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The Mother Within
A Guide To Accepting Your Childless Journey
by Christine J. Erickson
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Copyright
Kindle Publishing Package
Copyright © Christine J. Erickson, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-942646-19-8
DISCLAIMER
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email without permission in writing from the author.
Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretations of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.
Cover Design: John Matthews
Cover Art: Lissa Flemming & Annabel Humber
Editing: Sarah O'Leary
Author's photo courtesy of Yaqui M. Lara
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Dedication
To the Mother Within every woman who is learning to live with the unmet desire of having a child.
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Table Of Contents
Introduction 8
Guiding Terms 10
PART I: The Mother Within 11
Chapter 1: You are Part of a Growing Tribe 12
Statistical Overview 12Tribe 13The Mother Within 14Self 15Other 15The World And Your Environment 16
Chapter 2: Conscious Living Got You Here 17
Unpacking The Loss 18How I Got Here 19Doing The “Right” Thing 21Where Does Your Energy Live? 22Honoring Our Conscious Choices 23The Mother Within 24
PART II: The Value Of A Woman 25
Chapter 3: The Spaces Between 26
The Journey Of Acceptance 26Odd Woman Out 28Your Nuclear Family – More Unconscious Conversation 29Misguided Assumptions 31Your Intimate Partner 32The Things People Say 34Unsolicited Inquiry 35The Things People Do 36Getting Past Deserving 37The Mother Within 38
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Chapter 4: The Shame Game 40
The Spiral Of Shame 41The Mother Identity 42Exclusion Of Childless Women 45On Being A Whole Woman 46Feminism And Choice 47Bridging The Gap Between Childless Women And Mothers 48Conscious Listening 49The Mother Within 51
PART III: The Changing Village 52
Chapter 5: Teaching The Village 53
Culture And Consequence 54The Evolving Family Unit 55The Economics Of Childlessness 56Conscious Consumerism 59Changing Paradigms And A Call To Higher Consciousness 59The Mother Within 60
Chapter 6: The Mother Within Legacy 62
Your Journey 63The Mother Within 63The Tribe 63The Face Of Childlessness 64Leading A New Conversation 65Creating And Supporting Our Own Spaces 65How Do We Begin To Recognize Each Other? 67
Acknowledgements 69
About The Author 70
About Difference Press 71
Your Delicious Book 71Tackling The Technical End Of Publishing 71Ready to write your book? 72Other Books by Difference Press 73
Thank You 74
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Imagine a world where women’s acceptedand respected birthrightis to fully receive her own immensity,the tap root of her nature based cyclical flow,the fullness of her intuitive wisdom and knowing,the ocean of her emotional landscapeand her limitless capacityfor love, beauty, pleasure and creativity?
What could become possibleif we could give ourselves permissionto simply receive and embody who and what we really areas woman, and then bring ourselves forward, fully aliveinto the great turning towards balancethat is the calling of our time?
- Clare Dakin, Founder, treesisters.org
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Introduction
I wanted to be a mother. I assumed I would become a mother how and when it was
supposed to happen. Along with millions of other women, I believed that for the most part,
motherhood was a given, as long as I chose it.
Perhaps you did too, and you now find yourself trying to comprehend living the rest of
your life without realizing the dream of having a child. Whether the limitations of age and
fertility, indecision or other life circumstances closed this option for you, the scope of its impact
weighs heavily on your heart and mind. Whether you knew from childhood that you wanted to
have children, or came to this knowing in your adult life, the hole in your heart has caused you
to deeply reflect on your life choices.
Motherhood has eluded a growing number of us, for various reasons. Many of these
reasons are not fully understood or readily accepted. You too may be struggling to accept this
new life identity and the scope of unexpected emotional and social consequences that come
with it.
The expectation of having a child is a human assumption that lives at the core of our
collective existence. While there have always been women who do not have children, I am hard
pressed to think of a conversation in which being childless was openly discussed as an
intentional option. Nor did I hear many in terms of the limitations of fertility, illness, adoption
and intimate partners who do not want children. These perspectives were excluded in the
everyday life discourse and rituals that we learned as young women. Even today, we still speak
to young girls and women in terms of when, and not if, they will have children.
The culturally defined roles of women have traditionally produced negative social and
economic consequences for those who remain childless. Now we have expanded choices and
are living in a time when we are being called to a higher consciousness, yet these socio-
economic exclusions remain.
The childless women who are publicly acknowledged in a positive light are those women
whose individual legacy or fame has diffused the lack of cultural acceptance around
childlessness. These women are the exception.
I wrote this book to raise my voice against the backdrop of the often silent presence
lived by many childless women. I also wanted to contribute to and support the conversations of
women who are leading the efforts in educational awareness and community building for
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childless women. These leaders chose to speak out, share their experiences, and support us in
public and private ways. I am grateful for their courage.
For the purposes of this book, I define “childless women” as those women who wanted
to be mothers, and due to extenuating circumstances and conscientious choices, did not get the
opportunity. In the book, I make reference to “coming out” around sharing our stories as
childless women and being "outed" as much for the pervasive assertions and insistent questions
around not being a mother, as for our invisible wounds. My hunch is that you too have
experienced moments of being “outed” with respect to your childless status by someone, either
privately or in front of others.
We are diverse women with unique stories, who share a common connection. You may
live with a revolving well of emotions that dances between disbelief and acceptance of your
childlessness. Like so many of us, you may experience an ever changing heart space of grief,
wounding and re-wounding invoked by daily interactions and the celebrated or anticipated
milestones in your life and the lives of others.
One of the key misperceptions about us is that we are not maternal. While we have not
experienced physical motherhood through giving birth, adoption, or directly raising a child, I
assert that in each of us remains the Mother Within. This Mother Within is your maternal
essence that lives on.
She has held your deep desire to have a child. She has walked the long road of failed
natural conception and fertility treatments, of adoption processes and the heartache of a
seemingly uncompassionate partner who does not want to have a child. The Mother Within has
been with you on your conscious life path, while you made important life choices masked as
your indecision to have a child or not; and time marched on. She is with you now, as you grieve
your loss and when the ache or heart pang of witnessing a child in a simple moment takes your
breath away.
This book speaks to childlessness from the perspective of yourself, your relationships
and how you experience others to how you want to truly express yourself in the world. I invite
you to journey with me as you acknowledge your maternal self, come to terms with being
childless, and move forward to lead your best life. You will find ways to connect and learn from
other childless women, and to change your conversation for yourself and your relationships.
This book is for you. I honor the grief of your unrealized motherhood, and hold the
deepest empathy for the Mother Within you. She is truly a love story waiting to be shared.
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Guiding Terms
Childfree - Honoring one’s desire not to have a child.
Childless – One who wanted to have a child and due to extenuating circumstances and conscientious choices, did not get the opportunity. When I refer to your desire to have a child in this book, it is inferred that you may have wanted more than one child, even though it is not written.
Circumstantial Childlessness - Childlessness due to age, illness, infertility, mental or emotional wellbeing, financial or housing limitations, failed fertility treatment, adoption or surrogacy.
Conscious Childlessness - Choosing not to have a child for specific reasons, including a stance on overpopulation, or intentionally choosing not to bring a child into an unhealthy situation or negative circumstances.
Physical Infertility - Biological reasons for infertility or partner infertility.
Physical Mother - A woman raising a child as her own.
Relational Infertility - Having a partner who does not want to have a child, adopt a child, or pursue alternative ways of having a child.
Social Infertility - Not having a partner with whom to have a child.
Please note: These terms and circumstances are neither exhaustive nor do they represent the experiences of all childless women. They are provided only for the general context of this book.
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PART I: The Mother Within
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Chapter 1: You are Part of a Growing Tribe
“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”
- Jane Howard
We are women without children in a world that unquestionably prioritizes the role of
women as mothers over any other role a woman may live. We are women without children at a
time when our collective presence is increasing at an unprecedented rate. We are women
without children in at a time when the social priorities, economic assumptions and mainstream
projections around childless women are seriously misaligned with the truth of our journeys and
the essence of who we are. We are a growing tribe of women embracing many tribes among us.
Statistical Overview
This may surprise you, but according to 2012 US Census data, nearly half (47 percent) of
women of childbearing age (defined as ages 15-44) do not have children. For women between
the ages of 44-46 only this number is around 20 percent. The United Kingdom, Ireland and
Canada echo similar numbers, with 1 in 5 women being childless, and in Australia, the
percentage is even higher. The Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts that by 2031 the number
of childless couples will surpass those with children, making childless families the fastest
growing family type in that country.
You are not alone. There are millions of us. Millions. There are also millions of women
who are childfree by choice, women who are angel mothers whose children have passed or
were stillborn, women who have experienced miscarriages or abortions and women whose
children are missing or estranged. Many of the same social conversations, behavior and
language impact them emotionally, albeit in different ways.
I offer this statistical perspective to reflect the size of our presence and our demographic
importance, and to remind you that you are not alone on this journey. Even if statistics revealed
that only one percent of women are living without children, my sentiments would remain the
same in terms of alleviating judgment and exclusion, and honoring the journey of the Mother
Within.
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The number of childless women is changing around the world at different rates.
Childlessness can have extreme consequences depending on the prevailing cultural beliefs, and
religious and family practices. The status of childless women in a given culture is a key indicator
of how women are valued in that society, and therefore a concern for all women.
Tribe
Although the question of whether or not to raise a child appears to be straightforward,
it does not reflect the complexities of the paths we have traveled that ultimately did not lead to
motherhood. We have come to our losses through unique experiences that have merged at the
same crossroads.
Beyond numbers, what I do know is that there are countless ways that we all got here,
and that each story is unique amidst multilayered dynamics. I also know that we remain a
largely unrecognized population. Our voices have been quieted or silenced by the reactions and
projections of others and it is time to change the conversation.
We are part of a changing demographic of women that reflects conscious living through
expanded opportunities and greater independence. Many of us have found partners and
married later in life. We invested in self-development, and are engaged in work that we enjoy.
We live in an awareness that has created new values around intention and choice. As we
mature, the way we make choices and integrate our life experiences into decision making gives
way to increasing consideration of responsibility, and the moral and ethical impact on self and
other. Many of us have made choices to better our individual lives that we ultimately believed
would also contribute to being a better partner and an intentional mother.
Our unique paths also led some of us to choose to have a child at a more mature stage
of our life. The timing of this deferred decision has created a tribe of women who found
themselves very ready to have a child and unable to do so. We expected and assumed that
when we were ready, we would be able to have children.
There is great diversity in the reasons why we do not have children, and some of these
reasons are accepted in mainstream conversation, and others are not. Our individual situations
reach far beyond the decision to have a child or not. We have walked many avenues to this
shared and layered loss. Some have faced critical diagnoses and chronic disease or physical
infertility. Others have pursued long and exhaustive fertility treatments and failed adoption or
surrogacy processes. Many women have experienced social or partner infertility, and partners
who did not want a child or changed their mind. We also live in a time when we might choose
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conscious childlessness through in-depth consideration of the personal and environmental
circumstances of bringing a child into the world.
Regardless of your own position within this tribe, you and I both know there is much
more than a simple decision to the path of becoming childless. The questions we ask ourselves
and those that are asked of us often find common ground.
The realization that we will never have a child becomes akin to a closed door that
prevents access to what at some point in our life we came to believe was our destiny; a desire
that we experienced intensely and somatically. It is a door that leads to many other doors that
will never be personally opened. The reminder of your limited access appears in everyday
observations and transactions, at family gatherings and on every holiday and life milestone
experienced by those with children. It is triggered in the media and through the overt marketing
around pregnancy and motherhood. As we move through various life stages and experience an
age when our friends are becoming grandparents, we live out this perceived loss all over again.
The Mother Within
Given all of the pain, anger, guilt, shame and numbness that many of us have
experienced, it may feel like a true leap to honestly now embrace the Mother Within, who
reflects your maternal self. How is it possible to tap into a feeling and a knowing so real that you
cannot fathom it will not be? The somatic and emotional pangs of recognition that you feel
when you imagine having a child, or observe a pregnant woman, a baby or a child, feel nothing
less than real in that moment. How could this Mother Within have been so wrong? This
seemingly cruel joke of being denied physical motherhood is perhaps an opportunity for you to
become visible to what the world needs to notice.
