Caroline W
I want to share three particular issues that I experience in my childless journey, and the way I am learning to navigate these challenges, to help me feel worthy. I hope by sharing these, it resonates and even helps others.
First, I’ll share my context. I am childless due to a chronic health condition, which is “controlled” through powerful medication –medication that means it’s medically impossible for me to try to conceive. So the door to possible motherhood has never been open for me.
I’m now in my mid-50s and my childlessness journey continues… I’ve done a lot of work on myself, and I’ve adapted and accepted this life the best I can. But the grief continues down the years. It changes shape and moves but it continues to bite deeply some days, and feel like it’s something I experience most days.
For me there are three areas where I dearly wish “society” and in particular women who are mothers could understand the grief that childless women can experience, and through this understanding be more sensitive about their own words and express their support:
1. One-way envy about travel
I love to travel. I find it enriching and distracting. It is a big part of my Plan B (thanks to the amazing Jody Day for learning of creating a Plan B from her book “Living the Life Unexpected”).
But! And this is where the one-way envy comes in. I’ve learnt to temper down descriptions of my travel plans when speaking with parents as I am – frankly – sick of the “oooooh lucky you, ooooh I wish I could do that” whilst standing there with their arms around their son/daughter. Can I say “oooooh well I wish I was a parent instead, and actually I’m just trying to make the best of this life, and I’d much rather be doing school run, tea-times and all that jazz instead of planning my upcoming trip” – no I feel I cannot say that, so I smile politely, shrug my shoulders, and try to move on….
2. Ordeal of menopause when my reproductive system has been redundant
Before I was peri-menopausal I used to joke that I expected a free pass through the menopause. Pah! Well that didn’t happen, and frankly having experienced an array of symptoms, mostly related to my mental health, over 10 long years, I am feeling its toll.
It has felt unfair that I’ve had to go through all of this, when my reproductive system has been of no use to me. And whilst I feel lucky that I am in the generation that there is so much openness about menopause, its symptoms and choices around treatment, there is little (any?) recognition of the fact that for childless women there is a specific pain about going through this ordeal, without having been a mother and made use of the very reproductive organs that are now causing mayhem.
3. Celebrating milestones
This is the one that has crept up and surprised me rather. When some of my friends’ children headed off to university it really hit me that I would never go through that experience of supporting children for this next life stage. I guess I’d got used to all the nattering about early years, school choices, exams, etc, etc. But the university thing hit me hard. My best friend sent me a photo of her and her son on a uni visit. Ouch. And I couldn’t tell her. Of course I couldn’t. I didn’t want to diminish in any way the experience that she was going through. But ouch.
And there are a lot of milestones when you have children. I have seen them in the past, and I will share in some of those in the future, being invited to weddings, hearing of grandchildren, and other occasions. And I will express joy and excitement for them, as I love my friends and I love their children. But. But. But. It’s hard when I will not experience any of those child-related milestones in my own life.
How do I navigate these challenges?
These three issues touch a nerve in me. How do I navigate it, so I can live a good life? It is of course a work-in-progress, and one of experimenting to see what works for me. These ideas may not suit you, but perhaps they will spark fresh ideas for you.
1. This is the life I have
The wonderful Graham Norton has helped me for this one…years and years ago I heard him on the radio during his Saturday morning “Grill Graham” Radio 2 feature. He had received a letter from a childless couple, and Graham said something along the lines of…
“Don’t spend this life mourning the life you don’t have”
And that has really stayed with me, and I remind myself of it frequently. I only have this one life. And I will do my best to live it and enjoy it with the cards that I have been dealt. I am compassionate and kind to myself, and don’t expect myself to be jumping around with joy all the time. But this is my life and I will live it and experience it the best way I can.
2. Creating my own map
I have been really inspired by the article I recently saw on Substack by Nadia Huq entitled “The Childless Woman Who Soared”, I’d recommend giving it a read, it’s a beautiful piece of writing. In summary, Nadia shares the idea that as childless women we don’t have a “map” in the way mothers do, so we need to create our own. This idea strongly resonated me, I’m a natural planner, and I am actively constructing my own map, with short and medium term projects and being curious about ideas of what new activities could nourish and excite me. For me, travel is a big part, as it gives scaffolding to my year; it creates my own milestones.I’m also going to explore creative activities, as I love colour and losing myself in creativity.
3. Connecting with other childless and childfree women
This year I have made a conscious effort to nurture friendships with women who don’t have children, whether that’s by choice or circumstance. I am lucky that I have a wide network of good friends, many of whom I have known for decades, and I have retained a close bond with them even though they are mothers and I am not. However, if I have many conversations about their children one meet-up after another, it can feel a bit much and excluding. Also, I often choose to avoid being in groups of women, as the common factor amongst women is invariably children, and it’s such an uncomfortable (at best) situation to be in.
But I digress! Consciously nurturing friendships with other women who don’t have children is enriching and a relief; it reminds me that I am not the only one living this type of life. I have also discovered interesting childless women to follow on Substack, although for me real-life connections nourish me more. I also enjoy hanging out with men, as they are not as child focused, and two of my closest friends are gay men who don’t have children.
So there you have it, this is the first article I have ever written about my experience of being childless. I hope it resonates and if one phrase or idea I have shared helps someone else then I am glad. I wish everyone well in their journey, whatever shape that takes.
