A badge of honour

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of the childless and childfree conundrum of late and in my opinion what I’ve discovered is very worrying. Firstly let’s get out of the way this clarifying statement;

Whilst I recognise that it is an individuals right to determine their own identity, there is in my opinion a greater good here that some people are missing.

I believe that being childless and childfree whilst being too very valid terms are also very different.  I really love the description my dear friend Sarah Roberts of The Empty Cradle uses  “Being Childless and Childfree are two very different ways of existing in our world”. The childfree have exercised their right to choose a life without children, where as the childless had the choice taken away from them, setting them on a grief journey that for some will be lifelong.  Yes, there are many similarities on how both these lives are perceived and judged by the wider community but at the end of the day they are a product of two very different situations.

So, what is worrying me when it seems so clear these are two different ways of being?

Bear with me, I’ll get to the answer eventually, but it’s important that we get some context out there first.  Having now immersed myself for close to eight years in the childless community, I think I can say with some validity that one of the biggest issues is the childless want to be understood, not put into the too hard a basket and marginalised which is often the case.

For this to happen, we the childless need to craft our own identity, but sadly we have left it up to the wider community to do this.  How often are we met with pity, the assumption being our life must be so sad because you haven’t achieved the status of being a parent and the inference being your value is less. Or the assumption you never wanted children when you dearly did. Throw into the mix, the crazy cat women, the witch, questions on your sexuality and for those single men being a ‘threat’ to children it is really high time we took control of this.

There are a number of barriers that get in the way of us crafting this identity.  We are a fractured community, we have learnt that the safest place to be is isolated from those around us as they don’t, can’t or don’t want to understand us.  We then lose the skill and/or confidence to develop community and friendships for fear of being hurt yet again.  Vickie, my wife, desperately wants to meet more of our community, she has some wonderful big ideas, but fear holds her back and I know she is not the only one.

On the positive side, there are more and more from our community now speaking out, leading by example and through this giving courage to those up-and-coming leaders in our world.  There are many in our community who are working to ensure that those childless that come behind us will not have to wander through the wilderness like our generation had to. This, is beautiful a thing.  We now have Steph Phillips founder of World Childless Week and Katy Seppi founder of Chasing Creation and her Childless Collective Summit holding global events to bring meaning and understanding of our community. These, in turn help us all solidify our own personal narrative. The number of courageous childless authors has exploded giving a very personal account of what it means to be us. So, I think it will be safe to say our community is evolving and what I’m hearing more and more lately is how can we bring all those leaders from around the world together, to share ideas so we are not continually reinventing the wheel, workplace inclusion being a good example.

And here comes the BUT.

What I’m also seeing from some in our community is the changing from Childless to Childfree with statements like ‘living a childfree life’. To my way of thinking the inference here is that Childless and Childfree are on the same scale with less at one end and free at the other, where the inferred free status is the goal.  I find this very concerning, to me it is another way the childless are being marginalised.  Let’s put this into a scenario, a childless person who is trying hard to manage their grief of loss, finds inspiration in a childless leader, they are buoyed by their confidence and their acceptance of being childless, it gives them hope that in time things will improve.  Then one day the source of inspiration decides they are now living a childfree life vs a childless life. The childless life has again been marginalised and I would go as far to say those who are vulnerable have been set up to fail by the inference that you can’t always be childless.

Why do some try to run away from being childless?

In the context of being childless there is a belief out there that if you get to a point in your life where you don’t want children anymore you have a ‘childfree’ way of thinking.  Vickie and I are in our mid-fifties and we still mourn the loss of not having children, we have a pretty high level of grief management and have accepted this life.  Would we want children now? Hell no, we don’t have the resilience we did as younger people, our infertility journey has left mental scars of anxiety and depression.  We’d also be very irresponsible to bring a child into our life now, we’d both be 70 and the child or children would still be in their teens. There is the potential that one or both of us won’t be on Earth this long and so what sort of life would our children have?  So, does this make us ‘childfree’ because we don’t want children at this stage in our lives? I would find it very disrespectful if someone was to tell me that.  

There are some that find unease in the ‘less’, to those I’d like to say rather than concentrate on the last 4 letters, take hold of the whole word and put meaning behind that, own it and make it yours by taking control of the narrative.

For me, I wear my childlessness as a badge of honour.

I live with ghosts, their names are Michael and Emma and I honour them with my childlessness.

I honour the hard-fought life that Vickie and I have with my childlessness.

I honour our podcast audience that listen to us with my childless status

I honour the members of the Clan of Brothers who like me wanted life to be different, by being a childless man.

I believe we should stop running away from and embrace our word ‘childless’.  We need to take ownership and craft that narrative behind what it means to be childless.  We make it clear and not muddy the waters by sending mixed messages of childless vs childfree. It is only then we will find that identity we need to be understood.  

I’d like to say to those that lead in our community be it 1 person or 1000 people, it is incumbent on us all to ensure we send the right message to our community, by being clear, courageous and showing that a childless life is not a second-rate life.

Again, I do accept that it is an individual’s right to determine their own identity, I’d like to leave you with this quote to ponder on.

“In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.

Wilma Pearl Mankiller - Cherokee Leader

(18 Nov 1945 - 6 Apr 2010)