As we move into acknowledgment that we will never have a child, and as grief and other
emotions shift over time, the Mother Within remains. When we do not acknowledge her, we
ultimately deny a beautiful, living part of us that has given us the strength to face the
challenging realities around wanting to become a mother and carried us through the pain and
grief.
You ache for the unlived experience of having a child, and all that you envisioned would
come about, and guide your life as a mother. In no way can I understate this pain or the hole
you feel in your heart. The desire remains because you are a mother. You are a mother without
a physical or living child. Your mother energy did not simply disappear the day you realized or
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accepted that you were not going to have a child. The light that connects with that desire is still
you and it does not have to be unrealized in every sense of your being.
As we begin to identify the Mother Within, we may at first feel an internal betrayal,
because we were so certain we would experience actual motherhood in this lifetime. We may
feel anger and sadness, because this Mother Within will never know the touch of her own child.
We grieve her profound loss and yet she herself is fully alive. She has been your guide and she is
an integral part of who you are and how you interact with the world. She is reflected in your
relationships and how you see the world.
It is no wonder that you may try to suppress the Mother Within when it becomes clear
that the dream of having a child is no longer an option. While it is natural to want to shut down
that part of us as a form of self-preservation, it is more painful to refuse the expression of such
an essential part of ourselves. The Mother Within remains a part of us and still informs our
choices and our world lens. She is the beauty that rises through the grief and reminds you of
that very special part of who you are today, and is a steadfast light to your maternal self.
I have written this book in three parts. In Part One (Self), I invite you to explore your
personal conversation around acknowledging your childlessness. In Part Two (Other), we begin
the dance of acceptance and learn how to cope with external perceptions of childlessness. In
Part Three (World), we explore how you can choose to express yourself and lead a new
conversation that influences the environment around you.
Self
Because we grieve alone, and live out some form of silence around our childlessness, it
does not always feel like a universal experience. The lack of acceptance of yourself is easily
reflected back to you through conversations with friends and family and even people you do not
know. Learning to acknowledge yourself as a childless woman and moving into acceptance is a
cyclical process that you experience over a lifetime. Bringing this process into the space of a
knowing tribe can make all the difference in how you live it.
Other
Today’s baby-mad society is hyper focused on the role of mother as the ultimate role of
a woman; a role without which we question the very meaning of our own lives. You may
experience anger and a sense of hopelessness as you attempt to heal your intimate maternal
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wounds. At the same time, these wounds are broken open time and again from the interactions
of everyday living and reminders of your childless state as you anticipate and celebrate different
achievements in your life.
Add to that, the media inundation from “babywood” (Hollywood on bump watch) to
“babygate” stories of the bizarre and abused, to miracle babies and women delivering at full
term without knowing they were pregnant. There really is no rest for the weary when your
somatic, emotional and soul energy is dialed into something that does not have an on and off
switch. The glorification of motherhood without the full and equal recognition of women
outside of this role, devalues us all, and serves no one, including future generations.
The World And Your Environment
There is an attitude of suspicion and negative judgment that is pervasively directed
toward childless women. How does this speak to our collective way of life and the ways in which
we are valuing the lives and contributions of millions of women? How does the “momification”
of women detract from the wholeness of all women? This could be seen as a collective denial
around our expanded choices as well as our limitations. It creates a very vulnerable space for
honest reflection at a time when we are being called to a higher consciousness and self-
actualization. Our collective responses to life create the state of the world and the ways in which
we prioritize and judge each other. There is no inequity in oneness.
Childlessness can be a grave reality to acknowledge, let alone accept. From it, you will
develop an internal lens that will take you on a path that requires deep self-compassion, as well
as the capacity to live in conscious response to others and the world around you. This is how you
can best lead your life beyond a place of loss. Let’s explore how we can do this together.
Reflective Questions
How comfortable do you feel speaking to the fact that you do not have children?
What is your relationship with your own Mother Within? How do you feel about her?
What support do you most want, given where you are in your process of acknowledging
your childlessness and the Mother Within?
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Chapter 2: Conscious Living Got You Here
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it
good. But really we just don't know.” - Pema Chödrön
One evening, while hosting a dinner party at my home, a guest whom I’d just met for
the first time “outed” me to a group of acquaintances gathered around my breakfast bar. She is
a mother with children from her previous marriage. Without any prior conversation on the
subject, she said, “So you are just like my fiancé. He never wanted kids either.” I was taken
aback at being seen as someone who did not want children. I replied, “I love kids. I chose not to
have them with my ex-husband because he was abusive.” My response was met with a blank
stare.
Social expectations, personal choice, unforeseen circumstances and the great cosmos
collide to create the life journeys that we dreamed of as well as those we never imagined or
wanted. Feminists have been working for decades to alleviate the pain of social expectations
and to create more personal choices.
The women who came before us fought hard-won battles that laid the foundation for
the expansion of our lives beyond traditional domestic roles. Because of this, we grew up during
a time of changing attitudes and greater choices for women. We had the opportunity to further
our education, travel and explore life through unique experiences. We became financially
independent through our professional work, and our lifestyles literally surpassed or became
extended versions of the ideologies with which we were raised.
Your self-awareness and experience of how things work in life and love developed and
transformed, and your worldview and values reflect the integration of your learning. As a result,
you may have waited until later in life to commit to an intimate partnership, or remained single
because you were choosing what was authentic for you. Contrary to what you may have been
accused of, you were not waiting for the “right” time to have a child (that perfection that never
comes), but for a time that was in alignment with your values. Aren’t we supposed to do better
when we know better? As time passed, inaction based on circumstances became a decision and
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yet it was never an intentional decision not to have a child. It was a series of integrated and
experiential life choices of a personal, professional, energetic and spiritual nature.
If you were not shouting your desire to have a child from the rooftops or posting cute
baby pictures on social media, you may have questioned your own commitment or truth around
actually wanting a child. If as a child you believed you did not want to have children or at any
time declared that you did not want a child and later changed your mind, others may question
how much you really wanted this. If you became exhausted from miscarriages, infertility
treatments or failed adoption processes and decided to bring closure to these efforts, you may
have questioned if you did enough. If you previously had an abortion when the circumstances of
your life were quite different, you may now feel that you do not deserve a child.
The gravity of the outcome of childlessness can lead to an interpretation of your life
process as indecision, not having done enough, or having made an unforgiveable choice.
Unfortunately this creates a deep layer of self-judgment. If you hold yourself to a painful
accountability or guilt around a past event, I am here to tell you that it is possible to free
yourself and live in the present. You do not have to take this journey alone.
In good faith, you made conscious and responsible choices about when and under what
circumstances you wanted have a child. Your resulting childlessness has torn away a core
element of your life vision. This often brings up strong feelings and difficult questions around the
concept of being deserving, who gets to be a mother, and the lack of fairness around having
made healthy or honest choices in your life.
Unpacking The Loss
As children, many of us believed that motherhood was a given – at some future date.
Others were quite clear based on their own observations or life goals that they did not want to
be mothers and as adults decided they wanted a child. We did not grow up with thoughts of
freezing our eggs and going to extreme medical measures, because we believed, or rather
assumed it would happen if and when we chose it. We had faith in timing; the timing of a loving
partner, the timing of resources, our health, and most certainly our fertility.
Your inherited values and childhood experiences laid the foundation for your vision of
motherhood, the assumption of becoming a mother or not, and all of the feelings in between.
Reflecting on what and who shaped your ideas, assumptions and desires around motherhood
gives insight as to the meaning you assigned to this early in your life. As you moved into
adulthood, the patterns that you intentionally retained or moved away from, and the influences
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you moved toward, further shaped your values and ideals around what it means to be a woman
as well as a mother.
The unexpected outcome of your childlessness may bring nearly everything you know
into question, from the choices that you made, to trusting your own intuition. How can
something that feels so real not be actualized? This outcome touches every part of your being
and presents a finality that appears to minimize the importance of your life journey itself,
forcing you to examine the meaning of your life outside of motherhood.
We have created ideals and pressures around women as mothers that have left many
women living motherhood as a deeply dominant identity. The truth is, all that any of us has, in
terms of identity, is how we live our own best lives. As childless women, we must learn to thrive
from the very essence of self-actualization, as there is no automatic social identity to live
behind, or to be accepted by and connected through.
Whatever has brought you to this point in your life, I am guessing that you have spent a
significant amount of time beating yourself up about things that you cannot change, either
because you had no control over them or because of the perception of indecision on your part.
The finality of childlessness, and the desire that still lives in us, creates vacillating thoughts
around “what ifs” that can be utterly exhausting.
How I Got Here
Growing up, I had younger cousins that I cared for and we fostered newborns in our
home. I was always distraught when the babies went back to their mothers or into another
family situation, as I missed them intensely. This experience, and my own role models and social
environment, made me realize the potential limitations of early motherhood and not knowing
yourself as a woman before having a child.
As an avid reader, I also developed a keen sense of exploration and travel, and wanting
to learn other cultures. I did not put a lot of energy into how or when I would become a mother.
I knew that I wanted an education and to learn who I was before I committed to a relationship
or having children. I also knew that I wanted to be able to financially support a child in a way
that allowed them to follow their passions and not be limited by resources.
Looking back, I can see that I made many choices out of an unconscious fear of
repeating familial or cultural patterns, and how these choices also came from my inner drive
around doing the right thing. I was a true Midwestern rules girl.
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I lived my early adult life without attachment to having to find a committed relationship
or having children. In retrospect, I believe that a part of me accepted the possibility that one or
neither of these may happen in my life and another part assumed they both would happen. I
also trusted that I would know when I had met the right partner and the timing that was best for
having a child. I knew that I did not want to be a woman who did not know herself, or deprived
herself only to then project that onto a child.
When I did get married, I clearly planned to have children, and did not do so early on in
the marriage as we were still creating a foundation both relationally and financially. I am
grateful for this decision, because as it turned out my spouse was not someone with whom I
wanted to have a child. I would have subjected that child to the abuses I experienced. Although I
consciously chose not to have a child with my ex-husband, and freed myself from that
relationship, I did not make that choice with the intent to never have a child.
However, in order to leave that relationship, I had to be willing to take the risk of being
childless. I also had to grieve the vision I had for my marriage and potential children and to live
with the uncertainty of what the future held.
The Mother Within me was a powerful force in this decision and it came from a place of
love for the children I had conceived in my heart. It was the Mother Within that helped me leave
my marriage. I knew that I could never expose a child to the abuse or the extreme pathology
that I had come to know in my spouse. It was my heartfelt thinking around having a child and
declaring that I would not have a child in that relationship that was the tipping point for me to
take action and to save my own life. The Mother Within gave me the courage to leave, and
clarity in my life.
When I filed for divorce, I naively believed that the process would take approximately six
months. It took nearly five years to obtain a formal divorce and several more years to sort out
legal matters. Through all of this I still believed that I had the possibility and time to have a
committed relationship and children. I trusted my inner listening and what was meant to be, and
I truly did not question it.
The years that followed left me saddled with extreme debt from the divorce and the
need to heal from trauma experienced in the relationship. This financial reality and my state of
health did not create a viable situation for a partnership or bringing a child into my life. I trusted
and lived in the present and in acknowledgement of my circumstances.
As I have said earlier, we each have our own reasons and stories that brought us to our
current state of childlessness. Our individual journeys are comprised of influences and
circumstances, both created and unforeseen that guide us to places we may not have
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envisioned. How we choose to acknowledge and respond to these life-defining outcomes is
perhaps the true journey.
Doing The “Right” Thing
Whether it was your choice to educate yourself, wait for the right partner, or to create
healthy circumstances in which to bring a child, you thought you were doing the right thing.
When this did not ultimately produce the expected outcome, you may have questioned your
own sense of knowing and what you trust. It is the attachment to this outcome that you grieve
and that may feel impossible to let go.
Your childless state is not because you did something wrong, and yet when you observe
so many women, in various circumstances, becoming mothers, it may be difficult to accept.
While human loss and disappointment follow a similar path of pain around expectations and
attachment to outcome, the permanence and finality of not having a child in this lifetime is an
ongoing challenge. Acknowledging the reality of not adding any branches to your family tree
requires the ultimate letting go of self in order to become one’s self.
The unrealized expectation of having a child, combined with the perceived loss of
identity as a mother, reflects the power of our stories and the ways in which we assess
ourselves, and the world around us. While it is foolish to believe that we control everything, our
expectations are heavily based on the way we were raised and what society values and
prioritizes at the time in which we are living. All of these external inputs influence our
interpretations of our circumstances and self-perception.
