# A nice little reminder (might be sensitive)



## Natalie01 (Jun 10, 2007)

Hi all.

I've known that I will never have a family for many years, well before I met my DH, and I guess that I am now so numb to it all that I have a reasonably thick skin.  However, I was on my way back from work today when I was really caught off guard.  I was on the tube, reading The Metro and before I knew it I had turned to a page that was emblazoned with 'Father's Day Special' and it included a promo for a day trip with 'Fathers' Go Free' written along the top in big letters, with a picture of a dad playing with his two happy children.  Just seeing that advert really reminded me that my DH will never be a daddy if he stays with me.  I don't even get upset at Mother's Day, but just that thought I am depriving my DH of that happy family scene that is in that picture. It made me feel so guilty, that I am failing as a woman and as a wife by being unable to give my husband children.  I was sooo mad seeing that picture too. What are they trying to say, that a man without children isn't worth anything.  I am so tempted to go to the theme park (which my DH loves )  hand over the voucher and say 'my man isn't a dad but by god he deserves a freebie too, or isn't he good enough for you!!!' 

Ohhhhh rant over.  I'm off to cook my DH his favourite dinner!  He deserves it.


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## Pol (Mar 9, 2007)

I'm sorry   it isn't fair is it?  I feel just the same sometimes but try to just let it all wash over me as much as possible  

Jx


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## Natalie01 (Jun 10, 2007)

Cheers Pol,

Feeling less p***ed off today.  It just really winds me up when I get take taken by surprise like that.  Why should people get a whole day dedicated to them, just because they have been fortunate enough to have been blessed with a functioning reproductive system??  If you are fortunate to be happily married then the couple have a wedding anniversary for themselves, it doesn't rub it in the noses for those in society who are single by either choice or design.  Its things like that that really spreads ignorance in society about our situation.

xx


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## Pol (Mar 9, 2007)

I agree!  A lot of it is just commercialism though - it used to just be the card companies when I was a child that promoted it and made a killing out of it, now everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon, ie every pub or restaurant in town, every shop, everywhere you might go for outings are all promoting the idea.  My DH got a flier with fathers day promotions from the company he buys tools from - I did nearly ring and tell them it was inappropriate but he threw it away first ...  

Having said that, I felt really cross with my bil earlier in the year - they were here for mothers day and he didn't do anything to mark the occasion for my sister who is a mum for the first time this year after a lot of difficulties.  In the end I stomped off to the supermarket and bought her an orchid!!  I think I just felt that she works so hard at keeping his home nice and looking after their little one despite a lot of ill health (endo, kidney problems, miscarriage and fibroids that made her pregnancy very difficult and recovery from it extremely painful) and he was just being ungracious about it in not acknowledging what a lovely mother she makes despite it all it in any way!  But that's just him, I'm afraid.

The other thing that 'gets my goat', as it were, is the way people think they can sell anything if they put a baby on the front.  We had a flier with a baby on the other day again addressed to DH - turned out they were wanting to clean our sofas.  That rather got to me and they got a strongly worded letter back saying that unfortunately we hadn't been lucky enough to have babies being sick all over our furniture, and perhaps they might like to be a bit more sensitive before sending a flier out to people that they didn't know in any way.  (It was purely speculative in any case - not a company we have ever signed up to!)  I just feel that people need to know that there are many, many people struggling for all sorts of reasons - people who have lost children as well as those of us who can't have them - and we don't need to be constantly reminded when all they're after in the first place is money and they think they can manipulate us by putting babies on things!  It's advertising at it's worst!  I don't mind where it's relevant, but more and more it isn't - I think people must be able to see our ages on the electoral register or wherever they get our details from and therefore just put us in the automatic 'parent' bracket ...  

Anyway, that turned into a bit of a rant, so sorry, but I feel better for it  

Jx


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## Natalie01 (Jun 10, 2007)

Hear hear!!!!!

The way this automatic parent bracket is enforced by commercialism is maddening!  As you quite rightly say, folk have all sorts of issues from the loss of a child to infertility and our community is a sizable one!!  My favourite was the old early ninties film Problem Child. 'Desparate' infertile couple try everything and eventually decide to adopt (all for the wrong reasons, the 'desparate infertile' woman just wants a baby to fit in with the community at parties, not for the love of a child!!!!)  Anyhow, naturally the poor adopted child has huge behavioural issues (of course!!!! wait for it, it gets better)  And to top everything else off, the 'desparate infertile' woman doesnt bond with the child as it is not her own, but the father does and she is last seen being catapulted into a  rubbish dump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I warn anybody in our position never to watch this film for I guarantee that tv sets across the land will be thrown out of windows!!!!!!!! Strange really, I havent seen that insulting piece of s**t in years.

Oh that felt good.

xx


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## Clomidia (Dec 13, 2007)

Nat,    at the movie - which reminds me of a CSI New York episode where ultimately they discover that the nice woman with a baby was actually a *crazed* infertile who stole the baby from the womb of another woman        
I was furious when I watched it - silly of me maybe, but it makes me mad that all "normal" people see of us infertiles on tv is as the "loopy" type that steal babies    NOT fair


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## Natalie01 (Jun 10, 2007)

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!  Nuff said.  We really should name and shame these people who do this!!!  Like the old Calpol advert ' If you've got kids , you'll understand'.....What are they saying, because I have no children I can't feel sympathy or care for an ill child


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## Clomidia (Dec 13, 2007)

Hmm, not a bad idea - maybe we should keep a record of all those programmes/ads that are sending out the wrong messages!


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