Experiencing infertility and being childless not-by-choice changed me in too many ways to count. After living my whole life with my own personal problems (depression and anxiety) but pretty damn good and lucky circumstances (loving family, stable housing, etc.), going through infertility and involuntary childlessness gave me the experience of being part of a marginalized, even invisible, population. It made me more aware of society's assumptions and more sensitive to some of the struggles other people experience (though I would never claim someone else's hardships and lessons as my own).
But now I know how little I know.
And I am grateful to know what I do know.
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Here is a very small thing that is another example of the pronatalist assumptions in our society.
(By the way, in the draft of this post, the word "pronatalist" was underlined in red, so I just added it to my blogging dictionary of recognized words.)
I was at a work training. It was just me, a co-worker, and our manager who was leading the training. The topic was skin integrity and the different products we have at our facility. Our manager was describing under what circumstances you would use each product. For one of the products, she said you would use it when the patient's skin "looked like diaper rash."
During our break, I turned to my co-worker. Our jobs do not involve working with babies. I asked her if she had ever seen diaper rash. She said no. I said neither had I. I asked my co-worker, "Why would she reference diaper rash if she is training two women who don't have children?"
Pronatalism strikes again. Not all women are mothers.
I suppose it's sexist too, assuming that all women have taken care of babies at some point...
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It's not the small, individual comments that hurt or even annoy me anymore, not at this stage of my healing. It's the overall onslaught of all of them. It's all of the underlying assumptions. It's the constant feeling of having my existence invalidated in a way that I can't explain to people who don't experience it themselves.
And that gives me some insight as to how much I don't understand other groups' marginalization.
I want to use what I've learned and experienced to try to better see and connect with others.
Picture found on an unrelated article here:
https://diversityq.com/the-great-disconnection-is-costing-340-billion-every-year/
I think I would have asked her, innocently, "so what does that look like???" Stupid pro-natalist! Especially if she's your manager, and knows your situations. That reminds me of when I was in hospital for my second ectopic pregnancy. There was a crying baby on the gynae ward (her mother was admitted) and I was still in the midst of grief losing my baby, and asked a nurse if her room door could be closed. "You know what babies are like," she said. "No I don't," I responded, almost in tears. "My babies keep dying!" And stormed back into my own room. (I can laugh about it now. But I'm quite glad I said that, as it was a dumb statement by the nurse, considering what I was on the ward for.)
ReplyDeleteI also absolutely agree with your last point. I think being marginalised has really taught me to understand better other people and their difficulties, isolation, etc. And I like being more compassionate as a result. I referenced this in my Gifts of Infertility series.
Oh, that nurse... Yes, the assumption that everyone has kids gets old.
DeleteI love your Gifts of Infertility series! <3
Gross. That is a crappy assumption, as it's pronatalist and sexist. I remember getting my spinal for my last knee replacement, and the nurse saying "it will be fine, just breathe deep -- it's just like when you have babies!" and I wanted to be like, "Ma'am, I have never had a baby" but I was already pretty loopy. There should be so much training on finding neutral things to reference, or maybe, like, PICTURES of the rash? Argh.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that happened, but I'm glad you got to write about it and get conversations going!
Weather, recipes, and what you like to do for fun are usually safe conversation topics. I wish they were the go-to topics for everyone.
DeleteAnd thanks. It didn't bother me; I just noticed it and thought I'd write about it. I am sooo glad things don't hurt like they used to.
And yes! Healthcare professionals need sensitivity training in a lot of areas. They can be so good at the medical stuff, but there's room for improvement on how they relate and communicate to their patients.
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