When alternatives to biological motherhood are out of reach, yet another layer of self-
judgment is added as you may pressure yourself around should-haves or your readiness or
willingness to engage in possibilities beyond biological motherhood. Yet, if that truly had been
your path, you would have chosen it, and because it was not, you made a soul decision.
We cannot for example assume that adoption is an accessible or desired option for
someone simply because they cannot have a biological child. Nor can we assess the choices of
childfree women and women who consciously choose not to have children as a collective
demographic. There is conscious choosing and owned responsibility in following a path that is
true for you. This is the energy of higher consciousness that is not always accepted and often
misunderstood.
Many of us are finding committed partnerships later in life or after the breakup of our
previous significant long-term relationships. Often, our partners already have children, and do
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not want more children, or perhaps they never wanted children. For those who are already
parents, it can seem as though that life event has been checked off of their list and they do not
want to revisit it. While this has nothing to do with you, it can be interpreted as rejection on so
many levels. It may feel like a rejection of you personally and as a woman, of the relationship,
and of the possibility of something deep and beautiful that could be shared only between the
two of you. And yet, how do we not honor such a significant choice by another?
It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my current partner’s choice not to
have a child with me. I met him at a time when I had accepted that I might not find another
relationship, and my connection with him reignited that deepest desire in me that I thought I
had temporarily quelled. While we had discussed the possibility of having a child, a few years
into the relationship and on the far edge of my fertility age-wise, he decided that he did not
want to have another child. His experiences and heartbreak with his existing children weighed
heavily in his decision. This left me feeling rejected for circumstances that I did not create and
behavior for which I was not responsible.
I was now in a position where I was in a long-term relationship and grieving what was
not to be with my partner as much as I was grieving the finality of not having a child. I wondered
if should I stay in the relationship. I was also up against the reality of age and the possibility of
not getting pregnant or being able to adopt if I chose to pursue motherhood on my own.
Such a decision by your partner can be devastating and may complicate your
relationship. It may create angst around the relational power dynamics, as the one who does
not want a child, naturally controls the ultimate decision. Additionally, the choice to stay in such
a relationship may be confusing to you and to those around you. You must make a decision
between not having a child or leaving what might be an otherwise loving and healthy
relationship, without any guarantee of having a child. You may live with lingering questions as to
why you were not more courageous or determined to have a child on your own, or why you did
not make the ultimate call in the relationship.
Where Does Your Energy Live?
The truth is that many of us are bogged down in our disappointment, anger and grief
around the constant reminders of what is not, what could have been and what will not be. The
definitiveness of knowing we will not have children both ends and redirects so many of our
expectations and assumptions.
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Whether we are in relationship or not, we spend much of our energy reflecting on past
decisions and future scenarios. At times, we regret intelligent and important choices that we
made, including those decisions around expanding our lives and our learning to become
conscious individuals. We question ourselves, and our friends and families question our choices.
The belief that motherhood is a path to fully actualizing one’s womanhood reflects what is
culturally paramount to social acceptance and perceived normalcy.
You are always aware of what you are missing out on by not having a child, and are
constantly reminded of what this may mean for your future. You may spend much of your
energy in future-based thoughts, in response your grief and the path you will not live, as well as
in fear, because of social systems that preferentially benefit women who marry and have
children.
For example, many of us live with fear and trepidation because we will not have the
automatic possibility of someone to care for us as we age. There is an underlying societal
assumption that the family unit will lead to intergenerational care. However, the fear of aging
without children is based on a false perception. The truth is, we have the opportunity to shape
our future and to create something new that serves us. There are many people with children
who end up without someone to care for them, as their children are unwilling or unable to do
so. This is a larger issue around aging that needs to be addressed at a societal level. Vocalizing
our needs as childless women can contribute to the larger conversation and potentially
favorable outcomes.
The energy spent in assessing past actions and circumstances, while projecting future
circumstances steeped in scarcity and loss, depletes what is available for your everyday living in
the present. Being blocked or simply exhausted by these vacillating thoughts does not leave
much space to do what you love or to create feelings of connection and joy that are different
from having a child, yet are vital to your wellbeing and continued growth.
Honoring Our Conscious Choices
Our greatest pain is in resisting what is and chasing what is not. How do we honor our
choices so that we can acknowledge our childlessness in a new way? We can start by assessing
what was in our control and what was not. For some of us, this answer may be more clear as it
relates to illness, infertility, failed adoption or surrogacy. For many of us who live in the
seemingly indecisive or gray area of reaching an age in which fertility may be severely limited, it
is vital that we own our choices and grieve the lost opportunity to have a child, releasing any
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self-blame. I invite you to step back and assess how you have benefited from your life choices
and how they contributed to the woman you are today.
We must also honor the choices that are not so easily understood by others, such as not
choosing to adopt. There is an assumption that anyone who cannot be a biological mother is
prepared to become an adoptive mother. This is simply not true. From financial and housing
requirements, to being psychologically ready and willing, to having a partner who also wants to
adopt, many women do not find adoption to be a viable option. When you make such a difficult
and life defining choice, it must come from a place of love that is greater than an egoic or social
decision to have a child for reasons that do not primarily serve the life of the child or are clearly
out of alignment with your values. You chose conscious childlessness.
Acknowledging The Mother Within
The Mother Within grieves and she has longed for a child, yet above all she is
compassionate and loving. She is also aligned with your authentic choices. It is the Mother
Within me who chose not to have a child with darkness. Surely it is a mother energy that
connects your yearning to have a child so deeply that you chose to lead a healthy life, and to
make difficult choices that you knew were best for you. You may have exhausted your resources
or consciously sacrificed the experience of motherhood to spare bringing another life into pre-
existing circumstances of suffering.
While you grieve the loss of not having a child, the Mother Within lives on in who you
are and who you choose to become. She influences who you are and how you live and relate in
the world. She is your maternal way of being. Can you feel her? She has been guiding you all
along, in collaboration with the woman you are. How does she show up in who you are today?
In acknowledging her, you can begin to create new possibilities toward accepting your life as it is
right now.
Reflective questions
How did your childhood influences shape your idea of motherhood?
In what ways did this change (or not) in your adult life? To what do you attribute this?
What are three things about you from each of these times of your life that you would not
change?
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PART II: The Value Of A Woman
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Chapter 3: The Spaces Between
Before you speak, let your words go through three gatesAt the first gate ask, “Is it true?”
At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?”At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?”
- Sufi Saying
One of my early experiences of being called out as a childless woman happened when I still fully believed I would have children. My grandparents had shared their concern with other family members about my having children with my then husband, due to our mixed racial identities. However, when it became evident that we were not going to have children right away, the concern about me not having a child at all took precedence.
I became aware of this shift quite by surprise while attending a family gathering. A group of us were seated outside when my grandfather turned to me and burst out, “So you can’t have children or what?!” After an awkward silence, I scrambled to diffuse the attention with a light comment, yet inside I wanted to flee.
I felt exposed somehow, even though I was not hiding anything, and I can still feel the shame of watching the expectant faces of family waiting for a more telling response. No one said anything in the awkwardness of those moments, nor did they bring up the subject later. They already assumed I was on course to enter the taboo portal of childlessness, without any consideration for my stated desire to have children.
The Journey Of Acceptance
The spaces between our grief and sadness, our not knowing and acknowledging that we will not have a child, are filled with everyday reminders that can weigh on our hearts. Daily interactions with those we know and love and with strangers can evoke waves of emotion for the Mother Within. It is the rare day that does not provide a reminder of babies and children, mothers and pregnancy, rituals and celebrations to which we are not privy.
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Our natural responses are physical and emotional, experienced and envisioned, and can emerge at any time. This happens not because we cannot control our emotions but because it is a connection that touches the depths of our being. It connects us with our oneness and touches us at a soul level. Whether we are engaging with children, observing others with their children or watching a movie, reading or seeing other media, we connect with the essence of the touch, the emotion, the possibility, the beauty and the presence of the mother-child exchange. We also connect with our pain through the unconscious comments or behavior of others.
There are days that I wish I could remove the antennae I have acquired which tunes in to sound bytes that I could easily live without. Without trying, I hear a stream of conversations that remind me of what remains unseen in my life, and that with which others do not easily empathize. It is frequent, and I never have to go far to witness or experience unwanted energy and conversation around childless women. Several of the examples I share in this book took place within the span of the last week or month.
When unexpected or overheard conversations do happen, there is often nowhere to go. Recently, I was on a flight on a small plane, securely buckled in when the flight attendants gathered near my seat to coo over, and discuss at length, a 7-week old baby girl. They took turns loudly expressing how she made them want to have another baby. While they were doing nothing wrong per se, it is part of that hidden world lived by millions of women who endure the silence of childlessness in one form or another. Bound by my seat belt and a metal cart blocking my exit, I had to wait out the long and tender conversation.
Living as a childless woman is a journey of acceptance and re-acceptance. While the grief changes in terms of the heaviness and frequency, it is re-lived many times in different ways. Everyday experiences, from grocery store mundane to celebrated life events, invoke clear images and questions about how you would have mothered and how you do mother without a child. It may be well-intended comments from others about what a wonderful mother you would have been. When this comes from one’s own mother, or someone close to us, it can be heart wrenching as it is often delivered from a place of pity. From an insensitive comment to forced conversation about babies, to the pregnant belly whose path you may cross, all emerge as reminders of your grief, even when it might not have been in the forefront of your mind that day.
Many of these experiences we keep to ourselves. We do not share them, we try to control them or we remove ourselves from a given situation in order to manage our
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emotions. The concentration of these experiences naturally can lead to isolation, depression and limited social interactions to protect our hearts.
I think that we become skilled at managing ourselves in silent suffering and build walls of protection, even among ourselves. When I first considered writing this book, it occurred to me that I know several women who are either likely or certainly childless, and we have never spoken of it. Given the sensitive dynamics, often accompanied by shame and social discomfort, this is understandable. The very specific lens from which we live, regardless of our own pathway to this place, makes our connection seem an obvious solace amidst the predominant culture of motherhood. I also understand that our silence is a way to mitigate unwanted attention and the potential re-opening of wounds. I honestly do not think about motherhood as a primary filter when I meet other women, but I nearly always experience this immediate filtering from just about anyone I meet, and particularly mothers.
I am curious as to why we do not reach out to each other more often, and how we can change that. At the same time, I acknowledge the sensitivity of this life situation and that one factor neither fully identifies us as women nor does it assume a continued relationship. However, in my experience, childlessness carries with it a unique grief and when you feel seen by someone who has had to face the same life outcome, it can feel like breathing again. Like pieces of you that you thought were shattered are somehow coming back together.
Odd Woman Out
I have sat with my pain and grief and assessed what not having a child means for my life, and I do not experience myself as awkward, strange or less than, based on my childlessness. However, as I became more social after my prolonged divorce and subsequent relocation, it was difficult not to feel pain at the regular comments I received from other women. They took me by surprise and I was not prepared to respond in a way that served me well. I most often responded with something that made them feel more comfortable, or gave them what they were looking for, so that I could shift the topic and end the conversation. You may know this feeling all too well. While still challenged to fully accept your life circumstances, you may have been “outed” or dragged into awkward and invasive conversations and inquiry on a most intimate level.
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One of the more blatant experiences I had of being called out as a childless woman was with a group of women I had known socially for some time. We were seated around a table at a friend’s home, and one of the women, who has three wonderful children, began to tell her latest stories about them. Each time before she began to share, she would turn and look in my direction and say, “Christine, you wouldn’t understand this but…” She would then face back to the other women and proceed with her story.
Every time it happened, I had no response other than a forced smile because if I opened by mouth I would have burst into tears. I eventually got up and told my partner I wanted to leave, as I did not want to get emotional in front of the group. Looking back, of course I wish I had had something witty to say, but in truth, I wish I had cried. I wish I had been honest and told her that her comments hurt and that she has no idea what I might relate to and not.
These stories about her children were actually reflections of human experiences, the actors who happen to be her children. They were not poignant stories to be understood only by a mother, nor were they intimate childbirth moments. In addition, I had spent time with her children and knew them. I was not clueless about what she was saying. I am the first to acknowledge what I do not know, particularly as it pertains to a mother’s insight and choices around her own child. What was clear was that she did not know me.
