I am really struggling to get myself moving. I am telling myself that, because I have been working so much lately, I don't have time enough to unwind and do what needs to be done for my research at this stage. Yesterday at work one of our clients said to me: "You don't have kids do you?" As with all the other times people have asked me that question in one form or another, I was at a bit of a loss as to how to respond. This particular question was uniquely penetrating though, perhaps simply because of its rhetoric, leaving me wondering what part of me was divulging this information without my knowing. Wanting to be truthful without crossing appropriate boundaries, I responded, "No, but my wife and I are trying."
"Yeah, I knew you didn't," he stated.
Was my behavior betraying me? Is there something I would have done differently if our children had lived? Would my client's grilled cheese and soup have tasted better? Would I have delivered it to him in a different fashion? Is there something inherent in a parent of children who enter this world breathing and heart-beating that I, somehow, lack because our babies didn't make it that far?
Somewhere there must be hidden outside of my wife's and my view a chart that measures whether or not Sarah's pregnancies were considered viable enough, alive enough, hope-inducing enough, that we can use to judge whether it is just of us to label ourselves parents. I think social taboo keeps this chart tacked up on the inside of its front door, just out of sight of visitors at the door step.
My parents have had a hell of a time with how to respond to the inevitable question: "Do you have grandchilden yet?" I admit, unabashedly, that a part of the hell they have endured when considering this question has come from me and my anger expressed to (at?) them. "You had better fucking say that you are grandparents," I howl at them in my head. But I realize that then they would have to answer any subsequent question ("Oh, how many, how old?") with, "well, two, but they were only 10 and 12 weeks when they died." See, the inquiring grandparents who ask my parents these questions in the first place do not want that much truth, its too much. I know very intimately how much it is indeed, and, yes, I agree it does feel like too much. (Information like this changes things, it alters assumptions.) But all the same, I want to be seen as a suffering PARENT. Not potential parent, almost parent, trying-to-be parent.
In all honesty, sometimes I respond to queries of my parenthood with the easy "not yet." At other times, I tell inquirers about the miscarriages. Questions are not easy to navigate. They depend on many subjective factors, both known and not-known. A good thing for me to remain mindful of when asking others questions, for sure.
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2 comments:
who gets to decide who is a parent?
only those people whose babies have lived?
what about all the others who've lost their only ones?
what about those who've never had a child at all?
J-BO, the question is, i think, one of how one defines oneself, not how others define us. ferinstance, k and i have been living together for more than 13 years. we built a house together. sometimes (rarely) i refer to her as my wife. sometimes as my girlfriend. sometimes my partner. am i a 'husband'? i guess it depends who's asking and how i'm feeling when the question arises.
sometimes when k and i are out-n-about, someone will ask if we have any kids. sometimes i say "i do" and sometimes i say "we do." both true. i know k doesn't really think of em as her 'child' but nonetheless their relationship in some respects resembles parent/child. and if/when em has a child, there's a greater likelihood that k will consider that child her 'grandchild'.
here's what i think about yours and sarah's question. you're parents if you say you are. choose your truth.
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