From the IWSTHAB community:

"I am a preschool teacher, but parents often question my judgment specifically because I don’t have children.

Please trust me with your kids. The capacity of my heart and the expanse of my knowledge and experience are what should matter."

What is the value of trustworthiness?

"Trustworthiness is defined as being worthy of confidence, and being dependable. It can also be described as being reliable, responsible, safe, secure, and steady. Trustworthiness is the basis on which all relationships are built. If you make someone feel that they can’t be trusted, you erode your relationship with that person in a deeply detrimental way."

Trust goes both ways in the fertility community. When you're struggling, you want to know that the person you chose to listen to your problems can hold and support you without judgment. When that happens, it’s an incredible gift. But, when that trust is broken, it’s hard to repair and sometimes impossible to mend completely.

Conversely, in society, people without children are often seen as less grown-up or mature, as though pushing out a baby immediately makes someone responsible. And that is the furthest from the truth! The people who have had to make it on their own, without a partner or child, when the rest of their peers are already onto the next stage of life. They have had to deal with social and communal pressures bearing down on them, in addition to family/friends who might have been less than supportive through the years. And they’ve had to learn to manage independently, which is a tremendous asset to any profession or career. Don’t discount people who are single or childless.

You are worthy of having people in your life whom you can trust, and you are also worthy of being trusted.