Ageing Archives - Gateway Women

‘Calm After the Storm’ and other treasures to support your childless heart on Mother’s Day

May 9, 2023 Jody Day 2

Here we go again – like Groundhog Day, it’s Mother’s Day again this weekend – this time for Europe, Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, amongst others. Although, thanks to the [cough] genius of social media, those of us in the UK & Ireland get to experience it all over again! * Snark aside, for those of you who are feeling that creeping ‘uh oh’ feeling as Mother’s Day gets closer, I really hope that some of the events and resources below feel nourishing for you. And if it’s not ‘your turn’ for Mother’s Day this month, please know […]

Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Mothers & Daughters’

March 21, 2023 Jody Day 0

In this session of ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’, Jody Day (founder of Gateway Women) and her #NomoCrone panel (Nomo=not mother + crone is not an insult!) discuss the sometimes challenging topic of mothers & daughters – a tricky relationship for many of us, and with a unique flavour if you are childless not by choice. Recorded on the March 2023 Equinox; a time of turning away and turning towards, depending on which hemisphere you live in; and falling the day after Mother’s Day in the UK & Ireland, this felt like a poignant moment in the wheel of the […]

Mothers & Childless Daughters – a very hot topic for our next free Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen webinar

March 15, 2023 Jody Day 0

Register free at this link, the recording will be sent out the next day to all who register. Hope to see you there live, the chat is moderated and is usually pretty lively too! Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen is a series of quarterly webinars that I host with an inspiring panel of childless elderwomen in their late 50s, 60s and 70s. They are public, free, open to all and you are welcome to join us whatever age you are! We meet each Equinox and Solstice and our next one is coming up soon on Monday 20th March – Spring […]

[Audio + Transcript] ‘Why is Policy Engagement Essential for People Without Children?’ Christine Erickson, Founder of the New Legacy Institute in conversation with NLI Advisors Jody Day, Dr Robin Hadley, Therese Shechter and Nandita Bajaj [Recorded Jan 2023]

January 26, 2023 Jody Day 0

Why is Policy Engagement Essential for People Without Children? on New Legacy Radio, a Voice America Show. [Episode recorded 23 January 2023]. Featuring Christine J. Erickson, founder of New Legacy Insititute in conversation with New Legacy Institute Advisors: Jody Day (founder of Gateway Women and author of ‘Living the Life Unexpected’), Dr Robin Hadley (adademic researcher and the author of ‘How Is a Man Supposed to be a Man? Male Childlessness – a Life Course Disrupted’), Therese Shechter (founder of female-led production house Trixie Films and director of ‘My So Called Selfish Life’) and Nandita Bajaj (Lecturer on pronatalism at […]

[Watch now] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Renewal’: Solstice 2022: Wed 21 December

October 26, 2022 Jody Day 1

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice on/around 21 December is the shortest night of the year and is celebrated as such by our ancestors. They knew it presaged the return of longer days and shorter nights, the return of the ‘Sun/Son’. It was a festival of rebirth and renewal at the promise of another year of warmth and food to come. This conversatation was recorded live on 21 December 2022 and you can watch it here now. You can watch past sessions here and sign up to Jody’s mailing list for future sessions here. Filmed on Wednesday 21 December […]

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

September 30, 2022 Jody Day 2

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 […]

[Watch recording] Letters to Our Younger Selves with the #NomoCrones for World Childless Week 2022

August 18, 2022 Jody Day 0

If you could write a letter and post it back in time to your younger self, what would it say? On September 14, the #NomoCrones gathered around the Zoom-fire to share their letters and reflections on the “Letter to our Younger Selves” theme of this day for World Childless Week 2022. Whether you were with us live, or weren’t able to make it, or just would like to watch it again, please click the video link above or this link to watch. Thank you to each of the fabulous #NomoCrones for taking part and for sharing their amazing letters with […]

‘Embracing Childless Elderhood’: Jody Day’s talk at the 2022 Childless Collective Summit

July 17, 2022 Jody Day 0

Today is the final day of Katy Seppi’s ‘Childless Collective Summit’ and the theme for today is ‘Looking Ahead’. I’m speaking on ‘Embracing Childless Elderhood’ at 6pm BST (1pm EDT) which, as some of you may be aware, has been a topic I’ve been leaning into for a few years now and which will increasingly be the focus of my work going forward. Although the opportunity to watch my talk for free has passed, you can still watch it (and the other 39 presentations at the Summit) by purchasing a Pace Yourself Pass which lasts 12-months. If you’d like to learn […]

[Watch/Read now] Jody’s new TED talk, ‘Social Plankton: Why Single Non-Mothers Are The Fuel of The Future’

April 9, 2022 Jody Day 5

This talk is currently only available to watch on Facebook here whilst it is being uploaded to TED.com You do not need to have a Facebook account to watch. The talk is 13 mins long, followed by a 45min Q&A. My new TED talk with TEDxGateway is now live and available to watch. I wrote it to explore the negative bias against single non-mothers (both childless and childfree). Covering a broad sweep across depth psychology, fairy tales, modern media stereotypes and individual lived experiences, it will encourage you to open your eyes, your heart, your organizations and your communities to […]

Watch the #NomoCrones as we discuss ‘Childless vs. Childfree: Does Age Soften this Distinction?’ [Recording now available]

February 24, 2022 Jody Day 1

Watch our March 2022 Equinox Session of Fireside Wisdom:‘Childless vs. Childfree: A false binary that ageing without children subverts?’ Recorded live on Sunday 20th March 2022 Join some of our regular #NomoCrone childless panel, plus some very special childfree elderwomen guests to discuss the ways that ageing without children impacts our identity and lived experience of non-parenthood. We’ll also discuss the difference between being a childless vs. childfree stepmother/stepgrandmother; whether childless/childfree are helpful terms or whether we need to think of it more as a spectrum; about what can be challenging in opening dialogue between childless/free women and SO MUCH […]

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 […]

Watch ‘Solstice Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’: Recorded 21st Dec 2021

December 9, 2021 Jody Day 1

RECORDED LIVE ON ZOOM ON TUESDAY 21ST DECEMBER 2021 Since we first came together for World Childless Week in 2020, the #NomoCrones (nomo = not-mother & crone is not an insult!) have been meeting each solstice and equinox for a series of informal online zoom gatherings called ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen‘. To find out more about our ‘Gateway Elderwomen’ project and to watch previous sessions, click here. To sign up to our mailing list to make sure you don’t miss the session planned for March 2022, click here. December Solstice 2021: ‘Spiritual Malnutrition’ For December 2021’s Solstice Session, we’re […]

‘The Childless Menopause’, still the missing story on #WorldMenopauseDay #IncludeMyMenopause

October 18, 2021 Jody Day 0

Back in 2014 I wrote a blog called ‘The Childless Menopause’ here on the Gateway Women website that got a LOT of comments. It seems that I’d hit a nerve in being open (who me?!) about something many of us were experiencing (or would experience in the future) and yet which nobody was talking about – what it’s like for those of us who are childless to make sense of our menopause when all of the available literature, support and messaging seemed to presume that everyone experiencing menopause was also a mother (and a white, middle-class, well-resourced, heterosexual and partnered […]

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 3

[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; […]

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