Your Nuclear Family – More Unconscious Conversation
The loss we feel from not having a child extends well beyond the envisioned mother-child relationship to a shift in our social spaces, our nuclear family roles, and relationships in our professional environments. The more interactions we have, the more navigation there is around family occasions and friends’ and family celebrations, holidays and special dates, work related conversations, and meeting new people.
Perhaps our most intimate place of experiencing childlessness is among our immediate family. The experiences of our childhood families influenced many of our life choices both consciously and unconsciously. What we moved toward and away from as adults, reflects our true selves as well as the imprint of our early life experiences. As such, regardless of our past or current familial relationships, there remains in intimate
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space for family within us whether is it truly loving and connected, aching for approval or desiring a serious shift in behavior for healthier interactions.
I always thought I was close to my family and that they knew me, until I lived some of the more painful parts of my life to which they could not relate, and through which they did not have the capacity to support me. From a family perspective, I have felt alone and I have not been mothered through the process of my grief around not having a child. It has been a relatively unspoken conversation until recently.
For all of my adult life, when I have wanted to spend time with my family during a celebrated holiday, I had to travel to their homes. This has never been reciprocated. I enjoy the holidays because I love to create the feeling of family, caretaking and giving. For years I have wanted to share this with my family in my own home. After years of inviting them to visit and holding a lot of hurt around the matter, I knew that I needed to change the conversation and find some closure for myself.
I made a final request to my mother to visit on one of the major holidays of her choice (or anytime, of course), a couple of years ago. When her non-committal response ensued, I finally pushed the issue. In response, her exact words were, “Well, it would be different if you had children.”
This shifted my sense of connection with her, and left me feeling less-than as a woman and a daughter. If I am not enough, or my family relationship with my partner is not enough, then how am I being valued? It is this question more than any other that is at the heart of childlessness. What is the meaning of my life and how do I create that unmet connection and create experiences that having a child assumes? How do I reconcile begin devalued around something that will not change?
As with most suffering in life, I had to shift my story about my mother and examine what I was seeking. I was actually holding her to ideals and definitions of being a mother that reflect who I am maternally, and what I need, as opposed to who she is as a mother. In doing so, I was also ignoring her as a whole woman and focusing only on who I believed she was or was not as a mother. It was my projection and judgment that was causing me pain.
The desire to be right about a given situation tends to block our perspective and we shackle ourselves to no other possibility. While I hope that your relationship with or experience of your own mother and being supported on your childless journey is a positive one, please know that if it is not, there is always a space for healing and letting go, if you choose it.
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Misguided Assumptions
You may have wonderful family support, and you may have faced uncomfortable family situations that play out in ways that you never imagined you would have to think about due to your childlessness. In some family relationships, assumptions about childlessness are rolled into other decisions that are made for us without consultation.
I experienced this when my father spoke to me about his will. While his life end choices are not my business, the way in which I was being defined needed to be addressed. My father has never asked me whether or not I was going to have a child, or if I even wanted one. And I don’t recall every speaking of it to him directly. Yet, during this conversation, I learned that he decided on his own that motherhood was not going to happen for me and what that meant. Based on this, he began to consider how to distribute his property between my brother and me. What was interesting is that my brother’s son was considered as an equal in this projected distribution.
Further, he told me he planned to attach a caveat to any property I would inherit such that if I choose to sell or give the property to someone, or if I were to die, that I must leave the property to my brother or his son, to “keep it in the family.”
Not only did he seem to feel that my partner does not count as family, he assumed that I would not naturally choose my brother or nephew as heirs on my own accord. Because my brother has a child he is not held to the same conditions regarding the property he stands to acquire. Beyond this, my father assumes that my brother will never get divorced, die before his wife, or a host of other things that would actually leave the property to my brother’s wife or her children from a previous marriage, and not necessarily my nephew. My brother, his wife or my nephew may decide to sell the property. I have found that this is not an atypical blind spot for parents and families of childless women.
The assumptions of who people are and how they will behave because they have children are just that – assumptions. But they get a pass because of it that often makes no sense and clearly discriminates against those without children. There is an assumed level of conscious action that may or may not be true for anyone with children. Further, it defines family on behalf of childless women. Just because we don’t have children does not mean that we do not have families.
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I have spoken with several women who because of their childlessness have been put in sensitive family situations, including being made trustees of their family estates. It is assumed that they will desire the role of distributing the estate to siblings with children or to the children themselves. The blind spot is that they are seen as not having a vested interested merely because they do not have children. Without clear permission and acceptance by the childless woman, this is insensitive at best.
This adds to the prevailing perception of childless women that we have all of the time and resources we could possibly want. I’m sure you have never heard this one before, right? Having children seems to be a financial entitlement, from government payouts to family spending. It is curious to me where we fall in this spectrum of assumptions around our current and future needs, to say nothing of equitable treatment.
We can make a difference for ourselves and in our relationships by being open about how we feel and refusing to tolerate what is not working for us. Clear boundaries around how we want to be treated are an important gift – to ourselves and also to others. We are often challenged to learn how to redefine our boundaries to meet current situations and to respect our own boundaries.
The situation with my father challenged me to have an honest conversation with him about how I felt. He was not trying to hurt me; he was just assessing things through his own lens. I was very clear about how I wanted to be treated and my interpretations of the situation. The discussions were not half as hard as experiencing my emotional response to his actions and my own self-talk before I gathered the courage to initiate the conversation. It was uncomfortable to talk about it, but it was not painful. This is a key distinction that often holds people back in speaking their truth about what is not working for them.
Your Intimate Partner
Whether your partner does not want children after having other children, or if she or he never wanted to have a child, you may feel a sense of inequity and perhaps a lack of compassion. The polarity of your choices as a couple can be devastating. The partners who do not want a child, or have already had the experience of parenthood, seem to interpret the finality of their choice as an indication that you too will stop having strong feelings around having a child. However, we know this is a lifelong
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yearning that we manage in different ways at different times in our life, but does it ever really go away?
Partners may become resistant to us sharing our feelings that have any hint of maternal longing or reflective conversation. It can feel cold and unfeeling to experience a common response from partners or others, often with a roll of the eyes or an energetic dismissal, “Is this the baby thing again?”
Our partners may never know how their connection with or a simple gesture toward a child, such as the touch of their hand on the head of a passing child, can pull at something so maternal and beautifully disturbing at the same time, given the holes that remain in our hearts. Just because they do not want to have a child does not necessarily mean that they do not love children. This is a sensitive emotional space to reconcile.
In my experience, it has also been a pattern for anyone in our social circle who asks about whether or not my partner and I are going to have a child, to inevitably direct this question to me. It can still be difficult at times to share the truth, particularly when it was not my decision to not have a child together, particularly in response to unsolicited conversation around a private matter. I have gotten much better at not buying into obligation or appeasement when asked such questions. And often, my response is still followed by “I am sure he will understand,” as though the person believes he will change his mind, undermining the reality of the situation.
I used to think it was a matter of being honest or not, and now I believe it is a matter of boundaries. If the person is someone with whom I feel comfortable, or a situation in which it is an accepting or truly curious conversation, I have no problem owning my truth, and it feels different. I remain more open. When I start to feel anxious or want to talk my way out of the conversation when asked, it is not my place to share my personal life with that person. Boundaries are brilliant learning tools for both the one setting them and those in a position to respond to them.
On my part, I put a lot of energy into what I believed my partner was denying me. I felt challenged around not feeling like a desirable woman, or that my yearning for a child with him was unimportant. There are still days that I feel this, even though I know it is not his truth. When I shifted to unraveling his choice from my own, I had to have daily conversations with myself to process that fact that in choosing this relationship I was choosing to remain childless. I also had to face the reality that I had no guarantee of having a child outside of the relationship. At times it still feels surreal and sad, and yet I now spend less and less time in those painful thoughts. Instead, I try to
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choose what is best and true for my life within my given capacity on a daily basis and practice staying in the present as much as possible.
The Things People Say
Comments and responses from others who offer simple answers to complex realities further divide our places of support. I am sure that you have been offered many solutions to your situation. These offers generally range from trying to advocate spending time with children as a replacement for not being a mother to suggestions that others seem to believe you have not already thoroughly considered.
Adopting a child is one of the most common suggestions. Yes, adoption is an option for some. When adoption does work out, it can be a beautiful and lifelong fulfillment of that desire to become a mother. However, as you may already know, in the US and many Western countries you must leap through several hurdles to qualify as an adoptive parent. You need to be emotionally and financially prepared, and in the majority of cases, have a legal partner who is also on board and to whom you have been married for a required time. You need to have the appropriate home and finances along with a vast range of requirements that biological parenthood does not require, and then you need to be prepared for the unknown waiting period to be matched with a child. Most importantly, you need to be prepared for the biological mother to change her mind. Adoption is not just a cerebral decision, as others would love to believe, and volunteering or spending time with other children does not replace the unmet connection of having a child.
The amount of resources that childless women have poured into their desire to become a mother is unfathomable even to me, from financial resources to emotional energy. And yet, there is often a serious void of compassion and more of a cold energy toward childless women. This is often accompanied by an assessment that we really did not try hard enough to have a child.
The other day, I was getting my hair cut, when a conversation took place between a client and a stylist that went something like this:
Client: [after a lengthy sharing of her luxury vacation experiences abroad with her husband and children] “So I ran into Maria the other day, and she was buying an $800 wallet. Can you believe that? She was shopping for a
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trip she is taking. What I could do with $800. I could literally feed my family for months.”
Stylist: “She is just living a different time in her life.”
Client: “Well, what else does she have, really? Nothing, without kids.”
Stylist: “Yeah, that is true.”
Whether Maria is childless or childfree matters not, the tone of assessment was clear.
My hunch is that you too have heard at least once how lucky you are not to have children. I truly felt that I made a conscious choice around not having a child with my ex-husband, and yet the feeling of loss remained and the response from others did not leave much to hold on to in terms of honoring this decision. There was no reward or acknowledgement around this choice. Instead I was met time and again with comments to the fact of how lucky I am not to have children.
It is a very curious response to me, as it is often followed by a story or comment by the other woman that her children are her life or a declaration about how she only got through a similar situation because of her children. Women who have been honest with me about their less glamorous experiences with their children have told me that motherhood is something they are grateful for and yet if they knew what they know now, they would not necessarily choose again. However, in the social sphere, being a mother and grandmother take precedent over any conversation or sharing of themselves.
Unsolicited Inquiry
The intimacy and sensitivity of the question of whether or not you have children has been bypassed through social expectation. “Do you have kids?” “So you don’t have any kids…?” “So you never wanted kids?” “So you don’t like kids?” Whether they are presented as questions or assertions, the feeling is the same. Often questions like this are asked in front of other people.
You do not owe anyone your story or an explanation of why you do not have a child. This is again where boundaries come in. What you choose to share with someone hopefully reflects your own readiness and choice to share on your terms, and your level of trust in the other person. When complete strangers assume that they have access,
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and often entitlement to such information, this is one way in which we lose a common space for bridging a better understanding of childless women and how we relate to each other, particularly as women.
I truly believe that if we create a more open space of sharing that is accessible to parents as well as other childless women, we can not only empower ourselves, we may influence the misconceptions about who we are and the resulting social divisions. Many of us still struggle with accepting our childlessness and understandably are not keen on discussing it at length or in vulnerable situations. Those who have spoken out on behalf of the tribe have done so at times when they often stood alone in a public sense. We are supported by these women and championed by their work, and yet we are still not visible in a way that reflects our collective presence and power. I believe we can change this, and I will offer some suggestions as to how to take small actions toward this at the end of the book.
Much of our silence may come from coping with everyday conversation that is invasive at best. However, we also have the opportunity to influence our relationships and communications from the inside out.
Genuine curiosity about another person does not carry assumptions. When we are curious we are aware that any preconceived notions or perceptions of someone may or may not be true. Further, we allow the exchange to develop on the basis of trust and energetic flow and connection. We cannot build this by forcing our way into each other’s intimate stories or by having them forced upon us.
In the next chapter, we will look at how we can better engage both conscious listening and response to better manage our communication and boundaries. Facilitated group discussions with the tribe will also help build this communication and awareness as it relates to our social interactions.
The Things People Do
Birth and the process of gestation have long been used as an analogy for transformative learning and a metaphor in self-actualization processes. While I can accept this to a certain degree, it is fast becoming an overused way of expressing a process that may exclude or lack sensitivity to millions of women. When this analogy is taken to the point of figuratively suggesting that stillbirths are the same as unrealized dreams, for example, the social tone deafness is evident. This speaks not only to
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childless women, but also to the millions of childfree women and women who have lost their babies or children.
