Military wife feels extra pressure to have children

Today I am passing the microphone to Kam, who wrote about a topic we have not discussed here at Childless by Marriage: the pressure for military wives to have children. If you can relate, I’d love to hear what you have to say about this.

Kam said...

What a great site and I am thrilled to bits to have stumbled upon you. I'm soon to be 37 and my 39 year old husband is closing in on the last four years of his 20-year military career. We are also childfree by marriage. I was always kind of ambivalent, he changed his mind after we married 7 years ago. Yikes. Let me say that the military is not just defense machine but also a baby-making machine. Trust me, we are freaking unicorns around these parts.

The topic of married and childfree in the military is rarely discussed. I have plowed through your blog hungry for a salve for all that I've experienced being a lifetime military brat and now spouse. There are babies left and right. I've lost most friends to babies except a few rare jewels. I've been told to keep my opinions to myself because "we don't need to hear from a woman without kids." The list is long and seems to be ramping up with my shriveling fertility. What we do have are three dogs and that has become our couple identity. Well, they don't have kids, but they have dogs. Huh? I've found I am constantly defending myself. I am still a MOTHER. I am a woman, maternal and I am a daughter and have a mother. Seems like I've got some qualification to speak but I am reminded daily, I don't. Weird.

Sometimes it's been a bumpy road to navigate. I've literally given up my religion (converted from Jew to Catholic), job security, stability and now children to be with a man who is without a doubt, the love of my life. That doesn't mean that it's always easy for me or us. As a man, he gets high fives for dodging the baby bullet and I get a button jar assortment of judgments. The sacrifices have been and continue to be huge with no real dangling carrot. Martyr? Sadist? Who knows? The psychology here is a bunch of clowns in a tiny car for sure.

I wish I knew where more of us military spouse types without children were getting our coffee at. I'd love to sit at that table sometime.

So there is a topic that could use a spotlight if you can make sense of my ramblings.

Kam posted an additional comment:

Thanks Sue. It can be so isolating and lonely. It also seems to make the whole Pinterest mommy/milspouse/woman cattiness go into overdrive if that makes sense. Motherhood is also another tool to harm in some cases–another weapon to wield against other women. It's the weirdest thing to watch. I'd like to say I'm above it all, but I can't tell you how many times my husband and I armchair parent after a night out with friends with kids.

My blessing is that I am Aunty KA to a few of my friends’ kids and I love that, but . . . it's not my own cute, fat, little pudge of a baby. It's a hard decision to accept. I go back and forth. My husband goes back and forth. So, WE end up going nowhere. We feel the pressure, but he really doesn't want or like kids. He loves dogs.

While I would not have minded having kids, I am a back seat driver. I'm a limp handshake on the topic and that hurts as well. Why don't I have the baby burn? What is wrong with me? I've never felt it as much as I do now. The military lifestyle is so tough, too. People like to say, well you knew what you were getting into. It's so much more than you can imagine. I see a lot of unhappy families and moms that feel so stressed out. Some of them are really stressed out. I have a young, fit friend who is my age, a mother of 4 and she just had a heart attack! Because we move every 2-3 years, we are isolated from our own families, suffer career-wise, and it seems that having kids is just the filler for that (not all of them, but some). I've tried to carve out a different life, but finding civilian friends can be tough too. I wonder if any of your readers are military childfree or know of any sites out there that tackle this topic? Thanks for posting my comments!

Thank you, Kam. God bless you for sharing this. Stay safe.

Childless need not be friendless

It's surprising how many of my friends these days do not have children. The reasons vary:

Mary never wanted children. She was delighted to marry a man who already had three kids from his first marriage and didn't want any more. She has a close relationship with her stepchildren and step-grandchildren while remaining free to live her busy life as a music teacher and choir director.

Cathy, who is gay, has a wonderful marriage with her wife Rhonda. She never saw herself as a mother, but anyone who knows her can testify that she serves as a mother to everyone, always taking care of people, whether they need food, medical care, rides, or a shoulder to cry on.

Lori had a hysterectomy when she was young. She and her husband Steve have led an adventurous life pursuing his marine biology career across the U.S. Now they're living in New Zealand, where she's turning into a real "kiwi."

Charlotte is not married, has no kids but leads a busy life managing a quaint local hotel and keeping our writing group going. 

Sue, my favorite yoga teacher, never had her own children. Her husband has grown offspring from his previous marriage, and she enjoys their company. The rest of the time, she's happy as a dogmom and yogini.

My buddy Bill has neither married nor had children. Now 65, he recently survived a health scare that has left him grateful just to be able to breathe, eat, walk and talk. He started out wanting to be a priest. Although he didn't follow through on that career, he still lives the celibate single life and devotes himself to his four nieces and nephews.

