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We’ve all been there, that awkward social event, surrounded by unfamiliar people, fishing around for conversation topics and you’re doing ok. Until someone asks that dreaded question “Do you have kids?”
It sucks, but what can you do or say that is empowering, effective and honouring of you and your childlessness? Join Sarah Roberts of The Empty Cradle and Karin Enfield of Gateway Women as they explore some of our options.
Every person around the globe has felt the effects of the Coronavirus. It has changed our daily lives, our future plans, our relationships and our livelihoods. Every person has a story but not every story is being told.
Sometimes I wish somebody would ask me…
What does it feel like to be me? How do I manage to get out of bed in the morning; how do I find a good enough reason to bother? How do I keep doing it day after day, when sometimes it feels like there is nothing stretching out ahead of me in my life but a succession of further losses and then death?
I sit here writing this in a rustic, but beautiful French farmhouse that I have been renovating for 20 years. There’s lots of space and lots of garden and as I wander around the garden the beauty and peace astound me even after twenty years.
I held a Tupperware party about 10 years ago… loved it and loved the modular set I ended up with. I invited friends who were diverse in nature. They were my friends; I didn’t really think about it, but they were all women.
Hello, and welcome to one of my episodes of the Childless not by Choice Podcast, where my mission is to recognize and speak to childless not by choice women and men around the world.
The resonance abounded. There were the tears I held back as I worried about the safety of my wife working in a school.
Rainbows in windows mock me and I am
eyes down red enraged salty tears misting
100 days from March to June 2020
It begins very fast, over only about two days. One day I’m standing in Pepe’s hair salon, talking about it and the next day shops are shut and official instructions are being issued about the restrictions. My life is suddenly reduced to my flat and the short walk to the supermarket, five minutes away.
Yes, I know that being a parent is not easy. Especially when they’re small. I was an au pair once, I have some idea of what it’s like to look after small children for hours on end.
The world suddenly became a very scary place.
The events playing out seemed unreal, but it was real.
Today’s theme for world childless week is hurtful comments. Oh my goodness, if I was being paid for all these I have received over the years, I would be a very rich woman!
“I don’t know what I’d do without him/her/them”.. they say. The ‘him/her/them’ are of course the partner, the children, nephews, nieces, godchildren, grandchildren… the people we don’t have.
And here it is again. The same fiber woven through a different human experience - this time, a worldwide pandemic.
As the saying goes, "The grass is always greener on the other side".
2020 has been a challenging year. We’ve all been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and it’s highlighted many welfare failings in our society.