It’s crack to certain women. The topic of whose fault it is that you don’t have children. Certain women, especially certain Christian women, can’t let it go. They just can’t. They will hound you and hound you and hound you to answer them. But I never have and I never will. Somehow, that particular tidbit drives them crazy and they just need to know:
Where can we point the finger? Whose fault is it? It it his? Is it hers? The two of them together? A bad combination? Just where, precisely, is the problem here?
It’s that extra pulp in an already juicy story. I swear, it’s informational crack. Over the years whenever I’ve been asked this question by women, NEVER men, I’ve always sensed this crackle of sick hope in the air that maybe, maybe it’s the woman’s fault. A small electric gleam in the eyes as they look at me. Maybe another woman’s body doesn’t work. Maybe her body doesn’t work. They can’t help themselves. It’s primal. A kind of alpha female thing.
I’m more woman if I can see you as less. I have body power. You do not.
Beyond the assumption involved, it’s sick, I tell you. Sick.
And I have never answered them either way. I never will. That information is private. It doesn’t involve them, although they want it to very much. To my mind, any random woman who asks that question instantly proves herself to be an untrustworthy person with a very low emotional intelligence quotient.
So, women with kids, some very basic advice: Never ask a woman that. Never ask a man that, either, but that rarely happens anyway. It’s simple. Never ask. It’s just not your business and if that ever flies out of your mouth, you need to ask yourself Why am I asking this? Really. What is the empty place inside you that will be magically filled through this piece of information? What IS it? The fact that you’re asking speaks of some deep deficit that this information, however titillating it may be, will never fill. And, believe me, that offhand nosy-ness can deeply hurt a woman, drag her down into the dark yet again for a very very long time. Which — I don’t know — may very well be the entire goal anyway.
Because women ……. can be cruel. And Christian women …… are the worst.
For me, though, any woman who has ever asked me that is instantly suspect to me — and that’s if I’m feeling generous. Usually, I’ve written her off in a split second. POOF! Her smiling nosy self is dead to me. In that moment, some blaring alarm goes off in my head so earsplitting, so global, that it’s forever associated with that woman. It’s Pavlovian. I see that woman and hear “Danger, Will Robinson! DANGER!” from that moment on. Forever.
I remember, from about 5 years ago, another church woman, different from this one. I was new at this particular church — the church of the worst person I’ve ever known — and decided to get involved singing in the church band. Because wouldn’t that bless everybody, and blah blah blah. And this woman, Lisa, was on the worship team, too, singing alto. I met her for the first time at practice. She was shaped like a droopy dumpling, a bit of oversteamed dim sum. I remember her stuffed smooth whiteness, her dark curly hair flopping on the sides of her face like cocker spaniel ears. She wore a proper Christian woman’s uniform: polyester floral dress, calf length; white nylon sandals, dark pantyhose, reinforced toe. Church can be strenuous. Never know when you’ll need a reinforced toe.
I wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie and decided we probably weren’t kindred spirits.
There wasn’t much chitchat at practice. We just practiced. But on that Sunday, my first Sunday onstage, with 5 minutes to go-time, she started with the questions.
“So do you have kids?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh? Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh. Why not? Is there some problem?”
Who says that? Who? The blaring global alarm started to sound. I stared at her. Did my best to shoot daggers at her with my eyes. It was 4 minutes to go-time. I strained to silence the alarm and clear my head. But I did not strain to be nice. I see no biblical call to be “nice.”
“Wow. You really cut to the chase, don’t you?”
I narrowed my eyes, looked her up and down, felt the elastic of my insides suddenly solder into one hard thing: contempt. A big ol’ ball of contempt. Here I was, standing in front of church moments from singing about Jesus and his love and his grace and I literally oozed contempt. That one thing. Nothing else. My eyeballs felt very hot and huge. Maybe they were lasers. Maybe I was trying to melt her dim sum body down to a puddle of polyester dipping sauce.
“Well, I’m just interested. I mean, I’ve been there.”
“Oh? Been where?”
“Well, I couldn’t get pregnant either and then the elders laid hands on me and prayed for me and I ended up having Charlotte. Then a little later I had Scarlett. And now I just found out I’m pregnant again!”
I glared at her. Wanted to smack her. I could barely contain my shaking. Why was she putting me in this position?
“Wow. What interesting assumptions you make,” I said.
“Well, I know what you’re going through.”
“You don’t really know anything about me, Lisa.”
“Okay, but that’s what I’m talking about!”
I couldn’t deal with her presumptuous leaps of thought.
“Uh, I see that.”
“So if you ever want to talk –”
“Look,” I interrupted. “I’m sorry. We’re, like, two minutes from singing. I don’t even know you and I’m not comfortable talking about this. I need to focus on worship. I’m sorry.”
She stared down at her reinforced toes. My bluntness must have worked, because we never spoke of it again.
Sometimes, you need to respond — and quickly — to that blaring global alarm.
She named her baby Arlett.
