Jody Day
World Childless Week Ambassador
I see you sitting at home muting the rolling TV ads of ridiculously happy, rambunctious, multi-generational families hilariously solving some Christmas dilemma in under two minutes. And yet somehow no one loses their temper, and the scene where someone makes painful assumptions about their childless relative’s life is missing. And no one asks them if they’d mind sleeping in a tent this year...
I see you scrolling through social media, seductively picking at emotional scabs and then gasping as your last sister-in-childlessness scanbushes you (and the whole social media universe) with a surprise sonogram. A real miracle baby for the season of the ultimate miracle baby. Just great. I see how your hot tears are partly rage that, after all you've been through together, it didn't occur to her to let you know privately, and partly the anticipatory grief because, whatever promises she makes about how this 'won't change anything' between you, it will. It always does. And so now, on top of everything else, you’ll no longer have that one friend who understands what it's like to be 'the childless one'.
I see you wandering aimlessly around your home in the middle of the evening, too early to go to bed, looking for something although you're not quite sure what it is, but maybe if you open and look inside the fridge one more time you'll find the answer? No TV program is safe, no social media platform, Christmas card or email is trigger-free. It's just babies, families, couples, grandparents, grandchildren everywhere. Maybe another mince pie might do it?
I see you thoughtfully choosing, wrapping and mailing presents to other people’s kids, even though you know that in all likelihood, you'll be lucky to get a Christmas card back. And that you can whistle dixie for a thank you letter or even a text. Does it make you a terrible person that you want your love and care to be acknowledged, just this once? Do the kids even know who you are anymore, or what you once meant to their parents? Are you a fool to think that any of them give a shit about you anymore? This year will be the last time I do this, you promise yourself, but you’ve made that promise before.
I see you selflessly supporting your partner with their children and all the stresses of managing their complex family dynamics whilst also fielding the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) assumption that you chose not to have children. When in fact the hard choice you did make was to be with the person you love and forgo trying for kids together. And yet somehow, even though you put on an Oscar-worthy brave face, sometimes it still isn’t enough to stop your partner from suggesting that you really do need to 'make an effort'...
I see you sitting on that family Zoom call where your sister bounces her IVF baby on her knee, whilst going on and on about how exhausted she is. And then her partner comes and takes the baby off her lap, affectionately rubs her shoulders and leaves her a cup of tea. As you sit there, emoting like a champ, you hide your hurt that once again no one thinks to ask how things have been for you since your last miscarriage, the one that brought your ghastly, thousand-year journey of 'trying for a family' to an end. Or how things are between you and your partner right now with both of you grieving, but neither of you feeling that the other one is doing it ‘right’. Or about your fears that, along with your finances, hope, health and sex life, childlessness and fertility treatments may have torpedoed your relationship too. But hey sis, sounds really tough for you right now.
I see you living alone in the starter home that you're still living in a decade later, whilst all the other apartments in your building have changed ownership at least twice as people couple up, have children and move on to somewhere bigger. Leaving you marooned in your apartment, harassed and distressed by the noise of other couples’ social lives, sex lives and toddlers, endlessly scrolling through artfully shot Instagram posts of elegant feet clad in chunky-knit socks Hygging alone with their hands around a mug of hot chocolate whilst you Google whether you can actually die of loneliness.
I see you struggling to manage the complexities of living with the chronic health condition or disability that contributed to your childlessness, even though you might have been able to have got 'whoops pregnant' when you were younger. And the effort it takes to manage daily life along with your worries about your condition worsening and what the hell you’ll do if/when that happens. No one is fussing around you or planning how to support you, or even keeping you company and distracting you from your concerns, and yet still they manage to make out that it's 'lucky' that, with your condition, you don't have children...
I see you biting back the tears at yet another thoughtless holiday 'ice-breaker' at work asking everyone to 'tell us something about your life' or 'what you're doing for Christmas,' and being the only one who doesn't have the socially acceptable badge of children to talk about. You try to make a goofily cute comment about how you, 'Work hard so that your dog can have a better life', aiming to style it out like some sassy, confident childfree person only to spend the rest of the day in acute shame, feeling like you've exposed your underbelly to wolves.
I see you volunteering for those extra shifts over the holidays, putting yourself in a public-facing role, even in harm's way, rather than face the long gap between Christmas and New Year without speaking to or seeing anyone. And yet it goes unnoticed and unappreciated by your colleagues with children, most of whom presume it’s their 'right' to spend the holidays at home with them - I mean, it's not like you've got kids, right? They’re not even sure if you have a partner, so what would you need the holidays for?
