This is such a lovely post and such a big issue for many of us childless by (fill in the blank). It makes me sad and not want to continue reading any longer as current politicians are talked about negatively. I'm here for the childless issue as a 57 year old married American woman. I get political talk from lots of other sources. This feels like the ONLY source I have for not mom issues. And I cherish it and the other people writing in to discuss things. I just wish the attacks on politicians would stop in this forum -- besides, many of us are conservative in the USA sense of the word, do like Trump and Vance and whoever else, and don't agree with political comments being taken out of context. I just want a good, fun, enlightening forum for the life issues we are facing when most people around us don't get it and don't really care to learn. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hi Library Lady - you are very welcome here! And should you be looking for an online space where Politics (with a capital P!) is not discussed, it's one of the community guidelines of our online community on MightyNetworks. You can find out more about it here: https://gateway-women.com/community
I loved your article but I have a slightly different take on it. My sons are in their early 20s and asserting their independence, one by pushing me away and excavating old hurts.
What I’m seeing is that they’re drawn to their footy coach and other ‘elders’ whose lives intersect regularly with theirs. I’m actually a bit jealous that these people share an ease of connection while they assert a new adult identity that challenges mine as a mother.
It’s not simple either way, transitions never are.
Transitions are never easy, that's for sure... and I can feel how hard it is to have your sons pulling away from you as they find what they need in the world from others. I hope that the space that is opening up for you, painful as it is, becomes filled with new connections too, when you are ready. Hugs, Jody x
This is a scenario I have had to navigate over many years with stiff upper lip. I tried to be an undemanding & supportive friend when my friends had children & remain friends with some.
However I have had to part friendship with one who treated me like an optional extra/peripheral person & it was hard but much needed for my own well being. Before I finally made the break when feeling resentful I started to quantify the financial investment in their extended family with gifts for birthdays, Christmas, engagements, marriages, anniversaries, upsets, break ups etc It was considerable as by then their children were grown up & two married. But even though it added to my grief I realised it was time to stop as my feelings weren’t just about lost money but a lost friendship which was completely one sided.
I love how you’ve got all this stuff out in the open & maybe I can drop some of the stuff upper lip as a 70 year old crone!
Oh Christine, that sounds like a hard financial calculation to have made! I know that one of the things that has upset me is that many of the gifts I sent over the years rarely even got an acknowledgement from the parents (a text isn't so hard?) let alone a thank you text or letter from the children... Sounds like you contributed SO MUCH, of which finances were just one of many unappreciated inputs, and it's so hard when we realise we've been tipping our energy and love down a bottomless well... And as for stiff upper lips... they have their uses, but when they enable others to abuse our good natures, I'm not sure they are all that useful!!! Big hugs, Jody x
Thank you so much for this beautiful and insightful post, Jody. I resonated so much with the challenges around friendship (as a standalone issue - not just related to childlessness). I have been careless with friendships, discarded them, so it was helpful to read your experience and understand on a deeper level that we do to others what was done to us. Having a late diagnosis of ADHD has also helped me to understand some of my challenges with people and friends.
In terms of the friendship apocalypse post childlessness, my experience has been a bit different - I was mostly single until my early 40s save a few relationships and courtships that were never going to produce children. I was living and working abroad in my 20s and working in a fast-paced job in London in my 30s and I was surrounded by single and childless women and men. We all grew up and older together and the majority of my contemporaries remain childless (mostly not by choice). So I didn't experience the falling away of friends as they had children - perhaps only of one friend who managed to get pregnant very late in the day and against the odds. Thankfully, this also saves me from the experience of everyone in my circles becoming a grandmother. Most of my friends now don't have kids.
But I feel the difference between childless circles and those with kids more acutely since moving from London to Dorset. In London, I didn't notice when it was school holidays or the end of the school day. Here in Dorset, I am aware of the school cycles, there are families all around me and I feel in a minority as a woman without children. At Pilates and yoga classes, the chat is about the school run and on many occasions, I've found myself in conversation circles with mums, feeling invisible.
As I've done in many other parts of the world, I have tracked down and befriended people who are a little bit different, on the outskirts, not following the 'normal' path of marriage and kids. I find it easier to relate to them. My mum friends tend to be divorced, carving out a different path themselves.
Your post is a reminder to me to value friendships, to treat them as precious, and to cultivate them because I will continue to need them, and more and more as I age. It's also a reminder to continue to heal the deep childhood wounds in me that tell me that people are unsafe and everyone will leave so I'd better leave first. Love to you xx
Ah dear Katherine - thank YOU for your generous reflections and comments too! Learning how powerfully my attachment style (pre-therapy!) impacted my friendships as well as romance, was a huge game-changer for me, and sharing that through my work with other childless women has helped many of them too. I no longer beat myself up about the 'right' way to 'do' friendship but instead am choosing to hold it more lightly, and to have a really diverse friendship garden full and see the value of all them - neighbours, acquaintances, friendships and the occasional soul-sister. Just as families need 'villages' I think we all do -and not everyone has to be a close friend! Most of the people around me in rural Ireland are mothers/grandmothers, and they are a very diverse bunch too, and I'm slowly finding the rebels amongst them :) x
I love this Jody - I love the idea of a friendship garden and I love that you're finding the rebels. Go rebels! I think (and this will be a generalisation, of course) that when mothers emerge from the all-consuming phase of motherhood (little kids) and start to reclaim their lives and their identities, it is easier to connect with them and them with us - to relate more as humans, as women. Keep forging the path. xx
It's not wholly aligned with the overall subject matter of this lovely post but it now occurs to me that my own mother (both my parents, actually) didn't have any friends that I can think of or interactions with friends. Family members, yes, but I know from where I now sit in life that this can be (and certainly was for them) a very different thing. Something for me to think about.
