Why do people jump to conclusions and assume we didn’t want kids, or that despite our dreams of parenthood we’re happily living it up every day, without a single care in the world?
Is it jealousy because of the freedoms being childless can bring, guilt because they never wanted to be a mum (‘it just happened’) or feelings of being inadequate and not living up to social media perfection?
We going to delve into these questions and share our truth about if we feel lucky.
DATE: Friday 15th September
TIME: 6.30pm BST - Find your timezone HERE
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Please note: Whilst the panellists will be recorded, your camera and audio will be turned off. If you are unable to attend the webinar live, you DO NOT need to register to watch the replay on the website.
PANELLISTS
Stephanie spent a large part of her twenties in an abusive relationship and took the contraceptive pill to ensure children would not be born into that situation. In her early thirties she met my husband to be but they didn't try to conceive until nearing forty. At the age of 39 she was told by an unsympathetic doctor "if he manages to get you pregnant it is highly unlikely you'll carry full term". She knew in that moment, she would never be a mum.
In 2016 Stephanie Joy Phillips founded three childless support groups on Facebook: Childless Path To Acceptance focuses on support, Childless Chit Chat is a trigger free zone and Childless Perks!! is all about laughter and finding the positives of being childless, without a parent saying 'I told you so'.
In 2017 after realising there was no national recognition of the childless community she founded World Childless Week. Seven days that enables the childless community to have a platform where they can find their voice and share their stories with confidence.
Steph lives in Worcestershire with her husband and two rescue cats, Storm and Tea-Cup. She enjoys gardening, arts and crafts, a good book, dining out and relaxing in front of the television with a puzzle book and one of her two cats snuggled up beside her.
Bibi Lynch - UK
Bibi Lynch is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. Former columnist on Red, Grazia, GQ and New Woman, Bibi now presents radio shows (most recently for the BBC and Soho Radio) and podcasts (metro.co.uk and Reel2Media); contributes to publications including The Times, The Telegraph,
the Guardian, Metro and Platinum; and is host of the Dirty Talk interview series at the Groucho.
She talks and writes mostly about sex (Good Sex Bad Sex podcast… BBC Radio Sussex and BBC Radio Surrey’s After the Watershed series… Metro features…); about dating (Let’s Get Frank podcast — where she dated people called Frank); and about childlessness.
She has written viral Guardian features on childlessness and spoke at Fertility Fest at the Barbican.
She’s the stupidly proud creator of the acronym WHIPs (Women who are Hot, Intelligent and in their Prime — or Primark if times are tough) — and was voted one of the HuffPost’s ‘50 Funniest Women on Twitter’. She is currently tracking the other 49 down.
Twitter (X): @BibiLynch
Juli Angelis - UK
I’m a neurodivergent Life Coach & Trauma Therapy Practitioner and I see childlessness through a trauma-informed lens. My aim is to support childless clients by equipping them with an array of tailored therapeutic, coaching and energy healing tools that they can use day to day. I recognise the importance of both validating the trauma of childlessness from a
mind-body perspective, in combination with the moving forwards element, enabling us to live the lives - we may not have planned - but truly deserve.
I found my own voice surrounding childlessness during the lockdown of 2020, which led me to setting up @the.childless.circle on TikTok, (and more recently Instagram), where I proudly “advocate, educate and validate all things childless”. I also hold a Psychology MSc from Birmingham City University, where I undertook a research project for my final dissertation, exploring the long-term impacts of circumstantial childlessness in women from mid to later life.
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