22 September 2025

Childless

 
A fairly recent but innocuous event has stuck in my mind and I have kept coming back to it.

It was about a month ago. I was in the "Atkinsons" department store at the bottom of The Moor. I had gone in there specially to replace my aftershave lotion. My supply of "Old Spice" was running very low. As it happens, that preferred brand was not on display and may never be again so I picked another reasonably priced alternative called "Musk". Fortunately, it has no connection with Elon Musk.

As I was selecting my purchase, I heard the continuous screaming of a small child in a pushchair. It went on and on and when I reached the pay counter, the din continued. Behind the counter was a plump, bespectacled female shop assistant - about forty five years old. Our conversation went something like this...

ME I wish somebody would shut that child up!

ASSISTANT Me too. I've been watching the mother and she hasn't done a thing to quieten it.

ME It's not good to let a child get really distressed like that.

ASSISTANT I agree but what do I know about raising children?

ME What do you mean?

ASSISTANT Well I'm not a mother. I don't have any children.

ME Did you want to be a mother?

ASSISTANT With all my heart. It's the biggest regret of my life.

ME What happened?

ASSISTANT Well I needed a partner of course and it just didn't work out for me.

ME Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

ASSISTANT I was engaged to be married and the wedding was all planned but I broke it off a week before. As my granddad said, he was a wrong 'un. He was drinking too much and sometimes he got really nasty.

ME Did he hit you?

ASSISTANT Once he grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into the bedroom. I was screaming at him to stop. I know I made the right choice... to end it I mean. But I would have loved to have a baby. I think I would have made a great mother. Now all I have got is my sister's kids. A boy and a girl and I love them to bits.

ME I suspect you would have made a good mother... Life can be so cruel. Often things don't work out the way we want them to... Anyway, it's been nice to meet you and thanks for sharing those private thoughts. 

ASSISTANT Thanks for listening. Bye.

ME Bye.

I left the store feeling desperately sorry for that woman. It's one thing deciding you never want to have children but it's another thing being childless when your maternal instinct is strong and when becoming a mother seems key to your very existence. I imagined her getting old and that yawning gap in her life remaining painful to the very end. So sad.

39 comments:

  1. Your conversation with the shop assistant reminds me of my elder sister. She often talks about her regret at not having children. She has two step children and many nieces and nephews, but it's not the same as having your own children.

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    1. No. It can never be the same Debbie but as Jennifer says below, "We all have to do the best we can with the cards we're dealt".

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  2. She sounds like she made the right choice, foregoing children to get away from that horrible man. Not all women (myself included) are as wise.

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  3. Sadly, sometimes the ones who want to be parents cannot, for one reason or another, and then others who can do it are horrid at it.

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    1. God's rules are confusing in the extreme. In this regard, he certainly does move in mysterious ways.

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  4. That was a rather unexpected conversation at the grocery checkout counter. That lady made the right decision. But a sad one.

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    1. Life doesn't always work out the way we'd like. I doubt anyone goes to their grave without some disappointments and regrets. We all have to do the best we can with the cards we're dealt.

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    2. A wise philosophy Jennifer.

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    3. I agree with Jennifer's philosophy. With my students, I used to talk to them about the "Why me?" feelings that people ask when something bad happens to them. When I got my cancer diagnosis, one of the first things I thought was "why me?" Then after I thought about it for a few days, I began to think, "well, why not me?" Am I immune to life's heartbreaks?" I think it was really good of you to strike up that conversation with the woman. Kindness goes a long way. But the sound of things, she probably would have been an excellent mother.

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  5. It is hard for those who want children and never have any but she made the right decision to leave that man. I wonder that she didn't find someone else. I never gave a thought to having children, they just came along as if they'd been waiting in line and I was the "available mother" they chose.
    I do feel sorry for the screaming child who might have been happy with just a quick cuddle and a couple of minutes of attention.

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    1. Yes. That is probably all the screaming child needed and deserved.

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  6. That is sad. I know only too well the ache of longing for a baby and not being able to have one. I finally managed it at the age of 40 and was blessed with a beautiful child who is now a beautiful adult. I posted recently about the opposite of what you were saying about people that seem to pop out babies and not look after them properly.

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    1. How blessed you were to give birth to Kay after so much disappointment and possibly on the verge of giving up hope.

