Post #200: On Passivity, Confrontations and Trying to Learn From Mistakes

“But sometimes, if I don’t push you in the right direction, you end up standing still.”

Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation

Today I had the tremendous pleasure of meeting the fabulous blogger Luna and her beautiful children. She is so smart, witty and kind. And both of her daughters are gorgeous. They were so well-behaved and just a joy. After reading the surprising, harrowing and exhilarating tale of baby Z (which was more thrilling than most books I read this year), it was so beautiful and moving to see her with her mother and sister.

And then there were my children. I love them dearly (I know I don’t need to tell YOU this) but my children are different than me. Darcy is someone I would describe as a strong personality. He confronts life head-on, tackles problems directly and quickly. Like the literary character I named him after, he’s blunt, forceful and says what he thinks.

I am none of these things. I am supportive, nurturing, complimentary, and passive. I’d run a mile to avoid a confrontation.

My children are strong-willed. I am not. So parenting them is a challenge.

The way I have dealt with life is sometimes passive. I do my best and work hard but don’t chase down the great opportunities. I let pretty good opportunities come to me and so my life is filled with mediocre achievements. I have a blog with mediocre traffic. I haven’t redesigned the site yet, because the designers I reached out to were busy for months in advance. So I…took no further action.

Anyway, this brings me to the tussle I had with Esperanza, and it was pretty close to the fight between Ann Perkins and Leslie Knope on my favorite ever episode of “Parks and Recreation”. In the episode, Leslie, a type A go-getter gets annoyed at Ann for not pursuing an opportunity and says often Ann stands still.

Esperanza’s concern with me is that I wasn’t taking any strong steps forward to developmental specialists who could help me manage the kids better.

Here’s an exact copy of our exchange, in which I admit I was humiliated by the way my children behaved around Luna’s angelic children.

Me: “I had a playdate with Luna today and the kids were awful. I was so embarrassed.”

And then she responded, via text, this:

“I don’t mean to sound harsh, but if I were you I’d be doing something proactive with the kids. Trying a new strategy or having people from Xxxxx help you out. You can learn that stuff and get better at it.”

And then, I burst into tears.

The truth is I have been working with a child development specialist to try to help me better manage the twins. She tells me they should be incredibly successful adults, but as a non-strong-willed adult, it is very difficult for me to maintain the energy needed to provide the structure, the nos, the answers, the feedback they need. I do it, every day, and will continue to do it, but at great cost to me.

Esperanza’s right: I need to continue to take a very proactive stand with my kids.

They say you can change a habit in 30 days. Is it possible to change an innate personality trait, like passivity, and get rid of it? If I could and standing up to them all the time wasn’t so exhausting, maybe parenting would be easier?

Have you ever been able to change an actual part of your personality? If so, how?

The Year of Living Joyfully: What Did I Learn?

I proclaimed 2011 the year that I would live joyfully. I even said I would try to write every day about joy.

Eh, I mostly complained.

I found that trying to live joyfully was not really practical. As my dad said a few weeks ago:

“Maybe joy just happens and you enjoy those few moments. But you don’t try to plan your day around it.”

I think that’s maybe the definitive word on the subject.

I did make five unexpected discoveries through the process of writing this blog which directly led to more happiness in my life.

1. Friends. I was really lonely in my SAHM life, and until this year didn’t have any real friends who understood the sort of strange hold infertility still had on me. They couldn’t comprehend how anxious I was to keep my twins safe and secure. They didn’t get why I was so devastated by my miscarriage, since I already had two kids. I pasted a fake smile on my face everywhere I went and acted the way I thought someone should. It felt like a charade.

But this blog opened the door to a whole secret society of women who wrote about similar feelings. About survival guilt, the need to always be grateful. These women were funny, bitter, real, optimistic and helpful. You all made my life so much better, richer, thoughtful and more fun. I really can’t thank you all enough.

