That One Weird Childfree Holiday Card in the Stack December 20, 2012

 By Maybe Lady Liz

They’re starting to roll in. The waves of holiday cards featuring happy families festooned in matching red turtlenecks ‘round the tree or Canadian tuxedos on the beach. There will be some derivation of a toddler with his arms slung around Dad’s neck. Or Mom watching the kids play on a blanket. Or an Ann Geddes-esque shot of a newborn falling asleep on a reindeer’s back, adorned with nothing more than a tiny Santa hat. If you’re lucky, and your friends and family are deft enough with Snapfish, you’ll get ALL THREE in an artistically staggered arrangement.

And if you’re like me, you won’t be able to stop yourself from comparing them to the cards you’ve sent out over the past few years. Maybe you’ve squeezed your cats into little elf outfits and reindeer antlers (and lost an arm in the process). Maybe you’ve posed with your spouse in front of some magnificent European landmark in a subconscious attempt to remind everyone how awesome it is that you have the freedom and cash to travel. Or maybe you’re like me and my husband, who always try to outdo ourselves every year in the clever department. Last year, we put photos of ourselves at age 6, side-by-side, each ripping into hilariously dated gifts, and titled it “Keep Christmas old-school.”

And in years past, when our friends would send just a ho-hum photo with a generic greeting, we were pretty proud of the fact that our card stood out from the pack and had a little personality. We used to tack it up on the half-wall in our kitchen with all the others and pat ourselves on the back. But as the years have gone by, our card has started to stand out for a very different reason. Instead of noticing the unique panache of our card, I’ve started to see what’s missing: a baby, of course. Kids on Santa’s lap, all that jazz.

I try not to let it happen, but I can’t help but look at my cards in a different light – through the eyes of those who are sending out the baby cards. All our attempts at being so clever probably seem silly, frivolous, immature, shallow, self-centered (words that sound familiar to anyone who actually chooses to be Childfree). They must seem like a stage that was supposed to be passed by now, but isn’t. No doubt they somehow seem…less than they’re supposed to be, to them.

I know, I know – it’s probably all in my head and these aren’t very Christmas-y thoughts. But fear not. I’ll keep the funny Childfree holiday cards rolling. Somebody’s gotta Keep Christmas Weird.

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

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Year-End Planning December 14, 2012

It’s December and I don’t know about you, but I can smell 2013 in the air!

I know we still have the holidays ahead, and I’m promising to get into the spirit this year, but I love the New Year and so I’m already starting to wrap up 2012 and get ready for a fresh start next month.

I tend not to hold grudges or to hold too tightly to the past. Lots of things happened this year that I wish had happened differently, but they’re over now and out of my control. I can’t change them, so I may as well pick myself up, dust myself off, and apply the valuable lessons I’ve learned from my mistakes to make sure they don’t happen again next year.

So far, my plans for 2013 include a couple of trips, some time to finish my book, some exciting projects for this site, and some deliberate “white space” on my calendar to recharge my batteries.

What about you? Are you thinking about the New Year yet? What’s on the horizon for you?

Whiny Wednesday December 12, 2012

Well, we knew it was coming, and here it is. Last week the feted royal couple, William and Kate, announced the impending arrival of the royal heir.

I’m happy for them, I really am, because I could not imagine them having to through any sort of infertility issues in the very, very public eye.

But I can’t say I’m looking forward to the coming months of baby mania. Holy moly, if the wedding excitement was anything to go by, it’s going to be brutal.

Fortunately, there will hopefully be some humorous respite to ease the pain, such as Snooki offering the Duchess motherhood advice. Um, yeah, Snooki, why not offer up some style advice while you’re at it?

It’s Whiny Wednesday and I’m not feeling especially charitable towards celebrity mothers today. How about you? What’s on your mind?

 

Whiny Wednesday: Small Annoyances December 5, 2012

Isn’t it amazing what the human spirit can endure? Every day the news is filled with stories of triumph over adversity. Even among ourselves, we’ve been through a lot and yet we’re making our way through it, and we’ll come out the other side intact.

And yet sometimes I think it’s the small annoyances that are going to kill me: The incorrect bill that takes an hour-long phone call to rectify; the imperceptible leak in the water cooler that slowly floods the kitchen; the cell phone/computer/car that stops working for no good reason, then suddenly decides to work again after you’ve already missed the call/deadline/appointment you were supposed to make.

In the big scheme of things, these inconveniences are nothing. They’ll be gone and forgotten in no time and won’t make much difference to the overall scheme of my life. But when they back up one behind the other, I swear it’s enough to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels.

Luckily, we have Whiny Wednesday, our weekly release valve for all that’s wrong in our worlds. My whines are many but minor this week. How about yours?

Everything Happens for a Reason December 3, 2012

My friend has been very sick recently. She is single, doesn’t have children, and her family lives in another state, so when she told me what was going on, I offered to go with her to her doctor’s appointments and help her out while she recovers from surgery.

One of the reasons I’m able to be there for her is that I don’t have children (the other is that I work for myself, so I can easily move my schedule around.) If I had children to care for, there’s no way I would have been able to sit in on her appointments or even just hang out with her and keep her company.

It’s also not lost on me that I am one husband and one diagnosis away from being in her position. As, statistically, I should outlive Mr. Fab, there’s a very real possibility that I could someday find myself in her shoes. And frankly, it’s scaring the crap out of me.

I’ve been pretty cavalier so far about what will happen to me in the future and who will be there for me when I’m old or if I get sick. Mr. Fab is a rotten nurse as a rule, but I know that if ever I were really sick, he’d be there for me. But if he’s not around, then who will be?

I now know from experience that there’s only so much a friend can do and I know that my friend has still spent much of the last few weeks dealing with her illness alone. Truly it’s a horrible thought.

