You’re not crazy, you’re grieving

March 27, 2013 Jody Day 36

Do any of the following sound like you? You find yourself hiding out in the bathroom at the office because of your colleagues’ endless babytalk… You walk home alone across town, in the freezing rain, just to get away from your ‘last’ childless friend’s announcement of her ‘miracle’ pregnancy… You avoid family events and spend most of your cash on holidays and retreats abroad during the Christmas season… You snap and bitch at your partner so much that you wouldn’t be surprised if they left you… You’ve given up dating all together… You couldn’t give a shit what you look […]

Grieving for the Life Unlived

February 24, 2012 Jody Day 36

Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of dealing with not being a mother when you wanted to be one is the sheer intractability of the issue. After a life of solving problems, making plans and being proactive you find yourself up against something that will-power, a peppy new outfit and a positive attitude just can’t solve. Dammit. Our consumer culture is built on the idea of choice. Of personal freedom. Of planning. Of security. So when all your freedom, planning and choices end up with you as a single childless women, it also comes with a hefty dose of […]

To the Childless Woman at Christmas – I See You

December 25, 2023 Jody Day 18

I originally published this post in Christmas 2020, when many of us across the globe were under pandemic-related restrictions. However, although that may have changed, much of the experience of being childless at Christmas hasn’t… Many of us are hanging out in the round-the-world round-the-clock live chat in our private online community – come and join us there for empathic company and some random and often frivolous chat to distract you! However you are spending your holidays this year, I send you a warm hug. Hugs, Jody x I see you sitting at home muting the rolling TV ads of […]

[Audio + Transcript] This Mythic Life: The Hagitude Sessions – Episode 5: Dr Sharon Blackie interviews Jody Day [19 September 2022]

September 30, 2022 Jody Day 0

This Mythic Life: The Hagitude Sessions – episode 5 [19 September 2022]. Dr Sharon Blackie, the author of ‘Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life‘ interviews Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and one of the women interviewed in her book. Click here to listen to the full episode or search ‘This Mythic Life’ wherever you get your podcasts. And find out more about Hagitude – the book, the program and the podcast at: www.hagitude.org   FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Intro 00:19 I’m Dr. Sharon Blackie and I’d like to welcome you to my podcast This Mythic Life. Like all of […]

[Audio + Transcript] The Menstruality Podcast – Episode 54: Finding Hope and Meaning When You’re Childless-not-by-choice with Jody Day [15 September 2022]

September 22, 2022 Jody Day 0

The Menstruality Podcast – Episode 54: Finding Hope and Meaning When You’re Childless-not-by-choice (Jody Day) 15 September 2022. Sophie Jane Hardy from RedSchool.net interviews Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women. Click here to listen to episode or search ‘Menstruality’ wherever you get your podcasts. Full written transcript below.   ABSTRACT Jody’s personal journey through grief, denial, hopelessness to real acceptance of her life as a childless woman. The creation of Gateway Women and Jody’s mission to make the world understand childless women, and help women who are childless-not-by-choice to understand themselves. The ‘bingos’ that childless women hear all the time. Preparing yourself to answer […]

‘Why Does Dismantling Pronatalism Even Matter?’ Jody Day interviewed on New Legacy Community Radio [June 2022]

June 19, 2022 Jody Day 0

NEW LEGACY COMMUNITY RADIO 7 June 2022 – ‘Why Does Dismantling Pronatalism Even Matter?” Founder of New Legacy Institute, Christine Erickson, interviews Jody Day, Founder of Gateway Women. Click here to listen to episode or search ‘New Legacy Radio’ wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find New Legacy Insitute on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. ABSTRACT Excluded from policy measures and absent in DEI frameworks, even where laws and policies are designed to prevent discrimination based on family status, pronatalism is so deeply engrained in our social, professional and systemic psyches, that its impact remains unacknowledged. As a result, […]

‘Spinsterhood Reimagined’ – Jody Day interviewed by Lucy Meggeson [May 2022]

June 5, 2022 Jody Day 0

Lucy Meggeson is a British writer and broadcast producer (who really should have been on this side of the microphone before as she has a lovely voice!) and is on a mission to reclaim the word ‘spinster’. She has no children and although she now feels ‘childfree’, making peace with that was not without pain, as she shares with me in this interview. We also talk about the work it takes to construct a new idenity as a woman without children in our pronatalist society, and how this can be as transformative as becoming a mother yet remains unrecognised by […]

[March 2022] “Social Infertility & the transformative process of grief with Gateway Women Founder, Jody Day” – Geeta Pendse’s 1 in 5 Podcast [audio + transcript]

March 17, 2022 Jody Day 0

Geeta Pendse is a British journalist and TV presenter and her podcast features stories and topics relating to both childless and childfree women.  You can listen to Jody’s episode 7 here or search ‘1 in 5 – Leading a Life Without Children’ wherever you get your podcasts. You can connect with Geeta on Twitter @geetapendse and Instagram @geetapendse. Do also check out episode 1 with Gateway Women facilitator, author and activist for childless women of colour, Yvonne John. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Geeta:  Hello, welcome to the 1 in 5 podcast, a space to explore all sides of leading a life […]

