Katy Seppi

Childless by Marriage is all grown up–and we have an audiobook now

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Childless by Marriage the book is a teenager. Published in 2012, it’s not the bestseller I had hoped it would be, but it’s a good book, and I hope it has helped people understand what it’s like to not have children because your partner is unable or unwilling to make babies with you.

It has lots of siblings now, including Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both, which includes some of the most popular posts and comments from the blog between 2007 and 2020. There have been many new posts since then, and they are all archived on this site.

When Amazon offered a chance to create an audiobook version of Childless by Marriage, I went for it. The voice is computer-generated, not mine, but I like the way she sounds. This makes the book accessible to people who are visually impaired or who simply prefer to listen to books while they do other things.

While I was listening to the audio version, following along with a printed copy of the book, I discovered typos and words left out or misspelled. I was horrified. Typos in books drive me crazy, so I had to fix them. I spent many hours doing that last month. I am happy to report that I have now corrected and updated all versions, print, Kindle ebook, and audio. You can buy them at Amazon.com, or your favorite bookstore can order the print book through Ingram.

One good thing about producing books instead of children, especially in the computer age, is that you can go back and fix your mistakes. You can’t do that with most things in life. If for some reason you can’t have the children you wanted, you can’t go back to the original Word file and change the story of your life. Instead, you’re forced to make a tough decision. Do you accept the situation as it is, find a new partner, adopt, or try IVF? Do you settle for fur-babies or open a daycare? Do you grieve the loss or embrace the childfree life, or a little of both?

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I will soon stop blogging here. By the end of August, I will have shared 900 posts. If the book is a teenager, the blog is old enough to move out and live on its own. It’s time to let it go.

All of the posts will remain online for you to read, along with my resource page, bibliography, and updates on all things childless. I plan to create an index, but meanwhile, you can search right here on this page for whatever interests you.

I will also continue my Childless by Marriage Facebook page and would love to see some of you there.

At this point, my life is so far past the question of whether or not to have children that it’s time to let younger writers take the stage. There are many of them with so many more books, blogs, podcasts and support groups for people who are childless not by choice.

We even have a World Childless Week, hosted by Stephanie Joy Phillips, which offers tons of talks and workshops, readings, and resources, all online. This year it will be Sept. 15-21. Visit https://worldchildlessweek.net for more information.

One of the strongest voices in the no-kids community is Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and author of Living the Life Unexpected. She has passed her own torch to Katy Seppi, who continues the work as The Childless Collective. Meanwhile, Jody has turned her attention to childless older women and is doing wonderful work there. Read her newsletter and subscribe to her Substack, https://jodyday.substack.com.

Not so long ago, people didn’t talk about childlessness. If someone didn’t have children, there were whispers about possible infertility—poor thing—but no one said anything out loud about it. But times have changed, and our numbers have risen. We can share our stories without shame so people can know and understand. No more secrets.

Question: As I prepare my last few posts, what do you wish someone had told you as you faced the possibility of life without children?

Nomo Crones meet next week

Jody Day hosts quarterly “Childless Elderwomen Fireside Chats” with women from all over the world. I have been lucky to participate in most of them. We have discussed everything from aging alone to how to deal with obnoxious questions about our parenting status. On Saturday, June 28, at 11 a.m. Pacific time, we “NomoCrones,” as Jody calls us, will discuss the often-buried subject of menopause and life beyond our fertile years. As always, it will be lively, with plenty of laughter and probably some tears. You can register to join us anonymously at bit.ly/gwe-meno. You will not be seen or heard, but the chat is always a big part of the festivities. The session will be recorded, so you can listen live or whenever you want to.

Meanwhile, Jody has published a terrific post about menopause and aging without children. You can read it here.

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 on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/suelick

Who Can You Talk to About Your Childless Life?

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Do you have anyone with whom you can comfortably share your thoughts and feelings about not having children? 

