Sunday 26 February 2012

Fundamental Error


A few days ago, a friend with no kids said something about my kids that annoyed me, something that made me think 'you have no idea how hard my life is', that made me think 'you should be more sympathetic about the difficulties that I am facing, even if they are not your difficulties'. 


And then I remembered  thinking exactly the same thing from the other side around three years ago. I was talking to a friend with children about waiting to adopt and she said what no woman with empty arms wants to hear: 'Hey, if you really want kids, you can have one of mine!' 


I felt like I had been punched. 


At the time, I thought she was saying 'It's hilarious to me that you are aching for a child'.  Now, I wonder if she was really saying 'I'm struggling with this. Please help me'. I didn't help, of course. I just turned away, burning with anger. 


That comment wasn't an isolated incident. Most women who face fertility problems could write a masters thesis on Awful Things That The Fertile Woman Says and Does. Chapter one is Complaining About Her Children and some of the rest are Not Realising How Hard This Is, My Childless Life Is Not One Long Carefree Vacation You Know;  She Said WHAT? Doesn't She Care About Our Friendship At All?; and Even If She Hasn't Been Through This Herself, Has She No Imagination? 


It hurt me so much that my friends didn't understand how hard my experiences were. It hurt me so much that they minimised and ignored the pain of wanting a child. This is so much harder than it looks from the outside, I remember thinking. I wish you could see just how hard. You think your life is hard, so mine must be easy and it's not, it's not. 


I didn't see that I was falling into the same trap they were. 

Honestly, I had no idea how hard their lives were, and I didn't really want to know. I certainly didn't ask; I certainly didn't want to listen. They underestimated my difficulties but I did it to them, too. It's so strange to be on the other side now. Even after years, I still struggle to reconcile the pain of disconnection and isolation I felt then with how connected I feel to that equal-and-opposite shared mothering experience now. 

I do think that they should have been nicer to me. More understanding. But I'm sure I should have been nicer to them too. 

I suppose we were both in the wrong, my friends with kids and me. We could see that what we were doing was hard, but we couldn’t see that what we weren’t doing was hard too.

Fundamental error of logic.

Fundamental error of empathy.

I think the moral of the story, probably, is that everything is harder than it looks when you’re not doing it.

26 comments:

  1. What a great post. I am experiencing similar feelings as I am assaulted with the "is he your... ONLY...?" remarks (followed by inquiries as to when we are going to have another), which usually come from some other tired mom with 2+ kids who seems completely in over her head.

    Anyway, the way you articulated this is quite lovely. It is interesting how I am still very capable of going right back into the punched-in-the-stomach daze when these things happen -- and silently kinda freak out in my head and think these people are evil. Yet I never think about the other person too much.

    Interesting...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post, C. I wonder what kind of chapters would be in the book of the fertile woman talking to the infertile? Might be beneficial for us to hear, you know?

    I love your thoughts....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Heh! I'm pretty sure that book would be called 'believe it or not, my pregnancy is not about you'. But obviously, I'm not speaking from experience!

      Delete
  3. "We could see that what we were doing is hard, but we couldn't see that what we weren't doing was hard too." I love this sentence. It's absolutely true and brutal. Once, during a very emotional discussion about racism in teaching a colleague said to me, "I don't know what I don't know." I was stunned. It was a similar experience - I hadn't been kind about what she didn't know, and she hadn't been kind about what I DID know. Thank you for a nudge in the direction of compassion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a really helpful perspective on that kind of conversation. Thanks.

      Delete
  4. Here comes the longest comment ever in which I defend the insensitive by claiming I am actually an optimist (with an outstanding sense of humor)...
    I think people are a) fundamentally self-involved and b) fundamentally kind. So, if I tell you having two kids is hard, it is because I think having two kids is hard. It is not because I think having two kids is HARDER THAN anything you are going through. If you tell me it is hard to struggle with infertility and I have had a long day with my children and say, "take mine," it is NOT because I don't feel for you. It is because I do feel for you, but I don't know what to say, so I make a stupid joke. At the same time, it is NOT because I totally understand that particular struggle, but it is because I understand the universal feeling of "The grass is always greener."
    I probably have confidence that some day you will have children, if that is what you really want. And I have confidence that at some point you will struggle with parts of motherhood.
    I see my world. And I see our shared world. And I may take shortcuts in expressing myself. And I may make silly jokes when I simply don't know what else to say (I am trying to learn the art of simple empathetic sentences - but the more uncomfortable I feel about a topic, the harder it is for me to think of those first.)
    This is not a defense of the insensitive. This is not a defense of my personal past behavior. It is just my view of human nature.
    I have learned so much about the struggle of infertility through your blog. And I have become a much more sensitive person because of it.
    I had a friend in high school whose parents had struggled through a difficult divorce. When she would get impatient with another person's driving, her mother would say, "Maybe she is getting a divorce."
    25 years later this is still a mantra I remember when I am feeling patient and charitable. (Although not all the time as I should.) We never really know another person's inner struggles - even our good friend's or family members. Ideally we would extend a natural empathy toward everyone and try to appreciate that they may be struggling internally.
    On the other hand if I went around all day assuming everyone's life sucked because they were struggling internally it would make me want to slit my wrists. Which is why I justify my humor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SFM, the world is a much better place because of your humour.

