Never Ask a Woman This Question
As printed in My Village News November 2019
Whether someone has a child, doesn’t have a child or has 200 of them it is never okay to ask about their family planning. From the outside I can understand how questions like, “When are you going to have kids?” or “Are you thinking about having another one soon?” are well intentioned but the more I enter the parenthood world, the more I realise it’s full of different journeys many of which are unpredictable, difficult or painful. Infertility affects one in six couples, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, and there are so many other variables that cannot even be conceived in the nanosecond it takes to fire off that loaded shotgun of a question.
My husband and I are only now wading into second child conversations as our 21 month old enters a more manageable stage, doing some things by herself and playing well on her own for stretches. But I have my own anxieties. Our daughter was born 5 weeks premature and with second pregnancies commonly being shorter than first, I get a nervous pang in my stomach contemplating what our next baby’s start to life would look like. Even writing about this now makes me feel sick with considerations. I’m not alone, Olympic gold medallist Libby Trickett last month told Mia Freedman in a podcast interview Postnatal Depression with her first born made her scared about having another.
So the next time it bubbles up as polite banter, please hesitate before asking questions of family planning of a young woman or as Yumi Stynes advises, of anyone. In her podcast Ladies, We Need To Talk (yep, following on from my column last month I’m listening to more podcasts as self care) she recently broached the topic of being ‘Footloose and childfree’, chatting with women of all ages and backgrounds about the social exclusion around being childless. “I’m 49 years old. I don’t have children. I think I would love it if people didn’t see it as something that you lack but rather something that you have,” said one podcast guest. What stung me most was hearing another say how the pain is churned up for her all over again now she’s “grandmother age”.
