The Truth About Childless Women


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mitchell175 is offline mitchell175 Post #1  July 14,2011, 1:20pm
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Melanie Notkin: The Truth About Childless Women

A friend sent me the link for this powerful article. I cried when I read it. There have been a lot of threads recently about women who are "over the hill" but who still want children. This is a view from the other side.

Some key paragraphs from the article that really hit home for me:

wrote :
The grief over not only not being a mother, but now also suffering from feeling 'less than' because I just simply hadn't found love (or mutual love), was at times overwhelming. And as I saw couples younger than I getting sympathy for their biological infertility, I wondered why all I got were accusations of not doing enough, not trying hard enough. Trying too hard. Being too picky. Not being picky enough... And the hardest comment to defend: "You better hurry up!" (Hurry up and fall in love?)
wrote :
While I have not suffered from biological infertility (as far as I know), I imagined my grief was at least as deep as couples trying to conceive as I didn't have a love who shared the grief. Heck, I often didn't even have a date to get closer to trying! Every month that passed, I grieved a loss. But I grieved alone. I have no husband (or male partner) to grieve with me.
So much in this life is about choice. And, the hardest part is when you don't feel that you have any choice, that your choice has been taken away. I share this for all the women out there who wanted something out of life... that life just didn't see fit to grant them. I hope this will help others who have never experienced this to understand why we can't just "make a different choice".


Last edited by mitchell175; July 14,2011 at 4:52pm. Reason: moving the link up to the top
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #2  July 14,2011, 3:13pm
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How many men did she turn away?

What were the reasons?

How many men did she ask out?
 
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tangochef is offline tangochef Post #3  July 14,2011, 5:01pm
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Reading the article, looks like she was dating men that went on to get married and have kids.

So, would be curious to see why she never connected with those guys, but obviously the guys connected and had families with other women.

She never said what quality she was looking for that prevented her from "finding love".
 
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scully98 is online now scully98 Post #4  July 14,2011, 5:15pm
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that is a powerful article.

part of what she talks about is why i married the wrong person at age 35. because I wanted so much to be a mom, and didn't want to be a single mom. and because I wanted a biological child.

I ended up adopting my son anyway, since ex had infertility issues, and now I'm a single mom because of my divorce.

So...it all works out one way or the other. but I do remember those powerful feelings of grief on mother's day and especially the mother's day that would fall after a pregnancy loss or a failed IVF cycle.

there is a very strong feeling of having choice taken away from you when you want to be a mom, whether married or not, and it's not happening. it's something men will never experience because they can become dads at any age.
 
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sleep_deprived is offline sleep_deprived Post #5  July 15,2011, 5:39am

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D_Lion wrote :
How many men did she turn away?

What were the reasons?

How many men did she ask out?


Why is it her fault?
And if you are going to try to convince anyone that's not what you meant, that's total rubbish.

Who says she turned ANY men away? Who says she DIDN'T ask anyone out. These aren't valid reasons for her to be single at 40. The point is, this is her situation and this is how she feels. You are asking the very questions that the woman in the article had issues with from people in her life. Why are YOU still single? Didn't ask out enough women? Did you turn down great women because their LOOKS weren't up to "your" standards? Were asking out women who were out of your league? How would those questions make YOU feel?

It's no one's fault, it's just circumstance.
 
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SteveManchesterEngland is online now SteveManchesterEngland Post #6  July 15,2011, 6:42am
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sleep_deprived wrote :
Why is it her fault?
And if you are going to try to convince anyone that's not what you meant, that's total rubbish.

Who says she turned ANY men away? Who says she DIDN'T ask anyone out. These aren't valid reasons for her to be single at 40. The point is, this is her situation and this is how she feels. You are asking the very questions that the woman in the article had issues with from people in her life. Why are YOU still single? Didn't ask out enough women? Did you turn down great women because their LOOKS weren't up to "your" standards? Were asking out women who were out of your league? How would those questions make YOU feel?

It's no one's fault, it's just circumstance.
he was asking questions not stating facts.

and it's worth pointing out that d-lion isn't "still single".


I think these are reasonable questions to ask because there are some people who moan they haven't been able to have this or that in life but actually did very little about it and expected it to land on their laps. My situations have never been out of circumstance but out of choices I make.
Last edited by SteveManchesterEngland; July 15,2011 at 6:45am.
 
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Xable is offline Xable Post #7  July 15,2011, 7:04am
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Good for you if your life has almost always been in your control. But I think it is pretty rude to assume that it is her fault for not trying hard enough.

Let's try this. Think about your career. Think about your passion. Think about what you spend the majority of your life going after. Well, that is what finding love, getting married, and starting a family is like for some women. We DO spend a lot of time and energy going after it. It is much like a career but only in a different way.

I can count on one hand the number of men who have been, even slightly, interested in me. I'm talking willing to go on a date interested. Not, be my girlfriend interested. That's including all the men *I* have actively pursued. The good news is, I only need one. The bad news is, that one doesn't seem to exist.

I know it is hard to believe, but some women really never do get attention, approached, or do get turned down most of the time.
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tangochef is offline tangochef Post #8  July 15,2011, 8:22am
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Xable wrote :
...

I know it is hard to believe, but some women really never do get attention, approached, or do get turned down most of the time.
Reading the article it does seem like she had her share of dates, and relationships.

It also states that the guys she has dated in the past have "become fruitful and multiplied".

So, I would put the burden on her as obviously the guys were able to find love elsewhere.

Some women, and men keeping looking for idealised definition of love (whatever it might be) rejecting all partners, and one day wake up and they are 40+, no kids and single.
 
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questioning is offline questioning Post #9  July 15,2011, 8:24am
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Unfortunately, people often seem to assume that women who never had children turned away "good guys" during their 20s and/or were too busy pursuing a career to think about children until too late.

My entire life, I have had only 2 men interested in dating me. Both were ex-convicts with substance abuse problems, chronic employment and serious hygiene issues. Even though it was yucky and our backgrounds were so different, I tried to make a relationship work, because I felt I needed to give them the benefit of the doubt since they both claimed they were trying to make a new start. Unfortunately, they just wanted my money and I had already reached the conclusion that they were not capable of being responsible parents.

I have been on match.com, eHarmony and several other dating sites since 1995. I initiate daily. I get closed out daily. No one is interested. I ask men out at church and in sporting groups that I am in. No one accepts.

I have never put so much effort into something and failed so badly.

Now that it is too late for me to have a family and love, I am focusing a lot on my career. But, the grief over not having a family never goes away and I don't see anything in life that will ever ease that pain.
 
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Xable is offline Xable Post #10  July 15,2011, 8:35am
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tangochef wrote :
Reading the article it does seem like she had her share of dates, and relationships.

It also states that the guys she has dated in the past have "become fruitful and multiplied".

So, I would put the burden on her as obviously the guys were able to find love elsewhere.

Some women, and men keeping looking for idealised definition of love (whatever it might be) rejecting all partners, and one day wake up and they are 40+, no kids and single.
Sadly, just wanting children doesn't a good partnership make. I have talked with several guys who want children - some almost as much as me but funny how none of them seemed the least bit interested in having those children *with me*.

Something about having children requiring sex and that requiring getting hot and bothered and something about me just not doing that for them... I don't know all the details.

It isn't just about having children and it isn't about just finding love and marriage. It is about finding them together with the right person.
 
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