This week I have something a little different for the ‘On Being Childfree’ series but that I hope may still be helpful to some of you. Don’t worry, there are more stories from guest posters in the pipeline but it’s important to me to give people as much time as they need – whether it’s a choice or a circumstance I still think it’s one of the most personal subjects that people can share and I want everyone to feel in the best place to be able to do that.
First of all, a little reminder since I do get ask from time to time about why I share both stories from those who are childfree by choice or by circumstance, and even for those who may be parents to an only child. My idea behind this was never to come down in support of one side or the other, but rather to share a commonality that everyone will have experienced. No matter whether you choose not to have children or can’t, everyone has faced those same questions, that same judgment. I hope that in time, people will learn to think differently about the lives of others and understand that it’s not ok to ask those insensitive questions. We don’t all have to follow the same path, and thank goodness for that.
So here is a little resource list if you’re looking for other support, on both the childfree by choice and childfree by circumstance.
–Gateway Women: established by psychotherapist Jody Day, this is a community to support women who aren’t able to have children. She is wonderfully kind and I’ve exchanged tweets with her on a number of occasions, but even if you just visit her twitter stream you’ll find links and interactions with many other contributors from festival creators to authors and comedians
–Chasing Creation: Katy was one of my blog contributors and lives in the US with her partner. She set up her blog, dedicated to creating a life post-infertility and writes about her own experiences, as well as sharing others stories and the representation of infertility in other media. You can also find her on Instagram which is dedicated to the subject
–Married, Fun and Child-Free: another of the guest posters to my blog series, Leicia writes a wonderful blog about why choosing the childfree life doesn’t mean feelings are replaced by a heart of stone. She has contributed to radio shows on the subject and is also very active on Twitter, engaging with others in the childfree community
–The Dovecote: I spent a lot of time engaging with this wonderful, gentle support group when I was going through infertility. Founder Kelly is so calm and kind and has done a brilliant job raising awareness of this community including appearing on TV and radio. You can also find her on Twitter.
–Laura Carroll: Global childfree expert over the last 20 years and author of Family of Two and The Baby Matrix. She has a very useful childfree writings library which will hopefully be helpful to some of you and you can find her on Twitter.
This is a little starter for 10 but I’d really love it to be a list in progress. If there’s anywhere you can think of or your go-to for support whatever your situation please do leave it in the comments or email me and I’ll add it to the list.
Thank you once again for all the support you give to this weekly blog series, I’m ever so proud of what we’re all building together. If you’d like to contribute a guest post, do get in touch.
