Married but Childless Support group

[dedo]

We are childless, but not by choice.

There is a sense of loss that I feel sometimes when I see young people about the “right age”.

I joked to friend last month that I thought about going to my University and seeing if any of the kids wanted to trade in their parents for a new set. He said that he thought about half the student body would be interested.

However, I think that in reality, I hope to transfer my sense of loss into some sort of service to make the world a better place for the imaginary children that we “could have had”.

 

[EasterJoy]

We are childless, but not by choice.

There is a sense of loss that I feel sometimes when I see young people about the “right age”.

I joked to friend last month that I thought about going to my University and seeing if any of the kids wanted to trade in their parents for a new set. He said that he thought about half the student body would be interested.

However, I think that in reality, I hope to transfer my sense of loss into some sort of service to make the world a better place for the imaginary children that we “could have had”.

I think that being childless can be as painful as losing a child to death. It is a different kind of grief, it is not something you could compare directly or make a “which is worse” competition out of, but the grief is very real and can be very profound. I even know of people who had a name chosen for the child they had so hoped to be blessed with, and that is the name for the child they “lost”…as you said, the one they think of when they see kids who are the “right age.”

I suppose that, as you say, parents who are not blessed with a child might respond in a way similar to a parent who has lost a child to death. The passion can be turned to accomplishing another good, as a sort of a memorial to the desired child. But that would be just as it is for a parent who lost a child to death: It would be something the parent chooses as a way to respond, not an imperative.

 

[anilorak13ska]

EasterJoy, you bring up a good point. In addition to the grief over infertility, if a Catholic does try to conceive by way of a treatment not approved by the church and then God forbid miscarries, they’re faced with yet another layer of grief. If they share that they miscarried, someone might try to make them feel better by saying “at least you know you can get pregnant”, which of course is untrue if they needed the assistance of technology to do so. If they share how they became pregnant, then they may be told the miscarriage is a punishment from God for going that route, or at best, they’ll be judged in general for not having enough faith.

I think one side of the grief is that many people don’t have a sense of where to turn to for support. The other side is that if they find support in non-Catholic circles that encourage artificial reproductive technology, they may be more likely to try those, and then they have the added burden of secrecy from their Catholic peers.

I thank God that our situation is so severe that even if we wanted to use IVF, it would do us no good. It takes the temptation away. So I don’t judge those who do try it if their situation is less severe. Although, I know that if we had sperm, I’d be all over NaproTechnology to make the best use of what we had, rather than going through the invasiveness and expense of IVF.

Dedo - when we were trying to adopt independently, we had “ads” posted on our cars, wore specially made t-shirts, etc. all alerting people to the fact that we were looking to adopt. At a gas station one guy comes up to us to read our car “sign” and offers us his 15 year old daughter. “You can have her.” Hmmm. Not only does this show how little he understands what we’re going through, but can you imagine just “donating” your child? What does that say about him as a father? After that, when people would “offer” us one of their kids, I’d say with a straight face “Ok, let’s do this.” A quick change of topic would ensue.

 

[lynnvinc]

There is the peripheral issue of a childless couple being an aunt and uncle.

On the negative side sometimes siblings say bad things about their childless siblings to their children and taint the aunt/uncle-niece/nephew relationship – probably due to lingering issues from childhood sibling rivalry, jealousy, and conflicts; or in the case of br-in-law & si-in-law, due to a tendency in some cases to not like them much (perhaps bec some feel they have stolen their sibling). Or due to the nature of relationships going up and down. And sometimes it is due to ideological differences (religion, politics, etc).

If that happens (as has happened with some of our nieces and nephews), that can be very painful. Something we have to “offer up,” and hope that the relationship improves later.

OTOH, the aunt & uncle have an important role, bec the parent-child relationship may also go up and down, and the niece or nephew may at times feel unloved by the parents (or less loved than their siblings). ((I guess we all feel a very deep need for love, which only God can truly satisfy, and probably only once we get to heaven that will be completely satisfied.))

The childless aunt and uncle can then be the shoulder the niece/nephew cry on, and assure them they love them very deeply and there is always a place for them with the childless couple. We even call our guest room after our niece – “So&so’s room.” I think it carries a lot more weight that the aunt/uncle are childless, so no competition in the love dispersal with the aunt/uncle (of course) loving their own children more.

And the aunt/uncle can be a mentor and guide, assuring the niece/nephew that their parents really do love them very much, and that they are just having other life issues which make it seem they don’t love them, but they really do. And help with practical things in life. However, we learned the hard way not to give certain advice, esp to nieces and nephews in the late teens and twenties, and to start treating them like adults at that point.

 

[anilorak13ska]

**Lynnvinc **- I have to be honest. At first, the idea of remaining forever an auntie felt like a slap in the face. I know it’s pride, but there’s some truth to it, that especially our nephew’s parents have a ways to go in terms of what we’d consider good parenting. I think for me, I’ve realized that part of my desire to parent has been to get a sense of control in my life. I’ve found out the hard way that decisions we’d make with our niece and nephew aren’t universally accepted as the right ones. In our case in particular, our nephew was “supposed” to have been adopted by us, which made it even harder for me to finally accept my role as his auntie.

