In value within, blessings begin

Childlessness or not, my worth shines a lot

Tears well up inside my heart
For the dreams I cannot bare to part

As a young woman who went through her teenage years in the 1970s it was perfectly normal for your parents to expect you to be married and raising a family by your early to mid-twenties.

On a cold November day last year my journey to being a mother ended.  It just STOPPED.

Hi there, my name is Becky Townley. I’m approaching 60 (18th December, cards welcome!) and over the last 15 or so years I’ve been on a journey of making peace with not having had the biological family I always dreamt of and assumed I would have.

I believe personal worth or lack of it is defined by how a person utilizes what they have for the benefit or detriment of others. 

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.

This last year pictures inspired me to think about who I am one year after giving up hope to become a mum.

Turning to face your husband, you feel more miserable and ashamed than you have felt in months.

World Childless Week is a time to acknowledge the experiences, challenges, and unique perspectives of those who do not have children.

Jody and Helen have known each other for 11 years, and have both been involved with World Childless Week in different ways for some time.

Can I trust you?  I think I can. You look like a nice, friendly sort of reader. Come closer, so we’re not overheard.

Grief is messy. I befriend sadness, not as a yoke, but as wings and light.

The purpose of this video is to highlight the incredible diversity of people who identify as childless not by choice and to show how childlessness touches lives across every spectrum of our society.

I am unique, one of a kind: I'm a nature lover, a gardener, an adventurous cook, a history lover, a thinker, a dancer, a teacher, a hard worker, a wife, a pet lover, a seamstress, and a miriad of other things too numerous to count.

Hauntingly, the strewn pages are staring up at me. There is a mess in front of me, below in between my legs.

In the moments of absence, where hopeful dreams once glistened, long ago, A hollow echo lingers, a silent melody of what could have been.

I have found it helpful as I have moved forward through my childlessness (5th year), to think about the things that 'I am', rather the things 'I am not'.

When I came across the content of these lines in one of Viktor E. Frankl’s texts, I was really touched and relieved and empowered – all at the same time.

I am starting to tell others and myself that I live an alternative life.

I recently bought new bathroom towels, selected mainly because I love the colours.

Just in case it needs to be said directly:
Just because someone is childless does not mean that they do not like kids.

As I neared my mid to late 30s, I told myself that if I wasn’t married by the time I was forty I was going to kill myself.

One of the main ways I see the world, is from the point of view of a childless and single woman. I’m also ‘older’ (70) but not sure how relevant that is.

I don’t have the time, support or capacity to sit with grief like I have had, and I’m ok with it.

I am worthy

I have never married