I'm Childless. Here's What Keeps ME Humble
Some much needed SCHOOLING for the Sarah Huckabee Sanders crew
Aaaand, here we go again folks. Round two of 2024 political childless bigotry starts……NOW!
I was having quite a non childless oriented day this past Tuesday, as is often the case for me these days. My morning went to helping my husband sort out the future direction of his businesses.
My afternoon was spent coordinating itineraries for my brother’s rapidly approaching wedding (after which I was planning on digging into my Substack project, alas!) with the safety of our beloved elderly family members in mind.
All of the above co-mingled with the usual cooking, cleaning and other household management duties most of us know all too well.
Also included in my close orbit, of course, were my ever shifting dysautonomia symptoms. Along with the also ever shifting job of taking care of myself under such circumstances. Yesterday brought some brain fog, sluggishness, and the subtle feeling of disorientation that can come with autonomic nerve damage.
Getting ready for bed late, I reflected with gratitude for what I had been able to get done. I forgave myself for how darned loooong it all took. And I patted myself on the back for staying persistent as the tv my husband left on to accompany him to sleep prattled on in the background. Just another day hanging in there coming to a close and finally offering some much needed sleep.
Until I heard Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ vocal cords drenched in her trademark unwarranted smugness. And that according to her, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble simply because she doesn’t have children of her own.
Oh, come ON!
Are we REALLY still doing this??
And during World Childless Week, even. Is nothing sacred?
It has been a fraught summer, politically and otherwise. I’ve weathered leaving the house we bought to raise our children in well. That was this past June. JD Vance’s childless bigotry came marching in soon after, evoking not much more than a “so what else is new” eye roll from me.
But the imbecility that I don’t have anything keeping me humble because I don’t have children?
Oh, boy. No. You. Don’t!
Lady, you haven’t a CLUE. Line drawn. Gauntlet thrown.
I have had ENOUGH.
Ten plus years out of multiple failed fertility treatments, I’ve gotten rather tired of explaining what people should already know, but for that many just don’t seem to want to. Problem being though, Ms. Sanders said what so many people believe. All while making clear the unchecked biases towards people without children that continue to spew without hesitancy.
Worldwide, twenty percent and climbing of our human population over age forty five will never have children. Should any of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ children wind up a part of this group, they are going to have quite the shitty time if she doesn’t start doing the work to change her own mind.
Just like people who get to be parents, those of us without children are hardly a monolith. We come to not having children via many different paths for an astonishing array of reasons.
Each person without children will have their own unique list of what has made and keeps them humble. Here is the unfiltered version of mine, including experiences both past and current.
What keeps me humble as a childless person 101
Knowing the world generally thinks less of you for something over which you had absolutely no control. Let’s start with THAT one, shall we?
Finding your way in a world that can’t be bothered to make space for that which shattered you through your very core.
Well over a thousand needles, four years of my life and all of the love and wanting in the world rendering nothing.
Walking out into a world every day where the majority of people get to have what you couldn’t have. And where the majority of people who have it didn’t even have to work for it.
Surrendering to Grief’s intelligence.
Reproductive Trauma.
PTSD.
Trauma Recovery.
Disenfranchised Grief.
Anticipatory Grief.
Suffocated Grief.
Ambiguous Loss.
HEALING!
The social annihilation that accompanies childlessness.
The human conversation revolving constantly around the very thing you sought ferociously and lost.
The knowledge that the main component of most “successes” in life is luck. Just good ole random luck.
Knowing that precious little separates you from anyone else’s worst disaster.
Wading through life without the false but oh so comforting protection of “it can’t happen to me”.
Not having control over your body.
The double whammy of being childless due to infertility and three years later having a virus attack my autonomic nervous system (chronic health conditions are not uncommon in the childless demographic).
Not being able to move about the world in the same way able bodied folks can.
Having to hear constantly about things other people’s bodies can do that yours can’t.
Not having the supposed “freedom” everyone thinks you have.
Not having a lot in common with my peers.
Having your lived experiences always come last in the human conversation. That is, if they are even included at all.
Indifference from your fellow humans towards your deepest pain.
A complete lack of interest in your resurrection and uncharted path forward from people closest to you.
Societal invisibility.
Living a life you did not choose.
Being drastically altered and shaped internally by that which you did not choose.
Having your life not work out as intended and as everyone told you it would from day one.
Meeting other people’s pain, and then allowing yourself to be educated and enriched by it.
Taking an interest in people who have lives and experiences different from yours.
Making a consistent effort to check your assumptions of others at the door.
So as you can see, the experience of childlessness can easily pound a person humble. And this is just me riffing. Imagine what would come out should one have the chance to sit down and take a deeper dive.
You know what ISN’T humble?
Insulting someone for something over which they have no control. Baselessly asserting that your random lived experience makes you superior. Assuming there couldn’t possibly be any other way than YOUR particular life path to garner and curate humility.
Also a drain on humility? Not checking your privilege. And failing to treat others how you want for yourself, and for your children should you have them, to be treated.
Truth is, if you weren’t humble before parenthood, there’s no guarantee you will be humble with it. Same goes for childlessness. Many of us take the all too ample opportunities to grow our humility in the face of childlessness. But that doesn’t mean everyone can and will.
Clearly, Ms. Huckabee Sanders’ children haven’t kept her humble at all. But her humility is not and never was their job. The responsibility for that lies solely on her, as it does on each of us.
Real adults keep themselves humble, regardless of parented status.