2. The importance of making occasions special

I tended to slog through life as if everything was a chore to be gotten through. That is a natural tendency of mine. It’s probably some sort of genetic thing, plus a legacy of the pain and tragedy endured in my 30s. But this year we did a few things that were SPECIAL. We went to Disneyland, we saw my parents for Thanksgiving, my daughter and I saw The Nutcracker for the first time, I went to a concert with Esperanza and Bodega on my birthday, Darcy got a hotel suite for our anniversary. Those moments when I was able to break free from routine and enjoy either the wonder of others or be silly or live glamorously: those were joyful moments and I think I did a pretty good job of inhabiting them fully. It’s those moments that I remember as I look back on 2011.

3. The lessons of “Status Anxiety”

I tried to embrace different philosophies in my attempt to seek joy. Most of them didn’t help me, and a comment Lut Cass made stuck with me for the most part:

“I find that philosophy was invented by men who had too few household chores.”

Isn’t that awesome?

One book, though, I did enjoy: “Status Anxiety”, a prescient slim tome written almost a decade ago. Botton encourages people to not keep up with the Joneses, but to live a simpler, slower life devoted to more bohemian ideals. He also taught me that spending time with my peers in my area, who only really talk about working out, how perfect their kids are, remodeling and starving themselves is not good for me. Each time I would return from speaking to people like this, a little bit of my soul would die. That’s why the blogosphere is so necessary to me. Y’all are real and down-to-earth.

4. I love writing

Blogging, which some people consider writing and others don’t, is something that makes me tremendously happy. Everyone in my family is a published writer (my brother was nominated for a Pushcart this year, my dad is a well-known Bay Area journalist and novelist, my mother has won several major poetry contests) so I was the rebel who worked for the “man” and turned my back on my heritage. I so didn’t want to be a writer, mostly because I would never measure up to my lineage. Now I know that while I am by far the lesser writer of the Carrolls, I don’t really care anymore. I just love what I’m doing.

5. Laughing is really important

Whether it was:

- Texting with Esperanza about what cars are the douchiest. (Her: Audis. Me: Range Rovers.) And our bottom fives. (1. War 2. The Babble Top 100 Mom Blogs List 3. Social inequity 4. The Kardashians 5. Disease)
- Hilarious Tweets from The Bloggess

A violent windstorm outside just blew Beyonce over. Victor yelled "CHICKEN DOWN." I do love that man.—
  (@TheBloggess) November 26, 2011

- Laughing at Darcy’s stories
- Listening to the epic tale of the time well-known, sincere, urbane Brooklyn musicians Matt and Kim played at a last-minute concert promoted and organized by my brother. The concert featured a buddy’s first (and last) performance as “Mr Hand”: he played samples of obscure dialogue like “I smell a rat” over loud, techno beats – and Caged Match to the Death. Talk about a mismatch of audience. “Kim looked really scared.”
- Cake Wrecks

SO that’s what I learned. In short, laugh, have friends, enjoy the fun times and don’t hang out with douchebags.

What did 2011 teach you? What’s your current Bottom 5?

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Study of The White Picket Fence and the Life Less Chosen

So, in case you didn’t know, I grew up with Christmas. My dad is even one of those Bill O’Reilly “War on Christmas” guys. I love everything about Christmas: the carols, the pageantry, the food, the eggnog and most especially the tree. Each year when I was growing up, just like out of some wacky sitcom, my family would pick out a tree that was too big. Too big to tie to the top of the car, too big to fit into our ridiculously rickety tree stand. My dad would swear a lot the day we brought home the tree. But somehow my mom would always make it work. She had a handmade skirt that she always tied around the tree as the first order of business. Then we would listen to a TERRIBLE record of Christmas carols by, I believe, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, as we decorated the tree. The worst song was called “Christmas Tree”, a cheesy, 80′s style ballad, complete with a 40 year old woman pretending to be a six-year-old girl. “ChhhhrrriiissstttmmAAAAS TTTRREEEE!!!”, she would sing, in what was supposed to be the winningly off-key style of an adorable little girl, but in reality was a banshee wail which would send our family pets running into another room in terror. Ah, memories.