Alongside this come assertions around the behavior associated with motherhood that is stated in such a way that is deemed absolute for all women who are mothers. While the ideal of this is beautiful on some level and perhaps true for many, the message to those who do not have this experience of their own mothers or motherhood can trigger a feeling of exclusion. The Internet and Facebook are notorious places for sharing these messages that may open old wounds. Even great authors have written in absolute terms about mothers in this idealic way:
“The mother is everything-she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly." - Kahlil Gibran
Some of the best products for learning and healing that I have purchased, including meditations and other sound healings, include the facilitator instructing you to imagine a mother’s heartbeat or envision your children or grandchildren playing. They use these and other definitive images and feelings, assuming that you are a mother, that you have a positive relationship with your own mother, or that your heart as a childless woman somehow beats differently. The irony is that the intended relaxation and healing may be lost or even create an adverse response for millions of women.
I share these examples not as a means by which to judge how others express their work, but as a call to greater awareness. Nor do I share this as a means of political correctness, but an opportunity for inclusion and empathy.
Getting Past Deserving
Being a childless woman can provoke extreme angst around the fear of missing out. It is a lifestyle that pre-defines what we will not have now or in the future. The extensive familial and social mapping of life experiences and events to which we do not have a direct connection to can seem endless. The spiraling thought process of compare and despair becomes a constant hole out of which to dig ourselves.
When we move into comparison mode, we also enter a no win zone, where we begin to assess who deserves to have a child and not. We may assess ourselves as being deserving for all that we have put in to trying to have a child, and for “doing the right
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things.” This is culturally amplified in that while childless women are often treated as a taboo social element, at the same time it appears to be taboo to speak about unconscious procreation and parenting.
The circumstances by which one brings a child into the world or what is offered to that child once they are here can create an irreconcilable feeling when observed by a childless woman. The definition of mother and the carte blanche glorification and attention she is given, regardless of her behavior or responsibility around her child, is a sensitive issue. We will look at this more when we discuss things from a social and worldview.
Identifying The Mother Within
I want you to know the Mother Within you, and who you are because of her. If we ourselves are living in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” exchange amongst ourselves, how will we change our conversation with others? We must support each other by positively identifying as childless women.
We need to create a more open exchange and environment for ourselves, and our relationships. How do we stop allowing ourselves, and our identities as childless women to be defined by others? By speaking out and sharing our experiences, we can influence and contribute to our immediate family and social environments in a way that allows for missing conversations and honest exchange.
How do we hold compassion for the Mother Within and own the lens through which we experience the everyday sensitivities? How do we hold compassion for others? If we want to change the conversation with others, we need to engage in conscious listening. The change will not come in teaching others the “right” things to say and not say. It is about learning who they are by listening and creating a safe space for them to share themselves. This works both ways.
The degree to which we can accept ourselves as childless women directly reflects how well we can accept our collective tribe, and how we will interact in a more vulnerably productive way with others.
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Reflective Questions
How do you respond to uninvited inquiry about not having a child? Do you share your truth? Do you ignore it? Do you appease the person asking? What would you most like to change about your way of communicating in these situations?
Where in your life have you crossed a personal boundary by allowing others to treat you in a way that does not work for you? I invite you to recommit to that boundary and practice maintaining it for one week starting today.
In what close relationship are you feeling judged around your childlessness? In what ways are you judging that person? What is the missing conversation that needs to happen?
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Chapter 4: The Shame Game
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
- Maya Angelou
When Patricia Arquette called for equal pay for women in her recent Oscar acceptance speech, many women cheered, and I could not agree more. However, the language that she used to express this very passionate request and her after-show comments created quite a stir. Many women voiced concerns on behalf of the diverse lives of women who felt misrepresented or not represented at all. Childless women were among them.
In her speech she stated, “To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights. It's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America."
Many childless women interpreted this as clear exclusion, and as superiority being assigned to women who have given birth. The assertion that birth mothers have fought for everyone else’s rights also leads to an interpretation that all other women have achieved their equal rights, and this is the last issue standing. From childlessness, to sexual orientation and race issues, to name a few key rights issues, we still have work to do to achieve full equal rights for women. Although well-meaning, Arquette’s words, spoken on a stage with extensive reach, exuded a sense of preferential entitlement.
As the dismantling of her message continued throughout the following days, I felt compelled to leave the main conversation as I observed the full circle of attacks that ensued. The collective energy went from supporting a message of equal rights regarding pay to picking apart what the speech did and did not express, in its entirety. I was struck by the ease with which Arquette’s one step into the arena was discredited, and largely by women.
In the end, we are left with little to stand on. Do we not have the right to express our own experience and through a lens that is personally familiar? If we hold one woman accountable to represent all women, where does that get us?
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This made me question our role as women in diminishing our own value and to wonder what boundaries we allow to be crossed, including inequitable pay. I find this scenario analogous to the social battleground that is motherhood and how we allow and create division among ourselves as women.
The Spiral Of Shame
If we discredit or shame away the issues, or any approach to the issues that make us uncomfortable, the focus on the matter at hand gets lost and the collective energy for change dissipates. This has been a long played political and patriarchal strategy. In what ways do we buy into this and sustain it as women, when it does not serve us?
When I shared that I was going to write about being childless with some of the women in my life, many responded with stories of their experiences as mothers. I was struck by the active shame spiral that we live in as women. This propelled me to write this chapter, and explore how we might better bridge our worlds within the social and cultural space we share as women. While our experiences are not the same, there is experiential and emotional common ground on which we all seem to stand at one life moment or another, all related to our choices and circumstances around motherhood.
Mothers and non-mothers live with parallel pressures and projections in more ways than we do not, and we suffer in similar ways albeit in different social and familial circumstances. We live in a world that proclaims definitive ways of being for women, and everything around us reinforces this, including the way we treat each other. In our quest to be accepted, we tend toward following the expectations of the norm without stopping to consider what we are actually doing and why.
We have allowed the framework of good versus bad to lead us into lazy judgment and righteous commentary that temporarily relieves our own insecurities. The ways that we are shamed as women and the ways that we shame each other, both consciously and unconsciously, directly supports the very ideals and pressures that we eschew.
The preclusion that womanhood equates motherhood is at the core of negative social expectations for both mothers and non-mothers. Collectively, we are being shamed and pressured as women.
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The Mother Identity
Recently, I sat in an otherwise empty room in a coffee shop, until three women entered for a meeting that appeared ostensibly to be a book club. It was apparent that they had known each other for some time and what struck me was that the manner in which they caught up on each other’s lives and well being was not through anything personally telling, but through an exchange of number and ages of children and grandchildren, followed by a functional touting of any relatable milestones such as a graduation or engagement. In between, they cited the title of books they are currently reading interspersed with sound bytes of opinionated commentary on current events.
For a moment, I imagined how nice it would be to be a part of their conversation and connection, or one like it. As the meeting moved along, I noticed that no exchange about a book or topical issue went very far, as there were continuous interjections about children and grandchildren, (like competing pieces on a game board.) And then it hit me. I would never be a part of this group, as I would have nothing to contribute or stand on in terms of identity. They all seemed to use the default of children and grandchildren to never truly offer anything about their own lives.
When motherhood is seen as a complete identity or as something that completes a woman, we not only value mothers over non-mothers, we create sharp edges of judgment around mothers as women. We have this way of speaking about intimate partnership and motherhood as something that completes us. However, we were all born as whole beings. We do not come into the world waiting to become whole.
It is curious to me that lesbians who are childless do not necessarily experience the same social pressure to become mothers. The unspoken message is that being gay precludes having children, thus circling back to the idea of a lesbian somehow being viewed as less of a woman than one who is automatically seen as able to have a child. The layers of silence for a lesbian wanting a child and experiencing childlessness seem compounded in that she is again in a position to “come out” in a way that for some, and possibly including her partner or family, may seem unexpected. According to the Williams Institute, around 20 percent of gay couples have children.
On the other end of the spectrum, we seem to hold some sort of social expectation or endorsement that women who are mothers identify solely with being a mother. I see this in many women, and I feel I get to know who they are as they have experienced their child/ren but I do not know who they are beyond that as women.
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There is a certain attention that is offered when a woman carries the mother identity card. The envelopment of motherhood as an identity can also be used as a safe retreat from accountability in other life domains. It is this perceived safety that feeds that perception of childless women as being a threat.
I have no intention of minimizing the lives or roles of mothers, but can we just stop for a minute and look at the absolute values that are assigned as though they are factual and true for everyone. You will never know real love until you are a mother. Becoming a mother is what completes a woman. You will understand when you are a mother. The real meaning of life is to have a child.
While these statements seemingly reward all mothers, they also create soundtracks for the expectations of children and contribute to the craziness that forces women into living with the pressure to be perfect mothers. Women without children have nowhere to go with these statements as by definition we will never fully live, know true love, be complete or do anything in life that is as challenging or rewarding as being a mother. After all, it’s “the hardest job in the world,” according to many.
Perhaps you too find a deep irony in these common phrases. No one wants to speak to the paradox of this job having zero barriers to entry for those who can physically conceive, regardless of intention, capacity for responsibility or the ability to be present to raise a child. Regardless of how one becomes a mother or the related circumstances around raising a child, there seems to be a social override that says she has achieved the highest potential in self-actualization.
When a woman becomes a mother there is an automatic acceptance and attention that is given to her that is often incongruent with the actual welfare of the child. Yet, we live and express in a way that asserts that all mothers are loving or know best, that there is nothing like a mother’s love, inferring that all mothers love the same way or that we all agree on what a mother’s love is. We speak to an ideal and a possibility, but not a reality. This further distorts the loss that childless women grieve, as from a societal perspective we speak to motherhood primarily in a positive light. This also stifles mothers’ expressions around the truth of their experiences, and presupposes a child’s actual experience of her or his mother. Many of the sayings and Hallmark greeting card style assertions are actually very exclusive to one’s individual experience.
When it comes to motherhood, we readily make excuses for unconscious living and often assume that a woman does not have the capacity to change her life for the betterment of her children. Sometimes this is true and often it is not. She too is making
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a choice. It is also true that for every free pass I see a mother receive, I have also witnessed her receiving the glare of a shaming eye and the judgment of how she is engaging her children at any moment in public, opening herself to unwarranted and unsolicited commentary of passersby and complete strangers. This is done often to the point of a mother apologizing to absolute strangers for her chosen actions with her children.
All kinds of choices around mothering are called into question. We judge women for not having children. We judge women who are single mothers, and women who choose to have a child on their own, either through adoption or other methods. We judge women who have one child and women who have two children, or several children. Mothers are judged for their choices around working as a stay at home mother, and for working outside of the home. No matter the choice, it is called into question from one perspective or another.
Women who have children in their 40s are judged as being selfish, and others criticize their age and project their thoughts that these women will not be alive to see their grandchildren. Little consideration is given to the maturity, wisdom and presence that these mothers may have to offer their children at that age. Further, when people approach them about their infant or young child people refer to them as her grandchildren or to her as the grandmother. Why do we assume such things about people we do not know?
Women are judged on whether or not they decide to or are able to breast feed. Mothers are judged about how they choose to educate their children. Where is the shared dialogue? To what degree do we, as childless women, participate in this? Judgments and shaming of mothers can reach the point of ridiculous, as with one woman, who told me that women argue with her about whether or not her own twins are identical or not, as though she would not know. In this context, the assumptions and judgment seem endless.
When we say someone is a mother, there is a very presumed and positive definition that is assigned to that identity. The opposite is true for childless women. Yet the truth is that many of us have made very conscientious choices around having children.
Often, as step parents or step grandparents, we are not even accorded the title of mother or grandmother not because we do not play that role, but both because we are neither the biological or adoptive mother or grandmother, and sometimes more so
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because we do not have children of our own. The mothers of our partners’ children play a critical role in either bridging or dividing these relationships, and in respecting the role of the woman who is now partnered with her ex. Her behavior and attitude also becomes a model for her children and grandchildren.
As childless women, we also judge mothers out of our own deepest pain. It is challenging to not assess other women as being undeserving of having children when we see outright abuse and neglect, or ease in pregnancy around unintended children and other situations that make our own reality seem very unfair. To assess someone as deserving or not around anything is just another mask for judgment.