Thank you Gabriel. Yes, I do think not having friendships modelled to us by our early family environment can shape our expectations profoundly. Perhaps had my mother had nourishing and supporting friendships, I might not have been so devastated when I was unable to have children... because I'd know that there were other ways to be 'part of' something. However, today, with most parents having so much less time than when I was growing up (as the norm is now for 100% adult supervision), I'm not sure if they have time for friendship....
Jody, once again I find myself thinking you have got inside my head and ead my diary (even though I don't write one). I will ALWAYS choose the role of organiser rather than have the attention on me. Try telling that to my Leo personality. I did always worry about everyone having children around me, then I seemed to end up in a friendship circle when none of us had children. Now I feel like I've been rebirthed through awakening and ascension I am gravitating towards a new vibe. Funnily enough many that I've found here on Substack.
Keep happening with us, doesn't it?! I have been through so many 'versions' of myself (so far) that my friendship group has changed a lot over time. I think that's one of the reasons why I treasure the very few friendships that go way back... they know all the Jody's I've been and it's almost like are part of the archive of my emotional life - because even through all those changes, they have stayed true to me - which suggests that our friendship exists at a soul level perhaps? So many have fallen by the wayside, and a few have fallen off a cliff, but I'm still here, still curious about people, still curious about myself and my role in this time of endings, and trusting that it's all part of the process! Hugs, Jody x
Jody, once again you have done an eloquent job of addressing friendships with our friends who are mothers. I distinctly remember talking about the day we would be pushing strollers together with my college friend. Honestly, our friendship seems to be falling apart now. We are both in the midst of a lot of struggles, but I am disappointed that all she can offer is to talk to me during her lunch break. I have expressed my sadness about my childness but have yet to hear any sympathy. I have supported her 2 marriages (to completely disgusting men) and divorces encouraging her to leave the marriages even though everyone else encouraged her to stay. I realized I am no longer willing to put as much effort into this relationship.
Like you, my mother really didn't have any friend (except her phone buddy) so I didn't have a model of as successful relationship modeled to me. More recently, I have realized just how dysfunctional my family was and that I was taught to work very hard to make others comfortable even at my own expense. Now I am working on being my true self and looking for relationships where we can be genuine.
I agree that female friendships have been a source of joy and heartbreak. In my experience, few relationships have been somewhere in the middle - which I have never understood. When women are unable to find common ground and work together, we are all harmed.
Thank you for your inspiration - I intend to write one day as well. God bless you for giving childless women a voice!
It can be so hard when we realise that we are the one putting in the giant share of the effort into a friendship, compared to what capacity the other person has to reciprocate. I've had many of those friendships in my (past) life until I realised that I was working to replicate a childhood pattern of trying to make unreasonable parental figures behave reasonably, by showing them how 'good' I was. (TLDL; didn't work). It also didn't work in my first marriage - the worse my husbands behaviours and addictions got, the more I doubled-down on being the BEST EVER wife, until my codependency led me to a (thanks Brene Brown) 'nervous breakdown slash spiritual awakening) which was the beginning of the end of the marriage - because guess what - once I rightsized my contribution to the relationship, the whole thing fell apart! I learned about the my codependency (and began to address it) whilst attending a 12-Step program called 'Al-Anon' (for friends and families of alcoholics and addicts). If you have any of that in your family system, then you are welcome to attend and they have meetings all over the world. A book that really helped me too was Melodie Beattie's 'Codependent No More'. Sending big hugs and I look forward to YOUR writing on being authentically you -- it's something I'm still working on, and I suspect I always will, and I'm okay with that. Jody x
Yes, I recently realized this is a pattern left from childhood. Thank you for sharing about Al-Anon. Although, there was not an alcoholic in my family there was definitely dysfunctional. There is a 12-step program (internationally) for children from alcoholic/dysfunctional families called Adult Children. This is a tough road, but I have renewed hope for the future. https://adultchildren.org/
Nodding away to all of that. I have friendships with mothers and non-mothers, but I’ve often thought that it’s because I have lots of non-mother friendships that I’m able to balance not truly being seen in my situation by those who are mothers.
I too found that once I got my 'belonging tank' topped up by meeting lots of other childless women (online and in person via meetups and the Gateway Women online community) it made being around my mother friends who didn't 'get' my childlessness but who had other wonderful qualities much easier...