My husband is Jewish and one of the things I gave up for loving him was Christmas. I do get a few things: I get to take our children to The Nutcracker and each year I watch “A Wonderful Life”, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. Inevitably, it makes me emotional for several reasons: the first is the regret that I don’t celebrate Christmas anymore. But the second and more powerful reason is that I don’t know that there has ever been a more accurate depiction of the American Dream in all of its complicated glory and splendor and difficulty.

I mean, who better embodies the 1% than Mr. Potter? So much about the movie is timeless: the ideals of small town life versus the constraints of ambition; the desire to travel, see the world and make it on your own versus the pressures and the constraints of family and romantic love.

George Bailey is seriously flawed: he’s often sarcastic, he tells it like it is, but he’s an idealist ultimately who realizes his family is the most crucial element of his life. Honestly, he reminds me so much of Darcy and that may be what I love most about him. But there is nothing sappy about his eventual realizations and the movie has very, very dark moments.

I feel the closest modern-day equivalent we have to this movie is “How I Met Your Mother”, which honestly does contrast both the joys but also the boredom and sacrifice involved in choosing a traditional married life with the glamorous, fun, yet sometimes sad “life less chosen” path: Robin clearly won’t have children and it is doubtful now that Barney will either. Although I’m pretty sure they will have an awesome and “legen-wait for it-dary” life. Mostly.

Anyway, I envy George Bailey his beautiful Victorian house and his many children and his friends and relations who bail him out of trouble in the end, because he has helped them so many times in the past. But he would envy me too: he’d envy me for my travels and adventures. He’d envy me for going to Paris and living in London and honeymooning in Africa.

And in the end, that’s the movie’s great point. We all have Wonderful Lives. Just by being alive and being in others’ lives and trying to do good.

“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

Indeed.

Why I Won’t Ever Send a Holiday Card

Ah, the holidaze. Time for the beautiful cards, postcards and letters telling friends and family how wonderful Madeline and Jackson are. Winsome photos of beautiful couples and lovely families show up in those not-so-personal envelopes from Shutterfly and Tiny Prints. I secretly LOATHED receiving those envelopes from 2003-2007.

Obviously, those were the years we wanted children, but they were not forthcoming.

In 2004, we decided to take a photo with our surrogate child: our Corgi. We adopted our Corgi as a puppy in 2003, when we first moved back from London.

I am not a very religious person, although I did try throughout my childhood to be so. I grew up in a conservative church which preached that girls who were the victims at the age of 9 of incest should still become mothers. I was taught that women who had been raped, women who were going to die if they bore a child should still bear that child, even if they both died. I fought with my pastor about these policies: I am proud I did so. But I was taught that my attitude was wrong, evil even. It turned me off organized religion, probably forever.

But I believe in one thing and that is the power of luck. I think that holiday cards tempt fate for me. I will never, ever send one out.

Why is this?

Well, in 2004, after I had suffered from and recovered from a debilitating illness, and when we were trying very hard to make a baby and it wasn’t happening, we decided to send out a card of us and our dog. Our Corgi, which we had bought from a reputable breeder and assiduously trained at the Humane Society. This dog was our child, we thought. Our surrogate child, in lieu of the human baby we were unable to produce. We took a lovely picture of our “family”.

Luck did not enjoy our family card. As soon as it was sent, I noticed an unusual presence of black crows in our back yard. I had never seen any before 2004, and suddenly I saw them everywhere and that continued until 2006. Also, after that card was sent, our dog changed his behavior. Before a cuddly and friendly and reassuring presence, our beloved dog started growling at us and our extended family. It grew worse and worse until he bit my brother-in-law hard enough to break his skin. I took him to several behaviorists until one told us that our dog was the most aggressive dog she’d ever seen in her long career. She told me there was no way that he was going to change, he was only to get worse until he caused serious harm.

I did not accept her answer. Our dog was the one bright light in my life: to have him become dangerous was inconceivable. I asked for all her advice, and gave him lots of love and discipline as recommended: training him (again) to heel on walks, that I was his master by treat-training him. Helping our dog became my whole life.