      Delete
  5. Um, I just checked and I am pretty sure my comment is longer than your post. How is that for insensitive?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beautiful post. And dead on. thank you for writing it.

    Mo

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fantastic.
    I am certain I failed spectacularly in the empathy department as a young mother when I had friends dealing with infertility. I am beter with that now but I fail spectacularly in other areas I am sure. We are all a work in progress I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I really love this post. I need constant reminders, it seems, to remain empathetic and remain aware of what I am/am not experiencing.

    love you for this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Isn't it insanely hard? It has been such a struggle for me that I often find myself wondering why on earth I wanted children. This has not come naturally to me. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It is definitely weird to be on the other side. I see all the time how my friends with kids bit their tongues, didn't complain to me but yet they were struggling. Once, when my friend had natural twins and had a toddler at home I thought I had done the good supportive thing by taking a meal and visiting them in the hospital. A month later on the phone she said "we're barely surviving over here." I felt so bad, I cooked a few more meals and trucked them over but even THAT was just scratching the surface. Now I know what barely surviving feels like and I wish I could go back in time and do something, like change a diaper or hold a baby or entertain a toddler, or all of it. But I couldn't then--I wasn't emotionally capable. Sigh. Life is tough. Relationships are complicated. Everyone has pain and struggles and that is why I think I can let go of my IF pain so easily--there's no room for it! Ha.

    Hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  11. So true, well said. This is where we need to "think more highly of others than we think of ourselves" so we can see their situation and not just our own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YES. That is one of the very, very hardest things to put into practice, don't you think?

      Delete
  12. Oh, such a good post, and such great comments (as usual) from your readers.

    A blogger who used to read (not sure if she still does but definitely doesn't comment) my blog said to me once that people are mostly well intentioned and if they say stupid things, they (mostly) don't intend to hurt you.

    That has helped me a LOT in the last couple of years. A lot.

    Also, I've been thinking about you with your pretty hair... because mine is SO NOT PRETTY! :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh yes, been there done that on both sides I've realized. I struggle a lot with a particular friendship. I struggle to remember how painful it is when motherhood does not come as expected when you are trying and trying, and I struggle to shut my mouth when she dismisses my concerns about my child. I struggle to remember that she may be thinking 'shut up! I'd do anything for your problems', which is what I used to think when I heard mothers saying they were struggling, which I only heard as complaining about having what I most wanted.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I’m not a mom (yet) and maybe someday will understand just how hard it is on the other side (seriously, *how* can you function on so little sleep???), although my non-IF friends will never, ever know how hard it is on this side—and sometimes that can make for awkwardness. Ie, a friend recently underwent IVF for her second child, and said to me “Wow, this is really hard. I just figured you were being dramatic”—which pretty much sums that particular relationship. At the same time, I also realize that if I take every comment personally then I will have no friends left at the end of this road, so it's not always worth getting upset over.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh, I shouldn't laugh at your friend's comment but I am. See, I always SUSPECT people are thinking that, but she came right out and said it.

      Delete
  15. Thanks for the thoughts! Sitting in the seat of the woman struggling with infertility, watching all of the more fertile women around me, I know exactly what you mean when you said you didn't know and maybe didn't want to know how hard their mommy lives were. Good reminder for me to go out and take note of all the many green blades of grass growing on my side of the fence.

    ReplyDelete
  16. There is so much truth here. I think it helps to take a deep breath, look around, and realize that every single woman (and man) we encounter is a part of a story that we might not ever fully understand. They are the main characters in chapters we might not ever read. And there is beauty in that uniqueness. We are together, but we are also alone. There is a delightful paradox to that. If we run around thinking the world is out to get us, well, then it probably will.

    ReplyDelete
  17. It's true, tread lightly. We are carring something, no need to pile on.

    ReplyDelete
  18. So true! One (there are more) of the ones that punches me in the gut every time is "Isn't that always how it is: you're in-process to adopt, and then you get pregnant! It ALWAYS happens!" Umm, no, no it doesn't. As much as I would LOVE for that to be true in my own life.

    People forget who their talking to. I'm sure I've done it, but the above has made me much more sensitive. And for THAT, I'm grateful for the gut-punches.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you're right, Kim - once you've been punched in the gut yourself, it's easier to see how much those gut-punches hurt.

      Delete

Over to you!