Exclusion Of Childless Women
While I cannot claim to truly understand the experience of my friends who are mothers in terms of birthing or raising a child, it does not mean that I cannot relate to some of their experiences. Whether mothers or not, we have been whole people our entire lives, and yet any connection to, or experience of children, let alone our own life experiences as childless women somehow get erased in the eyes of some mothers. There is frequently an assumption of our capacity with and around children. I often feel I must prove that I have relatable experience in order to be part of a conversation with a mother; otherwise I must bow out of the conversation.
Last year, I corresponded with a woman who published a book on a topic directly related to something that I feel very passionately about and have extensive personal experience and knowledge around. We had lived very similar experiences in a particular domain. I contacted her in an effort to acknowledge her work and to potentially join forces to support education efforts on this critical topic. When she responded to me, she completely dismissed not only my pain by declaring how much easier it must have been for me because I did not have children, but my experience all together. We are always living in a mother’s world. Our place in it is often taken for granted or not considered at all once it is known that we are childless.
We have been shunned from important conversations with parents and learned to edit or withhold our observations and insights. If we become a silenced element in personal and social conversation, how will our voices reflect around public and political choices made on our behalf? What is the value of our life perspective? I have observed
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childless women withhold their full participation, discount their own words and call themselves out as not being mothers. I too have experienced this.
As I began to write this book, there was a thread of posts on Facebook around a parenting situation. I witnessed the loving attention around the situation through responses from many women, including women without children. However, several of those women clearly preempted any potentially negative response by stating that they would not offer insights or solutions, as they were not mothers. Perhaps some of them truly do not value the potential benefit of what that have to say, however my hunch is that they have previously experienced being shut down because of this, either verbally or energetically.
I have noticed that as women without children, our life experiences become completely excluded in the eyes of most women who are mothers. It is as though our entire human existence, experience and learning, regardless of our field of study or practice somehow now disqualifies us from participating in a conversation around children.
On Being A Whole Woman
Contrary to the common language expressed around motherhood, we are all born as whole individuals and remain so throughout our lives. Living without a child does not make us incomplete or less than or without contribution in conversations or situations involving children.
Motherhood is often seen as an end-all identity for women, and as childless women, the expectation that we will all create impossible legacies such as Oprah or Mother Teresa is often unspoken but present. From the assumptions about our capacity, time and resources develops a new judgment around what we need to prove as women.
When we begin looking for role models, we can easily name women who did not have children, either by choice or circumstance, who are famous or somehow known through history. We know this because their profile and information are accessible, and not necessarily because they chose to openly be role models, or speak to the issue of not having a child. When they do, it is generally at a more comfortable time in their life and careers. There is the same openness around a shared struggle of being childless women, as there is with other human challenges. When a woman is known for her
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professional achievements or contributions, it often makes the fact that she is not a mother more palatable to others, and some are granted a sense of leniency in judgment based on their accomplishments.
While very few of us are comparing ourselves to these women, the pressure to create a life that reflects a significant contribution or achievement can be amplified for childless women. I am curious as to how this shadow assessment affects our interactions as women, in accepting childless women against this backdrop of socially perceived failure.
Feminism And Choice
The results of the feminist movement created opportunities and choice for more women. Yet, through our judgments and division we have instead created a new feminist culture that only accepts what we deem as the right choice or the right way, and harshly judges what does not fit the politically correct mold.
Women are quickly made to feel unsupported if they do not make the “right” choice or for making a choice that is best for them, particularly when in the public eye. One thing I have learned is that we might believe we know what we would do in a given life scenario and until we actually live it, the best of intentions remain hypothetical.
If we do not learn to know and accept each other, we all lose. The very same attitudes that judge childless women also judge mothers. It is the same fear-based energy that we contribute to when we do the same to each other. As women we turn this on ourselves with our self-criticism and lack of acceptance of our bodies, our circumstances, and of others.
If we continue in this manner, we are laying the foundation for future shaming to be carried out by young women and the generations that follow. The compare and despair mentality is alive and well, and it is not only in the world of teenage girls. We have collectively created a social situation in which we perpetuate our own devaluation. We may question the conversations and language of young girls calling each other derogatory names, and judging and excluding each other based on physically unchangeable features and materialistic comparisons. And yet, what are they reflecting back to us? Yes, the lack of full brain development and teenage peer pressure exacerbates their expressions and choices, but if we get very honest, we can see the social landscape of grown women already playing out in their interactions.
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Where are we spending our collective energy? What message are we sending young women? What are we modeling to young women who will be faced with the same decisions we had to make as mothers and non-mothers? They are living in a time of expanded choice and opportunity. When we reinforce the stereotypes and ideals around motherhood and womanhood, as mothers and non-mothers, we are repeating and projecting a cycle of expectation on each other and on future generations. This is an opportunity for us to come out about our experiences and to gift them with honest sharing. In the final chapter of this book we will touch on how we can begin to do this as a tribe.
Bridging The Gap Between Childless Women And Mothers
Perhaps it is an energy field of socially induced insecurity and the impulse for comparison that contributes to our lack of compassion and negative assessments of one another. When we compare ourselves to each other, we are not inspired to connect, but to protect what we have. This plays out in our personal and professional interactions and private and public moments. The patriarchal “divide and conquer” strategy has been intentionally deployed among and between women, and while we usually speak to the surface of this, what does it mean in our daily lives and our future? How does this impact the very equity that Patricia Arquette is calling for, and why have we not held a clear boundary or taken different action to achieve this collectively?
Why must we infringe upon or attempt to own the intimate space of others? What is driving this need? It is an unconscious pattern of reassuring ourselves of our own decisions. What is your business and what is the business of others? And how do we come together for the greater good and how do we make choices that also consider our interconnectedness? The judgments only build walls between us.
If we follow the spiral, there is always one lens of judgment finding fault in the choice of another woman. It is time that we stop responding to inane and insensitive conversation and begin to own our experiences and share them in a way that speaks into the listening of others and in a way that serves our truth and our unique experiences.
Let’s stop trying to define each other’s truths. Let’s stop projecting our knowing onto others as a way to stay safe in our own life choices, and instead let’s find ways to
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genuinely connect. All too often we make the first move to shut down what may be next in the conversation for fear it will speak to something we feel a need to defend.
We judge others when we are not in acceptance of ourselves. There is lively conversation around women not supporting one another in a variety of personal and professional situations, but the truth is that we are expecting support before we are in acceptance of one another. There is a lot of social tolerance, which is not acceptance, and leads to unmet support. This is evident in the way that we operate in our businesses and how, as colleagues and teachers, we choose to promote (or more often not promote) the work of other women, including our students and clients in a tangible or public way.
Conscious Listening
When my friend “outed” me as being childless in that group of women, as described earlier, I was hurt in the moment. When I reflected on her assertions later, I was able to better see that they were actually not about me. Ever since I met her she made comments such as, “You would never know that I have a master’s degree and had a career.” At that time in her life, she was fully identified as a mother, and wanted to be acknowledged for the person she was outside of her mother role, the woman who had a graduate degree and was a professional before she had children. Her insecurity around being a mother who did not work outside the home got projected onto me as a superiority and exclusion around which she could firmly stand as a mother. When I could see that her comments were a reflection of her own issues, and not toward me, I was able to feel compassion for her around her personal struggle of identity.
When we learn to hear ourselves and live our truth, we can begin to listen to others from a place of presence and non-judgment. Improved communication then becomes organic and not a matter of what to say or not. For example, while I am sure that you could rattle off a good starter list of what not to say to childless women, the real need for change is in conscious listening and conscious response. Mothers could easily write a similar list. We all want to know what to say so that we do not have to feel condemned for our poor communication, or rather we want an easy tool to move us quickly through the discomfort of the given situation. Yet this does not create connection. Why is it so difficult for us to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes? I think it’s because we often find it difficult to walk confidently in our own.
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I have lived and worked in many different countries and cultures, and I believe that one thing that has served me well in really getting to know people, aside from genuinely being interested in their lives, is that I did not assume things about them. I may have had some context, and I did not assume their path. For example, a person who asks me straight out why I do not have children or throws some other assumption about children on me, has obviously either observed that I do not have children or has had a conversation with someone else about it. However, I did not invite them to that conversation, they invited themselves. In most cases, it is best to either wait to be invited, or until a level of trust and intimacy has been established to ask women about such a sensitive life situation.
People are more than willing to share themselves, when they feel that they will be heard. The best exchange comes once a safe energy has been established and by pacing the kind of questions you ask, particularly questions of a sensitive nature. Allow others to share organically and as they feel comfortable. Without this, it may seem that you are just fishing for a story or to validate yourself and are not actually interested in the other person.
Once a good friend sent me a text to check in on a challenging situation I was going through in my relationship. Rather than asking me how I was she wrote, “Did you move out yet?” This had nothing to do with where I was in my process, and I immediately recognized that this was about her opinion and that she was not really asking about me, but was asking for an update on the story and based on her expectations.
Childless women and mothers are living in spaces of silence based on expectations. Let us not contribute to this through our own judgment. There is a chasm between authentic communications and judgment around motherhood and childlessness that must be bridged. As women, we are constantly being judged based on socially accepted ways that we are valued and devalued. We contribute to sustaining this through layers of judgment that stem from our own fears and insecurities.
As to those frequent assertions about women not supporting one another, in my mind being supportive is not the most urgent issue. We will not support one another, until we accept one another. I am not advocating tolerance, but acceptance. I do not identify with tolerance as a sustainable solution. How do you feel when you are tolerating someone or when you are being tolerated? Acceptance is what changes relationships. You first need to accept yourself and then you can build the capacity to
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accept others. We are much more powerful as women when we can move forward together.
We have stopped truly listening to ourselves, and instead live on information download and overload from external sources. What if we took some time to stop and reflect on what we are doing to each other? What if we stopped long enough to allow ourselves to feel our way back to who we are, and became still long enough to hear what we need to hear from inside?
Accepting The Mother Within
As we navigate through the lens of the Mother Within, we must also look toward accepting the women we are. This self-acceptance and shifting our view of others and the assumptions that we too carry around mothers and other women, can only contribute to an expanding conversation and understanding of each other. Without this we are losing out on each other and ourselves as a collective energy. Without this we will continue to be defined by others and succumb to repeating patterns that ultimately devalue women.
We must develop a new dialogue for ourselves while also building safe spaces to have our experiences freely in community with each other, in the everyday social exchanges in our neighborhoods, places of work, and any other community in which we are engaged. We will discuss some ways to do this in Chapter 6.
Reflective Questions
If you could change one thing about the relationship or misperceptions between childless women and mothers, what would it be?
Is there a place in your life where you are not allowing your voice to be heard because you are a childless woman? What action could you take to change this?
What do you think is needed to achieve greater acceptance among women?
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PART III: The Changing Village
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Chapter 5: Teaching The Village
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
- Buckminster Fuller
I travelled last week, and on my departing flight, I was seated next to two women who
were in-laws on a weekend getaway. As they enjoyed their cocktails, they animatedly discussed
each woman in the family, as well as their mutual friends, one by one, in great detail and high
volume. At one point in the conversation, one of the women asked about another family
member and said, “I’m sure that Stephanie is getting to an age where she is glad that she does
not have children.” To which the other woman replied, “More like getting to an age where she
wished she had children. Who is going to take care of her? Who is going to take care of Bob?”
A lengthy conversation ensued about how Stephanie must be living in dire regret for not
having a child. None of it was positive. I was working on this book, and had my royal blue title
visible on my laptop, when I decided that I did not want to invite any of their energy to what I
was doing. I turned my computer away from the woman closest to me, unwilling to be her next
target.
Conversely, on the way back, I sat next to an elderly Nigerian man who was quietly
reading his book. I was working from a print copy of my work, and did not imagine that it was
legible to him. When I brought my head up to take a quick break, he kindly asked me if I was a
writer, and asked me what I write about. Not wanting to get into defending anything in the
midst of my writing, I tried to dance my way around it, and spoke about my coaching focus and
other transformative fluff. He did not buy it and finally said gently, “Come now, aren’t you
writing about childless women?”
A conversation followed that was quite touching, as he shared some of the practices in
his own family and culture. And while he did cop to the sexism around fertility in many cultures
including his own, as generally the woman is blamed, he was quite compassionate and
interested in how women cope outside of cultures that do not consider them mothers unless
they are birth or legal mothers. He told me that in his culture, when women cannot conceive,
they are “given” a child. In essence, when a child is born his mother’s sister, for example, also
becomes his mother. So, by being in a family and community the woman is not excluded from
that role, nor is she considered incapable of being a mother because she has not given birth.