Many of my other friends do have kids, but the children and grandchildren live elsewhere. My friends disappear now and then to visit them, but those children do not divide us because we have so many other things in common, things like music, writing, yoga, or church.

When you're in your 20s, 30s and early 40s, it can seem as if everyone you know is having babies, that you are the only odd duck not reproducing. But you're not. If, like so many people who comment at this blog, you are struggling to decide what to do, know that you may be left out of the Mom Club, but there are plenty of other clubs to join. One in five American women (with similar numbers in other countries) are reaching menopause without having babies. The number is edging toward one in four. You are not the only one. You are not weird. As you engage in the things that interest you, you will find other people like you. There is life to be lived and enjoyed even if you don't ever become a mother or father, and as you get older, it will get easier. 



Copyright 2014 Sue Fagalde Lick

Ever feel like you’re from another country, the land of no babies?

At the local post office, one of the workers brings her baby every day. I have seen her grow from newborn to just starting to walk and talk. She’s a cute, smiley child. I watch her and her mom with curiosity, but I don’t know how to interact with them. Yesterday as I was collecting my mail, I watched a white-haired man having so much fun talking nonsense to the baby that he couldn’t seem to tear himself away. Clearly he’s had years of practice talking to babies, his own, his grandchildren, perhaps nieces and nephews. I have never been around babies, and I don’t have the vocabulary for it.

At the library, I encounter a group blocking the stairs, two young mothers and three little kids, so busy talking they don’t notice me trying to get to the ground floor to sit alone and write for a while. I edge around them. The children’s room, occupied by more moms and babies, sits at the bottom of the stairs. I feel as if I am not allowed to step into that room.

A friend is hosting a series of parenting classes. She keeps sending emails asking us to help, but I am no more qualified to teaching parenting that I would be to give surfing lessons or teach Mandarin.

Many of my friends have children and grandchildren. When we work on common interests, such as music or writing, we connect. But then they suddenly start talking Mommy, and our connection fades away. It’s a lot like when I walk into the chapel during the Spanish choir rehearsal. I know some Spanish, but they talk too fast and use words I just don’t understand. They look at me like I don’t belong in their world, that no matter how many Spanish classes I take, I never will.

I often feel that I’m from a country that has no children, only dogs and cats. One is not better than the other, just different. Does any of this sound familiar to you? As childless people, are there situations where you feel like you come from another country? Please share. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

Faking It in Momland at the mall

When we went shopping yesterday, I'm sure my friend had no idea she was taking me places I had never been before. I'm used to her chatting with everyone she meets and showing them all pictures of her grandchildren. I'm happy for her. At the clothing store where she talked me into a new Easter outfit, I smiled and nodded as she talked about childbirth with the store manager whose second child is due next month. It was hard not to stare at the woman's "baby bump" in her snug knit ensemble and to wonder who would take care of the store when she left on maternity leave. But hey, whatever.

Then my friend took me someplace that hadn't been on our agenda. Suddenly she had to buy her grandsons Easter outfits. We entered something called The Children's Place. Oh my gosh. Miniature clothing everywhere. Tiny shirts, tiny argyle vests, tiny bow ties, onesies, twosies, threesies, I don't know. If I had a child to shop for, this would be Disneyland. The sales prices were amazing. The merchandise was in disarray, as if a herd of rabid monkeys had come through, but my friend quickly hit it off with the clerk. Out came the baby pictures again as they compared babies and sizes and family situations while I wandered around feeling like a visitor from another planet. I have never seen so many children's things in one place. For me, it was like a whole store full of doll clothes and I wasn't allowed to play. Not only will I never have children or grandchildren, but nobody in my life is having babies these days. They're either too old or they have put off marriage so long they may never get around to it. My friends' grandchildren all live far away, so I'm not like to ever seem them except in photos on the smart phone or iPad.

I didn't say much at that store. I let them talk while I looked at things and made color suggestions. As they continued to talk while my friend signed up for their rewards club, saying she would definitely be back, I rested on a chair near the cash register. I couldn't say anything about my own children or grandchildren, and there seemed no point in telling them I didn't have any kids. I just waited until they were through and we could go on to the Nike store.

I love my friend, and I'm grateful she includes me in her life, but when I mentioned that I had never been in a store like that before, it just didn't register. Her mind was busy thinking about her babies. So I pretended I belonged, just like the other women.

Have you had an experience like this?

It’s Baby Season Again

Yesterday, I ran away to the “valley,” Oregon’s Willamette Valley between the Pacific Coast Range and the Cascades. I felt like I was smothering in gray sky, rain and storm-battered evergreens, work was frustrating, and I just had to get lost for a day. Do you ever feel like that? I have always had those days, and, not having children to care for, I can just get in the car and go.

