Making new childless friends Archives

Poster affixed to telegraph pole: "lost mojo"

Surviving the Childless Weekend Blues

April 10, 2023 Jody Day 0

There, it’s said. Weekends can be absolute hell as a single, childless woman. “They creep up on you,” said one friend recently. Many of us are so busy with work commitments and after-work activities Monday-to-Friday that we can’t wait for the peace and quiet of the weekend in order to recover. And then, when we wake up on Saturday morning to an empty bed, an empty house and an empty weekend, it doesn’t feel relaxing; it feels hideously oppressive. Alternatively, we pack our weekend schedule to the gunnels with activities and appointments only to feel burnt out and resentful and […]

Revolutionizing Your Single Holidays (aka ‘the festive season’), a free GW Masterclass with Jody Day, Shani Silver, Sasha Cagen, Yael Wolfe & Nicola Slawson

December 1, 2022 Jody Day 1

The holiday season, from Halloween right through till New Year’s Eve, can sometimes feel like a special kind of hell for single women without children… but what if they didn’t have to be? What if you could craft your own way to celebrate in a way that works for you? If you’d like to explore this radical thought then watch this amazing webinar, filmed in 2021 with me, Jody Day, and my four arse-kicking, taboo-busting single writers, podcasters, artists, coaches and thinkers for this amazing Gateway Women Masterclass on ‘Revolutionizing the Single Holidays’. Recorded live on Saturday 11th December 2021. […]

[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 […]

[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 […]

‘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 […]

‘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 […]

‘Finding Community and Connection as a Childless Woman’: a free GW Masterclass with Karin Enfield-de Vries & Sarah Lawrence. [Watch now]

January 15, 2022 Karin Enfield de Vries 2

It’s often the case when you’re childless either through infertility or circumstance that your social circle dwindles as your friends sail away to the motherland… Jody Day, the founder of Gateway Women named this the #FriendshipApocalypse of childlessness and it’s sometimes really hard not to take it personally! Join Karin Enfield-de Vries, GW’s Operations Director, a trainee grief counsellor and the Lead Trainer & Facilaitor for our Reignite Weekend programs, and Sarah Lawrence, a therapeutic counsellor, one-third of the Full Stop Podcast, and also a Licensed GW Reignite Weekend Facilitator, for this free GW Masterclass and learn more about reaching […]

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

December 28, 2021 Jody Day 1

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 […]

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 […]

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; […]

If you’ve ever wanted to have a productive conversation about childlessness with your friend, colleague or HR Director and found it too hard, listen to this brilliant interview by Doryn Wallach @It’s Not a Crisis Podcast – and maybe even share it with them? This is bridge-building in action.

July 26, 2021 Jody Day 4

You can listen to the clips above by clicking on them and find the full interview here or by searching ‘It’s Not a Crisis podcast’ wherever you get your podcasts. The full transcript is below. In this interview with Doryn Wallach, who is a mother in her 40s (as are most of her audience) we talk about the challenges of being childless in a world full of parents, how pronatalism operates, about how the whole ‘As a Mother’ thing works against childless/free women, about the difference between childless & childfree, about the complexity of childlessness after abortion, about what NOT […]

GW Masterclass – the unique experience of childlessness in Australia and New Zealand (Recording now available)

June 13, 2021 Jody Day 0

For the last decade, Gateway Women has attracted and supported many Australian & Kiwi women who have resonated deeply with our empowering and compassionate approach. Both countries were the first outside the UK to get going with our social meetups (now called ‘Gateway Gatherings’) many of which have kept going online during Covid, with new ones beginning to emerge across Australia and NZ. So it is with great pleasure that Jody Day, (GW’s founder) & Karin Enfield (GW’s Operations Director) would like to introduce you to our new dedicated team to lead and guide the work of Gateway Women in […]

‘The Plant-Woman’ – a guest blog by Rachel Giles about nature, healing, grief and finding your Plan B

April 30, 2021 Jody Day 4

RACHEL GILES is a writer, lecturer and editor on art and design and has worked for the National Gallery, Tate, V&A, Gagosian and other galleries and museums. She grows and sells flowers from her cutting garden in London and is passionate about nature’s ability to heal. In 2014 she attended one of Gateway Women’s Reignite Weekends and in 2016 she completed her art history MA dissertation on the visual representation of infertility and childlessness at Birkbeck, London, with distinction. She spoke at Fertility Fest 2018 and co-curated Arts at ESHRE – Fertility Fest’s visual art exhibition – in Barcelona in […]

2 free webinars + 1 Podcast + 1 Instagram Live + Free Tickets to Childless Collective Summit + Support for UK Mother’s Day + Tutum Quarterly, a new journal for the childless community

March 12, 2021 Jody Day 2

Goodness gracious me it’s been a bit busy around here! There’s an old saying that says ‘be careful what you wish for’ and one of my dreams has been that the work of Gateway Women and the subject of involuntary childlessness is something that would begin to get more mainstream, serious recognition… and these last few weeks I’ve been working my socks off on a couple of really important projects that totally fit this. The first one was to create a video training series for COSRT (The UK College of Sex and Relationship Therapists) on ‘The Impact of Involuntary Childlessness on Sexual […]

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