It's a priority in life for me and Jon to find occupations we enjoy. Looking back on what has been most difficult in life thus far, work-related stress is at the top of the list. More difficult, I think, than infertiility.
This doesn't correlate to others' expectations. Complaining of stress at work is generally dismissed with a "yes but that's part of life for everyone, isn't it?" When you say you can't conceive a child, people act as if the world has caved in.
Why should this be?
Marxist argument: the "machine" forces us to keep the capitalist system going - we must be subservient and endure stress related to consumerism. Work, earn, buy, die. Not producing children threatens the next generation of consumers, so it's acceptable to weep and struggle against that.
Feminist argument: having children is the principal means by which women are tied to the home. Our male-dominated society tells us anything that threatens to give women the freedom to stay in the workplace is wrong and must be wept over. But men cannot feel dismay about the workplace - they have to stay out in the cold in order to keep their women at home in the warm.
Pop-psychology: many people are stressed at work and have chosen to live with it. So, it bothers them when someone else acts as if such stress is unacceptable. Many people have children. So, it is natural they want to endorse that as the 'acceptable' way to live. Parents being sad on behalf of the childless couple are reassuring themselves about their family scenario being the path to happiness.
Those are my only current theories. More may come ; )
I am such a blessed person - I have seen very little adversity. Who knows what else may come? Who knows how I would adjust to childlessness as life goes on, if it were to end up being the permanent way of things?
For now, I find that there is much richness in this situation. Even in the lack of control. Even in the sadness. I have had chance to ask myself important questions - did I ever actually want children, or was it what the world told me I had to do? What is my potential as a non-mother? How do I cope with life not going as I had planned it? What does it mean that our generation has the right to choose contraception, choose fertility treatment, choose, choose, choose?
Stress in the workplace, on the other hand, has not felt rich or life-giving at all. It has felt soul-destroying. Something to endure for a time, but flee from as soon as possible.
Here's to a 2012 where we have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Mwah!