I really didn’t have anyone to talk to when I was in the thick of it. My husband felt guilty. My therapist just didn’t get it. My best friends were having babies. My friends with older children thought my stepchildren were enough. 

I met people who had chosen not to have children and were happy about it. Their attitude: What’s there to talk about? I met parents who said I was lucky and that they wished they had not had children. 

In many situations, when I admitted I was not a mother, silence fell, followed by a quick change of subject.  

None of which helped me. I’ll bet you know what I mean. 

The graphic above is from the World Childless Week website. You can see that you’re not alone in needing someone to talk to.

Can you discuss your feelings about this with your partner? Do they sympathize, get angry, or simply refuse to talk about it? I know some readers have to read this blog in secret for fear of their partner’s reaction. Your feelings are never going to be the same when one of you has a uterus and the power to give birth and the other does not.

It’s not easy finding someone who truly understands the situation and lets you feel your feelings. People who have kids are busy and distracted. They may have gone through a childless period before, maybe not, but now it’s all about the kids. We can’t blame them. 

Your own parents not only come from a different generation, but they have a vested interest in becoming grandparents. If your lack of children is physical, it may be easier to discuss than if your partner is unwilling, but they may still push you to adopt a child or get involved with other people’s children. Or to dump the unwilling or unable partner. 

It’s so easy to toss off suggestions when you’re not in the situation. Just adopt. Freeze your eggs. Teach, mentor, do volunteer work with kids. 

But who can you really talk to? Who is willing to ask you what happened and how you feel about it and maybe even say, “What can I do to help you with this?” 

Do you have anyone like that? My best friend, mother of four, grandmother of many, comes close. She gets it, sort of. But most people don’t. 

Outside the childless community, it’s just not easy to find someone who can listen and understand and not try to fix your situation. Or blame you. Or make a wisecrack about it. They’re not cruel. They just can’t feel what you feel. 

So where can you find someone who knows what you’re going through?

We are lucky to have Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and Katy Seppi, longtime host of the annual Childless Collective Summit. Katy has taken over management of the original Gateway Women and renamed it The Childless Collective, but Jody Day is still extremely involved in the childless community, focusing more these days on older childless women. Both Katy and Jody are actively working to bring people who are childless not by choice together online and in person. Visit their websites to see what they’re up to. 

This month, Stephanie Joy Phillips is once again hosting World Childless Week Sept. 16-22. It’s all online, and I encourage you to participate in some or all of it. Activities include speakers, panels, webinars, and testimony by hundreds of women. Their stories may sound familiar. You may finally feel like somebody understands. Even if you don’t attend the events, do look at the terrific resource page.

I’ll be joining the “nomo crones” panel on Thursday, Sept. 19 during World Childless Week to talk about friendships between parents and nonparents. That should be a lively discussion. Have you ever lost a friend when they had a baby? Oh yes, me too. Register here for our chat. It will be recorded, so you can still hear it if you can’t make it to the live session (noon PDT).

For two years, Karen Malone Wright brought childless and childfree women together at the Not-Mom Summit in Ohio. It was so great to be in a room full of women who would not be pulling out baby pictures and asking how many children you had because we were all in similar situations. 

How do we find people to talk to in our real lives? I guess we keep our ears open. When you meet someone else who doesn’t have kids–or whose children don’t have kids–mention that you don’t either. Ask if it was by choice or by chance, and if it’s the latter, ask if they’d like to go for coffee and talk about it. They may shut down like a slamming door. But maybe they’ll smile and say, “Yes, I’d like that.” It’s worth a try. 

So, do you have someone to talk to about your childless situation? I welcome your comments. 

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What if nobody was talking about their kids?

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What is it like to be in a room full of people who are childless like you? A room where no one insists on showing you their baby pictures or asks when you’re going to “have a family” of your own?

I can tell you it’s fantastic. In 2017, I attended the NotMom Summit in Cleveland, Ohio. Organizer Karen Malone Wright invited women who were childfree by choice and who were childless not by choice for whatever reason. One might wonder if the two groups would clash, but we had so much more in common than we had differences that we bonded immediately.

