I recently had an interesting journey into another world, all without leaving the comfort of my computer. One of the fun things about having your own website is to check out where the referring traffic is coming from. So whenever I notice a large number of hits coming from any new site, I will often go to that site and find the page or reference from which my site was linked. Well after the recent flurry of activity regarding the octuplets, I followed the traffic back to a certain site which turned out to be a bulletin board for a special-interest group. I could not access it without first registering as a member. So I went ahead and made a quick account under my old internet alias “IVF-MD”. I entered the site and spent a little time browsing. I found out it was a safe haven for people who call themselves “child-free” (the hyphen is my own doing). I have previously heard the distinction between childless (want children, but still don’t have any) vs. child-free (willfully do not want children) and this was a site for the latter group. The site was a place where they could safely congregate and support each other’s desire never to have kids without being judged, questioned or pulled into a debate. The members of the site were in an uproar about the octuplets, but then again, who isn’t? As I was navigating the site, I noticed a section at the top of the page announcing “WHO’s ONLINE” with a listing of the different members who happened to be online at the time, and my identity was pasted across the top of the list. There I was — “IVF-MD” on a website for people whose very worldview is generally not in favor of people who do fertility treatment. I felt like a male who had just stumbled into the ladies room by mistake. With a little sense of panic, I glanced at the FAQ of the site, where it encouraged people to “introduce yourselves”. I found the section of the site entitled “INTRODUCE YOURSELF”, and I went on and jotted the following apology:
“I am a physician who helps couples who want babies. This is one of the last places for me to come. However, please allow me to explain my visiting. I am likely perceived by many of you as part of the enemy. I apologize for upsetting you, if that’s how you take it. But, I’m never going to post anything further. I just came by to learn a little and to be open-minded and enlightened. I found your site when I noticed a number of hits to my blog from this site, meaning that some of you dropped by to visit ME.
Anyway, I strongly support your right to be child-free and I do counsel patients to consider that as another good option.”
In retrospect, I later realized that this was a mistake. Putting myself in the shoes of the members of the site, I later understood that this was their safe place, where they could support each other in their shared belief of not wanting children. In life, they are often inundated with questions from well-intentioned family members or strangers asking them “when are you going to have kids”. People would offer sympathy at their being infertile, and they would have to clarify (sometimes in a less than smiley-friendly tone) “No, I’m not infertile. I CHOOSE not to have children”. In their posts, they often talk about their encounters with misbehaving children. Having run into my share of unruly children at the mall, as I’m sure all of you have, I could certainly empathize with them in that aspect. Furthermore, I later learned that people with opposing views would sometimes come and invade their site for the expressed purpose of stirring up an argument. These were often people from the mommy special-interest-groups who would come over and be in-their-face with comments like “How could you not like kids? Kids are the greatest joy in the world!”
So anyway, I thought I would leave that apologetic post and be done with it. Well, after I posted, I started getting replies to my thread. The first one asked if I had any children. Apparently, if I would have taken the time to completely read their FAQ, I would have learned that parents, while welcome to read all they wanted, were not allowed to post anything on their site. I had said I would not post anything further, but I felt it rude not to answer a direct question so, I replied that I had two dogs, but was not a parent yet. I did add that I might like to be a parent in the future and reserve the right to be one someday. Next, another nice reply came, welcoming me “since you are childfree” and then went on to vent and direct my attention to many of the issues that child-free people face. One of the complaints was directed against doctors who refused to do hysterectomies or refused to do tubal sterilization on patients who did not have children already. I wasn’t aware that this was a huge problem, because most of the complaints I have heard in the past are about doctors who are TOO QUICK to sterilize or to do hysterectomies. I wrote a reply agreeing with the notion that doctors should not assume to know better than the patient what that patient wants. But, as to why a doctor would deliberately withhold treatment from a patient, doctors have to be careful of doing something even if a patient says she wants it because of later accusations that they didn’t counsel the patient enough. If a 22-year-old woman without children demands to have her tubes tied, any doctor that does it could be subject to a major lawsuit if that woman later changes her mind. Cases like this have happened.
