DINK, it's been a while since you've heard that acronym. This refers to those of us who are married with no kids. When you say the acronym out loud, as in 'Dink', to me it sounds rather demeaning and derogatory. In the Navy this term means to be behind in work and qualifications. My husband and I do not have any children, we tried, I had faulty plumbing thus no children. It is my observation that society expects married couples to have children...why else would you get married? Um, love, companionship, commitment... What happens when you aren't able to have children? For my husband and I it was a period of pain and disappointment, we wanted a family. Lately it seems in society's definition that we're 'dink'... behind because we don't have any children. Seriously, who determines this definition of what a modern family should be like. We've come a long way in the definition of marriage and family.... mixed families, blended families, same sex families, yet they all seem to have the addition of children when represented in mainstream media. But what if you can't? What if you don't want to have children?
Mother's Day has come and gone. It's a double edged sword that day is. We want to honor our own mothers, and we also feel the pang of loss of not being able to be mother's ourselves. I was blessed to have lots of 'Mom's' in my life, and for the longest time I yearned to be a mother. Yet my body had other ideas and it just wasn't going to happen. For those of us, for whatever reason, who cannot be mothers this is a rough day for us. I used to feel inferior, less of a woman because I couldn't be a mother. I was blessed to not have one of those mothers who was constantly asking me when I was going to produce a grandchild. Thank GOD for feminist mothers. Yet inside I carried the pain of infertility and the empty womb deep inside of me for a long time. I felt like I had let my husband down as well. Sounds a little old fashioned, a little 1950's, but that's what I felt. I also felt like a square peg in a round hole when it came to what group I fit into... I was no longer a single, I was married, but I didn't fit in with the majority of married women because they all had children and I just couldn't 'relate' to them. Along with the pain of infertility I was having an identity crisis. I was very fortunate to have a wonderful family who supported me emotionally, and a mother who didn't lay a load of guilt on me for not giving her grandchildren.
Yet I do have a child... he's about 14 lbs, orange fur, four legs and lots of 'catitude'... my boy Tybalt. Even though we didn't spend hours pushing a child out of our hoo-ha physically, we can be 'mothers' in many other ways, so don't despair. And not being a mother physically does NOT make you any less of a woman.
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