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 […]

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 […]

Why do the issues of motherhood get so much more attention than those of childless women? Jody Day interviewed by Helen Russell for her ‘How to be Sad’ Podcast (May 2021)

May 24, 2021 Jody Day 0

Listen to a short clip of Jody Day’s interview with Helen Russell for her How to Be Sad’ podcast above or click here to listen to the whole interview (56-minutes). Read the full transcript below.  Helen Russell’s interview with me for her ‘How to be Sad’ podcast interview covers so much ground that I hardly know where to start! We go fearlessly into places that normally childless women don’t discuss publicly including some things I’ve never discussed before: My journey from childhood and young adulthood where I didn’t think I wanted children, to becoming an involuntarily childless woman experiencing unexplained […]

Jody’s lecture on disenfranchised grief for York University’s ‘Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience” Project

March 14, 2021 Jody Day 0

The disenfranchised grief of involuntary childlessness: A living loss that society dismisses: a talk by Jody Day, psychotherapist, author and founder of ‘Gateway Women’ Delivered 4th March 2021 for York University’s ‘Grief: A Human Emotional Experience’ – a 4-year AHRC-funded project for the Department of Philosophy, University of York, UK. The overarching aim of ‘Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience’ is to develop a detailed, wide-ranging, and integrated account of what it is to experience grief, focusing on aspects of grief that are of considerable theoretical and practical importance but remain poorly understood. ​For more about the project go […]

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 0

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 […]

Jody Day interviewed by Ben A. Eisner of ‘The Knitted Heart’ Podcast: February 2021

February 25, 2021 Jody Day 0

Above is a short clip from the interview. You can listen to the full interview on the Knitted Heart website here and read the full transcript below. And please, please do leave a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s hugely helpful for podcast creators who put so much love, work and expenses into creating podcasts! I absolutely loved being interviewed by Ben A. Eisner for his ‘Knitted Heart‘ podcast in February 2021. Ben describes Knitted Heart as being about “the inter-connectivity of everyone and everything, and our collective responsibility to heal, restore, and unify the world we share. Knitted Heart […]

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 […]

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 […]

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