There’s another issue that I wonder if it has anything to do with our lot. We did get a chance to parent for a bit when we were foster parents (though of course our decisions were never final and always under the microscope). During those 10 months, I remember not liking very much the screams that our VV would revert to the instant something didn’t go her way. I remember before she started sleeping through the night how miserable I felt. My husband, bless his heart, if he was frustrated, he never showed it. He would get up multiple times at night and just soothe her back to sleep, and then get up at 4 in the morning and go to work. I felt like such a horrible “parent” for not being able to get past the inconveniences that come with a young child (she came to us at 6 months and left at 16 months).

Some have tried to reassure me that the reason it was so hard for me was because deep down I knew that she wasn’t mine to keep. Yet I loved her so much. My favorite memories are of rocking her to sleep and singing and humming lullabies. After she’d fall asleep, I’d just look at her sleep for a bit before leaving her in her crib. When she left, I was completely at a loss. All of a sudden, I didn’t remember the noise or the sleeplessness, just the lack of her presence in the home. It took 2 months abroad (thanks to DH’s TDY job assignment) for me to remember life without a little child and get back to normal.

So I try to remind myself of this, but alas, I know that in the larger scheme of things, such things do pass and make way for other phases of childhood. I so wanted to homeschool. Yet I do not feel drawn to teach elementary school at all. Again, it’s more of a control issue I think, bc I think there are things that I could contribute that a formal curriculum doesn’t find necessary.

Some people find joy in working with children to fill the void from a lack of children in their lives. I find it painful as it only reminds me of what I don’t have. But that’s not to say I don’t enjoy children. Maybe I really wasn’t cut out to be a mom, not bc I’m a bad person, but bc my personality doesn’t jive well with parenting? Who knows. sigh.

 

[EasterJoy]

**Lynnvinc **- I have to be honest. At first, the idea of remaining forever an auntie felt like a slap in the face. I know it’s pride, but there’s some truth to it, that especially our nephew’s parents have a ways to go in terms of what we’d consider good parenting…

Do you mean the understandable, “Lord, why did you choose them and not us?” or do you mean “Why are you making me watch these parents mess up without giving us any authority to step in?” or do you mean the compounding pain of the combination?

It is hard, for instance, to be a godparent and to be put in the position of the parents not teaching the faith (in your opinion, at least), and this is even so if you have children of your own. You have to decide how to do your duty without committing the wrong of undermining the parents and their rightful position as primary educators of the child. It is harder when you do not have the experience of being a parent to back up your opinion, because you feel your opinion might be invalidated for reasons beyond your control and desire.

At any rate, yes, it is hard to feel you are cut out for something and to be close to someone who gains that opportunity when they seem to have far less aptitude and desire than you do. Actually, it reminds me of the great grief of a woman whose body was failing because she was dying of cancer and heard about someone else committing suicide. It hurt her that anyone would throw away a gift she had come to treasure so much, yet could not have. Things like that were a big part of her overall trial.

 

[anilorak13ska]

Do you mean the understandable, “Lord, why did you choose them and not us?” or do you mean “Why are you making me watch these parents mess up without giving us any authority to step in?” or do you mean the compounding pain of the combination?

It is hard, for instance, to be a godparent and to be put in the position of the parents not teaching the faith (in your opinion, at least), and this is even so if you have children of your own. You have to decide how to do your duty without committing the wrong of undermining the parents and their rightful position as primary educators of the child. It is harder when you do not have the experience of being a parent to back up your opinion, because you feel your opinion might be invalidated for reasons beyond your control and desire.

At any rate, yes, it is hard to feel you are cut out for something and to be close to someone who gains that opportunity when they seem to have far less aptitude and desire than you do. Actually, it reminds me of the great grief of a woman whose body was failing because she was dying of cancer and heard about someone else committing suicide. It hurt her that anyone would throw away a gift she had come to treasure so much, yet could not have. Things like that were a big part of her overall trial.

I don’t think I envy what I call “bad parents”. I think I’m just frustrated for not being able to step in and right a situation or improve the conditions for the child. I certainly recognize their other circumstances that help me balance that out and see that I would not want to switch places with them.

It does get old hearing that “if you had children you’d understand”, because that is nonsense. First, I know several young mothers who do have children and clearly they don’t understand… the need to be awake when your child is playing in the kitchen without any childproofing, or the need to not let dogs and babies play together without the real understanding that an animal nonetheless has instinct in spite of how cute it is, or the need to understand the normal development of a child and not rush a 9 month old to a speech therapist because they’re not talking yet. Somehow, without children, DH and I were entrusted with our foster daughter. Second, especially because we’ve foster parented, the idea that we can’t understand bc we don’t have children assumes that as soon as our VV left, with her went all the things we learned along the way.

