There are six of us: high school and university friends I have stayed in close touch with over the years; we are all in our mid-40s now. We are nurses, social workers, educators, writers, massage therapists and political activists. We are past the ideal childbearing years. Three of us had children and the other three did not.
For one it was a choice; for the other two it was circumstance. One of those two who struggled with infertility decided it was meant to be, and she is glad now for the independence it has given her.
Review: Childless, A Story of Freedom and Longing - Sian Prior (Text Publishing)
But for the other it has been a source of lasting sorrow. She would have been the best mother of all of us, in the way the universe works; she is the best auntie and gift-giver, listener and game player. I thought of her often while reading Sian Prior’s new memoir, Childless.
In vitro fertilisation of a human female cell. Microscopic view, 3D rendering.
Shutterstock
She watches him not watching her, “because this has nothing to do with him”. He does not offer to drive her to medical appointments; he is present but absent. It is complex and fraught. Of course it has something to do with him, in the end, and Prior seems to circle and circle these scenes, seeking out answers.
At one point, she asks, “What choices do I have because I’m not getting what I most wanted.”
I think of my dear childless friend here, who spends weeks every year with her nephews, who was able to help care for her father in his final months. Who will sit with a child and craft for hours. Sew costumes for Halloween. Who has always had the time to listen.
I think it is easy to get distracted now by binaries: the vaccinated and anti-vaxxers, the vegans and the paleos, the parents and the child-free. Memoirs like Prior’s remind us that human experience is far more complex, that there are so many gradations, so much light and shadow.
Our choices are one thing, but we are also made up of our disappointments. Of what we have lost and what we never had the chance to have.
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