Jody, I just adore your writing so much and am so grateful that you put your soul out there for others to seek reflection. Thank you. As a fellow INFJ, I felt so, so much of what you wrote around friendships. I have very few in-person friendships, and I worry so much about how that may impact my daughter. The friendships I do have are deep, and meaningful, but because of how life has worked, they are all now long-distance which makes me feel like I need to put a lot more effort into in person friendships. But as an autistic woman, I've found that to be so, so challenging. I don't quite understand small-talk and can visually see when the person I'm talking to registers that there is something slightly different, but they can never pinpoint what. It's challenging. Thank you for your words and for allowing us to connect with the commonality of the human experience, in all of its beauty and weirdness. ❤️🔥💜 You are just a gift! I am so, so glad your birthday was fabulous and full of joy--you absolutely deserve that!!!
Ah thank you - you know how much I appreciate your writing and work too! Finding, creating and sustaining in-person female friendships is often quite baffling at the best of times, and the way you have described how your autism factors into that gave me a real insight into your experience, which I deeply appreciate. I can 'do' small talk, but it's not my best, most reliable or most available 'channel' (I have to have plenty of energy, and as an insomnic, that's not a guaranteed thing on any given day!) and sometimes I deviate into something 'deep' without warning with people that I'm only just getting to know and I see the confused look on their face and I realise that I really didn't yet have 'social permission' to go there yet... and maybe never will! Thank you sister INFJ xxx
Thank you for writing this Jody, for going through more than one dark night of the soul, mountains and oceans of grief to get to where you are now: a beautiful person.
Thank you Karin; dark nights of the soul are usually where the learning and growth is, it just doesn't feel like it at the time - it feels like your whole life has gone to shit and nothing makes sense anymore. Having had several of them in my life, and no doubt with a few more to come, at least now I tend to have more patience as I sit in the dark! Hugs, Jody x
Actually, I think you got it right the first time - so many of my edges have been tumbled away in those transformations and each one has made me a kinder soul xx
I remember two distinct ‘friendship apocalypse’ events as a younger woman. When my twenty something early starters were with child and later, when the *career* women were having their progeny. I no longer have many of those friends and those I do, I really only see virtually. I have new friends now, much more aligned with who I have become, and many are childless or at least reasonable about their kids. I don’t expect a huge shift when or if these women become grandmothers. I could be wrong. Do the raging grannies types get all fussed about their grandchildren or will they still be out protesting the injustices of the world. A bit of both, I imagine. I hope I’ll still be on the agenda!
I wasn't bothered when the 'early starters' had their children, as I had such a banquet of friendships and other things to keep me distracted... but it did hurt in my thirties and forties when my entire peer group all went off to motherhood together and left me behind! From what I've learned from others, we can't predict how grandmotherhood will take our friends, but like you, I'm hopeful that if they are ones that have survived motherhood, we'll survive grandmotherhood too! I'll report back over the next decade and even if I'm not on their 'agenda' any more, like you, I have some deeply nourishing friendships with non-mothers to sustain me. My focus now is on creating LOCAL friendships of all types - neighbourly, acquaintances and maybe some of them might become full-on friends one day - but I suspect we need much more diversity in our relationship eco-system than perhaps has become the norm?
Yes. I absolutely go along with creating local friendships - the rub being that I will have to move at some point. Not out of the city but out of my neighbourhood. I’d like to strengthen the four or five relationships I have in my community so that if I am forced to move away, there will be visits.
Having said that, things are in flux. Almost done but still fresh. We shall see how this reflects in realm: friends!
Jody, what an excellent, insightful post that I think all mothers and childless people should read. I loved your poignant The Guardian article, too. (BTW, I think JD Vance is horrible, believing that a woman's job is to solely to have children.)
As you know, I am a mom through adoption of a girl from China. I think moms who abandon their childless friends are not true friends. Many of my friends -- male and female -- don't have children, and I have had strong, continued friendships with them.
In an interesting twist of fate, I belonged to a breast cancer survivor support group of childless women and am no longer friends with them. Here's the ironic part: when I announced I was planning to adopt, each one rejected me. One woman told me that my dream for a child was not meant to come true. Another woman agreed.
Childless people should not be ostracized. Our society does so much damage when it deems that motherhood is the be-all and end-all for everyone. It is not. All we each can do is live our lives to the fullest and try our best to understand each other.
Oh my, the rejection from your breast cancer survivor group made me gasp with pain! An old colleague of mine, who also lost her fertilty to cancer at a young age, said that she found so much empathy and support for her cancer and post-cancer journey, and absolutely zero for her childlessness... but things can change... 50 years ago cancer was a big taboo in society. Perhaps that has changed as treatments have evolved and so there is some 'hope' (damn, humans are addicted to hope, but that's for another post!) but permenent involuntary childlessness is not 'fixable'... perhaps your rejection was in part based on their unconsicous anger that you had 'found a way' out of that, although I know from many adoptive mothers that adoption does not 'fix' biological childlessness, but rather offers a different route to parenthood... but that adoptive parents aren't 'allowed' to talk about that. (Yet more disenfranchised grief!) xx
Thank you so much for your kindness. Of course, adoption has its own set of complexities that I could write a book about! Yes, the empathy and support your colleague experienced for her cancer, but not her childlessness was really unfair.
