disenfranchised grief

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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What If Your Partner Dismisses Your Childless Grief?

Sue Fagalde Lick "get over it", childless grief, husband can't have kids, husband doesn't want kids, my wife can't have children, people who don't understand childless, wife doesn't want kids , , , ,

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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World Childless Week, Sept. 12-18, is Your Chance to Feel Less Alone

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poster for World Childless Week, white type of blue background

Next week is World Childless Week. Founder Stephanie Joy Phillips offers seven days of webinars, workshops, and access to resources for those of us who are childless not by choice. Some of the sessions focus on those who have struggled with infertility. If that is not your issue, you might want to skip those, but there is still a lot to be gleaned from these free online sessions. See the poster below for a list and register for the sessions that interest you. They will be recorded, so if you can’t make it at the time they’re aired live, sign up anyway. Many of the speakers are in the UK and their time is many hours different for people like me on the U.S. west coast.  

Each day has a theme. On Wednesday, Sept. 14, the “Nomo Crones” group, which includes me, will read letters to our younger selves. What would you say at 40, 60, or 80 to 20-year-old you? I will share mine in a Zoom session with the other crones at noon Pacific time and publish it here in the blog next week. I would love for you to try that exercise yourselves. It doesn’t have to be long, just a page or two. If you are willing, I can share them with the readers here at Childless by Marriage.

Here are Stephanie’s instructions:

Picture of Stephanie Joy Phillips, multi-colored dress, short red hair, big smile
Stephanie Joy Phillips

“Do you wish you could send your younger self the strength, confidence and love to face the future you’ve already lived? Let them know they are worthy and perfect just as they are, no matter what decisions they make and what life throws at them? Write that letter and share with them everything you can to help them realize how important they are, how much they matter and what positives they bring to the world and those around them.”

I would add: Knowing what you know now, what is your advice for your younger self?

White on blue, webinar schedule for World Childless Week

An alternative: If you feel like you’re too young to write to your younger self, try writing to your older self. What would you say to 60-year-old you?

I usually write more in this space, but you have your assignments, should you choose to accept them: Sign up for at least one event at World Childless Week and write that letter to your younger self.

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Brief side note: Did you watch the Bachelorette episode where Gabby booted a guy she really liked because she wasn’t ready to become a stepmother? I welcome comments on that, too. It’s a dumb show, but I’m hooked on it.

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Drugs for Bipolar Disorder Thwart Motherhood Dreams

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Poet Sherri Levine always wanted to have children, but she has bipolar disorder, which causes extreme mood swings, and her mother had it, too. Should she risk passing it on?

She takes lithium to manage her symptoms. Because of the risk of birth defects, it is not considered safe to take lithium during pregnancy, but she knows from hard experience that within two weeks of stopping her medication, she will become manic. The added stress of fluctuating hormones and her changing body will not help. 

Her doctor told her to let go of the motherhood dream. Her husband, who didn’t want children anyway, agreed, but Sherri was and still is devastated. “I don’t want to be an aunt; I want to be a mother,” she said, fighting tears. 

Why not adopt? Her husband didn’t want children, and she wasn’t sure she could deal with the stress of the adoption process.  

So the choice was made. People don’t understand, she says. If she agreed not to get pregnant, why is she still grieving?

Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com

I think a lot of us here know the answer to that question. When we close the door on parenting, we lose a dream, the life we had expected to have, the children and grandchildren we might have had, a chance to live like our friends and relatives, and the right to claim a rose on Mother’s Day. It’s what Jody Day calls “disenfranchised grief.” You’re losing something you never had, so our friends and co-workers find it hard to understand.

People don’t talk enough about mental illness and childlessness, Sherri says. We need to get the conversation going. Those living with it need the support not only of a team of doctors well-versed on the conditions, medications, and risks, but supportive friends and families who offer love and acceptance.

In doing a little research, I find most of the attention focused on depression during and after pregnancy, not so much about going into a pregnancy with a diagnosed mental illness, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, or depression. It’s a big deal. Many psychotropic medications can cause birth defects in the developing fetus, but not taking them and leaving the illness untreated can be dangerous for both mother and baby. In some cases, it may be possible to find drugs that are safe, but not always. Sherri has looked at other possibilities, but none would manage her illness as well as lithium does. She couldn’t take the chance.

Over the years, childless people I talked to have mentioned concerns about mental illness as a reason they didn’t have children. It’s not always the woman with the problem. Men can pass on genetic-based illnesses to their children. They may also feel that their illness makes them incapable of being good dads. 

A few things are clear:

  1. It’s not just bipolar disorder. There are risks taking any kind of medication during pregnancy. Bipolar medications are particularly dangerous, but there are some drugs that seem to be a bit safer. Medications for depression and anxiety also may endanger the baby, and stopping them could endanger both mother and child. 
  2. If you take prescription drugs for emotional issues, you need to confer with your mental health professional, OB-gyn, and primary care doctor about the pros and cons of pregnancy. You will need support from your partner, along with a team of people who really understand this stuff. 
  3. Ask them: How dangerous is it for me to continue my meds? How dangerous is it to stop? Is there something else I can take that would be safer? Do you think I can handle the stress of pregnancy and childcare? 
  4. Ask more than one professional. The answers are rarely black and white.

Have you or someone you know struggled with mental illness that became a factor in their decision about having children?  Were you/they concerned about medication and birth defects, passing the illness to their offspring, or being able to cope with the added stress of being parents? Let’s talk about this. Sherri Levine, who wrote about this topic here a few years ago, has offered her email address for people who want to talk privately with her about this. You can reach her at sherrihope68@gmail.com.

Some resources: 

Bipolar and Pregnant by Kristin K. Finn, 2007. This looks very helpful, although Amazon has only used copies.

Bipolar and Pregnant by Katie McDowell, 2017. It’s more of a memoir of a woman who did get pregnant shortly after her bipolar diagnosis. Looks good.

International Bipolar Foundation

Mayo Clinic symptoms and causes of bipolar disorder

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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.