Adoptive parents get this a lot too, I hear. If they’d have given birth to their child, then they’d understand this or that. What about fathers? And what about the experience of parents who have both bio and adoptive kids who say there’s no difference in their relationships? But anyway.

Thanks for letting me vent. Your example of the woman dying of cancer made me think of how easy it is turn our own cross into this gargantuan problem when in reality, everyone is carrying something. It’s true, I don’t have kids and it sucks. But I have a fantastic husband, and I know not everyone is blessed in that department. So I never take that for granted. I’ve always said that if I had to choose, I’d choose a lifetime with my husband over losing him to gain a child. We can’t always get what we want.

 

[lynnvinc]

Do you mean the understandable, “Lord, why did you choose them and not us?” or do you mean “Why are you making me watch these parents mess up without giving us any authority to step in?” or do you mean the compounding pain of the combination?..

In my case I had to stand by and watch a parent with either borderline personality disorder (or narcissistic personality disorder) turn a really great kid into a person with the same disorder. Since I considered him to be like a son to me, it was very painful to watch over the years. The fact that she turned him against us is a very tiny pain compared to the fact that he is very unhappy in life and has job and marital problems, and may pass it on to the next generation.

It is very difficult to rear children, so I would have probably messed up my kids in some way, had I had them.

One time when I did some substitute teaching, they put me in a 3rd grade class (even tho I had told them I don’t have kids and wouldn’t know how to handle that class). Well, I’d told the rambunctious kids to shut up several times…and after recess a kid had informed another teacher who told me we don’t use bad words (I hadn’t realized “shut up” was a bad word to tell juniors, tho one would never say that to a senior). So I cleaned up my foul language, but by the end of the day I was pounding the table with some books shouting “Shutup, shutup, shutup. I don’t care if I don’t get my gold stars this week (they get gold stars for good behavior), just shutup!”

While recess was going they had put the bad kids with me (as punishment), and one came and told me that another one had said he wanted to poke out my eye.

I also substituted in middle school (7th & 8th grade), and one kid launched a pencil at another, piercing his face, missing his eye, but lodging graphite in his cheek. And other bad stuff…even from the nerd (who caused a spitwad war), whom I “wrote up” and sent to the principal’s office…then later saw him with another teacher, crying. When I went for lunch break, another teacher had her arm in a cast from some student violence.

Fortunately my subbing only lasted a few days. My husband, who was teaching a new course – Schools and Delinquency – made me quit, saying it was too dangerous.

Later I met a guy who worked in the local school where they diverted really bad kids (I didn’t know they had one), and all I could say was, “You mean there are worse kids than in the public schools??!”

So much for my subbing career. To be fair, I know that kids are much worse with subs than their regular teachers.

I did have one good experience when they put me in the library to work one-on-one with kids doing “career projects,” looking into future possible careers. One kid had a strong desire to be a carpenter. I asked if he was good in arithmetic. He said “no,” and I told him he should put forth more effort, bec he’d have to know fractions, that wood tended to come in 3/4", 3/8" etc, and that arithmetic wasn’t really that hard if he took it very slowly, step-by-step, and read the chapters over and over until he got it (which is what I had done). Also that arithmetic and math was the gateway to a lot of good jobs, and that if he tried hard, he might even become an engineer and build buildings and other things. He was very receptive and respectful.

 

[anilorak13ska]

oh my goodness, I don’t envy your subbing one bit. And I had several times considered teaching kids, each time I guess my better reason got the best of me and I left it well enough alone.

 

[anp1215]

We have been married for almost 4 years and no children as of yet. I am a new convert of almost one year and before becoming Catholic we did contracept. We have been open to life on and off for periods of time both before Catholicism and of course now. We used NFP for a few months but now we are just open to whatever God has in store for us. But it has been a few months and I have reason to believe I may have a luteal deficiency which can be corrected but means it can be harder to get pregnant.

This is not too bad for me, some days I feel like I really want a baby, some days I am indifferent, and some days I really want a new car (haha!). But as I read the OP of this thread describe childless Catholic married couples as being in “no man’s land”, I felt like you really hit the nail on the head. It is definitely like being in no man’s land. It can feel very out of place and lonely. Most devout, practicing Catholic couples have children, so it is harder to relate to them, at least in my experience. I like kids, but to me, it is just not the same being friends with someone who has kids when you don’t. Their lives revolve around them, of course. But then the single Catholics usually have different lifestyles as well. No man’s land is an apt description, that is how I feel in this state of marriage with no kids.

 

[anilorak13ska]

anp1215, thanks for weighing in. I’m glad I’m not the only one with the no-man’s land sense. I hope your situation proves to be fixable. While it may be a hassle, and there tends to be grief with just the idea that becoming pregnant won’t be as easy as one thinks it should be. Hope you feel you can come here if/whenever it does feel like no one else gets it. ((hugs))