Putting on an in-person conference of any kind is a huge endeavor, requiring a lot of money, time and effort, and Wright was not able to do it again, but this year Kati Seppi, who has hosted an annual Childless Collective Summit online for the past years, is hosting the first in-person Childless Collective Summit April 12-14 in Charleston, South Carolina. The weekend includes talks, workshops, opportunities to get to know other women and men who don’t have children, and a fun day at the beach. Keynote speaker Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women, is one of many great reasons to consider going.

Seppi says, “The theme of the summit is celebration. If you’ve had to let go of your dream of parenthood, celebrating may be the last thing on your mind. But, please hear me when I tell you this: You are worthy of celebration. There is room for joy, even in the midst of grief. I’m willing to bet you’ve spent a lot of time celebrating the baby-related milestones of friends and family members. When we’re childless, a lot of our big moments pass by, unrecognized. Our milestones deserve to be seen and celebrated too. This is a party just for us.”

The summit sessions are designed to support you in: 

  • Building friendships with others who are childless.
  • Learning to identify and amplify your greatest strengths.
  • Recognizing your value and worth.
  • Identifying new avenues to meaning and joy.
  • Feeling seen and validated in your childless experience.
  • Finding inspiring examples of rich and full lives without kids.

The cost is $550 before March 15, $600 after, which covers all the sessions, catered lunches each day, and transportation to the beach for the party there. Participants also become members of a private online group that will continue to support each other after the summit.

Learn more and get your ticket to join the summit.

If you’re feeling lonely in your childlessness, I encourage you to think about attending the summit. I believe you will come out feeling recharged and feeling much better about your life.

Due to work and health situations that keep me from flying across the country at this point, I can’t attend this year, but it will be on my calendar for next year.

I know this sounds like an advertisement, but it’s going to be fabulous, and Katy needs more signups to cover her costs. Think about it, okay?

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My poetry chapbook Blue Chip Stamp Guitar, book two of the four I have coming out this year, is in print, and oh so beautiful. Click here to attend my online reading from the book this Saturday at 4 p.m. Pacific time.

You may also want to read Between the Bridges, the third in my series of novels about a childless woman named PD and her friends living on the Oregon coast. In this one, she feels her childlessness more than ever, and I think many of you would identify with her and enjoy her story. Between the Bridges is available at Amazon and wherever books are sold. You can also ask your library to order it.

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My Feb. 22 post about more people owning pets than having children had some incorrect numbers, according to Sarah Rose of the World Animal Foundation. As of this year, she says, 86.9 million U.S. households own a pet, which accounts for 66 percent. It’s still a lot. If you survey my church choir or my neighbors here in Oregon, it would be 100 percent, whether they have kids or not.

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Who Do You See as Your Childless Role Models?

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Image is a poster for a panel discussion on "The power of role models" by Gateway Women and the Nomocrones. It lists the participants' names over a picture of a campfire with hills and a sunset in the background.

A role model is a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others, says the Merriam Webster dictionary.

Who are your role models? Who do you want to be like when you grow up?

Back when we were children playing with dolls and various imaginative games, we might have pictured ourselves living the same lives as our parents. Or not. My mom was a housewife, but somehow my older dolls, Barbie and such, were always in show business. There was always a stage waiting for them to sing and dance. Think Doris Day way back then, maybe Taylor Swift now.

That life had nothing to do with having children. I didn’t even think about it. Did you?

Now that we are grownups, whose life do we want to imitate? I ask because the Childless Elderwomen will be discussing our role models next Wednesday, Dec. 20, on Zoom, and I’m not sure yet what I want to say.

A role model demonstrates a role that you hope to play. Literally, if you are an actor. Likewise, if you are a painter, you might try to copy their techniques. A dancer might employ their moves, or a singer might mimic their sounds. Writers like me are always being asked about our role models. I could list them, but in many cases I don’t know if they ever had children. Does it matter?

