I truly do feel badly about not giving my mother grandchildren. While she can still hold out hope that my younger siblings will do so, I’m the only one who is married right now… and in the meantime, she has to watch her peers and family members become grandparents time and again. It is painful for me to watch her congratulate them year after year, knowing that she wishes she could be the one receiving the congratulations.
Mom came from a large family, and she and all of her brothers and sisters each had three or more children. Most of the children are grown now, and so my uncle has nine grandchildren and a tenth on the way. Mom’s sister (younger sister, to add insult to injury) has six grandchildren and a seventh on the way. With the way she oohs and aahs about her grand-nieces and -nephews and the way she dotes on any small child she meets, I know Mom would be a wonderful grandmother. She has told me herself how badly she wants a "grandbaby." Unfortunately, all I could do was firmly tell her that it was not going to happen with me. Don’t think for a moment that I enjoyed looking into the face of someone I love and telling her that I couldn’t be what she wants.
Unfortunately, no matter how badly I feel about it, I need to live the life to which I was called. I have disappointed my family over and over again in other areas of my life as I followed that path God laid out for me, so this is just one more disappointment for them to accept. My dad would have loved for me to follow in his footsteps in the business world; instead I was called to education. My sister wanted me to stay in our home state, but I was called across the country for graduate school. All of my family (parents, aunts, cousins, etc.) wanted me to come home after grad school, yet I was called elsewhere. And as I feel the leading for another cross-country move, I wonder how they will react to that when the time comes. (And with this thought, I note that even if I did have a baby just for mom, she would only see the child about 2-3 times a year. She would miss out on most of the kid’s childhood anyway…)
As time has passed, everyone seems to have grown accustomed to my ways. The questions of “when are moving back home?” and “do you still like your job?” and “why aren’t you having children?” have become few and far between. Even my mom has relented, but I still see that wistfulness in her demeanor whenever she sees a baby.
In the meantime, I’ll keep following the apostle Paul’s advice regarding family ties and ministry… Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned. (I Corinthians 7:17)
You have to do what's right for you. Other people are not living your life. I hear you on this as I know my mom would love for me to give her more grandchildren. At this time, she only has 3 from my brother and though she dotes on them, I know she would love to have more. But she would not be the one that would have to take care of them. Thanks for sharing! You are not alone.
ReplyDeleteIt almost pains me to read this because I can so clearly see this being my future.
ReplyDeleteKudos to you for having the cajones to stand up for your life choice because in the end, especially as a woman, you are the one who will have to provide for the child in the end. Not Grandman, Grandpa, auntie, husband, etc.
I'm so happy to have found this blog! Good to know I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad that I'm not giving my parents grandchildren either, but then again, guilt would be a terrible reason to procreate.
That said, I recently found out that my father is trying to get my friends to "parade their babies" around me in hopes that it'll trigger something and I'll change my mind. Needless to say, I'm furious, but I don't know what to say to my father... we have a great relationship in all ways but this, and I only found out about it through a friend (a mother) who couldn't believe it (she fully supports me).
Sigh. Anyway, I look forward to following your blog. :)
Thank you all for your support. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how other Christians cannot understand a calling like being childless/childfree. They had no problem when I thought I felt the calling to be chaste and unmarried (which ended up just being my own desire to not have to deal with men after a really bad relationship). When I realized God was actually calling me to marriage and with a man who also didn't want children, some people just couldn't comprehend the idea of my being married but without children. God has made me so peaceful about the idea that it doesn't ever enter my mind to pretend with people when they ask. It's just a given to me in my life (if that makes sense), so I just respond truthfully that I do not wish to have children (and smile serenely at the bingos I get and say, "Why do you need to know how I came to my decision?" I can't imagine asking someone with kids, "Why did you ever have kids?!")
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your perspective. It's just refreshing to see and hear it.
I don't feel any guilt for not giving my parents grandchildren. I can understand the need in most of us for feeling accepted and getting affirmation from our parents, or like many might get children to build a stronger bond between them and their parents.
ReplyDeleteFor me this would never make the bond between me and them stronger, I think it could have made things worser between us. I clearly have noticed during the last years, that having children wouldn't be handled very well by us. I would become very emotionally drained.
I am very certain that we are not the typical couple to be having any children, and God knows everything about us, as well as how much we can handle. He knows that this would never have been a great match for us, nor that it would be a blessing for us. We are much more blessed by being childfree, and I am sure God has great plans in mind for us too.
It is great God uses us all in different ways. How He uses you, might be totally different than how He uses me. But what matters the most is that we will be used doing things to glorify Him, as well as doing what He wants us to do. Doesn't matter whether one is in higher education, or whether one is in a lower position in the working marked. What counts the most is doing what God has called each one of us to do, and go striving towards that goal in front of us. Put there by God. Whenever we do things for God, this is what gives us most joy and satisfaction in life :-)