‘It’s International Women’s Day, not International Mother’s Day’. Jody Day interviewed on New Legacy Radio [March 2022]

March 16, 2022 Jody Day 0

‘It’s International Woman’s Day, not International Mother’s Day.’ Jody Day was interviewed by Christine J. Erickson, founder of the New Legacy Institute on 8th March 2022. Listen here or search ‘New Legacy Radio’ wherever you get your pods and scroll to March 2022. And do connect/follows the New Legacy Institute on Twitter @NLInstitute and Instagram @newlegacyinstitute Click here to listen. Written transcript below.   Intro:  Welcome to New Legacy Radio with Christine Erickson. Are you someone who doesn’t have children by circumstance, choice or chance? This show is for our collective community. Are you someone who influences policy, DEI initiatives or  […]

‘Where Is My Home?’ – Navigating the sense of not belonging that can be caused by the intersectionality of race and childlessness. A free GW Masterclass Webinar with Yvonne John and Sophia Andeh.

February 26, 2022 Karin Enfield de Vries 0

Historically, for women of colour, shame in telling our stories has prevented us from healing from the trauma of the racism and oppression we’ve experienced.  In parallel, being childless not by choice or by circumstance can lead to feelings of shame, and add not only to isolation and exclusion from wider mainstream society, but also from within our own communities and cultures. Join Yvonne John, author of Dreaming of the Life Unlived: Intimate Stories and Portraits of Women Without Children activist and Licensed Gateway Women Reignite Weekend Facilitator, and Sophia Andeh, an award-winning childless coach, Founder of Butterfly & Beyond and […]

Jody interviewed on the Primal Happiness Podcast, December 2021 [Audio + Transcript]

December 28, 2021 Jody Day 0

Click here to listen to the show. Full transcript below.  WRITTEN TRANSCRIPT BELOW Intro: You’re listening to The Primal Happiness Show, a podcast dedicated to helping you thrive in this crazy modern world. Every Tuesday we explore the nature of how our minds really work. What exactly the human-animal requires to thrive and how we can live happier and more fulfilling lives. If you’re new here and haven’t yet taken our free class, then there’s no better place to get a jumpstart on reclaiming your primal happiness. It’s where we’ll guide you step by step through our antidote to today’s […]

Reflect and Renew: navigating the sometimes tricky ‘twixmas’ week as a childless woman

December 27, 2021 Jody Day 0

Amongst the myriad exhortations to move on from Christmas like you haven’t just survived the toughest day in the childless calendar, and throw yourself into the coming new year with gusto, we often ride roughshod over some of the less glamourous feelings that arise at this time of year. Feelings of loss, sadness, grief, wistfulness, regret and confusion which are so much a part of every life, and so often close to the surface for those of us living the life unexpected. If this resonates with you, I thought you might find this recording of my Reflect & Renew webinar which […]

Jody Day interviewed by Sally Garozzo for ‘The Menopause Mindset’ podcast [Dec 2021]: being childless at Christmas; dismantling negative stereotypes; fetishization of motherhood and the childless menopause!

December 16, 2021 Jody Day 0

In this episode of Sally Garozzo’s podcast ‘The Menopause Mindset’, Jody Day covers:  Being childless at Christmas Childlessness and childfree as a spectrum Disenfranchised grief The healing power of grief Having a language to describe your experience Unconscious bias towards parenting (pronatalism) Dismantling the stereotypes of childlessness women (Cruella De Vil) Yearning for motherhood as a last-ditch attempt to feel normal Reclaiming the childless life (or not) The fetishization of motherhood The cultural fear of childless women (the deviant) Ageing without children To listen, go to: sallygarozzo.com/podcast and click on ‘Episode 84’ or search ‘The Menopause Mindset’ wherever you get […]

Jody Day interviewed by Laura Behnke for ‘The Life Actually Podcast’ on childlessness across the life course; working to deshame ourselves as part of healing; how understand the grief process helps us deal with all of life’s changes and much much more! (Audio + Transcript)

October 14, 2021 Jody Day 0

[October 2021] Jody Day interviewed by Laura Behnke for ‘The Life Actually Podcast‘ in which we discuss, amongst other things: the data around the numbers of childless/free women, and why it’s on the rise; about shame as a powerful tool of social control; about how not having children means you also won’t get to be a grandmother either; about my own unplanned pregnancy and abortion at 20 and how this is a hidden part of many women’s stories, both mothers and childless women; about how our childhood experience of being mothered may influence our later thoughts about becoming mothers ourselves; […]

Jody Day interviewed by Dr Karin on her ‘Love and Life’ Podcast: ‘When You’re Not a Mother, But Wanted to Be’ [Audio & Full Transcript]

September 16, 2021 Jody Day 0

[September 2021] Jody Day, the founder of Gateway Women is here interviewed by Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell for her ‘Love & Life’ Podcast. Karin is the author of ‘Single is the New Black: Don’t Wear White ‘Till It’s Right‘ and her work mainly focuses on the experience of women who are single not by choice. Karin herself is a childless stepmother. In this conversation, as well as discussing World Childless Week 2021, we explore how one of the unintended consequences of second-wave feminism has been an increase in circumstantial childlessness and my frustration that involuntary childlessness is a topic absent […]

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