“You Can Always Adopt.”

The Anti-Solution Series: Issue #1

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.

Welcome to the Anti-Solution Series. Every month, I pull apart these well-meaning responses and examine what’s really being said.

The thing is these solutions-that-are-not-actually-solutions reveal how uncomfortable people can be with lives that don’t follow a familiar arc. They overcorrect for that discomfort, often at someone else’s expense. What ends up being offered as comfort is actually a way of changing the subject at the exact moment someone is saying something real.

This series is for anyone who has been on the receiving end of those one liners. If you’ve said some of these things yourself, this is for you too. There’s no need to feel guilty. Just keep reading. There are better ways to show up.