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Having lived in several countries in Africa, I have experienced this myself, being called a
“young mother,” despite not having a child of my own. While in our own cultures where we
have the choice to remain childfree, this may seem to represent the other end of the spectrum.
It is curious to me that in my own culture, I am excluded from conversations about parenting,
and yet in other cultures I was seen as competent to care for, discipline and influence the
children of my peers and elders. This is the same trust accorded “the village,” if you will, in real
terms.
When we parted ways at the end of the flight, he wished me well with regard to my
writing and stated that he thought is was an important topic for women and men to discuss
more openly. That was only one unexpected conversation. What can happen when we
collectively get intentional about our conversations? We do not know how others will respond if
we do not speak.
That conversation around culture, family and communities, made me ask myself, in
what ways are we really living as a village? We refer to that phrase so often in the US, and yet
we are one of the most individualized cultures in the world. The demographics for women and
families are changing at an unprecedented rate, and I am curious as to when and how the village
will respond to these changes, in a way that favorably recognizes the population living the
change. The existing socio-economic frameworks are not set up to serve these particular
demographics.
We live in a system largely created as a response to wartime conditions, from our
education system to the economic unit we know as family, which assumes a legal union and
children. These remain the requirements to receive full benefits of the government system.
If in our current era, nearly 50 percent of women of childbearing age and 20 percent of
women between the ages of 44-46 are not mothers, what does this say about a system with a
one size fits all economic structure skewed to married couples with children? How well does the
system represent the collective? Many of the inherited systems and patterns of social behavior
separate us and keep us in the illusion of not being equal to each other, and thus begins the
breakdown of the village.
Culture And Consequence
Religion, family values, culture and politics all factor into the social and systemic
experiences of childless women. Depending on the social constructs and cultural traditions
around partnerships, marriage, children, families, and ultimately the roles of women, the
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personal, professional, and socio-economic consequences for women will vary greatly
throughout the world. What we perceive as choice or alternatives for childless women may not
exist from culture to culture.
For example, adoption may not be an acceptable practice in some cultures, and as in the
US, adoption by a single women does not create a priority place in the queue unless perhaps
you happen to be a celebrity. In many cultures, marriage and motherhood are completely
integral to the economic well being of a woman, as well as social acceptability. In other cultures,
childless women are still seen as mothers, and their role as a woman within the family and
society is acknowledged as such. I am curious as to how honest this country and other cultures
and communities will be in recognizing the growing global population of women without
children, given the vast differences in our lifestyles.
The Evolving Family Unit
The traditionally defined family consisting of a woman, a man and their children, is
changing and has been for some time. Who we choose as family and how we are linked
relationally is diverse. Even within the supposed traditional demographics, more women are
having children without getting married, and families are combining to form a new family all of
the time. Many people are choosing their families comprised of their most valued relationships
that may or may not include having a partner, or immediate or extended family at all.
Our habitual language no longer fits our reality. Family is how we define it for ourselves.
And yet, family is assumed to include children. When someone gets married, often the next
question is, “When are you going to start a family?” I believe they did start a family by being in a
committed relationship.
The assessment of value assigned to marriage (as better than a domestic partnership,
that is better than cohabitating, which is certainly better than being a single woman) also needs
to change. It is somehow implied that cohabitating means you are less committed than if you
are in a declared domestic partnership or married. Marriage is still held with the assumption
that it is for the purpose of, or will lead to, having children. Society uses these outdated legal
and tax statuses to project and assume future behavior. We also celebrate according to the
perceived commitment, and still look down on single women as though they have made some
grave mistake in life. Marriage and domestic partnerships define a legal status and ensure
certain benefits. It is odd to me that we have words to differentiate and declare to others our
tax and benefits status, and we interpret them as defining how intimate and committed or not
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we are to our relationships. Just as we are seeing more states enact gay marriage rights, we are
seeing a decline in marriage for women who do have children.
A similar ranking is used systemically and politically when it comes to women. Biological
mothers who are married are always on top, followed by adoptive couples, and married couples
who undergo alternative treatment to conceive, and then single mothers. These are followed by
women who have lost their children, the childless women who have also taken a long and
expensive road to trying to become a mother without positive results, and last, there are those
who are consciously childless or have never tried to get pregnant due to timing and intention.
It’s time for greater visibility of childless women, combined with open sharing that
teaches others about who we are and our right to access the same relevant systemic benefits
offered to mothers. Without this, we will continue to be denied access to systemic support, the
funding of which we have contributed to as taxpayers. We can also contribute to the younger
generation of women by honestly sharing our experiences and calling for better information and
education around fertility.
The Economics Of Childlessness
Due to my prolonged divorce process, I depleted my financial resources and could no
longer pay for legal representation. Without any legal training, I was forced to take my
independent self into some very humbling situations to ask for help. What remains with me
today is the way in which I was told “no” at every turn, not because I did not qualify for
assistance, or that my legal situation did not desperately require this help. I was denied
assistance because I did not have a child.
This held true from legal aid and women’s organizations, to private female lawyers. I
experienced what I would call obvious discrimination, and also a reflective valuation on the life
of a woman from a systemic perspective. A childless woman is not as valuable as a mother,
regardless of how that woman may be or not be as a mother. No one says this aloud, but every
systemic and social indication reflects this assessment.
You may or may not have experienced something similar, however the fact that this is
the lens of valuation put on an individual woman is something that should concern us all. You
might someday find yourself in a similar situation due to unexpected circumstances, or it may be
future women who are faced with such treatment due to no fault of their own. The system, to
which I had paid taxes since I started working as a teenager, denied my need for assistance and I
was turned away for being childless. The fact that the perception of my need was also
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predefined in the private sector left me with no option but to represent myself, and to learn the
how be my own lawyer during a very traumatic time in my life.
As a property owner, you will pay taxes for the public education system whether or not
you have children who attend school. You may not even be aware of the fees that you are
paying. Last year, I received a letter from my health insurance provider telling me that my policy
would be canceled if I did not pay an additional fee for a pediatric dental policy. I thought that it
was a mistake; not only do I not have a child, I did not even have dental insurance for myself at
the time. As it turns out, I am legally mandated to pay for pediatric dental as part of my policy,
whether or not I have children. And since I do not, this is a straight revenue fee for the insurance
company. I am forced to do this in order to keep my medical insurance in the state of California.
I wonder what the amount of money being paid by all childless women (and men) for this
service adds up to?
In terms of services relevant to many of us who wanted to have a child, a majority of
states do not require insurers to cover fertility treatments, IVF or egg freezing. While fertility
testing may be covered, the majority of any future treatment costs remains with the woman or
couple seeking treatment. Often doctors are selling hope at a very high price. After all, can you
put a price on a child? The fees for infertility alternatives, adoption, surrogacy and donor eggs
are exorbitant for the average person or family. The unknown number of treatments required
creates an emotional addiction to keep trying when it does not work, and some women have
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to conceive through these methods, only to
remain childless. Of course there are positive outcomes for others, and we should hold them as
the exception and not the rule. The price is high, and the success rates for women over 35
decline rapidly.
Barbara Corcoran, a real estate mogul who is part of the reality TV show Shark Tank has
publicly disclosed that it cost $84,000 for IVF to conceive her son, and the adoption process for
her daughter cost $62,000. This sum is well beyond the reach of many women and couples, and
does not include the other requirements of your home environment and financial stability.
In addition to the cost, the assumptions and predictors used as to qualify women and
couples for adoption and fostering are based on traditional families and are defined through a
serious blind spot when it comes to predictors of successful outcomes for the child. The
requirements further assume future behavior for those who apply and meet the requirements
such as being married for two years, which is not an honest predictor of the future of the
relationship. Having the right home, lifestyle and income at the time you qualify to adopt does
not mean you will always enjoy these assets, any more than it means you will always be
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relegated to your current home that does not qualify. The strict requirements leave many
children without a foster or adoptive family. So, it seems we would rather have children without
homes than with homes where they are wanted.
In addition to all of this, there is actually discussion in the US around imposing a higher
tax on childless people (anyone making over $51,000 per year), to lessen the tax burden on
lower and middle income parents. This has been publicly proposed by Slate columnist Reihan
Salam. Salam is not alone in the push to raise taxes on the childless, and due to both a
decreasing rate of marriage and births there is a call for the government to take measures to
raise these rates. There is an assumption that we are going in a wrong direction, as it does not fit
the old paradigm and traditionally imposed system of the family unit. The reality is that people
are making different choices and rather than addressing this, the reaction is to force payments
and pressure people back into the way things were.
In light of this, it may be argued that women without children, despite that fact that we
did not necessarily desire to be in this position, place a lesser burden on society. The ongoing
and potential future biases regarding taxation of the childless and those who are unmarried is
something to pay attention to.
In the US, the estimated amount of money paid out in child related tax breaks in 2013
alone was approximately $171 billion. This amount only reflects the five largest child related
breaks. The actual amount is much higher. The average payout for a couple with two children is
about $7700 and for a single mother, $8100.
(http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/07/pf/taxes/childless-parents-taxes/index.html)
About half of all households with children are lower income, and will not owe any
federal taxes, and instead will most likely get a refund from the government. Therefore, they are
not contributing taxpayers, countering Patricia Arquette’s assertion around birth mothers as
implied taxpayers who also birthed taxpayers. The tax break compensates those who cannot
afford to have children and choose to do so anyway, as well as those in unforeseen
circumstances.
Couples who are married with children receive extensive payouts regardless of their
income as well. In fact, newly proposed tax laws actually increase the payouts to wealthy
families multifold to that of low-income families. Child related tax breaks are not need-based
payouts.
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Conscious Consumerism
We have a choice to support or not products and media that depict mothers and non-
mothers in ways that degrade us or give preference to one group or another. The magazine at a
checkout stand in your grocery store may be the epitome of the devaluation of women, and yet
many are edited and written by women. We are choosing inequity every day through our habits
and responses to marketing. I invite you to consider what you buy in terms of how aware the
brand is around how it treats women, and in particular childless women.
We have the same choice when it comes to television and film. How are childless
women being depicted? Are they even represented? When we socially or otherwise exclude a
group of people, we miss the opportunity to access many contributors to the greater wellbeing
of all. The universal experience of women who do not have children should be of interest to
everyone, particularly other women and parents of children growing up in and entering a time
of life that offers an unprecedented range of choices.
Changing Paradigms And A Call To Higher Consciousness
We are living in a time in which we are being called to live from a place of higher
consciousness. There is evidence all around is that the systems and social attitudes that we have
espoused toward women in general and childless women in particular need to change. Our
presence in numbers cannot be ignored.
There are many reasons not to have a child, from a global and environmental
perspective. While overpopulation and ecocide are often mentioned as reasons not to bring
more children in to the world, I am convinced that it is not a matter of fewer people, so much as
it is the percentage of conscious beings inhabiting the planet. That said, many people choose
conscious childlessness or to adopt for these reasons. We need more people who engage in
conscious behavior and models of living that honor our resources and contribute to enhanced
communication and oneness among all beings. This is the heart of the matter.
We are responsible for the energy we bring to our relationships and our communities,
as this contributes directly to the collective reality that we all create for the world. How we use
resources and conserve energy is as important as how we treat people and other living beings. Is
this what is being taught in the public schools that we are paying for? Is this what is being taught
in the homes of the country’s children? How are we guiding them around the choices they have
in their lifetime, many of which engage distractions and numbing, and lifestyles filled with
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wasted resources. How do we rank this against the entitlement to have children without
prerequisite as long as it is done biologically?
We have entire generations who have been raised in a predominately narcissistic
environment filled with immediate gratification and entitlement. What effect does unconscious
procreation create and what does the future hold? The hardest job in the world technically
requires no qualifications. The truth is, it is not the hardest job for everyone. It is difficult to be a
conscious and responsible mother against the unconscious environments children learn in and
grow in. It is not hard to abdicate responsibility for your children or to neglect them. People
have children for all kinds of reasons, and for no reason at all. The more honest we are about
the energetic playing field of parenthood, the more we can do at a conscious level to mitigate a
lack of consciousness that affects the whole.
