Naomi
I was raised by a Holocaust-surviving mother and grandmother, both of whom instilled in me a great sense of responsibility to marry and procreate, reversing the sinister intention of Adolf Hitler to eradicate the Jewish population. The importance of family, lineage and the (perceived) joy that children, grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) can bring was fundamental to how I was reared. Expecting to have children, therefore, underpinned the essence of who I was. I never thought if I would have children, rather I focused on when.
And yet at the end of my reproductive years, I found myself childless and firmly identifying as what I have come to know as circumstantially childless; that is, always expecting to have children, yet due to life circumstances – which I always defined as not meeting an appropriate partner – I remained childless.
Along with my status as a childless woman came a pronounced sense of shame; that I had somehow failed my family, my lineage and my community by not procreating. It has seen me adopt a less-than status when comparing myself to mothers, in both my professional and personal lives. I swallowed the stigmas and stereotypes firmly entrenched in pronatalist Australia and made them my own, viewing myself and other childless women through the same tarnished lens as the dominant culture.
As I approached 50, a curiosity about my childlessness surfaced. I found myself seeking books, blogs and experts on the topic, all the time trying to make sense of how I came to remain childless despite my expectation that I would mother. This led me to want to speak with elders who, by reflecting on their lives, could shine a light on mine. I pitched the idea to an academic who has published papers on childlessness and relatively swiftly (and naively), I was enrolled in a Doctorate program. Nine years later, my thesis –Understanding the lived experiences of circumstantially childless women aged 60–75 in Sydney, Australia– was recently submitted for examination.
The learnings I received about the phenomenon of childlessness, and my relationship with it, have been immense. Through the literature I reviewed and a deep analysis of the stories graciously told by the women who participated in my study, I better understood my life and the decisions I did, or did not, make.
Specifically, the insights shared by the women highlighted how my narrative about not having children was perhaps inaccurate. I have come to see that possibly my childlessness was not a result of not finding a life partner but due to a subconscious decision I made not to mother. I now see I lacked the drive to have children, and like many of the women I interviewed, this resulted in me also dating (and marrying) the wrong men and declining the advances of the right men.
Most recently, perhaps with my brother and close friends celebrating the birth of grandchildren, for the first time, I have been struck by feelings of deep sadness for my (subconscious) decision to continue to defer procreation until biology intervened and the choice was no longer mine to make. I find myself resonating with the concept of disenfranchised grief brought to my attention by one of the very few academic studies on women who identified as circumstantially childless (Lois Tonkin, 2010). Like her participants, I am also aware of how others struggle to acknowledge my sorrow, given I can be considered responsible for my childlessness. This has resulted in me remaining silent, believing my grief is not legitimate, particularly when compared to that of the involuntary childless.
However, when I reflect on my journey of the past nine years, from conceiving the research aim and methodology to recruiting my participants and conducting the interviews, and finally drawing out my insights and conclusions, it is the women’s excitement at being selected to describe their experiences of being a childless woman that continues to resonate. Living in a culture that purposefully celebrates mothers and marginalises those who are not, resulted in them seldomly having anyone interested in their story of how they came to be childless and the impact it has had on who they were, how they saw themselves and felt others perceived them. They enjoyed the rare opportunity to be seen, heard and participate in research on childless women living in pronatalist Australia.
Similarly, I remain deeply touched by the thrill the women expressed when meeting each other and being able to share openly with other childless women on topics missing from the dominant culture. Most significantly, finding meaning and purpose in retirement when nurturing grandchildren is absent. The exchange that ensued between those who had retired and those who were about to, with the former group almost coaching the latter on the wonders of life that can exist beyond a fulfilling career, was nothing short of inspiring.
However, most impactful was the women’s challenge of my research premise. They questioned the need for the adjective childless to describe who they were. This has enabled me to see the pronatalist lens through which I viewed myself– a childless woman, different and inferior to mothers. Most of the women who participated in my study refused to be defined by their reproductive status. Rather, they saw themselves as a woman, period. “I am always me”, as one woman articulated.
This statement has become a mantra for me to reconsider my narrative and refocus my attention away from lamenting what I lack, to accepting and even moving to celebrating the life I do have. While I am not yet there, the light the women have shone is now firmly on my horizon. Childless women can have meaningful and productive lives despite what we have been led to believe. Most importantly, I am coming to realise that irrespective of whether I have children I am always me.
