How do you identify? Childless or childfree?

What does it mean?

Everything and nothing of course.

At the end of the day, I’m a human being who doesn’t have children.

There are dictionary definitions of what childless and childfree means but in the throes of grief I couldn’t give a damn about what to call myself.

That was the least of my problems; I just wanted help.

And that help was something that never presented itself to me in my 30s when I, in retrospect, was very much frustrated, upset with how my life just wasn’t turning out like I thought it was meant to. I didn’t know, I mean no idea, that what I was going through was disenfranchised grief. I would learn that term much later in fact. I spoke to a psychologist at the time in pursuit of IVF on my own and they didn’t identify my grief. My friends and my family had no idea (if they did nobody shared it with me) and for the most part were inadvertently adding to my pain by rewarding those around them who were in the family way.

I didn’t have anything tangible to grieve so I was best just to get on with it. Isn’t that what Generations “X” ‘s were told to do so often? That took a lot longer than it really needed to because I was blindly working my grief out in the thick of the bush while everyone else was rising above the thicket blooming in the sunshine above being admired by the world swirling past. I had to cut a few trees down and create my own new world like a pioneer in my own backyard.

If only society talked more about humans without children; that’s its perfectly acceptable to not have children; that mourning the loss of a life that doesn’t actually exist is a real thing; that everyone acknowledges that life’s big celebrations are all based around meeting someone and having children (which really leaves out a very big proportion of the population); perhaps we’d have more diversity in our celebrations, more joy and inclusivity at family events, more understanding all round.

If only society talked more about humans without children, I could have identified what was happening to me and sought out help and support so much earlier.

I did what I do best, I travelled A LOT, I met people, I gathered memories and stories, I shared my stories. Life was my therapy in the way I chose it to be.

I figured it out and moved on and I guarantee the last thing I would have called myself in the middle of all that turmoil was childless. In a world where I was my best advocate, calling myself anything “less” was not how I saw myself creating a mindset for success.

I couldn’t afford to identify as anything that held back my mental wellbeing.

I didn’t choose a label; I chose my wellbeing.

Fast forward a few years when I was found myself in a relationship, I felt was what I had been looking for, I had the unfortunate sadness of a miscarriage.

I learnt then that the world had labels for me, I could identify with people, I could speak out and be heard if I wanted to. I had an experience that was sad, but it was one that (while perhaps not from the rooftops) was being spoken about.

I could tangibly call myself childless by circumstance.

Now, wait, I know what you’re thinking. The community doesn’t think this, being childless not by choice covers all manner of pathways.

I rejoiced at having found my people but felt that intense frustration that I hadn’t been able to find these people a decade earlier because I was going through the mysteriously unspoken pain of not having children (when I thought I would) and everyone around me was. OK, not everybody but it felt like it. I was ecstatic at finding my people but equally as frustrated that we still weren’t talking that much about the bloody frustration of dealing with having no partner, no children, every exclusion, and no right to feel sorry for yourself.

I reiterate that the version of myself in my 30s cared “0” about a label, she just wanted the conversation to part of the general population, so she didn’t have to retreat from events because she was slowly having her voice stripped from them anyway.

I want more stories from people who’ve never had an opportunity to have children. Give me a cuppa and some time in your company and I’ll share with you my story and I’ll generously sprinkle it with anecdotes of feeling isolated, forgotten about, uncelebrated in the midst of wonderful adventures taken, challenges succeeded and meeting the people who helped let me see that I’m not only a childless woman, but I’m also so much more than that, I’m the technicolour jacket she wears with life’s tapestry of stories.

I don’t have children and it’s not been easy, but I’ll be damned if I want a childless label across my forehead.

I’ve got too much to do and far too many stories to share around the campfire to my younger cohort. By the sharing of stories and inserting our conversation into the world, that’s how we’ll make our difference.

I’m single and childless but that’s the least interesting thing about me.

Penelope Rabarts