Until the day Darcy went out of town and the dog attacked me. As part of the training, I could never allow him to enter a door before me because then he would know he was the Alpha Dog. Well, I was on the phone, and not paying attention that he was trailing me down the hallway. He sprinted ahead of me, entered a door before me, and attacked me. His form of attack was to relentlessly bite my ankles until I collapsed onto the floor, and then he began attacking my stomach, by biting me. It was a ruthless attack. I somehow dropped the phone, got up, ran into the pantry and slammed the door behind me. I then used the phone in there to call the breeder, who took the attack very seriously.

She came that day (drove from several hours away) to assess the situation. I stayed in the pantry until she arrived. Once she arrived, she decided that the dog was aggressive beyond what a normal person could handle. She took away the dog.

And there began a new sort of hell. In the addition to my infertility, I was also a failure to my dog, whom I loved more than most things on earth.

And the crows circled my back yard, cawing, triumphant. They proclaimed my ineptitude. I wanted a dog I could love. Not even that was going to be allowed.

And I crawled into the fetal position. And stayed there for a weekend.

It was all because of that holiday card. Never again would I want to proclaim any type of domestic bliss of any kind. Because the black crows of doom still linger. This morning, early, I saw them landing one by one, in our back yard.

I grabbed the broom out of our pantry and I chased those crows away. Never again will I let them linger on my property, cawing that I don’t deserve happiness. But nor will I flaunt any happiness. Because if I do, they will circle our home, overjoyed at my hubris.

Do you believe in bad luck? Do you think that flaunting happiness can lead to hubris?

Creme de la Creme: My Pick

I totally forgot to submit my entry for Creme de la Creme this year. Last year, I had only blogged a handful of times, so it was relatively easy to pick my favorite out. This year I have quite a few posts to choose from. And, so on the very last deadline, I am submitting something.

It’s a dilemma to choose one. Should it be what you consider to be your best work? The one that got the most comments? The one you thought maybe changed things? (Or tried to?)

I decided to go with the third option. I took The New York Times to task for their very strange coverage of infertility. I’m sure no one who matters saw it, but at least I tried to change something? Or maybe I am self-aggrandizing. I’m sure that’s what Darcy would say.

Without further ado. Voila!

How did you pick your post, if you chose to participate this year?

Top 10 Things Bugging Me Right Now

I have been really crabby lately. This is typical of me in December: I have Birthday Euphoria, then a Birthday Hangover when I remember that I’m old.

So if you hate rant-y cranky posts, feel free to skip this one. And without further ado, here’s my countdown of the Top 10 Things Bugging Me Right Now!

Insert rimshot.

#10. Range Rover drivers. I hate you. There is nothing about your SUV that’s special other than the price you paid. Why should you get to run red lights, cut cars off in traffic and text?
#9. People who are ripping the new Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas. Yes, the Wal-Mart family is too wealthy (the 6 heirs apparently are worth more than the bottom 30% of Americans). But to say that Arkansans don’t deserve a world-class museum is just mean. They totally do. Alice Walton, thumbs-up from me on Crystal Bridges.
#8. People who screw up their faces and say “AR-kan-SAH? when I tell them my parents live there. Jeez. Not everyone lives in NYC or LA.
#7. The Kardashians. OK, I have a fondness for Khloe. But the vapidness and the materialism and the ubiquity! Go to Tasmania and hide in a cave for a year, Kardashian Klan. Then, we’ll talk.
#6. That time today when I bought a root beer, brought it home, tasted it and realized it was diet. That sucked!
#5. The a-ha moment I had today: if you didn’t start blogging before 2005, you’re pretty much fucked.
#4. The fact that basically every part of my day is filled with confrontation. I’d run a mile to avoid a confrontation, so dealing with them constantly is harsh.
#3. Super Volcanos! You scare me.
#2. The cost of education.
#1. Ashton Kutcher.

What’s bugging you? Please feel free to share!

Can We Get Rid of the Beauty Olympics?

