Robert Nurden
World Childless Week Champion 2025/26
We, the childless not by choice, know only too well how it goes: the grief in all its forms, the regret, the anger and the hurt at being so misunderstood. Then, if we’re lucky, there’s the sharing, the support and the healing from those who understand. And, with that, come the wonderful new friends who are going through what you’re going through. The ones who really get it.
But what then? When the rage has softened, when we’re trying to rebuild our lives, when we’re throwing our dreams of failed parenthood up into the air and waiting to see how they land, what happens then?
One thing I do know is that people in the childless community are incredibly generous with their advice. I have never come across a group who are so kind and supportive. They have helped me through some dark times. This, in turn, has made me want to try and help others, although I’m not sure how effective I’ve been.
Their wise strategies about how best to move on really do help. But, unfortunately, there is a downside. It’s possible to follow these paths too strictly. I have discovered that if you are relentless in your pursuit of a new truth, you can become stuck. You can end up making no progress at all.
So, it’s important that you add one more thing to the mix: do nothing. Yes, do nothing. Don’t think too hard, or don’t think at all. It’s a paradox, of course.
I have found that it’s good just to let things be, be gentle, be quiet, meditate even, and let the deeper parts of yourself come to the fore and start acting as the boss. Amid the clamour of daily life, we seldom get the time to let this happen. But, now that we’re washed up on the shoreline of uncertainty, time is on our side. It’s time to step into the dark, allow our subconscious to buzz away for all its worth and stay full of hope.
It’s those sacred, untouched parts of yourself that you are trying to bring to the surface. The parts of you that the pain has forced down. You are now giving birth to the new you. The real you. Certainly, the you that parenthood would probably never have allowed to flourish. In order to heal, we have to realise this.
This is also extremely personal. So personal in fact that we can only really talk about ourselves and how taking this approach worked for us. What came out of my contemplation of my unwanted childlessness was a burning desire to let people know what I’ve been through, particularly from a man’s perspective. What I wanted to say took the form of writing a play. Goodness knows why.
Empty, as my play came to be called, had five characters with the central character being a middle-aged man who was childless not by choice. He received opposition from his extended family. Different versions of Empty piled up in dark corners of my laptop. Being new to playwriting, I had no confidence in bringing any of them to light, so I let them rest there.
The drive to get something out, there and then, turned into me writing a book. But Empty was my baby and I needed to go back to feed and nurture it. I showed it to the artistic director of Applecart Arts in the east of London who liked it and wanted to stage it. But having five characters created a budgetary headache, as it would for any Fringe theatre. They couldn’t afford to pay actors the required Equity rates. ‘Is there any chance you could turn it into a two-hander?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said, desperate not to let any chance of staging Empty slip from my grasp.
I spent a month re-writing it and I have been forever grateful for that. The resulting draft was tighter, more impactful – better, in fact. My director still liked it but the problem was that, soon after that, poor old Applecart Arts closed down due to lack of funds. I was back to square one.
From that point on I have let myself be swallowed up by the Fringe theatre scene, getting to know how it works, ticking off all the London pubs with theatres on the first floor, understanding what a dramaturg does, sitting in countless black boxes, watching people speaking Slovakian while swinging from trapezes and such like. I managed to get my play put on at the Cockpit, in the theatre’s research and development slot, and at Storyhouse, Chester. And now, in 2026, it is all set for nine full performances from May to July. I’ve applied for Arts Council funding. Fingers crossed.
Not only have I enjoyed becoming part of this new artistic scene, I have also been working side by side with some wonderful creative people, some of whom are childless, some not. What they do say is that they have never considered unwanted childlessness as an issue before but that it needs more exposure.
The off-West End theatre is run by young, ambitious, optimistic folk – most of them women – who offer huge encouragement, ask thousands of questions and don’t have a penny to their names. And I suppose I’ve landed on my feet as an ambassador for unwanted childlessness.
For me the turnaround was a big one. As it was for, say, Jessica Hepburn who responded to her failed IVF treatment by inventing Adventure Activism. But the change doesn’t have to be headline material. It usually isn’t. It can look tiny but, for the individual, it can have a massive and life-changing impact. As I say, it is so personal.
Who would have thought that when I stepped into the dark that that was going to be the start of my journey? That in retreating into the interiority of myself and then re-emerging that I would be in a position to trumpet to the pronatalist world about the reality of unwanted childlessness? Let alone the fact that, at the age of 74, I would forge a new career as a playwright out of the ashes of my grief.
I wouldn’t have it any other way. I didn’t exactly know what I was doing when I set out on this lonely path. And in many ways I still don’t. There is so much to learn from this thrilling new world. You can’t beat creating electricity on stage. And I’m already planning my next play.
Thank you, childlessness, for opening the door. I only hope that you, too, can find your new world, whatever it may be.
