Ambivalence about becoming a mother is one of the 'hidden' topics around childlessness... there's still some shame around it, because there's often an inner pronatalist who says 'If I was a 'real' woman I would have just 'known''....
My own ambivalence as a teen and in my 20s had similar roots, and I often wonder, had I known that 'being childfree' was a thing, if I might have gone down that road? (And sometimes I feel sad that I lost my 30s and 40s to childlessness as a result... but then I wouldn't be the person I am today without my grief journey! All paths are valid!)
Thank you so much for commenting Jody and for your solidarity and company on this journey, as well as for your support of my writing. We are all on such a profound journey of self-discovery and re-awakening and as you say, we wouldn't be the people we are now without that journey. You inspire me and many x
Thank you for this vulnerable and honest piece. It is so sorely needed in this world of judgment and gossip and longing to fit. I had a baby (single) at barely 20, and then married and had two more in my mid-twenties. I adore them, of course, but it wasn’t until 10 years ago, when they were in their twenties, that I was able to come up for air and see what I had lost. I didn’t really start enjoying my life and feeling whole until I was in my late forties, when they were out on their own. I love my adult children and love being their mother now, but I didn’t love being a mother of young children which sounds grievous, even sociopathic, to a society such as ours. Women are so severely judged and sentenced on this topic, we need more transparency and discussions like the one you’ve presented here. 🙏🏻
Thank you so much for sharing your truth about the struggles of motherhood, Paulla. Voices like yours are sorely needed. I think one of the things childless women find hard (and I find hard) is hearing mothers proclaim that their children are their world, their reason for being, that they complete them etc. That leaves the rest of us feeling rather flat, excluded from a miraculous experience. I'm sure motherhood is a miraculous experience for so many (and I hear how much you love and appreciate your children today) and everyone has a right to share their truth openly, without judgement, but if we were to hear more nuanced experiences, or different experiences like yours, childless women would feel less separate, less excluded, less faulty, more united as one womankind. I so welcome your comment.
Oddly, this might sound contradictory to what I wrote earlier, but my three kids really are my world because for so long they were my reason for being. I stayed home with them, even homeschooled them. I would have done anything for them. But when I was finally able to live my own life, rather than feeling fulfilled at what I had done (they all turned out phenomenal) I felt cheated. I had to grieve the career I had wanted, but missed out on. I felt rage at the people (and culture) who had shamed me into not putting my children in daycare and pursuing that career. I felt envious of women who had chosen a different path. I wanted a do-over and I felt much, much shame with that. It is such a tricky topic. Motherhood IS miraculous, but so is following your heart down a different path. So is finding joy in a career that you love. So is traveling alone and having enough money and doing what lights you up. Keep speaking out about this. I will too. :)
Thank you for your honesty again, Paulla. Your words are so interesting because they are echoed by women in a very different situation, for very different reasons. Wanting a do-over, feeling shame and wishing we'd made different choices are sentiments I hear all the time, inside my own head (although thankfully not so often anymore) and in the words of the women I coach around relationships, many of whom are childless-not-by-choice. I think one of the things I am most grateful for is all the work I have done to get to a place where I absolutely understand my past choices, have compassion for them and can see that they were the only choices I could have made at the time with the tools and the awareness that I had - and therefore the right choices. I am on a daily mission to celebrate all of myself and to want what I have, rather than long for what I don't.
Keep speaking out too. These conversations are healing.
Even as someone who is child-free by choice, your piece offers me great solace and wisdom. I have many views on the subject (that wait as notes for a yet unwritten piece), but the idea of “ambivalence” is remarkable.
It is important to accept that you can make a choice, be very sure of it, yet you can feel a certain kind of grief about it. Even if that grief stems from something as seemingly simple as society resenting for having put yourself first.
Thank you, Katherine, for this wonderful discourse on ambivalence.
Thank you so much Richa for your comment and for articulating the complexity of choice and grief. Ambivalence runs through me in so many ways. I look forward to continuing the conversation on this important topic here on Substack (which I'm new to and finding a remarkable place).
I've had this same vague feeling of ambivalence/guilt/regret/relief my entire adult life of chosen childlessness. Thank you for articulating it so profoundly. I now understand it better and am so grateful to know it's not unique to me. Thank you, Katherine.
Thank you so much for sharing Julie. I am pleased my piece deepened your self-understanding. You are certainly not alone and how wonderful that we can share our experiences so honestly in this space.
