I come from an emotionally close nuclear family. As we grew up or aged, our relationships were fed on good food, conversation, the arts, and talk of travel. A few years ago, my sister had her first child; I’m gay and childless. I’m happy for her; her kids are adorable – though I run out of things to say about every photo or sniffle. With friends who have begun starting families already, our friendships have evolved positively: I feel part of their lives. Within my family, it has worked out differently. We still chat frequently and meet up. I know they love me. But my sister’s family is now the centre of our wider one. Not just practically, but also in terms of what’s immediately asked about, how we talk about life, which conversations are the most successful.
I never felt like the outsider in my family before, and I’m sure they’d object to that description: I am not consciously left out. They ask about things, but homeliness and daily routine is the default when it comes to conversation. With friends, I don’t feel the same way, despite children also being the centre of their own lives (and, I’d like to think, mine – I do enjoy being around kids). If I withdraw from my family, I feel guilty for creating precisely the perceived distance that bothers me. If I speak about my feelings, my parents try to understand, but assume that I’m jealous; my sister sees it as lack of empathy. Perhaps it is indeed a natural transition, though a change where I grieve a closeness I remember. I know that only I can alter the situation in the way that I think about it, but I go round in circles. Any suggestions?
It’s really interesting that despite your friends also having families, you don’t feel pushed out by them, but with your own family, you do. So what’s the difference? I wondered if you were the “baby” of your family and now there’s a new baby. Maybe you miss your sister being there for you. If this is the case, or even if not but you do feel jealous or left out, this is nothing to feel ashamed of. We try to run away from less than ideal feelings, but if we do that we can’t ever diffuse them.
As I’ve said before, babies shake up a family in ways that are hard to imagine. Everyone’s role is different, and there is sometimes a subconscious jostling for position. It doesn’t help when people dominate the conversation – any conversation – with things that aren’t inclusive to all. Over time it can feel exactly what it is: excluding, isolating and quite boring. Empathy, by its very nature, is a two-way emotion.
I contacted AFT-registered family psychotherapist John Cavanagh. He wondered about you “describing yourself being gay and childless and how that sat in terms of expectations in your family, how that’s led you to view yourself, perhaps as ‘othered’ in your own family? And whether your relationship to not being a father is planned or unplanned?”
Cavanagh explained that when you’re gay, your life cycle may not follow the curve of a heteronormative family, and that can take some adjusting to. Sometimes a baby can bring up all sorts for everyone. We wondered what it brought up for you. There was such a sense of loss in your letter, and I’m glad you are able to acknowledge that. It sounds like you and your family were so close, no wonder you miss that. I wondered how much effort they make to create space for you now. Perhaps it’s worth aconversation. If your parents say you’re jealous, would it be terrible if you said, “You know, I am a little”?
You and your friends probably have a more rounded relationship, and one that is constantly evolving, in a way that perhaps your parental/sibling relationships haven’t. Maybe, also, you can be more honest with them. Could you try to find some new, common ground with your family? It’s tiresome that you have to be the one to do this, but it may be worth it.
Finally, a really big thing to remember: parenthood is pretty all encompassing, but the landscape changes. Your nieces/nephews will grow up, there will be new relationships there to be forged, you could end up being the centre of their lives. Your sister will also want to flex her muscles outside of matrescence again. Family dynamics change and change again.
Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
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