I am childless because of my childhood

This realisation helps me to find acceptance

Little me

Today, at the end of choir, one of the members shared photos with me of his seventh grandchild.

I cooed over the images and congratulated him - and I meant it. His daughter is lovely and his grandchild looks adorable.

Then he asked me: ‘How’s the novel going?’

It’s a great question - a topic I love to talk about.

I am determined to write, finish and publish my first novel, despite my ongoing struggles with fear, procrastination, self-doubt and a scattered mind (although I wouldn’t go so far as to say my book is my ‘baby’).

Yet following our exchange, as I trotted down the stairs to the loo and wandered up the street to my car, I couldn’t help but compare our two lives - him with his ever expanding family; me with my work.

Always my work.

Well, not quite always.

Not anymore.

I now have a husband (I’m 53 and we’re five years into our marriage - healthy love was a long time coming but it was worth the wait).

I now get to post photographs on Facebook of my husband and I, while, for many years, there was nobody by my side, at least not on a permanent basis.

I also have a pet now - a cocker spaniel called Layla Joy - so sometimes I share pictures of our ‘family of three’, revelling in the fact that we are more than two, even if one of us is furry.

But when people ask about my life, the emphasis always has been, and probably will continue to be, on my work.

Come to think about it, when I ask myself about my life, the emphasis is generally on my work.

Acceptance is the answer

I’m OK with that now.

Tears don’t prick my eyes when pregnancy announcements and baby photos appear on the choir WhatsApp thread.

I guess that’s one of the benefits of moving beyond your fertile years - if there ever was a ship, it has most definitely sailed.

Approaching menopause, there is no longer any possibility that I might, by some miracle or fluke of nature, get pregnant and give birth.

But the main reason I’m no longer fazed by others’ baby news is that I now understand myself and my story - I get how I got here.

And this understanding brings so much peace and so much relief.

Because it couldn’t have been any different.

It couldn’t have turned out any other way.

Nothing is my fault.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

I didn’t make a bad choice.

I didn’t take the left fork in the road when I should have taken the right.

I got to this place because I was always going to get to this place, because of what went before.

The mother wound

Because of my childhood.

Because of the absence of emotional connection and bonding with my own dear late mother (who was the way she was because of what had happened to her - this stuff is inter-generational).

Because of the messages I received, both subliminal and expressed, about the freedom-curtailing, career-ending, money-draining, marriage-ruining consequences of taking the traditional route - getting wed and having kids.

Because of the role model I had, who role modelled struggle, self-abandonment, self-neglect and regret.

Because of the fear that took route in me that my life, if I chose the same path as my mum, would end up in the same place.

Because of the belief I formed that motherhood equalled misery and marriage was a monumental mistake.

This is why, when I see other people’s baby photos today, I am able to smile, nod and then turn my attention back to my one precious life, rather than dwell on what could have been.

At least most of the time.

I say most of the time because my healing isn’t linear and there isn’t an end point.

My feelings morph and change over time.

Compassion first and foremost

Around 39, I was in the throes of panic - desperate to pin down a man and produce a baby, fast. Up to that point, it was all about avoiding having a kid.

Turning 41, I sobbed onto my pyjamas in my empty flat, depressed by the deafening silence and the absence of any other human life.

Turning 43 and committing to a relationship with my now husband, I felt delighted to have found my man and fully focused on making our partnership work. The baby question was a mere twinkle in the back of my mind.

Losing my mum at 50 and becoming an ‘adult orphan’, I felt the pain again - the absence of a child to continue our particular line; the loss of what could have been; the minuteness of our family of two (that was before we got the dog).

And now at 53, having lost a close friend to cancer last year and another friend some months back to a brain tumour, and having fully understood my journey to this place, I feel determined to look forwards, rather than back - to celebrate all that I am and to make the most of my time on this earth.

I am grateful that I and my feelings have evolved over time.

I am grateful too for the clarity I have today about the importance of self-compassion, self-acceptance and self-love.

I deserve all of the above.

She (the girl in the photo at the start of this post) deserves all of the above.

I am childless because of my childhood.

And I can’t change that.

So what can I change today?

That’s what I choose to think about.

Addendum I: I often ponder whether to call myself ‘childfree by subconscious choice’ but the truth is that childless still feels more accurate because there is a loss, even if I understand my journey now.

Addendum II: Accepting my path and acknowledging that I didn’t have a choice aren’t the same as feeling like a victim of circumstances. I accept the things I cannot change at this point in my life. And I change the things that I can.

Addendum III: This post is a little late - I’d intended to write more on this topic during World Childless Week, but as ever, there is always so much (work) to do.

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