it and to support each other. Childlessness for whatever reason should not be seen as a dirty secret we need to hide under the mattress like porn magazines. 

Relationships are difficult, especially when you disagree about children. In addition to your partner, you may have stepchildren looking over your shoulder. I can hear them saying, “You’re not childless; you have me.” We all know that’s not the same. We also have parents, siblings, co-workers and friends who just don’t get it. But we have every right to say, “This is my situation. I’m trying to deal with it. I hope someday you will understand.”

It makes me sad to realize you have to hide your reading about childlessness. I pray you can all find space and your own computers, tablets or phones to read whatever you want and the courage to declare, “This is important to me, so I’m going to read it.”

How is it for you? Do you feel free to read and comment or is this something you need to hide? What can we do to change the situation? I look forward to your comments.

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Enough with All the Happy Talk

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Toxic Positivity. Have you heard that term? It’s when people insist you look on the sunny side of things. “Your time will come.” “Don’t worry. You’ll get to have your baby.” “You just need to think positive.” “Look on the bright side.” “At least you have __________.”

So often people who say these things are trying to be helpful, but they are having the opposite effect. They are denying your right to feel however you need to feel. If you appear to be to be sad, angry or hopeless, it makes other people uncomfortable, so they try to put a happy spin on it. You had a miscarriage? You can try again. Your husband doesn’t want kids? He’ll change his mind. You can’t seem to get pregnant? You just need to relax. They make it sound like your negative attitude is to blame for your problems. If you just put on a happy face, everything will work out.

Yeah, sure.

Makes you want to scream, right?

That’s toxic positivity, which was the subject at Katy Seppi’s Chasing Creation podcast earlier this week. Her guests were life coaches Sadie T of Curiously Sadie [@curiously_sadie] and Carrie Hauskens, whose recent blog post on the subject inspired the podcast. I encourage you to read that post.  You’ll be shouting “Yeah!” “I know!” and “Bullshit!” along with her.

“I think it’s exhausting trying to stay positive all the time,” Hauskens said. She tends to be very honest about her infertility journey, which includes a miscarriage and a stillborn daughter. It makes people squirm. Her husband is also straightforward. He notes that the positive commenters have been thinking about this for a few minutes while they’ve been trying to have children for seven years.

“I don’t have to be optimistic,” Hauskens stressed.  

Sadie added that toxic positivity discounts what a person is feeling and what they have gone through. They’re kind of saying “It’s fine. Get over it.”

But grief doesn’t just disappear. It keeps coming back, and we need to talk about it. It’s not healthy to keep it in just to make our uncomfortable friends more comfortable.

The women agreed that in some cases you may need to spend less time with the people who keep spewing platitudes and look for others who understand what you’re going through, other childless people, for example.

So what should people say? It’s fine to just admit you don’t know what to say, Hauskens said. You can say, “I’m here for you” or “What can I do to help?” Just don’t try to correct the person’s feelings.

Just being there is enough, Seppi added.

Bottom line: Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel about not having children (or anything else). Let me feel my feelings and find my own way through them.

Does this ring any bells for you? It sure does for me. Have you experienced “toxic positivity?” How do you react? Please share in the comments.

More reading on the subject:

“Toxic Positivity is Real” by Simone M. Scully, Healthline.com, July 22, 2020.

“Toxic Positivity: Don’t Always Look on the Bright Side” by Konstantin Lukin, PhD., Psychology Today, Aug. 1, 2019

Childless Suffer ‘Disenfranchised Grief’

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On a recent podcast, UK childlessness guru Jody Day and host Kathy Seppi talked about “disenfranchised grief.” We have talked a lot about grief here at Childless by Marriage, but something clicked in me when I heard that.

What is disenfranchised grief? Grief researcher Ken Doka defined it as “Grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly mourned.”

Let me put it another way. You have suffered a loss, such as the chance to have children, but other people just don’t get why you’re hurting or acknowledge your right to grieve.

Seppi, whose Chasing Creation podcast focuses on infertility, said disenfranchised grief is “the feeling you have to prove how much it hurts.”

Jody Day, who is also a psychologist, added, “We want people to see our pain.” Grief changes a person, she says. Our lives might look completely the same from the outside, but grief changes how we feel about it from the inside.

