As I sit here at my laptop thinking about what to write for World Childless Week 2020, I can’t help but look back to where I was only a few years ago, during the hardest part of my life yet. More importantly, I’m thinking about how far I’ve come since then.
I met my husband when we were both in our late 20s. He had three young children and a difficult ex-wife, and I was a perpetual singleton living in London, drinking a lot and living a typical city-girl life. We fell in love easily, and very soon I had moved half the span of the country to be with him.
We quickly decided we wanted a baby of our own—in our 30s by then, we knew time was not on our side. It wasn’t long before we realised something wasn’t working and sought help. Many doctors appointments later, we found out I was going through the menopause and that our chances of conceiving were slim-to-nil. We continued to try; of course we did, because, hope.
It didn’t work, and soon after we stopped trying we embarked upon a career in foster care. At the time, I had been working with children in a variety of jobs for over a decade and couldn’t imagine a life where children weren’t at the heart. My stepchildren were growing, and things with their mother were becoming increasingly difficult (to say the least), the stress of which exacerbated my pre-existing mental health conditions.
Having gone through the arduous and stressful recruitment process, we eventually fostered a 9-year-old boy with a plethora of needs, but thanks to my experience and social work training, we took this element of being foster carers in our stride. Sadly, the social care system in England is deeply flawed, and the lack of support—among other things— was eventually what broke me and led to our decision to stop after less than a year. I was in the darkest place I have ever been. Depression and anxiety can be a son of a bitch, and I was swallowed by them whole.
Wondering what to write next, I am filled with the urge to explain all the things we tried, all the roads we considered, what my relationship with my stepchildren is like. Maybe a year ago I would have included those details, but now, and with the support of my community of childless sisters, I don’t need to. So instead, I’ll jump forward a little, to the day I found my tribe.
I was searching online, as I often did, for help coming to terms with what life had thrown at me. I needed a purpose, a reason to live. Google always has the answers. That day, I found the website for Gateway Women, an online community of childless women. Women like me! I joined up and instantly felt as though I had arrived home after a long, tumultuous voyage. Through talking with other women who were childless not by choice, I realised I wasn’t alone.
By day, I worked (and still work) for a big corporation in a job I don’t love, having completely walked away from my career with children because it was too painful. By night, I built my ‘Plan B’—my life without a child. I started training to become a proofreader, and during my research found a website where I could get free books in exchange for honest reviews.
Reading has always been a passion of mine, ever since I was a child following the adventures of Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield in Sweet Valley High, or hiding under the covers from the Goosebumps monsters. The idea that somehow this passion could become more was so abstract that it took months for me to understand that maybe this had been the thing I needed all along, my old companion, books.
It wasn’t just a hobby; it grew and grew, and before I knew it I was writing a blog, had a website with my name on it, and even had a little following on social media. Who knew my opinions about books would be interesting to other people?
On Gateway Women there’s a Book Club and after speaking to Jody Day, the founder, I volunteered to host the group. I had started to notice that so many novels involved some kind of pregnancy or motherhood plot, and it frustrated me that this seemed to be the only way women could have meaningful lives in literature. I quickly learned that other childless women had been severely affected by this to the point where they had stopped reading altogether. This saddened me; books are a joy, a place to escape, lose yourself, forget the outside world for a little while. The idea that women like me had turned their backs on books because of the pro-natalist tropes within made me sick to my stomach. And I began working on the NoMo—Not Mothers—Book Club.
The NoMo Book Club is a growing online ‘library’ of childless-friendly novels and memoirs that women who are affected by pregnancy and motherhood triggers can read, safe in the knowledge that these things won’t blindside them. If there are some triggers, such as characters with children (not babies), women will be warned of these in advance so they can decide whether they’re ready. I’m currently working on a newsletter, read-a-longs and giveaways.
It’s early days, and I’m still finding my way around my new reality, but if you’d have told 2-year-ago me that I’d feel this undeniable passion for something that isn’t parenthood (or putting money in the bank) I’d have been appalled. I didn’t think it was possible. Recently, I’ve even started to consider one day adding to the frustratingly small pool of books that celebrate women like us by writing one myself. But that’s for another day; right now, I’m happy devouring books so that I can safely recommend them to women who might otherwise be too devastated to risk it.
It’s time women like us were celebrated in literature and not just portrayed as spinsters, witches or strange because of our childlessness. After all, isn’t being seen what we all really need sometimes?