This question has come up really strongly for me this week. I really appreciated reading your experience and the idea of interconnected grief from childhood and other moments. 🙏🏻
At turns, I have been childless by choice, and childless by circumstance, and I understand the grief + ambivalence you describe. But at 62, I revel in the children and grandchildren of family, friends, and strangers. How many little ones have made my day, smiling and waving to me from the arms of a loving parent? How wonderful to feel a surge of joy when my cousin’s children ask for a story. And those joys remind me that I too bear responsibility for their future.
Your article definitely resonates with me. I have always wanted children, but I would only have them if I was confident I (and my mate) could provide a healthy, nurturing environment. At the age of 53, I realize I need to reparent my inner child who never felt she belonged despite her best efforts. I believe part of the reason; I was able to realize this is because of the support of other childless women in Jody Day's community. It is frustrating to me that all the counseling I went to did not reveal this. However, a counselor cannot provide the feeling of belonging. It is hard to let go of what my life may have been had I been nurtured and encouraged. I am doing my best to continue this journey toward health and looking forward to the many opportunities life will offer.
Thank you Katherine, this writing touches me deeply. I am “childless-not by choice” as well. I wanted a loving husband, children and a family since I was a little girl. I simply knew I didn’t want to (couldn’t?) do it on my own so I never considered that. I was surprised to find, attending a baby shower at work in my late 30’s, that I could be so overcome with grief that I had to go home, lay in bed, and cry for the rest of the day. I didn’t know one could grieve what one never had.
At the same time I dearly longed for love and family, I was also horrified at the prospect of childbirth. It seemed at best tortuously painful, and at worst deadly. I didn’t have a doctor or anyone tell me the age when biological childbirth would be problematic in so many ways. So that age came and went without much notice….and now its too late.
Like you, my childhood was too many times, painful, spiteful, and unwelcoming. Your article helps me know that my dream of family: husband and children may not have been the salvation I was looking for at all. I still wish I could have the chance to try it out though. Sending you much love. ❤️🙏
This was so perfect for me right now. And so profoundly true. I've considered not having children to be one of my great failures in life. I've never thought of it as by choice, but rather as by circumstance. No man ever wanted to have children with me. But there are other options, and I thought about them in my late 30s (I'm 61 now). I decided not to because it seemed so much harder to do without a partner. But I realized that being childless is a choice since there are many ways to have children, from birthing them to adopting them to fostering them. But now I'll have to look at your question more deeply. I'm working with a therapist on so many things. I'm adding this. Thank you.
Ambivalence about becoming a mother is one of the 'hidden' topics around childlessness... there's still some shame around it, because there's often an inner pronatalist who says 'If I was a 'real' woman I would have just 'known''....
My own ambivalence as a teen and in my 20s had similar roots, and I often wonder, had I known that 'being childfree' was a thing, if I might have gone down that road? (And sometimes I feel sad that I lost my 30s and 40s to childlessness as a result... but then I wouldn't be the person I am today without my grief journey! All paths are valid!)
Thank you so much for commenting Jody and for your solidarity and company on this journey, as well as for your support of my writing. We are all on such a profound journey of self-discovery and re-awakening and as you say, we wouldn't be the people we are now without that journey. You inspire me and many x
Thank you for this vulnerable and honest piece. It is so sorely needed in this world of judgment and gossip and longing to fit. I had a baby (single) at barely 20, and then married and had two more in my mid-twenties. I adore them, of course, but it wasn’t until 10 years ago, when they were in their twenties, that I was able to come up for air and see what I had lost. I didn’t really start enjoying my life and feeling whole until I was in my late forties, when they were out on their own. I love my adult children and love being their mother now, but I didn’t love being a mother of young children which sounds grievous, even sociopathic, to a society such as ours. Women are so severely judged and sentenced on this topic, we need more transparency and discussions like the one you’ve presented here. 🙏🏻
Thank you so much for sharing your truth about the struggles of motherhood, Paulla. Voices like yours are sorely needed. I think one of the things childless women find hard (and I find hard) is hearing mothers proclaim that their children are their world, their reason for being, that they complete them etc. That leaves the rest of us feeling rather flat, excluded from a miraculous experience. I'm sure motherhood is a miraculous experience for so many (and I hear how much you love and appreciate your children today) and everyone has a right to share their truth openly, without judgement, but if we were to hear more nuanced experiences, or different experiences like yours, childless women would feel less separate, less excluded, less faulty, more united as one womankind. I so welcome your comment.