“But if you’re not part of the ‘Beauty Olympics’, you can still become a very interesting person.”

Sex and The City pilot episode

Esperanza tweeted this article yesterday, which I read with a sinking feeling. Because although I had vowed not to use the word “pretty” with my daughter too much, or compliment her on her appearance, I still do. I compliment her on the way she looks more than I compliment her on cleaning up, or reading a book, or building towers or reciting her numbers properly. It’s like I am fighting an ingrained instinct and it is a knee-jerk reaction to say, “You look beautiful” when she’s dressed in a gorgeous feminine outfit. It’s like I just blurt it out. And it’s not just me: it’s my husband too. And most of our peers, friends and relations.

I know the way you look is important, but where I live it might be more important than almost anywhere else. I live in a very outdoorsy place where women are expected to be “fit” and hike and work out a lot. It is rare to see anyone in my town who is overweight. In my early 30s, I worked out more than any other time in my history: I hiked, I ran, I worked out at the gym. I ate normally though. I didn’t overeat and I didn’t particularly indulge in high-calorie foods. But I was not pin-thin. No one told me, “You look great!”

Then I had a really bad episode of acid-reflux disease a year and a half ago, and had to cut out most foods. Eating almost anything was extremely painful. I lost 10 pounds in about 2 months. I looked awful: my skin tone was poor, I had dark circles under my eyes, I was extremely tired.

And I got about 50 comments from people saying they thought I looked “awesome” and a number of questions about my “new” working out habits.

That’s when I realized that most of the women I would see looking “fit” in their yoga pants didn’t eat much.

All of this is a preamble to what is really bothering me. A friend of mine from high school, who had a terrible, life-threatening battle with anorexia back then, passed away at the age of 38 a month ago. We lost touch, partially because she was mad at me for raising flags about her eating with friends and a family member. I wasn’t the only one who was concerned, but for some reason I took the blame. I have been feeling awful about her passing. She was a sweet and good person. And I feel badly that I didn’t try to get back in touch with her. I don’t know what caused her death, maybe the anorexia was not involved.

But obsession with appearance is not good for our girls. The truth that beauty fades, that you need to have other attributes to make it in life is NOT taught in mainstream media. Women are praised mostly for being “hot”: like Jessica Alba, who lost all her baby weight in a few months and admitted to eating 1200 calories a day and working out 2+ hours seven days a week. Tween shows teach girls that being pretty and famous is the best path to follow (“Hannah Montana”). Even pre-school girls are shown parading around in bikinis and spray tans in “Toddlers and Tiaras”.

And let’s get down to it: it’s men. Men of all ages crane their necks at nubile teen girls. The “Barely Legal” category of adult entertainment is always most popular.

I don’t think it’s ALL men. I always hear about the guys who went to the “Take Back the Night” anti-rape rallies in college, who sympathized with women over being “objectified”. You know, the guys Ayelet Waldman is always talking about. I have never met a guy like that in my life, but I THINK they exist. Probably across the bridge in that very liberal famous college town? Slowmamma, can you confirm or deny?

Anyway, I want my son to be a guy like that.

What can we do about society’s obsession with beauty? Is it possible to sidestep it?

I’m Syndicated on BlogHer Today!

I am so incredibly proud that today my “Rashomon: The Ill-Fated Blogger Sleepover” post has been syndicated on BlogHer! It’s currently even on the front page. Check it out, here. I can only think of a few things in my life that I have felt more excited about.

Friends, I would seriously love and appreciate any commenting on the BlogHer post or tweeting love you could provide for this.

Thank you, all!

That HIMYM Infertility Episode: Looking Into the Abyss

“As deep and poignant as the episode was, I guess there are some abysses you just have to look away from.”

Esse Quam Videri, poster on the AV Club discussion board

Monday afternoon, West Coast Time

A blizzard of tweets began to fly from my ALI twitter friends about something that was afoot on “How I Met Your Mother”. HIMYM is a show I watch religiously, in order: I have seen every single episode sequentially until this current season. Because like a dolt, I forgot to DVR my season pass and I want to watch it with Darcy, not online (it’s a rare show we both love), so I had consigned myself to catch it when the DVDs came out. I take a stubborn pride in watching all my favorite shows in order.