At a site called whatsyourgrief.com, Litsa Williams lists 64 situations where people tend not to acknowledge the right to grieve. They include death of an ex, moving to a new place, losing a friend, and death of a dream. Losing the family you had expected to have certainly fits on that list of things we grieve but other people don’t understand why.

Not long ago, I sang at a funeral for my friend’s husband. I found myself in tears. Not only was I sad for her and missing her husband, who was also my friend, but I felt my own losses–my father, my mother, my husband. But most strongly, as I watched my friend’s adult daughter holding onto her, taking care of her, I kept thinking who will be there for me? Once again, I grieved the loss of the children I never had.

The grief is there. I will always be different from all those people at the funeral who have children. It’s not something I could speak of, certainly not that day, and not something that anyone would have thought about when they saw me trying to wipe away tears around my COVID mask.

I don’t look bereaved. You can’t tell from the outside. I’ve got a pretty good life. But still, that thing is there. Aug. 21, on the first anniversary of my father’s death, I posted a picture of him with me and my brother as babies on Facebook. No one will ever post a picture like that of me, and that hurts.

Childless grief is tricky. If you had a baby who died, you could hold a funeral. You could maybe dress in black and avoid society for a while. But grieving for something that never existed, for the lack of something you wanted with all your heart? People will say buck up, you’ve got a good life, look at all the freedom you have and all the money you’ll save. Right?

If you burst into tears at the office . . . well, you feel like you can’t. You mustn’t. And yet we do want people to see that we’re hurting and to offer comfort. Just like when we were little kids and skinned our knees, we want someone to hug us and bandage our wounds, to acknowledge that we are hurt.

With childlessness, it’s like we didn’t get that doll we saw on the TV commercial; what right do we have to cry and carry on? We want to be held. We want someone to stop the bleeding. We want someone to say we didn’t realize how much it hurt. Here is your doll. Now wash your face and we’ll go get ice cream cones. Isn’t that what we want? Of course it is.

You know what? I think it’s okay to express our grief right out loud. I wanted to have a baby. My heart hurts because I never did. Will you hold me and help me feel better? Let’s say it out loud.

COVID be damned, I want to hug all of you.

Please share your thoughts.

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Do you want to tell your story at the Childless by Marriage blog? I’m looking for personal stories, 500-750 words long, that fit our childless-by-marriage theme. You could write about infertility, second marriages, partners who don’t want children, stepchildren, feeling left out when everyone around you has kids, fear of being childless in old age, birth control, and other related issues. Tell us how you how you came to be childless “by marriage” and how it has affected your life. Or you could write about someone else. We love stories about successful childless women. We do not want to hear about your lovely relationship with your children or how happy you are to be childfree. Not all submissions will be accepted, and all are subject to editing. If interested, email me at sufalick@gmail.com.

The coldest reaction to childless grief

Sue Fagalde Lick "get over it", blessings of childlessness, grieving over lack of children

“Get over it.” That’s what his girlfriend said when this man who wrote to me told her he’d have a hard time dealing with not having children. They were talking about marriage. She had been married before and had a daughter. Now 45, she wasn’t interested in trying for another. But he was younger and still wanted kids. He wanted her to understand that he would need a lot of moral support if he never became a father. She said, “get over it.” 

As far as I know, they’re still together, but now he’s worried about her attitude.

You don’t just “get over” losing your chance to have children. We all need to find a way to live with it, to keep it from ruining all that is good in our lives, but that feeling of something missing does not just disappear. It’s a bit like the feeling we have when someone we love dies. As the priest told my father, brother and me before my mother’s funeral, there’s a wound in our hearts that will never completely heal. Ten years later, I know it’s still there.

I have heard people say “get over it” about lots of things. Childlessness is definitely one of them. I know men and women who have progressed from childless to childfree. They have come to a place where they don’t mind not having children. They’re even glad about it. God bless them, but it’s not that easy for most of us. The least our partners can do is try to understand that sometimes that old wound will still hurt.

I think “get over it” is one of the most hurtful phrases in our language. It denies our right to have feelings, and those who say it should get over that.

Has anyone ever said this to you?