2020 - Gateway Women

Twixmas – a time to reflect and renew

December 29, 2020 Jody Day 0

The week between Christmas and New Year can be a strange one at the best of times – and 2020 hasn’t been the best of times! I thought you might enjoy this webinar I recorded on 29th December 2018 on why I find this time of year challenging as a childless woman, and what helps me. You can watch it by clicking the video image above or this link. And you can find links/info about all the resources mentioned in this video here You might also like to know that I’m hosting a free webinar on Wednesday 30th December 2020 […]

What happens at a Gateway Women Reignite Weekend?

December 19, 2020 Jody Day 10

Since Jody created the Gateway Women Reignite Weekend in 2012, it’s helped thousands of childless women shift the way they experience their childlessness. So what’s so special about it? And how might it help you? Well, first of all, let me go back in time to 2012… I was still in my own early days of recovery from childlessness and this blog was just one year old. Being around families and children was incredibly painful for me and, on many days my grief felt so familiar that I presumed this might just be what being middle-aged felt like! I struggled […]

What advice would you give to your younger childless self? And other brilliant questions from Helen Gallagher on episode 1 of her ‘Happy and Childless Podcast’ (December 2020)

December 8, 2020 Jody Day 0

In this interview from Decemember 2020 with British podcaster, Helen Gallagher, for her brand new ‘Happy and Childless’ podcast, we discussed what it takes to be ‘happy’ with your life when childlessness wasn’t the plan. Helen is 43 and near the beginning of her journey of acceptance, which made for some poignant discussions and reflections back to that time in my life too. You can listen to the full interview (43-mins) by searching ‘Happy and Childless’ on Apple Podcasts and/or read the full transcript below. In our interview, we discuss how I couldn’t find support when I was looking for […]

Guest Blog: Reflections from a Childless Christian on the first Sunday of Advent

November 29, 2020 Jody Day 11

A guest blog by a Christian member of Gateway Women’s Childless Christian’s group – one of 35+ specialised subgroups in Gateway Women’s private online community. Happy New Year! Have I got my dates in a muddle – surely it isn’t 2021 just yet? Well no… it’s new year but in the Christian church calendar: Advent Sunday. Today starts the season of Advent – candles and calendars and yes, Christmas is under four weeks away. Advent is a time of preparation and countdown to celebrate the birth of the ultimate miracle baby, Jesus Christ, and all the trappings of comfort and […]

What does it take to get through childlessness? Guts, hearts, head, new friends, community, connection and a BIG sense of humour! Jody Day interviewed by Australia’s [un]Ripe Podcast (November 2020)

November 14, 2020 Jody Day 0

In this interview from November 2020, Jody Day (founder of Gateway Women) joins Penny and Jo in an episode for the Australian childless/childfree podcast (un)Ripe. You can listen to the full episode here (transcript below). As well as talking about the early days of Gateway Women and how it grew from a blog to the global organization it’s become, Jody also shares what goes on behind the doors of the amazing Gateway Women private online community, and the massive diversity of its 35+ subgroups covering everything from being a Childless Stepmother or Childless & Single to a group which is […]

World Childless Week 2020 Starts Tomorrow, Monday 14 September

September 13, 2020 Jody Day 3

It starts tomorrow – 2020’s World Childless Week! When I first started writing about childlessness on my blog back in 2011 I really found very little on the internet about involuntary childlessness apart from a few wonderful life-after-infertility blogs such as Silent Sorority, Life Without Baby and The Road Less Travelled. However, as fertility treatments hadn’t been part of my story, I didn’t immediately find them. And there certainly didn’t seem to be anything out there that spoke to the diversity of ways a woman could find herself childless. So, when I wrote that very first blog and women from around the world left comments such as “How […]

Never married, over sixty and childless: Donna Ward on living and writing an invisible story.