So the thread progressed into a civil exchange of ideas about doctors being too condescending in refusing to do what a patient wants vs doctors getting in trouble for doing something that the patient would later regret. It was an informative mutually respectful exchange. Then some more replies trickled in.
One of the replies simply reminded everyone that I may or may not be lying when I said that I had no children and that they can only take me at my word regarding that. Perhaps I was already in a hyper-sensitive state, but I was a bit irked at being falsely accused, albeit indirectly. Then two more replies came in questioning me further. They brought up the point that if I really intended to just come into their domain and lurk (ie silently read what others had to say but not say anything myself), then why did I do the direct opposite and not only introduce myself, but also continue to post rebuttals to their questions.
My first reaction was to defend myself (and I did), going into detail as I have above about how I happened to stumble on their site when I followed the traffic back from my own site. After giving it a little more thought, I was able to see it from their point of view. This is their official public policy about whether or not parents were allowed to post on their site:
“This board is a safehaven for the Childfree where we do not justify ourselves, thoughts, decisions, or actions to any non-CFers. This is a companionship board, not a debate board, and posts questioning the Childfree or extolling the virtues of parenthood will not be tolerated.
We’ve had parents posting here before. We’ve seen parents post at other childfree-only boards. What we have never seen is a parent who could carry on the sort of conversation we have here without getting offended sooner or later and pulling the “as a parent, I…whatever” out of their arsenal.
This board is not the place to discuss regrets, if any, about having children, because this board is not the place to discuss child-rearing issues of individual posters AT ALL. The places on the internet where those conversations are available are legion. The places on the internet where the childfree are free of parents are about 6.
Childfree non-custodial stepparents and fencesitters are, and have always been, welcome to post. Just as the intro says we do not care to hear the virtues of parenthood extolled, neither do we wish to hear the regrets.
You are to be commended for announcing yourself as a parent. Many people have tried to be a part of this community and lied about their childed status. Unfortunately, not one single parental poster on this board has ever managed to keep their kids out of their posts. We don’t care. We really don’t care. Every day in our jobs, in our families, we are inundated with people and their children. We come here to be free of that- childfree, in fact.
Parents should not post here. We ask you to respect the intention of the board. Feel free to read.”
So for me to intrude and engage in a debate, no matter how polite, was just not right. After that, I asked them to delete my account and I left.
As much as my profession sways me to be biased as to the virtues of having children, even to the extent of being proactive about it when it doesn’t happen naturally, I can see the arguments that the child-free make. If they don’t want kids themselves, who are we to judge them, question them or to tell them that they don’t know what they’re missing? I respect anybody’s right to want kids (that they will properly provide for) or to not want kids. Furthermore, the child-free make the point that government funding for IVF is unfair to THEM, because it adds insult to injury to make them incur the burden, as taxpayers, of paying for other people to have kids when they themselves are so against it. Before you get the idea that I agree with them completely, I have to draw the line when I hear some of them rant that they want to unilaterally ban people from having children, even if the parents fully support the children on their own with no government assistance. Their argument is somewhere along the line that each additional person is harmful to the planet and therefore should not be allowed. Some day, when I’m in the mood, I’ll debate this head-on, but I will not make the mistake of doing it on the sacred ground of the websites of the child-free. Rather, I’ll do it here on my own turf.
Anyway, this little adventure was a learning experience for me. I used to be a lot less tolerant than I am today. Nowadays, I make a conscious effort to at least try and see the other side’s viewpoint. One side argues that the government does not do enough to help infertile couples. The other side argues that it’s unfair to force someone to subsidize the conception, birth and maintenance of other people’s children. One side argues that unfit parents should not be allowed to raise children. The other side argues that the state is being too heavy-handed in taking children from their natural parents. I optimistically look forward to the way the world could be some day if we would all make a better effort to see the other viewpoint.