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  7. Anyone who has been a child (and thinks a bit) has some insight into how to raise them. I think it's sad that she felt it necessary to use the disclaimer about what would she know. And obviously it's sad she never got to have children.
    An old school friend of mine had her first and only baby at 48. I was astounded but I'm pleased it worked out for her

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    1. The woman implied that she had no right to talk about child rearing but I think she was wrong.

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  8. Can't you shock a crying child into silence with a hard slap? If the mother is not doing it, why didn't you? She would have appreciated the help. People now are so uncaring about others now and not willing to step in and help.

    It is sad that some women so desperately want children and can't have them for whatever reason, some choose not to, which is fine, and others make such a hash of child rearing and should not have had any.

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    1. But your mother did a fine job with you Andrew!

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    2. Shame on you Andrew! A hard slap? Tsk

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  9. That is a sad tale of longing. There is adoption or fostering, not necessarily as second best but it sweeps up the sad children of neglectful homes, who are in desperate need of kind and loving people.

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    1. Exactly what I always think when I hear of people so desperate to have children but can‘t have their own, Thelma. Why does it have to be their ‚own‘ anyway? Nobody ‚owns‘ another human being, right? Where does this desperate wish to procreate, to promote one‘s genes, come from? It‘s instinctive, of course, but surely we can rise above instinctive procreation when this planet is suffering with overpopulation anyway…?

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  10. Jennifer is so right.
    I know I shouldn't generalise, but the mother was probably engrossed in something on her mobile phone and deaf to her child's cries! It happens all too often these days.
    I feel so sorry for the nice assistant, but she did the right thing not marrying an abusive drinker.

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    1. The mother seemed oblivious to the disturbance she was causing to other shoppers by not comforting the distraught child.

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  11. My happiest times were when the children were little.

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    1. I bet they rode on you like a horse - across the lounge carpet. I suspect that you were a great father to them Tasker - and remain a great father now that they are adults.

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  12. I was thinking the same as Thelma as I had a single friend who adopted a baby years ago. The woman can still have an impact on children by keeping involved with her nieces and nephews or getting involved with schools or local groups that support kids.

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    1. Adoption is not for everyone and adopting on your own would be very problematic for ordinary people.

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  13. I worked with a woman who wanted a baby, but didn't want a man in her life. As she described it, she picked out her best looking most successful male friend, got him drunk a few times, and when she was pregnant, moved 200 miles away and didn't see him again until her son was about 3 years old. She strong and independent and probably would have been very difficult to live with, and she knew it.

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    1. "...her best looking most successful male friend". Was that you David? Is the boy called David too?

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  14. Wow! That is quite an intimate conversation to have with a shop assistant. There are ways to have children (or at least make a difference in children's lives) that don't entail having a partner or bearing a baby. I wonder if she explored adoption or foster parenting or anything like that? Of course it's all harder for a single person. I like kids and I'm happy working at a school, but I have never wanted my own children and in fact Dave and I often thank our lucky stars we don't have any. It will be interesting to see whether that remains true as we age.

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    1. It was surprisingly intimate but I ran with it. I had the impression that she felt easier unloading to a total stranger.

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  15. I find it rather uncomfortable for us to be discussing this woman and her reasons and options for having or not having a child. We may know, through your conversation, a small bit of the picture but there is always so much more and it is unfair and unreasonable for us make assumptions.

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    1. You make a poignant and well-considered point Mary. Who is to say what that woman should have done... or not.

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    2. That IS a very good point.

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  16. We can look at people who are childless and have sympathy for them. I think that childless people will sometimes get to a place where that loss is accepted and they go on with their life. They have resolved the grief of the loss of not having children.

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    1. You and Jean showed that there was a happy and wholesome way forward by becoming adopters but it is a course that is never for everyone.

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  17. That was a very intimate conversation to have with a shop assistant. Clearly, she feels the need to discuss her sadness and it's probably good for her to do so. Being unable to stop having children may be as bad as being unable to conceive.

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    1. It was not a conversation I was expecting when I took my "Musk" to the counter.

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  18. Back in my childhood and early youth I too imagined (and even presumed) that I would one day get married and have children of my own. There are soooooo many different reasons why one's dreams just might not "work out" in real life, though... And looking back now from age 70 - still no way to tell if my life would actually have been better or worse if it had turned out differently than it did!

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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