August 5, 2020 Jody Day 43

Full Transcript Below Donna Ward is an Australian writer, publisher and editor, living in Melbourne. Her 2020 book She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster’s Meditations on Life energised me in a way that few books still have the capacity to do, so eloquently and accurately does it portray not only ‘the life unexpected’ (to paraphrase my own book’s title!) but also, the life ‘invisible’ which is that of the unpartnered, childless woman in our society. In a world focused and built on the needs, attitudes, prejudices and ‘stories’ of those who couple and have children, to be a […]

“We are Warriors”: a Father’s Day Message to Childless Men from Michael Hughes

June 19, 2020 Jody Day 2

BELOW IS A TRANSCRIPT OF MICHAEL’S WORDS. MORE RESOURCES BOTTOM OF PAGE. “That was a bit dramatic, wasn’t it? But hopefully, it’ll all make sense by the time I’m finished.” “My name is Michael Hughes and I’m one-half of a childless couple and one-third of a podcast supporting the Childless Not By Choice (CNBC) community with Berenice Smith from Walk In Our Shoes and Sarah Lawrence from After The Storm. And it’s called TheFullStopPod.com Look out for us. We’re quite proud of what we’ve achieved.” “When Jody asked me if I would like to contribute to Father’s Day this year […]

“Single & Childless in a Pandemic” on The Full Stop Podcast

May 17, 2020 Jody Day 0

I was very happy to be interviewed as part of this special lockdown episode of the Full Stop Podcast on the experience of being single and childless during this pandemic. Although I’m now in a relationship, I was single for much of my forties as I went through the heartbreak and painful life-transformation of involuntary childlessness. And being both single and childless is something I write about in my book, as well as the experience of grieving childlessness whilst single, which has its own flavour compared to the challenges of grieving as a couple. Many members of the Gateway Women […]

Coping with International Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman

May 6, 2020 Jody Day 1

To watch this one-hour recording, click the image above or this link Whatever stage of your life you’re at as a childless woman, Mother’s Day can be a complex one to navigate. And for my international readers, it’s coming up this Sunday 10th May. For this video chat, I invited four childless guests to explore how they cope with Mother’s Day. Each of them has a unique viewpoint and I hope this conversation begins to represent a few of the less discussed ways that Mother’s Day and childlessness can intersect… As well as discussing their stories, we also answered questions […]

Oppressed by advice… all over again!

April 4, 2020 Jody Day 13

When I think back to my days of wanting/trying to become a mother and then wanting/trying to recover from that and build a new kind of life that did not include motherhood, one of the things that eventually stopped me from discussing my situation with anyone – was advice. (For me, the fact that the last four-letter spell V.I.C.E seems very apt!) In my training to become a psychotherapist, one of the earliest things we learned (and it’s not an easy habit to break!) is to stop giving advice, either asked for or not, but instead to support our clients […]

When the title of your book becomes the same as the news… ‘Living the Life Unexpected’

March 19, 2020 Jody Day 13

Today the 2nd edition of my book, Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children is published and the incredible global blogtour of my book that’s been going on since March 1st comes to a close. And yet, celebrating that feels like a crass thing to do right now, in the opening stages of a global pandemic that will change all our lives forever… Even though we’re in the run-up to UK Mother’s Day this weekend, normally a very anxiety-provoking time for British childless women, my website and inbox are almost silent on the […]

Coping with Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman

March 17, 2020 Jody Day 3

To watch this one-hour recording, click the image above or this link Whatever stage of your life you’re at as a childless woman, Mother’s Day can be a complex one to navigate. For this one hour chat, I invited four childless guests to explore how they cope with Mother’s Day. Each of them has a unique viewpoint and I hope this conversation begins to represent a few of the less discussed ways that Mother’s Day and childlessness can intersect… As well as discussing their stories, we also answered questions from our viewers, which included some topics that perhaps you can […]

#LTLU Living the Life Unexpected (2nd Edition): World Blogtour, 1-19th March 2020

March 1, 2020 Jody Day 45

I’m so proud to announce that the fully-revised and updated 2nd edition of my much-loved book, ‘Living the Life Unexpected’ is being published by Bluebird (PanMacmillan) in the UK on 19 March 2020. With fifty (I know, fifty!) prestigious endorsements inside the front and back jacket, a lovely new cover, a new subtitle, How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children, and new content, (including a new introduction from me which outlines what’s new), I hope you’ll find it exciting whether you’re a returning reader or a brand new one. 25+ chances to win a personally dedicated […]

Salt Water & Honey by Lizzie Lowrie: a powerful new memoir of childlessness and faith

February 28, 2020 Jody Day 0

Lizzie Lowrie is a Christian clergyman’s wife in the UK and one of the writers behind the popular, frank and earthy Christian blog about miscarriage and involuntary childlessness, Salt Water & Honey. Although what remained of my own childhood Christianity was eviscerated by the grief of childlessness, my spirituality survived and has returned to what was there before Sunday School – a deep sense of connection to the natural world; but that was hard-won too as there was a time when even that felt denied to me, exiled as I sensed I was from the natural cycles of birth and […]

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