It's interesting that hope and cancer are often intertwined. I get annoyed at the trope of the brave, smiling breast cancer warrior. In the U.S. October is breast cancer awareness month and it sucks. We are all aware but where's the cure?
This spoke to me so much on many levels, I’m so glad it came across my Notes. I never particularly wanted a child but I also didn’t know that meant I’d be signing up for so much loneliness, especially following the recent loss of my own mum — someone who struggled to trust and to find the deep level female friendships she craved, which I’ve always found hard too, worrying I’m asking too much of people (which I sometimes am, repeating old patterns by chasing people who don’t really care about me & wondering why I’m alone). I understand why mothers and grandmothers would prioritise their families but it also feels like such a limited way to shape a society if those are the only relationships we’re collectively taught to value, which often seems to be the case.
The nuclear family is a 20th Century thing, and whilst for a while it had its advantages, the extended and horizontally-connected kinship systems that it replaced (in much of the Westernized world), had much going for them too. Those of us who, for whatever reason, find ourselves outside the those nuclear silos can find it hard to find sufficient emotional and social sustenance (including informal support as we age) and strangely, it can also be hard for us to find ways to contribute to often over-stressed nuclear family systems. This will be a big focus of my work going forward for the next ten years - how do we create local, intergeneration, non-kin networks - so many of us are hungry for it, and that includes me! We all need more than the nuclear family, including the nuclear family... Hugs, Jody x
Thank you Jodi for a lovely and nuanced post. Though I'm childless by choice, yours is the first I've read to describe the loss of friendships as they move into motherhood. I felt private relief, an "at last!", when one friend I've know from childhood began to become available for spending time together as her children became teenagers. It has been a deeply lonely time for me over the years at times, though for the most part I don't regret my choice. On my mind regularly of late as I live my 58th year, is how to make new friends and to be comfortable with more social activities, since I normally prefer one-on-one, deeper connections on the whole. Thanks for validating the experiences and that we're not alone.
Dear Darcy, I'll be writing more on how we create all kinds of different friendships as we age without children... a time of life when I think (and hope) that perhaps the actual/percieved difference in childless/childfree can perhaps soften a little? (I hosted a Fireside Wisdom on exatly that topic a while back - linked to below). I've found finding deep one-to-one connections easier than more casual 'hang out' social connections as these (once we're past our 20s!) seem to all revolve around biological family... as well as I think the frenetic pace of modern life which makes 'dropping in' on people almost impossible (and probably frowned upon if you did!). I'm glad my post spoke to you today and it's lovely to have you, and your life experience, part of this vital conversation. Hugs, Jody x
Jody, thank you so much for your article. I have two children and am recently (3 days ago) a grandma for the first time and feel so happy at this time.
My happiness is tempered however. My sister, in her mid 50s, has not had children though would have loved to, and has not been in a romantic relationship for many many years. I know she feels all the loneliness, all the self doubt that you speak about here. She lives in a small rural town here in South Gippsland, Australia and while she loves where she lives, she has felt the social exclusion that happens when women have children and their life revolves around all those joint mothering activities and conversations.
My heart hurts for her but for a long time I was not as empathic as I could have been. Wanting her to get out more and try to meet people etc.
when I became single and my own children grew up and away some 8 years ago I started to feel some of that loneliness. Then as the years went by and I did not find anyone I remotely felt like starting a relationship with — and so assuaging my loneliness — I have some small inkling of what she has been feeling for a very long time.
Since embracing my own crone state (I turned 60 in January) and searching out information experiences and stories from other women I have felt my heart open so much wider. Greater compassion for my own situation but sis so much more awareness for my sister and others in the same boat.
Thank you for the beautiful article you have written here. I’m so glad I stumbled upon this community of wise, vulnerable, beautiful women.
Dear Tracey - your experience of "empty nesting" is often the first time that mothers in our lives get a taste of what we may have lived with our whole adult lives... and can be a window for them to perhaps understand the path of involuntary childlessness... I'm so glad it has helped you to be more empathic towards your sister and I hope that has been received well. Long term involuntary singleness can be both incredibly lonely, and also socially deeply invalidating, with awful social judgments and curiosity about 'what's wrong with her?' and yet, as you've found, finding a good relationship is a lot more complex than just wanted one, or 'getting out there' - so much of it is luck! Have you read 'She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster's Meditations on Life' by Australian author Donna Ward? It's the most beautiful book and Donna is a brilliant woman who is often a guest on my Fireside Wisdom sessions (she'll be part of the December one). Links below. Sending you and you grandchild much love and happiness, and a big hug to your sister too. Jody x
This is such a lovely post and such a big issue for many of us childless by (fill in the blank). It makes me sad and not want to continue reading any longer as current politicians are talked about negatively. I'm here for the childless issue as a 57 year old married American woman. I get political talk from lots of other sources. This feels like the ONLY source I have for not mom issues. And I cherish it and the other people writing in to discuss things. I just wish the attacks on politicians would stop in this forum -- besides, many of us are conservative in the USA sense of the word, do like Trump and Vance and whoever else, and don't agree with political comments being taken out of context. I just want a good, fun, enlightening forum for the life issues we are facing when most people around us don't get it and don't really care to learn. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hi Library Lady - you are very welcome here! And should you be looking for an online space where Politics (with a capital P!) is not discussed, it's one of the community guidelines of our online community on MightyNetworks. You can find out more about it here: https://gateway-women.com/community
Jody x
Hi Jody
I loved your article but I have a slightly different take on it. My sons are in their early 20s and asserting their independence, one by pushing me away and excavating old hurts.
