Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos
World Childless Week Champion 2023/24
In the same way that wind and water can sculpt and reshape landscapes formed of rock or soil, childlessness, as a force, is equally dynamic.
Consider that as we advance in adulthood, childlessness has the power to redesign how we identify, feel, and move through the world. At its most damaging, it can hollow us out from within opening voids and vulnerabilities. It can also open space and new dimensions revealing light.
Apart from the personal alterations and explorations we experience, society can also wield childlessness like a scalpel eager to scrape away our agency, dignity, and value– or reduce us entirely.
Yet, like majestic Bristlecone Pines, one of the most hardy and enduring of all Nature’s creations, we possess the ability to sustain, adapt and, yes, grow – often dazzling with our survival skills and stories. These qualities are true of so many of the women and men I have had the good fortune to meet, befriend and follow through my now 61 years.
In the year since Stephanie reached out with news of my World Childless Champion honor, I have reconnected with many who continue to inspire and personify versatility. Just this week I heard from author and advocate Donna Ward, who will present a paper on the implications of feminism’s oversight of single women without children at the 3rd International Singles Studies Conference in Boston in July.
Then there’s Irina Vodar who has been lighting upscreens around the world with her story of fortitude, discovery, and reflection. We first met more than 10 years ago and reunited in Los Angeles this past autumn for the U.S. debut of her film, Anything You Lose.There, in the City of Angels, I also met Christine Erickson, podcast host and founder of New Legacy Institute, for the first time in person. Her intelligence, fierceness and passion simply compel your attention.
In February 2024, during the latest round of reproductive rights erosions here in the U.S., I reconnected with author Miriam Zoll, co-founder of ReproTechTruths. With her encouragement and brainstorming – and relying on an expansive network built over a decade, contact by contact – The Boston Globe procured and published mylatest contrarian IVF piece, a once unthinkable move in this biotech-centric market.
Closer to home, I have met artists and activists who, like me, are childless. But this particular shared characteristic does not confine or limit who we are or what we do. In fact, childlessness makes us more interesting in unique ways, more engaged, and yes, more in tune with the world and its struggles. You see, we are freer to take in and explore, to imagine and challenge. Many of us have routinely experienced isolation, misunderstanding and marginalization in ways large and small. Those occurrences and slights, some of which stung or scarred, made us more determined not simply to persevere but to open minds and hearts.
Memories of where I was two decades ago flooded over me as I sat in a stadium in June watching two young women (each born the year IVF failed for me for the umpteenth and last time) graduate university. They embody many of the qualities I had once hoped for in my own child. Watching them receive their diplomas filled me with melanjoy (a term first coined by author and childless advocate/ambassador, Jessica Hepburn).
While not a parent, I have, without question, played a worthy role in their upbringing and world views as well as in the lives of other young people in my circles.
So, while it was not easy to accept that reproductive medicine had limits and that no amount of medicine or intervention would allow me to conceive, I refused to be silenced or reduced in importance. No one wants to be perceived as a quitter, yet that stigma often surrounds those who step away from failed IVF.
The complexities of childlessness and IVF survivor-hood that so many women and men face propelled me in 2015 to write Finally Heard. Countless of us fought for plenty in our lives. We also came to the point when we just knew it was time to move on. I am grateful that more of our stories are available and accessible.
I rejoice when I look out across the world today at the many strong and remarkable childless women and men blazing new paths. Your voices and achievements speak volumes and will continue to enrich the lives and hearts you touch.
Yours in peace, strength, and fellowship.
