Choosing a child free life

Mother’s day is celebrated in March here in the UK, and when you are not a mother, it feels a bit harsh to go through it a second time as other parts of the world celebrate in May!? ?I just recorded the end of the series episode of Endings where I turn the tables on myself.? I was interviewed by the wonderful Charlotte Ashton about my experience as a mother.? And blimey, it was hard.?

I’m usually ok to talk about anything – I’ve had conversations about sex, love, messy emotions and the gritty parts of life, often in coffee shops! ?But talking about having and losing babies and ultimately how we took the decision not to have children, was really difficult. ?I could hear myself reaching for medical or unemotional terms for experiences that affect me three decades later. I was also talking to a friend yesterday, who knows several child-free couples and yet had never talked to them about it.? Well, it’s time to get rid of that taboo!

Deciding not to have kids is a big decision, and not one to take lightly.? Some do not want to talk about it –don’t wade in with “so, why don’t you have kids”.? But if it matters to them to talk about it, think about how you can create the psychological safety needed and to demonstrate that whatever their reason – it is not your place to judge.? It is also not your place to know unless they choose to share.? For some it is not a hard decision or conversation.? You won’t know until you talk about it!

I didn’t have much of a choice – my brain injury saw to that.? But I still act like I choose because that’s easier to live with.? My conversation with Charlotte covered a part of my story that is also usually taboo – miscarriage.? Which affects the mother and father – yet I know it can be even harder for dads to talk about how they feel when a pregnancy ends. It is important that we can all talk about these things – it is part of life, only 60-80% of pregnancies make it to full term.

Part of our conversation was about the way you can grieve the whole life of a child who existed for the shortest time and like most grief, doesn’t go away, but it does become lighter.? I have found that radically including my ‘babies that didn’t get to be born’ feels respectful.? I have two tiny stones in a glass heart to represent those little lives – it feels appropriately fragile, but not hidden away.? They are small, beautiful and mine.

The cost of being childless can range from offensive assumptions and non-consensual advice from strangers; to a near total intolerance of high pitched squealing or of high pram to patron ratios in coffee shops.? I also walk to the toilets in John Lewis with my eyes averted, feeling like a gate crasher at a party I wasn’t invited to; hoping not to see tiny socks or I will have to pretend hayfever is making my eyes run, again. ?I’m now old enough to have been a grandma, so my chance of escaping the assumptions is doubled.? I am asked about grandchildren that cannot exist.? Awkward doesn’t remotely cover that conversation.

There is an activity Charlotte and I did together that is particularly settling as a woman.? We used tape to mark a line on the floor then stood either side, telling each other the stories of our maternal lines.? We talked about our great grandmothers, and how their lives were from our perspective as adults.?

As a kid, I knew my great grandmother raised her family with one leg – I now know she was a champion knitter, a triplet and that the cost of passing on life to the next generation was high. ?But one of her children was my nana, who also paid a high price for bringing her children into the world – who didn’t have an ounce of self-importance – she wore a mink coat to go to the Coop, (which I used to think was called the Quorp growing up, due to her Yorkshire accent), not to show off but because it was warm, she never wore makeup and made the most marvellous Yorkshire pudding in a big tin.? I suspect she was very lonely sometimes.? Nana had four children, including my mum, a beautiful complex woman who found the cost of passing on life very hard – even with a husband who loved her very much.? I think she is also lonely now.? But she gave me what I needed – life.? And it was enough. ?

Charlotte’s story, is hers to tell – but there was a point when we turned to face our futures. I asked Charlotte what she would hope her daughter might take from the line of women in her life, and what might be left in the past.? I was able to look back at the long line of women in my family where the cost of passing on life had been so very high; and be ok that it ends with me.? We’ve all paid enough and it is strange kind of release to know there won’t be another generation of this particular soap opera.

I know, it sounds heavy – but in most families, it is a beautiful, resourcing, experience to stand in the shoes of each generation and talk about their life, and what flowed forward to the next generation.? And to think about hopeful wishes for future generations.?

But, whilst reflecting on the experience of being a mother in my family, I was reminded of something that made me smile.? I am a mother – just not the kind people expect.? I am a mother of cats.? Mine were small and beautiful when they arrived – and now they are middle aged bad lads. Like most cat people – I am obsessed – and I don’t care that I pour my love into two tiny dictators.? Their actual mother resides in overfed splendour with my mother. ?But my babies will never put me through a fraction of the drama I see some parents go through.? If mine don’t come home for a night or two, I might rattle the biscuits at the back door but I am not phoning their friends or the police.? Also, I can spontaneously travel, indulge in occasional day drinking followed by long lie ins, spend hours in bookshops and garden centres or have a cheeky afternoon nap.? All doable as the mother of cats.? That said, I hope that if I did have kids then they wouldn’t still be living at home when middle aged; they wouldn’t be singing the song of their people at 4am, nor would I wake up to find them staring at me from an inch away.? That would be weird.?

What isn’t weird is that families come in all shapes and sizes.? Mine is weird, and wonderful and I’m ok with that.?

Happy non-mother’s day.