Living The Mother Within
How do you see the world and your place in it as a childless woman? Do you feel
connected? Do you feel visible? We are part of a new history for women and we must not wait
for our roles to be defined, but rather participate in creating spaces for our greatest impact. We
are part of a redefinition of family and community and a call to self-actualization for the greater
good. We have the power to define our needs and to shift what is not working. To do this, we
need to be visible, and we need to be able to recognize one another. It is time to take our power
back.
I would like to propose that we co-create a conscious response to societal and
institutional systems and speak out about what we want to see change. Let us teach others how
we want to be treated and let’s shift the way we may be treating others in the process.
Those of us who have lived and lost the dream of becoming a mother have nevertheless
walked a path of motherhood. While it is not physical motherhood, the courage and desire to
walk such a path is lived from the Mother Within. That our journeys and life experiences would
be minimized, judged or excessively taxed is curious to me. This thinking is reflective of society’s
readiness and understanding of our tribe. Let us make ourselves clear and visible.
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Reflective Questions
What unrecognized contributions do you feel you make as a childless woman?
Have you personally experienced systemic or organizational discrimination as a childless
woman?
What if any observations of or experiences have you had around motherhood in another
culture? Did it differ in any way from your own culture?
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Chapter 6: The Mother Within Legacy
If not us, who, if not now, when?- Anonymous
While I was writing this book, I received further evidence of how important it is for our tribe to become more visible. I submitted a short written piece to a group that does an annual stage production of spoken messages on motherhood. The written materials stated that the group also welcomes stories from women without children for its production. I submitted my piece, and was rejected.
It was not the rejection that spoke to me, so much as the feeling in my body when I opened the email message delivering the outcome. I scanned the email and all of the accompanying words, links and information included, for further information and future possibilities. My stomach turned into a knot, and every place in my body where I hold tension tightened. I was keenly aware that, while the intention may have been genuine, there was no real space for childless women, and no place for the Mother Within.
My interpretation was that the invitation to women without children was a gesture, not a bridge. I am grateful that I went through the process and that I stretched in that direction. It strengthened my commitment to give our tribe a platform and a voice, and I was further inspired to declare a stage production of our own, which is something I have always wanted to do.
When you are ready to share what is within you, know there will be a place. Through the Mother Within website and discussion groups you will have access to welcoming and supportive spaces for greater visibility and expression, both virtually and in person. It is my vision that collectively we will express who we are and voice the change that we want to see. I believe that most life experiences, including the darkest, most painful or least understood, can teach us about love and boundaries. As a tribe, are pushing the envelope on boundaries and love in this intricately woven space of interconnection and the unmet connection of childlessness.
The online space that I have created will offer a place to share your experiences and the ways in which you would like to influence a new conversation around childless
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women. I invite you to share this in written and artistic expression as well as through conscious response to topics and questions posted on the site. Bringing our internal conversations to a more public forum creates the possibility for real change toward untangling the equation of motherhood with womanhood, and speaks directly to the value of women as whole beings.
Your Journey
Your unique journey as a childless woman holds invaluable wisdom. Sharing your story may provide an energetic release and the opportunity to let go of what is no longer serving you. Writing and reframing our stories informs us around what we need to heal and live fully.
I also invite you to reflect on who you are, and the conscious choices that have added beauty and insight to your life that you would not have known otherwise. I want to support you in creating a new narrative for yourself around sustaining or growing what is working in your life.
Loving The Mother Within
When we acknowledge the Mother Within, we begin to shift our relationship with our life stories and our childlessness. One day, as I sat in the oversized chair in my home office, I consciously asked myself again: “How do I truly shift my life story given that I may live as many or more years than I have been alive to date? How will I live them without a child?”
After several moments in silence, I literally felt a physical warmth rush through me, and I started to cry as I recognized this love and allowed myself to see the beautiful Mother Within me. She influences who I am in such amazing ways. She is a part of myself that I dearly love and connects and relates with others in a way that I would not change. While we do not know the essence of having our own children, our maternal presence is powerful.
The Tribe
When the tribe gathers, it holds a space for compassionate witnessing, learning, healing and stretching from our comfort zone of pain and story. You can share your
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most vulnerable or dark moments and your most precious and beautiful. I invite you to intentionally connect with women who share a common emotional resonance around the experience of being childless. You will be seen and you will be supported.
The Mother Within initiative is intended to serves us in small private groups, virtually and in person. The main website will act as the public whitespace for us to share in a visible way.
The Face Of Childlessness
The Mother Within website supports greater visibility in sharing our life stories, and putting forth the true face of childlessness. The stereotypes and assumptions that still persist do not serve us. We can own our identity and contribute to the conversation around our needs and inclusion. This should not be left to those who do not know, and only assume.
By sharing our experiences and what we continue to learn, we can also offer more accurate and supportive information to young women and future generations, who will face similar choices and limitations around having children. We have the opportunity to share better information with them as they make their choices or grieve their losses. We can educate them around fertility and infertility and share what it is like to be childless.
Our coming out, individually and collectively, as authentic representatives of this life experience can facilitate our own healing and bring solace to others, whether they are new to accepting their childless circumstance or have been living this experience for many years.
We are the many faces of childlessness, and we have the opportunity to put forth diverse images of women’s lives and specifically, those of childless women. The diversity alone may be a lesson in itself. When we bring our internal conversations to a more public forum, it creates the possibility for real change toward reclaiming our value as whole women. Together, we can play a key role in building a new bridge of communication and inclusion for all women.
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Leading A New Conversation
While the content of this short book is focused on the situation of childless women in the US, my work and learning extends to women around the world. We have much to learn from each other in terms of different cultural modeling of roles and consequences around mothering and childlessness. All childless women will be invited to contribute through our shared spaces, both virtually and in person. We are a global tribe.
By speaking out and being seen, we contribute to more than our own tribe. When we bring issues of aging without children to the forefront, we serve those who are aging without the support of their children. We also raise awareness about the extent of the childless population by including men, who are generally not even statistically represented in country demographics. Additionally, we contribute to the lives of mothers and mothers-to-be who are objectified through social expectations that are hyper focused on motherhood. This is our conscious contribution. The status of women’s lives, and of equal rights, is paramount to all our lives.
Creating And Supporting Our Own Spaces
Part of the reason I wrote this book was to create an intimate opportunity to come together in conversation, both virtually and in person. Feeling seen, as a childless woman is very different than thinking about it or having to defend it. There is great value in the shared journey of healing and self-expression.
The renewed cycles of anger, guilt, confusion and grief amidst sensitive life stages and events are spaces in which we can support each other and offer wisdom from our own journeys. Within this, we will create new evidence for the deeper meaning of our collective lives. We can also create new rituals by which to live and celebrate that make sense for our lives. Major holidays, back to school season, and Mother’s Day are particularly difficult times for childless women. Let us intentionally connect during these times.
The Mother Within initiative holds gatherings and opportunities to build relationships in person. Through transformative local and international retreats and celebratory events you will have the opportunity to meet other childless women.
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I think it is important to learn and play in spaces that do not include mothers and children. This gives us a chance to breathe and take a break from the everyday reminders of our grief, sensitivities and constant stimulus on our heartstrings.
The same is true of finding appropriate resources, as opposed to just swallowing every social pill we encounter. It is important that we have places to gather, and services and products that are sensitive to and respectful of our life situations. This is also a call to support each other in our work and businesses.
The Mother Within retreats and events are guided by the heart of my work, which is in partnership with horses and our relationship with nature. Through my own learning with horses, my practices and work, I see the clarity in the complex and have the opportunity to support others in unraveling the entangled stories of the heart and mind that hold us to our suffering.
Horses do not care whether or not we are physical mothers. They assess who we are being the present moment in terms of our energetic alignment and self-leadership. The non-judgmental space and authentic presence that these sentient beings offer, and the learning through which they guide us, cannot be overstated. I have partnered with horses for the past seven years in my practice. Their role in my healing and learning, and that of my clients has been profound.
The opportunity to be in the presence of horses and to quiet your mind in nature allows you to practice listening to your inner voice long enough to reflect on what is really going on for you internally, and to hear the messages meant for your life. It is a gift to learn, heal and celebrate in a private and nurturing environment while connecting with other members of the tribe.
Nature does not project human inequity. Horses do not judge. They do not assess your past or your future. It is only the human mind that discerns in such a way that we judge one another without truly seeing each another, and yet we are one. It is in accessing this oneness that we integrate our learning and find new ways of being.
Is it any wonder that as a culture we have moved away from nature in our daily lives? Our world is filled with distractions and numbing choices, and often we choose them in avoidance of basic truths in our individual and collective lives. Naming your truth in the short term, and moving through what is, can alleviate longer-term suffering. The tribe is your soft landing. We will live in awareness of our losses as childless women, but we do not have to suffer.
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How Do We Begin To Recognize Each Other?
Just as you may have developed an antennae as I have, for misguided comments about childless women, you will also develop a sense of knowing and noticing others like you, and you will find spaces that embrace childless women. When you acquire something new, such as a red sweater, have you noticed you will surely begin to notice several red sweaters in a given day? Your mind goes to where you focus and the images you hold.
You do not have to go it alone on this journey. Recently, I was in a small circle of talented women gathered for a common cause, and after I left the meeting, it occurred to me that in my limited knowing of each of them, I had possibly been sitting in a group of women, all of whom do not have children. Even in my unspoken realization, I felt a new sense of connection, and actually felt quite energized and grounded, knowing who they are being in this lifetime. In my quiet way, I felt empowered not only by the incredible gifts of these individual women, but the collective of what we perhaps shared without knowing. Giving voice to it would have moved me to tears.
I am grateful for the online communities of childless women and for all of the women who have written and spoken before me on this significant life matter. I cannot stress the importance of connecting with other childless women, and I look forward to creating more opportunities for us to meet in person.
As the title of the great Hopi Elders Prophecy reads, We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For. I invite you to engage the Mother Within, and to embrace the whole woman in you. There is a place for you and all that you offer in this world. You matter and your life has meaning. Claim your tribe, keep your angels close, and always go where you are celebrated.
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Reflective Questions
What do you love about the Mother Within you? What is one way she shows up in your daily life for which you are grateful?
Who are the angels in your life who empathize with your childlessness and “get it?” What message of gratitude would you share with them today?
What is one thing that you want others to know about your journey that may shift their perception of childless women?
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Acknowledgements
I want to thank Jody Day for her visible leadership and sisterhood in community with and on behalf of childless women. I also want thank Amanda Gibby Peters and Beth Hyjek for their encouragement and supporting conversations. I am grateful to Lissa Flemming for her brilliant artistry, and to Clare Dakin for allowing me to share her beautiful prose with you. My thanks also go to Sarah O’Leary for her editing and coaching, and to Angela Lauria for seeing me through a final step of vulnerable resistance on this journey.
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About The Author
Christine Erickson believes in reflective learning through connecting with nature, and works with horses as teaching partners for executive education and individual development and healing. She is the founder of One Legacy Coaching, LLC and The Mother Within initiative. She has facilitated learning programs for incredibly diverse individuals, executive leadership teams, and social businesses internationally, as a coach and entrepreneur.
Christine is a Certified Equine Guided Educator and Equus Coach, and holds multiple professional coach certifications. She is a founding facilitator of the Stanford University Red Barn Leadership Program, an equine guided education program for corporate leaders and teams. Christine has also been a consultant on Gender Equity, and Women’s Economic Empowerment and Enterprise Development to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM/UN WOMEN.)
She enjoys working with clients who want to practice and embody intentional and creative living, self-leadership that inspires, and the heart space to serve others. She is inspired by the resilience of the human spirit, the state of presence in horses and nature, and powerful learning experiences with clients, teachers and collaborative partners around the globe.
To learn more about Christine and her work, visit www.onelegacycoaching.com .
To connect with The Mother Within initiative, lead a discussion group, or contribute your expression to the website, visit: www.themotherwithin.com
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Thank You
Thank you for reading The Mother Within!
The Mother Within online space was created for you to express yourself in creative ways that matter to you, and to portray the real face of childlessness through authentic sharing for a new conversation.
Join the conversation with me directly by taking advantage of my complimentary 6 week telecourse for childless women, “The Mother Within: Living the Shared Journey.” Together we will explore the perspectives of Self, Other and World in relation to our personal and collective journeys. When you register, you will also be gifted a personal coaching session with me. To express your interest, please email me at: [email protected]
If you are interested in leading or being part of an in-person discussion group in your area, download the free Discussion Guide at: www.themotherwithin.com
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