A few weeks ago, Complete without Kids author Ellen Walker published an interview about my Childless by Marriage book at her blog on Psychology Today.com. You can click the links to refresh your memory. Well, the comments have been coming in. Many are kind, but the anger has started. The first nasty one, which I read yesterday afternoon, made me so uncomfortable I abandoned the computer and started a massive cleanup of my garage. (Anybody got a truck I can take to the dump?) The next one was almost as bad, but that first one hangs on me, like spider webs. I want so much to defend myself, but I know it would not help.
I can’t quote the whole thing for fear of violating copyright, but here’s the opening passage:
“This sounds like ‘Oh the sadness of not being part of the Mommy club because
of my husband’. Cry me a river, why did you marry him if you weren’t compatible in one of the most important ways possible?”
She goes on to say nobody’s going to want to read my book, and she is grateful she doesn’t have children. She doesn’t understand why anybody would want to.
A sample from the second response: “Boo hoo. So you can’t have a biological child. Ever heard of adoption?…And really, the ‘should we have kids or shouldn’t we’ conversation should be raised way before marriage. Like, on the first date. Seriously. Are people
really this stupid?”
Well, yes, I guess we are. If you’re screaming by now, join the club, but lots of people think this way. You’ve probably heard comments like this before. The people who make them don’t understand how it feels to love someone and know you’re meant to be with him or her but not know what to do about that desire to have children. They don’t understand the grief and pain that come with infertility or that adoption is not easy or even always possible. It’s all not as simple as they make it out to be.
I admit that my not having children was at least half my fault, that in some ways every one of their comments is valid. That’s why they make me so uncomfortable. But I hope people can try to exercise a little compassion for people whose situations are different from their own.
What do you think? Go ahead and be honest. I have a lot more work to do in the garage.