The reaction was pretty phenomenal, though, about HIMYM. I haven’t seen such a stir since PETA’s vasectomy campaign.

Wow. HIMYM really brought it. CC @jasonsegel @actuallyNPH—
Becca M (@LiberalGranola) December 06, 2011

@the2weekwait I feel like I need a drink, a pound of chocolate and comfort food now.—
Becca M (@LiberalGranola) December 06, 2011

@2manyfish2fry I ended up watching it last night and then cried and cried until I fell asleep. Just when I think I'm doing better…—
kate (@kateanon) December 06, 2011

@the2weekwait @2manyfish2fry @missohkay I am seriously thinking of writing a letter to the writers to thank them.—
Becca M (@LiberalGranola) December 06, 2011

Well, I had to watch it now.

So I did. Holy crap on a stick. !SPOILERS!

The show begins with a twist: the conceit of the series is that Ted Mosby is telling his two children in 2030 the story of how he met their mother. Almost every program starts with Bob Saget (as the voice of the older Ted) saying something like, “Kids, you know I spent a lot of time in bars,” or “I did a lot of stupid things in my day.” Or “Kids, did I tell you about the time I got a butterfly tramp stamp?” Ted tells a lot of inappropriate stories to his teenage children. But this episode shows a different boy and girl than Ted’s usually pictured duo and Robin is doing the voiceover to HER future children. As the show progresses, Robin tells the story of how she thinks she’s pregnant, finds out she’s not pregnant, is very happy not to be pregnant (“Sorry kids!”) then her OBGyn calls to tell her (in blurred specifics we can’t hear) that she will be unable to have children, ever.

Robin, who has long proclaimed that her career is more important than her than having children, is absolutely devastated by this diagnosis. I assumed this meant that she would eventually figure out a way to have children or adopt, but as Robin sits on a park bench in solitude in present day, coming to terms with her infertile status, she starts speaking to her raven-haired girl and Neil Patrick Harris doppelganger. (He’s supposed to be their father, according to Robin.) Here’s the full speech:

“So kids, I settled in for a Christmas alone. I appreciated that Ted wanted to cheer me up. But honestly, it wasn’t necessary. So I can’t have kids. Big deal. This way there’s no one to hold me back in life. No one to keep me from traveling where I want to travel, no one getting in the way of my career. If you want to know the truth of it, I’m glad you guys aren’t real.” Cut to Robin’s children, who fade off the screen like ghosts, clearing the way for a shot of Robin sitting on that park bench alone, while it snows.

“Really glad,” says Robin who looks utterly bereft.

(The actress who plays Robin, Cobie Smulders, did a pitch-perfect job in this entire episode)

The show wraps up by Ted saying that Robin turned out to be many things, but she was never a “pole-vaulter”. (“Pole-Vaulter” is the show’s euphemism for being a mother.) But one thing Ted says she never was: alone.

I’ll admit that I started sobbing when her children receded slowly away the frame. I’ve been on two message boards (EW and AV Video Club) and most commenters (male and female) said they felt “kicked in the gut”, “devastated”, “sad”. Some reported their own troubles conceiving and received positive, encouraging comments (and not one of those comments said “Just Relax” or “Just Adopt” either) and some were just angry that the writers could DO this to Robin.

What I think this episode did is frame infertility for those not in the know. Robin is a beloved character, a friend almost to people, and to see her diagnosis, her reaction, and her goodbye to the dream of children was heartbreaking. I have to hope that some empathy was gained.

On the other hand: the abyss. When I was going through infertility, if I had seen that episode in the middle of the my treatments, I would have been very disturbed. Robin’s Abyss: the hole in her life where we know no children will be was visible. That empty, sad park bench haunted my nightmares last night. I know that my worst waking nightmare was that I would have to face that abyss. So I definitely sympathize with Starfish Kitty Dreams about her reaction.