My main destination was the mall in Albany, OR. Seventy miles away, it’s the closest one to where I live, and it’s not much of a mall. I'd have to drive a hundred miles for the real thing. I was hoping to find some new slacks and something pretty to wear for an upcoming party.

What I found was babies everywhere. Here in our small town on the coast, I live in an area dominated by retirees and tourists, so I guess I’m not used mainstream America, but everywhere I looked were young women with small children and/or pregnant bellies. Did I envy these young moms? Not really. Many of the kids were screaming, grabbing at the merchandise or talking incessantly. The visibly pregnant women looked . . . uncomfortable. What I did envy was how most of them came in pairs or groups with other young mothers, how they shared this stage of life with others going through the same thing. I never had that. Perhaps you haven’t had it either.

In the stores, whole sections don’t apply to me, the ones containing maternity clothes and things for children. There’s an invisible wall in front of those areas that says, NOT YOU. I bought some slacks, but did not find the dress of my dreams. What ever happened to lovely fabrics and tasteful designs made for adults? But that’s a whole other subject.

On the way home, I stopped at a park that runs along the Willamette River in Corvallis. It was warm enough to leave my coat in the car. The trees are starting to blossom, and the river, flooding and muddy a few weeks ago, looked green and peaceful now. Sitting at a picnic table, I watched a young engaged couple walk by, followed by a photographer taking pictures. I watched a father on a bike tow his baby in one of those plastic baby trailers while the mom roller-bladed beside them. And I watched four young men, possibly college freshmen from nearby Oregon State, pass by on skateboards. I observed and felt life passing by me.

Is it just me or are there more babies this time of year? In the fields I passed on the way to Albany, I saw lambs and calves. It’s spring, and the humans are reproducing, too. Have we bypassed the natural progression, missed baby season? Perhaps. But like the river, we move on. Have a fun weekend. Do something you couldn’t do if you had children.

Even here they ask

At my husband's nursing home yesterday, we shared a red-clothed table with a mother and daughter for the Valentine's Day party. It wasn't much of a party. Most of the residents were napping. Those of us who were awake ate cupcakes, jelly beans, M&M's, and those little sugar hearts with writing on them. I sang songs and played my guitar, and we played a little bingo with the sugar hearts. Actually, the activities director, the daughter and I played bingo, and Fred and the mom sat while we pushed candies around their cards. The mom, Jean, has been in a mood lately. She used to be very talkative and always got up to sing and dance when anyone played music. But now she just sat there in her red sweater, frowning. Her daughter, dressed identically in red and black, sang with me as we tried to keep this slow party going.

After I had won my second round of Bingo and eaten another heart, Jean suddenly surprised me. "How many kids do ya have?" she asked.

I stared and saw her staring back intently. "I don't have any children," I said. I felt so disloyal to my husband, not acknowledging the stepchildren. But he was my link to them, and the link is broken. "He has three," I said," pointing to Fred. Jean went back to her silence as an aide started setting tiny glasses of milk on the tables in preparation for dinner. The daughter and I exchanged looks. Time to go.

I wonder what would have happened if I did have children to talk about.

I Know the Feeling

Yesterday at the post office, I met a woman I interviewed years ago when she was the single, carefree skipper of a charter boat in Depoe Bay. At that time, Shelly only had to worry about her perfectly behaved German Shepherd. Last year, we met again at dog-training class, where she had a new Shepherd and I had my two giant lab/bully dogs.

Much has changed for both of us over the years--and not just dogs. My husband lives in a nursing home, and I'm alone with the dogs. Shelly is married and has two little boys. She has given up her fishing business to be a wife and mom. Alas, sometimes children can be as exasperating as puppies. When I entered the post office, Shelly and one of the boys were on the floor under the mail deposit box. The boy was having a tantrum while his brother leaned against the counter laughing, showing his tongue and two missing teeth.

"How are you?" I asked the beautiful blonde, freckled mom.
"I've had better moments," she said, struggling to hold the wild-eyed child.
I nodded and went on to my P.O. Box to collect my junk mail. I could hear her saying some of the very things I might say to my dogs: Stop it, sit up, keep still, be quiet. But in the middle of a tantrum it doesn't work any better with kids than it does with dogs--and I have the cuts and bruises to prove it.

Parenting is tough. I'm not equating dogs with children. Kids grow up, but both take a lot of energy when they're young and early training is vital. I wonder if sometimes Shelly remembers those days out at sea on the Lady Luck and wishes she were still there. Maybe she does at times like the one in the Post Office, but I'm sure there are other times when she looks at her sons with love and pride and wouldn't trade them for all the crab and salmon in the sea.