But before I drag you down into a pit of despair, take heart. Something is going on with me that I cannot yet explain. Although I’m generally quick to dismiss the “everything happens for a reason” school of thought, I have a very strong and inexplicable feeling that something positive will come out of this experience with my friend.  Maybe I have something to learn from her or maybe she’s casting a light on something I need to consider. Maybe her journey will show me the solution to my own fear.

I’m sorry to be so vague and mysterious, but I don’t yet have any explanation for my odd feeling. But something is coming, and when it does, you can bet I’ll be sharing it with you here.

Around the Blogosphere November 30, 2012

I’ve been hanging around out in the blogosphere lately and decided to bring to you a few things I found this week.

Challenged with writing about a life-changing moment, IVF Male shared a poignant post about infertility’s long series of life-changing moments in “Staring Down the Infertility Train.”

Mali celebrated the two-year anniversary of her wonderful blog at No Kidding in NZ.

On The Road Less Travelled, Loribeth writes about a different kind of anniversary­—what would have been her daughter’s 14^th birthday—and the milestones she won’t get to celebrate.

And Pamela, at Silent Sorority, stuck her tongue firmly in her cheek and provided the facts to back up a theory many of us have probably considered, that perhaps we’re just too evolved to reproduce.

And from me, I’m just wishing you a Happy Friday and a great weekend.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After…With Kids, Of Course November 29, 2012

 By Maybe Lady Liz

Last night, I finally saw the 1987 Coen brothers’ cult classic, Raising Arizona. For those of you who, like me, have been living under a rock for the past twenty-five years and haven’t seen it, the first hour and forty-two minutes are pretty solidly hilarious, and I highly recommend them. But (spoiler alert!), as someone who may not ever have kids, it’s the final two minutes of the movie that really ruined things for me.

Career criminal H.I. “Hi” McDonnough (played by Nicholas Cage) decides to walk the straight and narrow when he falls for a local policewoman, Edwina “Ed”. They marry quickly and Ed’s biological clock moves into full swing. After months of trying for a child, Ed is devastated when her doctor tells her she’s infertile. Knowing they’d never be able to adopt with Hi’s checkered past, they cook up a scheme to kidnap one of a furniture magnate’s newborn quintuplets. Hilarity ensues, of course, as the two of them navigate the challenges of a new baby and explaining just how they were able to adopt so quickly. Eventually, Hi’s past comes back to bite him as the baby is “re-kidnapped” by two of his recently-escaped cell mates. In their desperate chase to get the little guy back, Ed realizes that their original kidnapping was a horrible thing to do to a mother, and they return the baby to his parents.

But by this point, Ed and Hi’s marriage is pretty far deteriorated. Ed begins to think it was a bad match from the beginning and says she wants a divorce. But upon returning the baby, the furniture magnate (miraculously not angry at them) encourages her to sleep on it and not make any rash decisions. In Hi’s dream that night, which comprises the aforementioned final two minutes of the movie, he envisions a rosy future for him and Ed. Given the reality of their situation, you might think it would have been the two of them overcoming their differences and going on all kinds of exciting adventures or just enjoying each other’s company. But no. It was a rather cheesy montage that showcased nothing more than a parade of children and grandchildren running and out of their house, or sitting around a huge dining room table.

What’s the message here? That there’s really only one happy ending in life, and it must involve kids? I know I’m viewing the movie from a biased standpoint, and I’m reading far too much into it, but the implication seemed to be that despite all their marital problems, their lives might still turn out okay…as long as they’re somehow able to have children.

I should probably cut the Coen brothers some slack. After all, this was twenty-five years ago, when the term Childfree was still spelled with a lowercase “c” and people had a harder time imagining a rich, fulfilling life without kids. But, like so many other elements of pop culture, it was just a grating reminder that for most, a life without babies just doesn’t lend itself to that Hollywood storybook ending. I suppose those of us who wind up not having kids will just have to make sure we create our own happily ever afters.

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

Whiny Wednesday November 28, 2012

Thumbing through last month’s Real Simple magazine, I came across an interesting snippet of information. According to research led by Carnegie Mellon University, adults with children are 52 percent less likely to catch colds than childfree adults.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the news of my inferior immune system that got my goat. It wasn’t even the article’s suggestion of my overall inferiority in its closing line: “Yet further proof that parents are superhuman.” (Um, no. They’re just exposed to more viruses that their kids bring home from school, so they build more resistance. Basic biology.)

No, the thing that’s prompting my whine this week is that yet another magazine that started out as a magazine for women, is drifting more and more towards being a magazine for moms. Is nowhere sacred?

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s needling you today?

 

Funny Friday: A Job Opportunity? November 23, 2012

I always start my mornings by reading the newspaper (I know; call me old-fashioned) and my day officially begins after I’ve read the comics.

Recently, Darrin Bell’s Candorville tickled my funny bone, with this cartoon.

I wonder if making a few bucks would ease the sting of listening to parents who don’t quite get that we might not want to hear every detail about their children.

No, probably not.

 

Whiny Wednesday: Politics November 21, 2012

Now that the election is but a mere distant memory, it’s safe to come out and have a whine.

According to a pre-election article in the Huffington Post, Kansas House of Representatives candidate, Brandon Whipple was denounced by the Tea Party for not having children.

Literature distributed in Wichita, read: “Can someone with no children really understand your family’s needs?”

In defense of the campaign, the head of Kansas for Liberty said, “If you have no experience in an area, it is hard for you to make informed decisions in an area.”

It’s this kind of small-minded thinking that makes me despair for the future of this country, however, there is hope. The people of Kansas apparently didn’t think much of this pathetic personal attack either. Whipple won the seat easily.

So, now that’s off my chest, over to you. It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s got your knickers in a twist today?