Dear Ellen DeGeneres, stop asking people if they are having kids

No kids? No problem. Pass the Chardonnay…

So, I wrote this a while back, but it seems more relevant than ever, given this interaction on Ellen’s show recently. (And, damn you, Ellen, for making me feel bad for the Biebs!)

Please read, share, print up and hand to people, whatever it takes. Here goes:

Mourning the absence of something that was never there is a solitary kind of pain. Sometimes it hits me from the smallest thing: A little blonde kid at a grocery store, wanting some sugary cereal. My friends’ kids, smiling at their parents. Reading about some celebrity who’s having a baby at, like, 50.

Last night, it was when the takeout was arriving at our apartment, and I went to the kitchen to get the plates. Two plates. Not 3 or 4. Two. The space where more plates should go just sitting there empty, loud, lonely. Reminding me of what is absent. And, more, what will never be.

It’s why I sometimes can’t talk about your kids with you. I’ll change the subject or just half-listen, nodding along.

It’s why I will find myself almost glaring at people who have more than one kid, or at a glowing pregnant woman.  (When undergoing fertility treatments, I once got on the elevator to the doctor’s office with a woman with four kids, who was also pregnant. I had to close my eyes and count to ten. Not my proudest moment.)

It’s why I will NEVER ask another human being if they have kids of their own, and why I sometimes take a pause if you ask me if I do.

It’s why I brace myself, after telling you that I don’t have kids, for you asking why not, encouraging me to do so, telling me, “don’t give up,” or (my personal favorite in the “unsolicited & unwanted ‘advice’” category) encouraging us to adopt. Please, let’s call a moratorium on that. Some people, my dear friends, do end up truly, involuntarily, childless. And any opinions or seeming-encouragements are just daggers right to the heart.

It’s why I will have a hard time not telling you to f**k off when you complain about your kid. Sometimes I’ll blurt, “at least you have a kid,” then brace myself for your inevitable, “want mine?” Please, let’s call a moratorium on that “joke,” too. No, I don’t want yours.

I want my own. 

It’s why I sometimes can’t look at photos of your kids on IG or FB (much less click “like”), and why I have to avoid going on social media on Easter, the first day of school, & Halloween. And why I’ll “snooze” or even unfollow you if you start posting sonogram photos of the happy baby inside you. My heart can’t take it.

Am I happy FOR you? Yes. But, WITH you? I’m still working on that.

Before you ask, I have done therapy, different kinds, over the years. I have tried meditation, prayer, group therapy, talking about it with select friends, then tried not talking about it at all. I’ve tried drugs, prescribed ones and semi-legal ones, at least in some states. I finally landed on white wine, which is where I am now. Healthy? Nope. Self-medication? You betcha. 

When I look down the long barrel of my future, it shows my husband and me, but that’s it. Yes, we are happy. But when we grow old, there will be no one there with us. (And, I know that there are some people who have children and who still won’t have that. Not helpful, Captain Obvious.) But what to do with all of that alone-ness? I won’t know until it happens. Sometimes it all seems pretty dark.

Most of you people with children say right about now, “be grateful for having a life that is still your own,” or “having kids isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Got it. Most of the time I am very grateful for all that I have. This isn’t about that. 

This is about grief. 

Grief, plain and simple.  Just like following a death, it comes in waves, sometimes far apart, sometimes small, but nonetheless, there, under the surface, ready to pop out on a moment’s notice. Like at the grocery store.

This is usually the part of these “we-want-to-have-kids-so-bad” essays where you are told that, after years of trying, fertility treatments & then giving up, bam! We finally got pregnant! Nope, that’s not how this story ends. 

For now, this story is about looking on the bright side, like that we’re taking the time and money we would have spend on kids and filling it with near-constant  travel & fun & adventure. We’ve been to 2 Olympics overseas & plan to go to more. We (used to!) eat out a lot. We laugh even more. We have a kitty cat who is the center of our lives (so, SO many cat pics sent back & forth betwixt us). I have great life-long friends who will be with me until the end. I am a godmother now, and an “aunt” to my girlfriends’ kids, which means a lot.

(And, my boobs are relatively perky for a girl my age.)

For now, this story is about me forgiving myself for not having a kid, for not giving our parents a grandchild, for longing for something I don’t have when I already have so much, for being snarky in this very essay, and for sometimes drinking too much Chardonnay.

For now, this story is about looking at the second half of my life with altered expectations and trying my absolute damndest to look forward to it.

But, truly, for now, I’ll settle for not feeling resentment when I spot you with the little tow-headed, blue-eyed kid in the cereal aisle of Kroger. And I’ll try my best not to buy him the Cocoa-puffs.

Try.

P.S. Some of us without kids spend a bit more time in activities like this: