Greer: Friends, we have come to the end of our season on forming families sooner than I had hoped. I had so many more stories I wanted to share with you: a woman who adopted a teenager and became a loving grandmother several years later; a woman who adopted twins as infants after a long struggle with infertility; another woman who along with parenting her own children, became a custodial guardian for the friend of one of her children for a time; and many more stories of love, commitment, and joy taking all sorts of forms. Unfortunately, these women who wanted to share their stories have hectic lives, especially when school is out, and I wasn't able to complete those interviews this summer. And now I myself am swept up in a hectic season of preparing to welcome a high school exchange student to live with my husband and myself for the upcoming academic year. This is a new experience for us, and we have so much to learn—it turns out that high school has changed a lot in the past two decades! I'm making intentional choices about how I inhabit my time, and I'm afraid most of my behind-the-mic time these days goes to calling contra dances and square dances for my local community. I am conscious of needing to grow into this new host parenting role with grace and patience, and needing to give our family time to find a new rhythm. As a result, I'll be stepping back from this podcast, but before I do, I wanted to share what I've learned from reflecting on the stories we heard this season, and reflecting on my own story.
As a woman in my late 30s who loves children and hasn't had any of my own, I am often asked questions that begin with “Why don't you....” and end with whatever that person's preferred solution is to fixing my childless state: for some, it's adoption, for others, it's fostering, for others, it's medically assisted reproduction technologies. While I assume these interrogators are well-meaning and concerned for my happiness, their questions miss the mark in several respects, which I heard echoed by many of the women I interviewed this season:
For one thing, this line of questioning often discounts all of the multi-dimensional suffering I've endured which has created the circumstance of being childless in my late thirties, and assumes that my greatest grief is simply being childless. It myopically reduces my identity and my story to my reproductive potential. Yes, it is disappointing not to have the choice to bring children into the world, and there is acute pain attached to that circumstance, having been raised in a subculture that took for granted that my primary identity in the world should be as a wife and a mother. However, the physical and emotional pain of the myriad gynecological conditions I suffer from are ultimately much more germane than missing out on having children. The former has framed my entire experience of embodiment for the past quarter-century of my life, not to mention significantly impacted my sex life, while the latter pertains to a possible future that was never realized. Sometimes I make progress on alleviating some of the impacts of my health conditions, and other days it feels like a game of whacamole, where one set of symptoms gets more severe even as others ease off, but regardless, these are chronic conditions that I'll reckon with for probably the rest of my life. Conversely, I'm not obligated to grieve children who never came into being for the rest of my life. Certainly, other women feel differently than I do, and perhaps childlessness does become a source of chronic suffering for them. But to begin a conversation with the “why don't you....adopt, or foster, or try IVF?” question makes unwarranted assumptions about the shape of a person's suffering, and indeed, whether her family structure is a source of suffering at all.
And why should we have to lead with suffering, grief, and problem-solving, anyway, when we are listening to a woman who hasn't born any children? We make a social assumption of joy that we extend to women announcing pregnancies—unless they declare it to be otherwise, we assume that they are looking into a future of wonder, possibility, and hope, and we look for ways to accompany them on that journey. Why not make the same assumptions of women who haven't born any children, whether or not they are taking intentional steps to grow their families in other ways? Why do we assume that the framework for decision-making should be a grim process of eliminating what they determine to be the worst options or settling for second-best options? Why not instead assume that there is joy available to them, too, and trust that they will be drawn towards some family structure that carries its own deep and abiding happiness? Why not seek to accompany them on the unexpected journey they are taking to develop their sense of identity and define their family for themselves, rather than question their sense of direction? In every story I recorded this season, I heard joy and gratitude for the family life that these women have cultivated, regardless of what path they took. While that joy often co-existed with grief, struggle, or the memory of suffering, it still validates that we are all empowered to move towards family structures that generate joy, safety, and belonging, rather than settling for whatever is last on the list of preferred options.