***
I attended a party the other night with people from church whom I don't know very well. Somehow we split up into women around one table and men around the other. I soon found myself the alien in the group. Not only did I not have a husband to bring, but I don't have children. All of these women seem to have grown children and grandchildren to talk about. It was a long evening. The division between the Mom Club and those of us without children never ends.

When you're not in the Mom Club . . .

You don't necessarily make friends with the women who have children. That became very clear yesterday when I sang at a funeral for a 43-year-old mother who was very popular at our church. She died of cancer at such a young age, leaving a daughter about 10 years old and a husband who appeared sedated to the point of barely being able to sit up.

Nemia taught in the children's religious education program, so all the parents and most of the kids knew her. They sat there wiping away tears. Even Father Brian choked up during his long homily.

But I remained dry-eyed. I didn't know the woman, still don't even know what she looked like. I searched the old church directories when I got home, but she wasn't in there, and there was no photo with her obituary.

When you're not a mother, you have no reason to interact with the mothers, and most of the mothers are too busy to get involved in anything that doesn't include their children. It's a divided world. Mothers' lives revolve around school, sports, music lessons, pediatrician visits, religious ed, and other stuff I don't even know about. Not having children, I find myself hanging out with older people, other childless women, and the few parents who cross the divide to sing in the church choir.

It was a very odd feeling singing for a woman I didn't know in front of a church full of grieving people who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't tell you their names. It was the Mom (and Dad) Club, of which I will never be a member.

God bless Nemia; I wish I'd known her.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This blog has moved. Please switch over to the new site at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. All of the old posts have already been transferred over there, and it would make life easier if you would comment at that site. Thank you.

Have You Ever Lied About It?

Have you ever lied about not having children? I have. Well, actually the only time I flat-out lied was in a game called two truths and a lie. The truths were that I was a published author and professional musician. The lie was that I had two sons. I even gave them names and personalities. The other contestants bought it completely. Why not? Most women my age had kids. I won that game.
For years, I wrote for a parenting publication. I did have a stepson at home, but he joined our household when he was almost 12. I wrote lots of articles about children and their problems. Most of the time, I could fit right in. No need to mention that my only claim to the Mom Club was my stepson. People might ask, "Was it like that when yours were small?" and I'd nod. "Uh-huh." Kind of a lie. How would I know what he and the other steps were like when they were little? I wasn't there.
The only time I really got into trouble was when people started telling birth stories. If somebody asked me, "How long were you in labor?" well, I was stuck. I had to 'fess up that I had never been pregnant.
But hey, I write about lots of things I've never personally experienced. I just ask enough questions to write the story.
In real life, when you do have stepchildren, even if you only hear from them once or twice a year, sometimes it's just easier to fall into the mom discussions without bothering to clarify the situation.
How about you? Have you ever let people think you had children when you didn't?

Sorry I've been so slow blogging here lately. I have been immersed in my chapter on stepparenting. Boy, is that a tough one. You love 'em and you hate 'em. Sometimes you feel like a parent and sometimes you don't. More on that later. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This blog has moved. Please switch over to the new site at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. All of the old posts have already been transferred over there, and it would make life easier if you would comment at that site. Thank you.

The grandma bag

I was selling books at an author fair last weekend when I noticed an older woman carrying a tote bag covered with children's photos. It's the grandma bag, built with plastic slots to display 4 x6 pics. There were babies and toddlers and pictures of what must be the woman's grown children posing with the grandchildren. As a bag, it was pretty ugly, but it's one of those symbols that so many mothers and grandmothers carry around, proof of a great accomplishment. Of course it may just be that she loves to look at the pictures. Nothing wrong with that. Just another little case of me feeling left out. The bag I carried that day had flowers on it.
You've seen the jewelry with gemstones or nametags for each child or grandchild. For lower budgets, one can buy tee shirts or license plate holders boasting of motherhood or grandmotherhood. Again, it's a whole market where we childless women are left out. Sitting at the stoplight, breathing the exhaust of a Buick with a World's Best Grandma bumper sticker, don't you sometimes wonder what your bumper sticker would say? World's best . . . dog owner? Flute player? Flag-pole climber?
We don't need any of this stuff. It's silly. It's often tacky, but there's that little twinge of oh, I'm not in the Mom Club. I'll never get a bracelet with the names of my kids engraved on it. And deep inside, we kind of really want one.
Anybody else feel that way?
Sue

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This blog has moved. Please switch over to the new site at http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. All of the old posts have already been transferred over there, and it would make life easier if you would comment at that site. Thank you.