In religion, one might try to follow the example of a holy person. For example, the Catholic Church celebrates all the many virgin martyrs who gave their lives to God, not to mention all the priests, bishops and popes who lived celibate lives (let’s not get into the whole abuse thing).

Most of us are aware of the usual famous non-moms: Dolly Parton, Oprah Winfrey, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Anniston, Gloria Steinem, Kim Cattrall, Mother Teresa, Emily Dickinson . . .

You can find plenty of interviews with celebrities talking about their “infertility journeys,” most of which ended up with a baby via IVF or surrogacy. But as usual, nobody is talking about not having children because your partner is unable or unwilling. I’d like to read the stories of people who have done that.

Do we have role models who are not famous?

Most of our parents and grandparents modeled one way of life: the one where everything revolves around the family. You work hard, buy a house, raise your kids, enjoy your grandkids, and grow old. But there are others who don’t follow that pattern. My Aunt Edna never had children, and her husband died young. She did office work and volunteered at her church for many years, then traveled all over the world with her sister Virginia, who was also single and childless. Edna died at 100, Virginia at 101. Other childless women in my life have included my favorite journalism professor, my step-grandmother, and friends I met through my husband’s work. All lived active lives and seemed content. They never talked about their childlessness. But would I see them as role models? Not really. We were very different in most ways.

Thank God some people in the childless community, including Jody Day, Stephanie Phillips, Michael Hughes, and Katy Seppi, openly discuss their childless status and offer support to others. They can be role models, at least for this aspect of our lives. I suspect we need different role models for different things, some for career, some for lifestyle, some for our spiritual lives. What do you think?

Who are your childless role models? Whose example do you want to follow in your own life? Is there someone you admire, famous or not, that you try to imitate?

I will be joining the Childless Elderwomen on Dec. 20 to discuss our role models. Join us on Zoom. It’s totally anonymous. To get the link, register here.

Read more about this: https://www.thecut.com/2014/08/25-famous-women-on-childlessness.html–most of these active women chose the childfree life.

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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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Would He Divorce You If You Got Pregnant?

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Newsweek: “Woman Accepts Divorce after Twelve Years over Unexpected Pregnancy”

Twelve years ago, this couple agreed they would not have children. Neither of them wanted kids. They were happy being just the two of them, and that’s the end of that discussion. Except that the 40-year-old wife somehow got pregnant in spite of his vasectomy.

Surgical error? Immaculate Conception? Was she cheating on him? We don’t know. She says, “It’s like a miracle.” She wants to keep the baby. The husband has declared that he will divorce her. When he said he didn’t want kids, he meant it. In general, she doesn’t like kids either, but she wants this baby, even if she has to raise it alone.

The article goes on to talk about the impact having children has on a marriage, how things change dramatically and how couples with children are more likely to divorce than couples without. I don’t know how much truth is in this piece, which is annoying to read with its overdose of ads and pop-ups, but what do you think?

Can having a baby ruin a marriage? Is that one of the reasons you’re not pushing to get pregnant? Is the guy in the article a jerk for rejecting his wife when she gets pregnant despite efforts to prevent it? Or is he sticking to what he has always said, that he absolutely does not want to be a father?

The article quotes smartmarriages.com, which says one factor more likely to lead to divorce is the situation where a woman wants a child more than her spouse. “Couples who do not agree on how much they do or don’t want to have children are twice as likely to end their marriage.”

So I ask, because disagreement about having children is the essence of being childless by marriage, if both parties are not 100 percent sure they are not going to have children, no matter what happens, is the possibility of divorce always hanging over their heads?

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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Katy Seppi’s online Childless Collective Summit starts tomorrow morning at 8:30 PST, 11:30 EST, and runs July 14-17. It includes four days of talks, stories, workshops, and networking with others who are childless. Registration is free. Your anonymity is guaranteed. All sessions are recorded and available for free for 24 hours. By purchasing a Pace Yourself Pass, you can watch them at your convenience. Click here for more information or to register.