Another insight I had listening to the women who told their stories this season may seem obvious, but it bears reflection: Almost no one wants children at any cost or without regard to the circumstances. While the women I interviewed this season had many of the same options to consider, from carrying pregnancies, to fostering, adoption, IVF, embryo adoption, or surrogacy, they each evaluated those options in relation to their own lives differently, which demanded brutal self-honesty. While those evaluations certainly included fundamental reflections on whether the options before them were ethically sound, much more deeply personal were evaluations of their own health factors, family dynamics, financial resources, social support, past experiences including trauma, what they could imagine for their own story, and what they felt drawn towards. For those with a partner, their partner's joys, hopes, questions, hesitations, and limits were necessarily also considerations. These women often had to re-evaluate their choices and their circumstances and decide whether or not to continue down the road they were on. It was always a matter of prudential judgment whether the price they were paying—financially, physically, emotionally, relationally—was too high. Those prudential judgments are sacred spaces of discernment that no one can understand as deeply and fully as the woman herself whose responsibility and gift it is to move forward through her own circumstances.
Bearing witness to the prudence, honesty, openness, and fortitude that these women shared through their stories has been inspiring to me. I hope that you, like me, feel clearer and more confident in your own discernment of your family formation choices having listened to the stories of others. It was remarkable to me how committed these women were to their paths to endure so many obstacles and personal suffering to ultimately rejoice in the families they have formed and continue to form today. The stories of the paths they took or didn't take expanded my imagination for what is possible.
Their stories will stick with me as I embark on my own family's new journey of hosting a high school exchange student. Over a year ago, my husband and I started talking about our shared desire to open our home in this way, but we didn't know whether adults who have no children of their own would be considered for that host parenting role or not. When I saw an article about our local coordinator looking for additional host homes last fall, I went to the agency's website and immediately saw a story spotlighting a couple who didn't have children of their own, but who had hosted dozens of exchange students over the years. Knowing that it was definitely possible, even if not common, allowed our hopes to take firmer shape as we started moving through the process to get approved as a host home. After months of screening, training, and preparation, we're excited to accompany our student on her big American adventure and to support her as she navigates all the joys and challenges of living in a foreign country, speaking a second language. We're grateful for the friends and family who are celebrating this expansion of our family with us and who are finding ways to express their support, from answering our questions about the school system, to making welcome posters for us to bring to the airport, and even simple text messages like “Are you parents yet? when does your kid get here? What's her first day of school?” We truly feel like we have a whole village rallied around welcoming our student and making sure she has a great experience.
And we believe we'll have a great experience, and we hope we become one of those families who hosts again and again. In recent years, I've seen more and more birth announcements accompanied by a declaration from the parents that with this child they have “completed” their family, I imagine when women frame a declaration like that, it's with the hope of shutting down invasive personal questions about whether they are planning anymore pregnancies. Nevertheless, I can't help but think that I hope my family is never “complete.” I hope it keeps growing forever in both anticipated and unexpected ways. Recently my sister who was adopted from Korea as an infant found her birth sister, who was adopted and raised in Belgium, and it feels like I've gained a sister I never knew, too. The future could bring new in-laws, or nieces and nephews, or godchildren, or friends who might as well be kin, or future exchange students and their parents and the families that they may go on to form. Not to mention, future cats!
Thank you to every listener who has tuned in over the past two years. Your curiosity, thoughtfulness, and encouragement have been so generous. Thank you to every woman who shared a story on this podcast; it has been a privilege to hold so many stories of vulnerability and resilience. It's hard to step away from this podcast because as much as listeners and interviewees have told me that it's been transformative for them, it has been even more so for me. I have a lot of hobbies, but this podcast has been unique for the ways in which it has connected me in solidarity with countless women I have never met, and for the ways in which it has helped me to re-narrate my life, my challenges, my identity, and my sense of belonging. Creating this podcast has developed my self-confidence, deepened my self-honesty, expanded my imagination for what's possible, and taught me to extend the same curiosity and gentleness to myself that I would extend to anyone else. I am still a work in progress, but this podcast has taken me so far on that journey. While I do not have plans to record additional episodes, I will maintain the episode archives, my website, and my email address for the immediate future, because I know that they continue to be a meaningful resource. You can still reach me with feedback at femammalpodcast@gmail.com. That's f e m a m m a l p o d c a s t @gmail.com Be well.
