Hurtful Comments

I've been holding on to a couple of comments that happened on the same day in October, because life has been totally crazy lately and consumed with house nonsense and school difficulties. But maybe if I write them down here I can let them go.

I was at a training, a second run of a program meant to seek equity and diversity in schools, when we did a different sort of icebreaker activity -- The Hot Seat. Instead of the dreaded go-around-the-room and introduce yourself (name, where you teach, what you teach, something interesting maybe), each person had one minute where anyone in the room could ask any question of you. Which is interesting, but not exactly less stress-inducing.

Other people went before me, and I heard the question I dread over and over "Do you have kids? Do you have kids? Do you have kids?" -- although to be fair more interesting questions were asked too, like favorite vacation spot, last movie watched (ha, what's a movie, I have kids, ha ha ha HA ha), pets, etc. Interestingly, I was sandwiched between two other women who also do not have kids.

At the end, I was like, "wow, I'm so happy that no one asked me if I had kids!" to my friend who was also not asked if she had kids (although to be fair she is quite a bit younger and so maybe the assumption wasn't there?).

But then she told me...that I'd missed it, but when she asked me how many books I read this summer, and I answered "23," someone asked at the same time someone else asked another question, "Do you have kids?"

Except it wasn't a nice inquiry. It was sarcastic, like, "you couldn't POSSIBLY have kids and read so much, so you MUST not have kids, you oddball childless bookworm."

I'm glad I missed it. (Although it might have given me the opportunity to say witheringly, it's NOT by choice.)

However, I didn't miss the pointed comment directed to me by a coworker and friend who MUST have had amnesia because she knows my story. I said I was rushing home to have roasted duck, and didn't even get to say "for my anniversary dinner" before she said, "you guys always cook such fancy food -- well it's because you don't have kids. I never cooked fancy food when my kids were home."

UM, NO ACTUALLY, IT'S BECAUSE WE LOVE TO COOK AND IT'S OUR FREAKING ANNIVERSARY. We don't have roast duck on a Tuesday, typically speaking. Because...even though we don't have kids, we are actually quite busy and have responsibilities that make weekday gourmet difficult, despite our state of barrenness and empty extra bedrooms.

I did actually say the caps, minus the "freaking." I asked friends of mine with kids who I know love to cook, and they were like, "how ridiculous -- if you have things you love to do, having kids doesn't have to keep you from doing them. Not cooking because you have kids? That's a choice." Maybe you can't do gourmet dinners and read for two hours every night, I get it -- your time is not entirely your own, and at some developmental stages are more time-sucking than others. Maybe I would have felt differently if it was phrased in a way that made it sound like, "that sounds so lovely, I wish I had duck on a Tuesday!" or "I wish I could read so many books during the glorious summer months!"

But it really burned my britches to have my free time exploits so summarily judged and put into the box of, "Well, she doesn't have kids," most definitely packaged as a statement of what isn't rather than what is, of a lack rather than an alternative.  It's always amazing to me how not having kids allows people to both bemoan (and rub in) all the things I'll never get to do, all that I'm missing, but then also begrudge me what I do have.