Today, we have a post to share by Kae about a show she heard on NPR. Although it wasn’t about pregnancy loss, she heard something in the show that made her think. She says:

I’ve been feeling off lately and scrounging the internet for something- someone I could relate to. I’ve found some relevance in articles and incredibly personal accounts of pregnancy loss, infertility, grief, and/or and anxiety. But it wasn’t until listening to this NPR podcast: The Scarcity Trap, Why We Keep Digging When We’re Stuck in Hole, that I found an unlikely solidarity with the experience of sugar cane farmers in India.

 

These farmers, in a study by Eldar Shafir and Sendhil Mullainathan, behaved differently right after harvest when they were relatively wealthy. Compared to when faced with scarcity later on, the wealthy farmers had better impulse control, planned longer term, and even fared better on IQ tests. “To be clear, it’s not that poor people focus on immediate needs because that’s all they want to think about. It’s all they can think about,”  states Shankar Vedantam in respect to these farmers and others facing scarcity.

 

I’ve already tried to minimize my own feelings of sadness and frustration over not being pregnant by dismissing it as a “first world problem.” Presumably, I am financially distinct from these farmers in that I can afford to raise a hypothetical kid and pay my bills all year- not just after the harvest. I have wonderful health insurance that covers prenatal care (thank you Affordable Care Act). I have a job- finally- that offers some maternity leave and paid time off.

 

How on earth, then, can I compare my lack of having child with someone else’s lack of financial resources?

 

I can relate to their desperateness.

Read the rest of this post on Kae’s blog.