Oddly, this might sound contradictory to what I wrote earlier, but my three kids really are my world because for so long they were my reason for being. I stayed home with them, even homeschooled them. I would have done anything for them. But when I was finally able to live my own life, rather than feeling fulfilled at what I had done (they all turned out phenomenal) I felt cheated. I had to grieve the career I had wanted, but missed out on. I felt rage at the people (and culture) who had shamed me into not putting my children in daycare and pursuing that career. I felt envious of women who had chosen a different path. I wanted a do-over and I felt much, much shame with that. It is such a tricky topic. Motherhood IS miraculous, but so is following your heart down a different path. So is finding joy in a career that you love. So is traveling alone and having enough money and doing what lights you up. Keep speaking out about this. I will too. :)
Thank you for your honesty again, Paulla. Your words are so interesting because they are echoed by women in a very different situation, for very different reasons. Wanting a do-over, feeling shame and wishing we'd made different choices are sentiments I hear all the time, inside my own head (although thankfully not so often anymore) and in the words of the women I coach around relationships, many of whom are childless-not-by-choice. I think one of the things I am most grateful for is all the work I have done to get to a place where I absolutely understand my past choices, have compassion for them and can see that they were the only choices I could have made at the time with the tools and the awareness that I had - and therefore the right choices. I am on a daily mission to celebrate all of myself and to want what I have, rather than long for what I don't.
Keep speaking out too. These conversations are healing.
Even as someone who is child-free by choice, your piece offers me great solace and wisdom. I have many views on the subject (that wait as notes for a yet unwritten piece), but the idea of “ambivalence” is remarkable.
It is important to accept that you can make a choice, be very sure of it, yet you can feel a certain kind of grief about it. Even if that grief stems from something as seemingly simple as society resenting for having put yourself first.
Thank you, Katherine, for this wonderful discourse on ambivalence.
Thank you so much Richa for your comment and for articulating the complexity of choice and grief. Ambivalence runs through me in so many ways. I look forward to continuing the conversation on this important topic here on Substack (which I'm new to and finding a remarkable place).
I've had this same vague feeling of ambivalence/guilt/regret/relief my entire adult life of chosen childlessness. Thank you for articulating it so profoundly. I now understand it better and am so grateful to know it's not unique to me. Thank you, Katherine.
Thank you so much for sharing Julie. I am pleased my piece deepened your self-understanding. You are certainly not alone and how wonderful that we can share our experiences so honestly in this space.
This question has come up really strongly for me this week. I really appreciated reading your experience and the idea of interconnected grief from childhood and other moments. 🙏🏻
Thank you Catriona for reading and commenting. 'Interconnected grief' is a powerful way to describe it. Wishing you well on your journey.
At turns, I have been childless by choice, and childless by circumstance, and I understand the grief + ambivalence you describe. But at 62, I revel in the children and grandchildren of family, friends, and strangers. How many little ones have made my day, smiling and waving to me from the arms of a loving parent? How wonderful to feel a surge of joy when my cousin’s children ask for a story. And those joys remind me that I too bear responsibility for their future.
Your article definitely resonates with me. I have always wanted children, but I would only have them if I was confident I (and my mate) could provide a healthy, nurturing environment. At the age of 53, I realize I need to reparent my inner child who never felt she belonged despite her best efforts. I believe part of the reason; I was able to realize this is because of the support of other childless women in Jody Day's community. It is frustrating to me that all the counseling I went to did not reveal this. However, a counselor cannot provide the feeling of belonging. It is hard to let go of what my life may have been had I been nurtured and encouraged. I am doing my best to continue this journey toward health and looking forward to the many opportunities life will offer.
Thank you Katherine, this writing touches me deeply. I am “childless-not by choice” as well. I wanted a loving husband, children and a family since I was a little girl. I simply knew I didn’t want to (couldn’t?) do it on my own so I never considered that. I was surprised to find, attending a baby shower at work in my late 30’s, that I could be so overcome with grief that I had to go home, lay in bed, and cry for the rest of the day. I didn’t know one could grieve what one never had.
At the same time I dearly longed for love and family, I was also horrified at the prospect of childbirth. It seemed at best tortuously painful, and at worst deadly. I didn’t have a doctor or anyone tell me the age when biological childbirth would be problematic in so many ways. So that age came and went without much notice….and now its too late.
Like you, my childhood was too many times, painful, spiteful, and unwelcoming. Your article helps me know that my dream of family: husband and children may not have been the salvation I was looking for at all. I still wish I could have the chance to try it out though. Sending you much love. ❤️🙏
This was so perfect for me right now. And so profoundly true. I've considered not having children to be one of my great failures in life. I've never thought of it as by choice, but rather as by circumstance. No man ever wanted to have children with me. But there are other options, and I thought about them in my late 30s (I'm 61 now). I decided not to because it seemed so much harder to do without a partner. But I realized that being childless is a choice since there are many ways to have children, from birthing them to adopting them to fostering them. But now I'll have to look at your question more deeply. I'm working with a therapist on so many things. I'm adding this. Thank you.