Gayle Letherby
I am a sociologist and I have been researching and writing about childlessness and nonmotherhood (nonparenthood) for 35 years. As a biologically childless not by choice woman myself my work has (inevitably) always been auto/biographical. I have never excluded myself from my work and my writing. Like Laurel Richardson (2001: 34) I believe that ‘writing is a method of discovery, a way of finding out about yourself and your world’ and that academics should ‘get personal’. Writing (like other creative outputs) as Richardson continues, situates us, not least in terms of our familial, social and societal connections and ties. In my own work I take this further and increasingly believe that writing is, for me at least, part of a 'politics of belonging' (Yuval-Davis 2006, Monbiot 2017) – who I am, what I value, where I stand, how I want to be viewed by others. As Sociologist / As Activist / As Political being / As Woman I attempt too (although being human I accept that I don't always succeed) to live by a ‘love ethic’. For bell hooks (2001: 87-88) a love ethic:
... presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well. To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives our society would have to embrace change.…
Earlier this year I was interviewed for The Other Words Project Gayle Letherby | Other Words. In response to the question: What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers. I replied:
I would like the publishing world, and indeed the world in general, to acknowledge that there are increasing numbers of people who live their lives differently; in ways that challenge the ‘expected’. Living without children in one’s daily life may happen through choice, sometimes not. For some non-parenthood is a constant challenge, for some a source of joy, and for others a complex mixture of pleasure and pain. At different times in our lives we likely feel differently about our status and experience as childless, childfree, non-parent, and this should not be treated with judgement, with censure. I want the stories of people like me to be recognised as complex, messy and valuable and for there to be interest in all aspects of our lives and our identities, beyond the reproductive and non/parental.
I have always been interested in finding different and accessible ways to tell ‘academic’ stories and for the last 15 years or so alongside, and within, my sociological work I have been writing memoir and fiction, much of which draws on my status and experience as nonmother and on other losses in my life. My, to my knowledge one and only pregnancy, ended in miscarriage at 16 weeks in the mid-1980s, my dad, Ron, died in 1979 when I was 20 years old, my second husband John in 2010 and my mum Dorothy in 2012, and my relationships with all of these loved ones feature in much of my non/academic writing. Like Sharon Blackie (2022: 148-149) I believe:
Our acts of creativity can help us, and show others the way, to transcend and transform our dysfunctional cultural narratives. Art, along with other creative pursuits, is more than just entertainment: it can represent an act of revelation, or of resistance. It harnesses our emotions and captures the imagination, and so helps us to see the world through a different lens, or to reimagine it in a different way. At its best, arts transcends borders and barriers and culturally imposed dogma.
And to this I’d add that writing is an emotional and an embodied experience that along with (hopefully) holding significance for readers, can be both cathartic and energising for the writer. It is so for me.
In September 2024 I was lucky to be able to attend Storyhouse Childless and was very moved by the celebration of the life of Benjamin Zephaniah. The session includes contributions from Jessica Hepburn, Yvonne John, Robert Nurden and Rod Silvers. After sharing personal reflections on the poet’s life they each read a poem of their own inspired by ‘Childless’(Zephaniah date unknown). The only expectation was that the poem must finish with the same two final lines as the original‘There must be a baby in there somewhere, There must be a baby in here’.
This event has inspired others to do similar, including World Childless Week Founder Stephanie Joy Phillips A Personal Reminder to Follow Your Own Truth — World Childless WeekStephanie Joy Phillips And me too. This is the first time I’ve shared my version:
Childless
Young and healthy
Childbearing hips
Open hearted
Full of care.
‘You’re a natural’
An ‘inevitable mother’
Two at least
That was the plan.
Once it happened
I’ll never forget, the
Short-lived joy
Ending in pain, so much pain.
Through body and circumstance
Never again, despite, despite…
There must be a baby in there somewhere
There must be a baby in here.
References
bell hooks (2001) All About Love: new visions New York: Harper Collins
Blackie, Sharon (2022) Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of LifeLondon: September Publishing
Monbiot, George (2017) Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis London: Verso Books
Richardson, Laurel (1994) ‘Writing: a method of inquiry’ in N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds.) A Handbook of Qualitative Research 1st Edition Thousand Oaks: Sage
Yuval-Davis, Nira (2006) ‘Belonging and the politics of belonging’ Patterns of Prejudice 40(3)