What I’m seeing is that they’re drawn to their footy coach and other ‘elders’ whose lives intersect regularly with theirs. I’m actually a bit jealous that these people share an ease of connection while they assert a new adult identity that challenges mine as a mother.
It’s not simple either way, transitions never are.
Transitions are never easy, that's for sure... and I can feel how hard it is to have your sons pulling away from you as they find what they need in the world from others. I hope that the space that is opening up for you, painful as it is, becomes filled with new connections too, when you are ready. Hugs, Jody x
This is a scenario I have had to navigate over many years with stiff upper lip. I tried to be an undemanding & supportive friend when my friends had children & remain friends with some.
However I have had to part friendship with one who treated me like an optional extra/peripheral person & it was hard but much needed for my own well being. Before I finally made the break when feeling resentful I started to quantify the financial investment in their extended family with gifts for birthdays, Christmas, engagements, marriages, anniversaries, upsets, break ups etc It was considerable as by then their children were grown up & two married. But even though it added to my grief I realised it was time to stop as my feelings weren’t just about lost money but a lost friendship which was completely one sided.
I love how you’ve got all this stuff out in the open & maybe I can drop some of the stuff upper lip as a 70 year old crone!
Oh Christine, that sounds like a hard financial calculation to have made! I know that one of the things that has upset me is that many of the gifts I sent over the years rarely even got an acknowledgement from the parents (a text isn't so hard?) let alone a thank you text or letter from the children... Sounds like you contributed SO MUCH, of which finances were just one of many unappreciated inputs, and it's so hard when we realise we've been tipping our energy and love down a bottomless well... And as for stiff upper lips... they have their uses, but when they enable others to abuse our good natures, I'm not sure they are all that useful!!! Big hugs, Jody x
Thank you so much for this beautiful and insightful post, Jody. I resonated so much with the challenges around friendship (as a standalone issue - not just related to childlessness). I have been careless with friendships, discarded them, so it was helpful to read your experience and understand on a deeper level that we do to others what was done to us. Having a late diagnosis of ADHD has also helped me to understand some of my challenges with people and friends.
In terms of the friendship apocalypse post childlessness, my experience has been a bit different - I was mostly single until my early 40s save a few relationships and courtships that were never going to produce children. I was living and working abroad in my 20s and working in a fast-paced job in London in my 30s and I was surrounded by single and childless women and men. We all grew up and older together and the majority of my contemporaries remain childless (mostly not by choice). So I didn't experience the falling away of friends as they had children - perhaps only of one friend who managed to get pregnant very late in the day and against the odds. Thankfully, this also saves me from the experience of everyone in my circles becoming a grandmother. Most of my friends now don't have kids.
But I feel the difference between childless circles and those with kids more acutely since moving from London to Dorset. In London, I didn't notice when it was school holidays or the end of the school day. Here in Dorset, I am aware of the school cycles, there are families all around me and I feel in a minority as a woman without children. At Pilates and yoga classes, the chat is about the school run and on many occasions, I've found myself in conversation circles with mums, feeling invisible.
As I've done in many other parts of the world, I have tracked down and befriended people who are a little bit different, on the outskirts, not following the 'normal' path of marriage and kids. I find it easier to relate to them. My mum friends tend to be divorced, carving out a different path themselves.
Your post is a reminder to me to value friendships, to treat them as precious, and to cultivate them because I will continue to need them, and more and more as I age. It's also a reminder to continue to heal the deep childhood wounds in me that tell me that people are unsafe and everyone will leave so I'd better leave first. Love to you xx
Ah dear Katherine - thank YOU for your generous reflections and comments too! Learning how powerfully my attachment style (pre-therapy!) impacted my friendships as well as romance, was a huge game-changer for me, and sharing that through my work with other childless women has helped many of them too. I no longer beat myself up about the 'right' way to 'do' friendship but instead am choosing to hold it more lightly, and to have a really diverse friendship garden full and see the value of all them - neighbours, acquaintances, friendships and the occasional soul-sister. Just as families need 'villages' I think we all do -and not everyone has to be a close friend! Most of the people around me in rural Ireland are mothers/grandmothers, and they are a very diverse bunch too, and I'm slowly finding the rebels amongst them :) x
I love this Jody - I love the idea of a friendship garden and I love that you're finding the rebels. Go rebels! I think (and this will be a generalisation, of course) that when mothers emerge from the all-consuming phase of motherhood (little kids) and start to reclaim their lives and their identities, it is easier to connect with them and them with us - to relate more as humans, as women. Keep forging the path. xx
It's not wholly aligned with the overall subject matter of this lovely post but it now occurs to me that my own mother (both my parents, actually) didn't have any friends that I can think of or interactions with friends. Family members, yes, but I know from where I now sit in life that this can be (and certainly was for them) a very different thing. Something for me to think about.
