I am at a point in my life where I am looking ahead to a life without a 'future family' of my own. I have no choice but to accept this; and like those who face unavoidable and inescapable challenges in life, I'm finding my way toward establishing an alternative sense of purpose and belonging. There are no easy words or remedies because childlessness is just the beginning. My childlessness grows with me throughout many landmarks in life as the rest of the world participates in all of society's lifelong norms. I'm childless, teenagerless, adultless, grandchildless and heirless.

The question is, where does that leave me and people like me? Humanity is based around a care for humans. Every single entity and communication assumes the future presence of humans. We are geared up to breed. Your life is not 'normal' if you don't have children; and I know many 'childless by choice' people who find the same. The statements 'I don't have children' and 'I can't have children' are often met with surprise or some consolatory comment aimed at trying to resolve your predicament. Tales of the distant couple who magically conceived after giving up on IVF offer the dream of a happy ending; or the 'well having children is not all it's cracked up to be' disclosure excuses your 'unusual' situation.

How do you address a childless person? Try dealing with the person in the room and not everyone or everything you've ever known around infertility. It's not just about babies. It's about life; a life without a future family.

Childless people will find friends through different communities and may have lots of hobbies; strange though some may seem to you, just support them in what they do.
Childless people don't get to teach their children anything and may use other channels to vent their lifelong wisdoms. Listen...
Childless people don't get feedback from anyone other than the adults around them and they may become very independent; appearing to be strong for everyone else all the time.
Childless people can still love and nurture as much as any parent. They don't have to have been through the act of giving or receiving birth to feel compassion or the need to protect.
Childless people may channel their compassion to other living things, like pets or charitable causes.
Childless people may spend a lot of time searching for purpose and filling up their time with as much as possible. They can be just as tired, stressed and time-poor as parents.

Childlessness in the workplace

We're starting a card and collection for 'colleague's new baby and we'll be holding a coffee morning to celebrate her new arrival. Do come along...

Sound familiar? ... Or baby-scan pics by email; print-outs of new arrivals by the photocopier; avatar baby pictures; covering for colleagues on maternity/paternity leave. Pregnant colleagues and baby-talk... Suck it up; sponge it up; lie down on the floor and take it all? What do you do?

A few months after my miscarriage (following IVF), my colleague brought his new baby in to work. They'd given her the same name that I was going to give my little one. I sat at my desk and sobbed... It still breaks my heart to think about it.

Workplace diversity training on childlessness is long overdue. If having children is such a fundamental part of human existance and most people's everyday life, then not being able to have children is equally significant; but we don't talk about it. Like sex in Victorian times and 'death' today, childlessness is an uncomfortable subject that we'd rather not broach. It's the private lament of the childless, granted; a stance that could easily excuse the world from ever having to deal with the topic as part of life, if we let it stay that way.

Starting a network at work

I'm in the preliminary stages of starting a 'Childless Not By Choice' (CNBC) network in my (educational) institution. I'd seen headline articles and advertisements for 'National Breastfeeding week' and 'Mindful Parenting' on the work intranet; and I contacted our Communications department to ask them to advertise 'World Childless Week'. The reply was negative(!). So I fought my corner arguing that the topic was just as, if not more relevant to colleagues in this vast institution than 'National Breastfeeding Week' and some of the other events being promoted (like the institution's brass band). I realised that I wouldn't get far without bringing our Human Resources department into the discussion; and I copied them into all of my correspondence, on equality and diversity grounds. Eventually I got both departments to talk to each other. World Childless Week is not just an event, it stands for a so far under-represented community that needs a voice.

Well once you get people talking, reason usually prevails; and it did in this case. I was contacted by staff welfare colleagues who offered to help me start a staff support network; and people from Comm's interested in writing an article for the intranet, on childlessness, and advertising World Childless Week. All brilliant stuff...

The next challenge came in 'placing' CNBC within the existing support network structure. It was suggested that I place CNBC as a subsiduary of the 'Womens network'(!)... You'll be happy to know that I declined this suggestion quite emphatically, arguing the case for men who cannot be fathers among many other lines of protest... No offence, but being sited under a 'matriarchal' structure is hardly an appropriate place for people who are finding and supporting those on a totally different path.

My next challenge will be the same as that faced by many childlessness support bodies; how to define the network... 'Childless Not By Choice'... 'Not by Choice' because there are so many reasons why people find themselves without children not necessarily by choice. The tricky issue will be who can join and who we would rather didn't join. Hard though the whole process is for those still 'trying to conceive', they probably wouldn't want to be faced with those of us whose fertility or life journey didn't involve the advent of children. No more do we want to hear the hopes of those for whom the door may still be open; but we wish them well. We may even sacrifice our own needs to make the hopeful feel better; because let's face it, we're all used to filling the void that most unhappy endings invoke in conversation, with some consolatory excusal or joke at our own expense.

No... This network has to be a safe place where members are among sympathetic voices and minds that understand only too well what it is to wake up in the morning and negotiate a reason to get out of bed. I hope that the network will become something really positive; an anchor for lost ships that find their way to it; for visitors however regular or not; a portal for other sources of information and help and/or a place to vent.

I'm going to log the process and all of my interactions with my workplace. How hard can this be? Once I have enough momentum, I'm hoping to gather evidence and ideas for workshops that will hopefully inform future diversity training strategy and become part of it.

Vonnie Raw

The above blog was first published on the Cogbeetle and you can read the original post here

The below image is called Spreading The Light and was created by Vonnie Raw.