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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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Childless Fun Coming Up This Weekend!

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Dear friends,

I want to share a couple things that are happening online this week that you might want to participate in.

Nomo (non-mother) Crones

“The Body and the Cycles of Life” is the topic of a new “Nomo Crones” childless elders’ chat happening Saturday, March 20. Jody Day is the organizer. I’m one of the women participating, along with Karen Malone Wright, Stella Duffy, Maria Hill, Kate Kaufman, Jackie Shannon Hollis, and Donna Ward.  

The flyer is posted above. Although most of you are much younger, I think you might enjoy taking an hour to listen. Our bodies, these amazing places where our spirits live, are fascinating. They have been made to procreate, but what if we don’t use those baby-making parts? Or what if they go wrong on us? Register here at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QBZqJhxxSqyjmxhIyqg2Zg. Be sure to convert for your time zone.

Childless Summit

If you’re not ready for crone wisdom, consider participating in the first annual Childless Collective Summit March 18-21. Katy Seppi, who has organized it, who is a young dynamo who wants the world to understand what it’s like to be childless not by choice.

Seppi is the founder of Chasing Creation: Designing an Unexpectedly Childfree Life, which includes a blog, Facebook page, and more. Find out all about the Summit, register and watch a video with Katy at https://www.chasingcreation.org/. Once you register, you will receive links to all the sessions.

Seppi’s story is an interesting one. She talked about it recently on Jo Vraca’s (un) Ripe podcast. She and her husband both grew up Mormon in Utah. Although the church is very pro-children, her husband wasn’t keen on the idea for the first decade of their marriage. Then, when he felt ready to be a father, they couldn’t get pregnant. Katy had fibroids and endometriosis. She had surgeries and tried IVF, but it didn’t work. She had suffered pain from her endometriosis for years and opted for a hysterectomy. She has spent the years since then dealing with her grief and finding her way through a life without children.

The Childless Collective Summit is a four-day virtual event, featuring 28 speakers, all focused on topics related to being childless not by choice. The free Basic Access Pass gets you in to all the sessions. If you can’t watch them when presented, you can still watch the recordings online later. There’s also a paid All Access Pass that gets you transcripts of the presentations and other goodies.

Day 1 focuses on our stories, Day 2 on healing, Day 3 on making connections, and Day 4 on looking ahead. Keynote speaker Jody Day will address “How to Create a Meaningful Life Without Children: Lessons from a Decade of Healing” on Sunday, March 21 at 2 p.m. EDT. Click here https://www.chasingcreation.org/summit-schedule/ref/26/ for the complete schedule.

We’ve Got to Talk About It

When I started writing about childlessness back in the 1990s, I had to look hard to find anyone else writing and speaking about the subject, but we are blessed now to have lots of people joining the conversation. You can read books and attend conferences and podcasts online, but you can also start the conversation at home. I know we’re limited by COVID right now, but if you look around, you may find others with stories similar to your own. You may have to start the conversation by noting that you don’t have children and asking if they do, but you’re not alone. With 20 percent of women not having children these days, the answer might be “No, I never had children.” Get together, ask them how it has been for them. If they say they do have children, explain your situation anyway. Help them to understand.

Etc.

I hope to see you online this weekend at the Summit or the Nomo Crones chat. Thank you to everyone who participated in the 99-cent sale for Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both. I appreciate your support. If you missed it, it’s still only $2.99 on Amazon for the Kindle version.

It just occurred to me: Do some of you have trouble looking at all this childless stuff online because your partner might see it and get upset? I live alone, so I don’t think about it, but I can picture someone’s husband or wife–or their stepchildren–looking over their shoulder at the screen and urging you to shut it off. Does that happen? Let’s talk about it.

St. Patrick’s Day hugs to one and all. I’m wearing my green socks, shirt, and earrings. Have you got your green on?

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Enough with All the Happy Talk

Sue Fagalde Lick "get over it", advising childless women, Clueless comments , , , , , , , ,

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