Thank you Gabriel. Yes, I do think not having friendships modelled to us by our early family environment can shape our expectations profoundly. Perhaps had my mother had nourishing and supporting friendships, I might not have been so devastated when I was unable to have children... because I'd know that there were other ways to be 'part of' something. However, today, with most parents having so much less time than when I was growing up (as the norm is now for 100% adult supervision), I'm not sure if they have time for friendship....
Jody, once again I find myself thinking you have got inside my head and ead my diary (even though I don't write one). I will ALWAYS choose the role of organiser rather than have the attention on me. Try telling that to my Leo personality. I did always worry about everyone having children around me, then I seemed to end up in a friendship circle when none of us had children. Now I feel like I've been rebirthed through awakening and ascension I am gravitating towards a new vibe. Funnily enough many that I've found here on Substack.
Keep happening with us, doesn't it?! I have been through so many 'versions' of myself (so far) that my friendship group has changed a lot over time. I think that's one of the reasons why I treasure the very few friendships that go way back... they know all the Jody's I've been and it's almost like are part of the archive of my emotional life - because even through all those changes, they have stayed true to me - which suggests that our friendship exists at a soul level perhaps? So many have fallen by the wayside, and a few have fallen off a cliff, but I'm still here, still curious about people, still curious about myself and my role in this time of endings, and trusting that it's all part of the process! Hugs, Jody x
Same here Jody and then the people that you meet now who you know you've definitely tangoed with in a few past lifetimes! xx
Oh yeah, definitely have a couple of those! x
Jody, once again you have done an eloquent job of addressing friendships with our friends who are mothers. I distinctly remember talking about the day we would be pushing strollers together with my college friend. Honestly, our friendship seems to be falling apart now. We are both in the midst of a lot of struggles, but I am disappointed that all she can offer is to talk to me during her lunch break. I have expressed my sadness about my childness but have yet to hear any sympathy. I have supported her 2 marriages (to completely disgusting men) and divorces encouraging her to leave the marriages even though everyone else encouraged her to stay. I realized I am no longer willing to put as much effort into this relationship.
Like you, my mother really didn't have any friend (except her phone buddy) so I didn't have a model of as successful relationship modeled to me. More recently, I have realized just how dysfunctional my family was and that I was taught to work very hard to make others comfortable even at my own expense. Now I am working on being my true self and looking for relationships where we can be genuine.
I agree that female friendships have been a source of joy and heartbreak. In my experience, few relationships have been somewhere in the middle - which I have never understood. When women are unable to find common ground and work together, we are all harmed.
Thank you for your inspiration - I intend to write one day as well. God bless you for giving childless women a voice!
It can be so hard when we realise that we are the one putting in the giant share of the effort into a friendship, compared to what capacity the other person has to reciprocate. I've had many of those friendships in my (past) life until I realised that I was working to replicate a childhood pattern of trying to make unreasonable parental figures behave reasonably, by showing them how 'good' I was. (TLDL; didn't work). It also didn't work in my first marriage - the worse my husbands behaviours and addictions got, the more I doubled-down on being the BEST EVER wife, until my codependency led me to a (thanks Brene Brown) 'nervous breakdown slash spiritual awakening) which was the beginning of the end of the marriage - because guess what - once I rightsized my contribution to the relationship, the whole thing fell apart! I learned about the my codependency (and began to address it) whilst attending a 12-Step program called 'Al-Anon' (for friends and families of alcoholics and addicts). If you have any of that in your family system, then you are welcome to attend and they have meetings all over the world. A book that really helped me too was Melodie Beattie's 'Codependent No More'. Sending big hugs and I look forward to YOUR writing on being authentically you -- it's something I'm still working on, and I suspect I always will, and I'm okay with that. Jody x
https://www.melodybeattie.com/books
Yes, I recently realized this is a pattern left from childhood. Thank you for sharing about Al-Anon. Although, there was not an alcoholic in my family there was definitely dysfunctional. There is a 12-step program (internationally) for children from alcoholic/dysfunctional families called Adult Children. This is a tough road, but I have renewed hope for the future. https://adultchildren.org/
Nodding away to all of that. I have friendships with mothers and non-mothers, but I’ve often thought that it’s because I have lots of non-mother friendships that I’m able to balance not truly being seen in my situation by those who are mothers.
I too found that once I got my 'belonging tank' topped up by meeting lots of other childless women (online and in person via meetups and the Gateway Women online community) it made being around my mother friends who didn't 'get' my childlessness but who had other wonderful qualities much easier...