I see you sitting watching your nephews and nieces opening their presents from their parents and grandparents, your siblings opening their presents from their partners and children, the pile of wrapping paper getting higher and higher as does the tension in your body as you realise that, yet again, your neat and modest pile of anodyne gifts makes you feel like an orphan in your own family. You can't say anything, because that might look like greed, and how can you explain that it's not about the presents, it's about how hurt you are by your demotion in the family pecking order just because you don't have children... So you drink just a little bit too much and keep your fake smile plastered on for as long as you can before you claim a headache, take the overexcited dog out for a walk and cry your heart out. Again.
I see you pottering about in your front garden, hopeful that the family next door will stop outside your gate for just a moment of chat and then, when they do indeed stop, all they can talk about is their parent in a nursing home, and how they’ll pop in to see them on Christmas Day, and how it just isn’t the same without them. ‘They’re not as lucky as you are with your health,’ they say, bundling their rowdy brood into the back of the car, but it never seems to occur to them that maybe they could invite you to join them for Christmas lunch? You turn back to your front door with a sigh as once, again, the space left by not having children, and hopefully one day, maybe grandchildren too, claws at your heart. It’s hard to feel lucky and lonely at the same time.
I see you wondering why the hell you decided to go home to your folks this Christmas! Ever since the pandemic when you couldn’t visit, you’ve found an excuse to either stay at home and, when you’ve been able to afford it, have gone away somewhere sunny. And although you’ve missed some parts of being home at Christmas, you certainly didn’t miss the ghastly trifecta of judgement, pity and 'helpful advice'. And to top it all, this year, there’s yet another new grandchild to be placed on the pinnacle of the pronatalist achievement tree by your parents, whilst your own life remains uncelebrated, unremarked-upon and, if you’re honest, a bit of a disappointment to your parents. You know your folks aren’t going to be around forever, so you suck it up. But next year? Alone or away, that’s for sure, which will also help to avoid the tension when people think you’re weird for refusing to sleep on the sofa so that a nine-year-old can have your bed…
I see you raking over every past decision (even the good, honourable ones), every failed relationship (even the crappy ones), every path you've taken or not taken in your life (often for good reasons) that have led you to now, and to your childlessness. I see you putting yourself on trial with the harshest, most biased jury you can find, and finding yourself guilty of screwing up your life, even though you did the best you could, with what you had and what you knew at the time. So how come other people who made very similar choices now have children? Partners? Homes? Families? In the game of life’s musical chairs, who decided you’d be the one to be left out?
I see you at peace, finally, with your childlessness, yet frustrated by how little space exists in society for you as a person without children. How your life remains unseen, uncelebrated, unvoiced and unimaginable to the mainstream. I see how your joys are trivialised, your wisdom and life experience unsought, your opinions presumed, your needs ignored. I see you attempting to voice your worries about ageing without children, only to be shamed by parents who tell you that, ‘I didn’t have children so that they could take care of them when they’re old!,’ whilst actually making no other concrete arrangements, ignorant of their unconscious expectations. I see you once again learning that your experiences, needs, concerns and existence are not valued by those around you, politicians, policy makers or wider society. Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Mankind? Well, as long as they fit the patriarchial pattern of partner + children. Everyone else can stay outside the stable. Sometimes, it seems only people with children get to stay at the Inn.
With love to all the Outsiders at Christmas. Jody x
I see you this Christmas.
You are childless and that wasn't the plan; that wasn't the dream.
But you've done nothing wrong by being childless and you are nothing wrong by being childless.
You were born childless and worthy and your childlessness does not take that away.
You have nothing to be ashamed of.
You have nothing to prove, nothing to 'make up' for.
You are worthy of love, acceptance & belonging just as you are.
There are millions of women like us around the world. There always have been, there always will be. We are part of the human family, not apart from it.
We belong too.
We have a role to play and a life to live and a heart to share.
We break and we heal.
But we cannot do it alone. We need each other.
A broken heart needs to be held with great tenderness in the mind and soul of someone who totally understands this pain - and only then can it start to heal.
I see you - a perfectly imperfect human soul. And I see the children in your heart that only your heart will ever know.
And my heart breaks again with you, holding yours in mine.
And together, we begin to heal.