What do you think of this episode? Educational and full of heart? Too difficult to watch?

Time Warp Tuesday: To Publish or Not to Publish?

I wanted to quickly mention SPOILER ALERT! that the “How I Met Your Mother” episode tonight (which I broke my rule of never watching a show out of sequence for) absolutely broke my heart. I already loved that show, because I feel it portrays so well the allure of the white picket fence and Frank Capra way of life and contrasts it with the road less traveled. But this episode depicted a brilliant, sad, bleak but true tale of infertility. I think someone on the writing staff must be in the know.

OK: on to this week’s Time Warp Tuesday post! I actually suggested the topic this week and am THRILLED that our brilliant and thoughtful hostess Kathy chose it. From Kathy’s description:

As Bloggers we often share openly and candidly about our lives, experiences, hopes and fears. As a result, sometimes we may have second thoughts about publishing some of our blog entries. Choose a post from your archives that you were most afraid to publish. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose the post that you did and what has happened in your life since.

I had one post in mind when I proposed this topic. It’s this one, where I revealed my real identity to show support for the courageous bloggers who opposed a ridiculous and hurtful Facebook meme. The incident is worth revisiting, because the negative reactions they received are at the heart of what we fight in our battle for public awareness of infertility.

It’s a pretty ballsy post, I must say, as I reread it. I call someone out for a mean comment and put my face and name out there. I don’t think I would have done this if:

A) I hadn’t reread “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” the night before. JK Rowling is a hero to me, mainly because she instills in her readers a good sense of what courage is and why we should stand up for those who are being bullied and worse. I think she teaches us that we need to fight for the good and the kind and those in need. And that is NEVER easy, but if you look at history, those who ignore or appease or join in evil are everywhere. That’s a simplistic explanation of course. But that doesn’t make it untrue.

The mean things people say to our faces and in comments online about infertility are acts of aggression. Amy Haible’s comments are ignorant (clearly she knows NOTHING about the adoption process!) and are meant to injure those who read them. To put such thoughts out there to the world at large is something Lord Voldemort would do. And, to AGREE with such statements is ALSO terrible. Is it as evil as committing genocide? No, obviously not. But infertility silences its victims. So many are unable to stand up for themselves, because of depression (which infertility causes: yes, causes), because of shame, guilt, taboos in society. I was afraid to speak up, too. No one wants to be told “Just adopt. It’s because of you orphans are starving.” Or “Natural Selection is why you’re infertile.” Or myriad other pitiless things that are untrue and painful.

But I’ve crossed the finish line. I have children. I am LUCKY. So I thought, bring it on. I can probably handle it better than those who are in the middle of the battle. When I was in the middle of the battle, I was often unable to socialize at all, let alone defend myself from “bon mots” about how God meant for me to be barren.

I was lucky, again. I received 41 comments on that post and they were all supportive. But I know one day I’ll get a nasty response.

But dammit if I’m not going to fight the mean comments for all those who can’t.

B) I thought the wonderful bloggers who took a stand against the BS to begin with needed to be told that their efforts mattered, that solidarity needed to be shown. Putting my face out there seemed to be the best way to do that. Elphaba, Mel and Keiko deserve many, many kudos for their eloquent, brave posts.

Looking back on the post now I feel a little wary, still, that I can be googled so easily. Future employers can read all about my infertility advocacy: that may limit me in some way at some time. I was pretty open about my infertility to friends and family, but my twins may suffer some fallout. Kids are the biggest bullies of all, as we all know. There were some BIG considerations at play when I revealed my identity.

But in the end, life is short. I believe that infertility awareness is where breast cancer awareness was twenty years ago. I think that hearts and minds, maybe, can be changed. Not in people who have poisonous marrow and bitterness growing in their souls and feel the need to lash out at others. But I don’t think most people are like that. I guess I believe in the good of most people.

I’ll conclude with another Dumbledore quote.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

And so, I’m glad I chose to publish this post.