[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: moved from Main List: on not having children

[Tammy Rizzo]

On 27 Aug 2003 at 11:25, ssk7882 wrote:

> Yeah. Reading this thread is making me feel rather fortunate, really,
> that I've never wanted either a career *or* children. (Or, for that
> matter, much in the way of shoes.) 
> 
> But you know, plenty of women do manage to have both, and I dare say
> that some of them even manage not to have to go barefoot while they do
> so. The key, I suspect, is a support network of friends and partners
> who are willing and able to help shoulder the burden -- and that
> applies even to people who don't want children.

I've been 'no-mail' since going on vacation, so I've missed out on a lot of apparently 
interesting discussions before turning this list back on last night.  I meant to just lurk 
for the next few weeks, and pick up the drift of the current dialogs before jumping in, 
but I feel that I need to say something here, about the 'choice' of having or not having 
children.

I'm a stay-at-home wife, married to the same guy for 18 years, never slept with 
anyone else but him, lived my whole youth expecting to have several kids, and in fact 
got pregnant only a few months after marrying him.  The baby died minutes after she 
was born, of a VERY serious birth defect of the central nervous system (yes, we'd 
been warned about it, but we determined to give her what life she could have, 
regardless).  Since that time, though, we have not been ABLE to have any further 
children.  People ask me when we're going to have more kids, like it's our CHOICE 
to be childless, or like we haven't finished greiving for our lost little girl, and having 
another baby would heal us, or something.  It's not always the couple's choice 
whether or not to have kids -- sometimes that choice is taken from us.  Fertility 
treatments are not always an option, especially for people who move frequently (the 
first ten years of our marriage, we moved forty times and across eight states, for my 
husband's work) and therefore have no credit or reliable health insurance.  Adoption, 
likewise, is not always available -- no adoption service in the country would let a 
couple who moved so often take one of THEIR kids!

I'm sorry -- this is not coming out as I had intended it to.  My point is that sometimes, 
childlessness is NOT a lifestyle choice, and it can really hurt that people assume that 
you don't WANT kids, just because you don't have them.

***
Tammy
tammy at mauswerks.net