Jody, I just adore your writing so much and am so grateful that you put your soul out there for others to seek reflection. Thank you. As a fellow INFJ, I felt so, so much of what you wrote around friendships. I have very few in-person friendships, and I worry so much about how that may impact my daughter. The friendships I do have are deep, and meaningful, but because of how life has worked, they are all now long-distance which makes me feel like I need to put a lot more effort into in person friendships. But as an autistic woman, I've found that to be so, so challenging. I don't quite understand small-talk and can visually see when the person I'm talking to registers that there is something slightly different, but they can never pinpoint what. It's challenging. Thank you for your words and for allowing us to connect with the commonality of the human experience, in all of its beauty and weirdness. ❤️🔥💜 You are just a gift! I am so, so glad your birthday was fabulous and full of joy--you absolutely deserve that!!!
Ah thank you - you know how much I appreciate your writing and work too! Finding, creating and sustaining in-person female friendships is often quite baffling at the best of times, and the way you have described how your autism factors into that gave me a real insight into your experience, which I deeply appreciate. I can 'do' small talk, but it's not my best, most reliable or most available 'channel' (I have to have plenty of energy, and as an insomnic, that's not a guaranteed thing on any given day!) and sometimes I deviate into something 'deep' without warning with people that I'm only just getting to know and I see the confused look on their face and I realise that I really didn't yet have 'social permission' to go there yet... and maybe never will! Thank you sister INFJ xxx
Thank you for writing this Jody, for going through more than one dark night of the soul, mountains and oceans of grief to get to where you are now: a beautiful person.
Thank you Karin; dark nights of the soul are usually where the learning and growth is, it just doesn't feel like it at the time - it feels like your whole life has gone to shit and nothing makes sense anymore. Having had several of them in my life, and no doubt with a few more to come, at least now I tend to have more patience as I sit in the dark! Hugs, Jody x
Actually that came out wrong at the end there, I am sure you have always been a beautiful person.
Actually, I think you got it right the first time - so many of my edges have been tumbled away in those transformations and each one has made me a kinder soul xx
Reminds me of the U2 song Ordinary Love for Nelson Mandela... " The sea throws rocks together but time leaves us polished stones"... big hugs K
I remember two distinct ‘friendship apocalypse’ events as a younger woman. When my twenty something early starters were with child and later, when the *career* women were having their progeny. I no longer have many of those friends and those I do, I really only see virtually. I have new friends now, much more aligned with who I have become, and many are childless or at least reasonable about their kids. I don’t expect a huge shift when or if these women become grandmothers. I could be wrong. Do the raging grannies types get all fussed about their grandchildren or will they still be out protesting the injustices of the world. A bit of both, I imagine. I hope I’ll still be on the agenda!
I wasn't bothered when the 'early starters' had their children, as I had such a banquet of friendships and other things to keep me distracted... but it did hurt in my thirties and forties when my entire peer group all went off to motherhood together and left me behind! From what I've learned from others, we can't predict how grandmotherhood will take our friends, but like you, I'm hopeful that if they are ones that have survived motherhood, we'll survive grandmotherhood too! I'll report back over the next decade and even if I'm not on their 'agenda' any more, like you, I have some deeply nourishing friendships with non-mothers to sustain me. My focus now is on creating LOCAL friendships of all types - neighbourly, acquaintances and maybe some of them might become full-on friends one day - but I suspect we need much more diversity in our relationship eco-system than perhaps has become the norm?
Yes. I absolutely go along with creating local friendships - the rub being that I will have to move at some point. Not out of the city but out of my neighbourhood. I’d like to strengthen the four or five relationships I have in my community so that if I am forced to move away, there will be visits.
Having said that, things are in flux. Almost done but still fresh. We shall see how this reflects in realm: friends!
Jody, what an excellent, insightful post that I think all mothers and childless people should read. I loved your poignant The Guardian article, too. (BTW, I think JD Vance is horrible, believing that a woman's job is to solely to have children.)
As you know, I am a mom through adoption of a girl from China. I think moms who abandon their childless friends are not true friends. Many of my friends -- male and female -- don't have children, and I have had strong, continued friendships with them.
In an interesting twist of fate, I belonged to a breast cancer survivor support group of childless women and am no longer friends with them. Here's the ironic part: when I announced I was planning to adopt, each one rejected me. One woman told me that my dream for a child was not meant to come true. Another woman agreed.
Childless people should not be ostracized. Our society does so much damage when it deems that motherhood is the be-all and end-all for everyone. It is not. All we each can do is live our lives to the fullest and try our best to understand each other.
Thank you for another thought-provoking article.
Oh my, the rejection from your breast cancer survivor group made me gasp with pain! An old colleague of mine, who also lost her fertilty to cancer at a young age, said that she found so much empathy and support for her cancer and post-cancer journey, and absolutely zero for her childlessness... but things can change... 50 years ago cancer was a big taboo in society. Perhaps that has changed as treatments have evolved and so there is some 'hope' (damn, humans are addicted to hope, but that's for another post!) but permenent involuntary childlessness is not 'fixable'... perhaps your rejection was in part based on their unconsicous anger that you had 'found a way' out of that, although I know from many adoptive mothers that adoption does not 'fix' biological childlessness, but rather offers a different route to parenthood... but that adoptive parents aren't 'allowed' to talk about that. (Yet more disenfranchised grief!) xx
Thank you so much for your kindness. Of course, adoption has its own set of complexities that I could write a book about! Yes, the empathy and support your colleague experienced for her cancer, but not her childlessness was really unfair.
