“Everything happens for a reason.”

The Anti-Solution Series: Issue #3

There are a handful of things people say when they find out you’re not having children. Most of them are framed as comfort, a helpful workaround, an overly optimistic pivot. What they have in common is this: they attempt to resolve something that isn’t theirs to fix.

This series is about those anti-solutions.

The Moment

You open up and say the impossible-to-bear thing out loud. The IVF failed. The embryo did not take. You lost the baby. Or some other truth that feels too heavy for language alone. Then it comes, sometimes with a hand on your arm, a slow nod, or a hopeful look: “Everything happens for a reason.”

The Logic

I understand this impulse. I really do. I was once a diligent student in the School of Everything Happens For A Reason. When something did not unfold the way I wanted, I would instinctively reach for meaning, for a lesson, for some comfort inside the pain. The search felt like stability. I thought, if there is a reason, then the experience is contained.

But what it sounds like to the person hearing it is this: you should feel differently about this because one day you will understand why it happened.

Underneath the “everything happens for a reason” line is something more universal: a discomfort with uncertainty. We want life to make sense. We want outcomes to add up. We want suffering to belong to a larger story. Because the reality that some things simply happen, full stop, is harder to bear.

The Reality

Kate Bowler, who writes so honestly about the weight of these toxic cultural narratives, puts it plainly:

“Everything happens for a reason…The only thing worse than saying this is pretending that you know the reason.”

She goes on to say how no one is ever short of reasons and perhaps that is the problem. In the rush to assign meaning, we can miss what is actually being offered to us: not a problem to solve, but an experience to witness.

When someone is speaking about loss, they are not always asking for a solution. Often, they are asking simply to be met where they are.

The Better Way To Show Up

This is where I would usually add a few lines about other things to say, but I am going to try something different here. Sometimes the most generous response is not an answer, but a willingness to stay with what is unresolved without trying to fix it.

As a recovering “everything happens for a reason” person myself, I have learned that the better instinct is often beyond words. It is presence. It is not looking away from someone else’s pain just because it is uncomfortable to watch.

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Tell me the most common thing people say to you when they find out you don’t have children. I may write about it in a future Anti-Solution column.