It's interesting that hope and cancer are often intertwined. I get annoyed at the trope of the brave, smiling breast cancer warrior. In the U.S. October is breast cancer awareness month and it sucks. We are all aware but where's the cure?
This spoke to me so much on many levels, I’m so glad it came across my Notes. I never particularly wanted a child but I also didn’t know that meant I’d be signing up for so much loneliness, especially following the recent loss of my own mum — someone who struggled to trust and to find the deep level female friendships she craved, which I’ve always found hard too, worrying I’m asking too much of people (which I sometimes am, repeating old patterns by chasing people who don’t really care about me & wondering why I’m alone). I understand why mothers and grandmothers would prioritise their families but it also feels like such a limited way to shape a society if those are the only relationships we’re collectively taught to value, which often seems to be the case.
The nuclear family is a 20th Century thing, and whilst for a while it had its advantages, the extended and horizontally-connected kinship systems that it replaced (in much of the Westernized world), had much going for them too. Those of us who, for whatever reason, find ourselves outside the those nuclear silos can find it hard to find sufficient emotional and social sustenance (including informal support as we age) and strangely, it can also be hard for us to find ways to contribute to often over-stressed nuclear family systems. This will be a big focus of my work going forward for the next ten years - how do we create local, intergeneration, non-kin networks - so many of us are hungry for it, and that includes me! We all need more than the nuclear family, including the nuclear family... Hugs, Jody x
Yes, perfectly articulated and so validating, thank you! 💓
Thank you Jodi for a lovely and nuanced post. Though I'm childless by choice, yours is the first I've read to describe the loss of friendships as they move into motherhood. I felt private relief, an "at last!", when one friend I've know from childhood began to become available for spending time together as her children became teenagers. It has been a deeply lonely time for me over the years at times, though for the most part I don't regret my choice. On my mind regularly of late as I live my 58th year, is how to make new friends and to be comfortable with more social activities, since I normally prefer one-on-one, deeper connections on the whole. Thanks for validating the experiences and that we're not alone.
https://gateway-women.com/childless-vs-childfree-does-age-soften-this-distinction-a-live-recorded-discussion-with-the-nomocrones-fireside-wisdom-march-equinox-2022/
Dear Darcy, I'll be writing more on how we create all kinds of different friendships as we age without children... a time of life when I think (and hope) that perhaps the actual/percieved difference in childless/childfree can perhaps soften a little? (I hosted a Fireside Wisdom on exatly that topic a while back - linked to below). I've found finding deep one-to-one connections easier than more casual 'hang out' social connections as these (once we're past our 20s!) seem to all revolve around biological family... as well as I think the frenetic pace of modern life which makes 'dropping in' on people almost impossible (and probably frowned upon if you did!). I'm glad my post spoke to you today and it's lovely to have you, and your life experience, part of this vital conversation. Hugs, Jody x
Jody, thank you so much for your article. I have two children and am recently (3 days ago) a grandma for the first time and feel so happy at this time.
My happiness is tempered however. My sister, in her mid 50s, has not had children though would have loved to, and has not been in a romantic relationship for many many years. I know she feels all the loneliness, all the self doubt that you speak about here. She lives in a small rural town here in South Gippsland, Australia and while she loves where she lives, she has felt the social exclusion that happens when women have children and their life revolves around all those joint mothering activities and conversations.
My heart hurts for her but for a long time I was not as empathic as I could have been. Wanting her to get out more and try to meet people etc.
when I became single and my own children grew up and away some 8 years ago I started to feel some of that loneliness. Then as the years went by and I did not find anyone I remotely felt like starting a relationship with — and so assuaging my loneliness — I have some small inkling of what she has been feeling for a very long time.
Since embracing my own crone state (I turned 60 in January) and searching out information experiences and stories from other women I have felt my heart open so much wider. Greater compassion for my own situation but sis so much more awareness for my sister and others in the same boat.
Thank you for the beautiful article you have written here. I’m so glad I stumbled upon this community of wise, vulnerable, beautiful women.
Dear Tracey - your experience of "empty nesting" is often the first time that mothers in our lives get a taste of what we may have lived with our whole adult lives... and can be a window for them to perhaps understand the path of involuntary childlessness... I'm so glad it has helped you to be more empathic towards your sister and I hope that has been received well. Long term involuntary singleness can be both incredibly lonely, and also socially deeply invalidating, with awful social judgments and curiosity about 'what's wrong with her?' and yet, as you've found, finding a good relationship is a lot more complex than just wanted one, or 'getting out there' - so much of it is luck! Have you read 'She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster's Meditations on Life' by Australian author Donna Ward? It's the most beautiful book and Donna is a brilliant woman who is often a guest on my Fireside Wisdom sessions (she'll be part of the December one). Links below. Sending you and you grandchild much love and happiness, and a big hug to your sister too. Jody x
https://www.donna-ward.com.au/she-i-dare-not-name
https://gateway-women.com/gateway-elderwomen/
Thank you so much!!
Brilliantly said 🙏
Thank you Gwyneth! x