Childless & Childfree Role Models Archives

[FREE: REGISTER NOW] Why do we need role models of childless elderwomen? Join us for our December 2023 ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwoman’ session, Wed 20th December, 8pm

November 2, 2023 Jody Day 0

Register free at this link; the recording will be sent out the next day to all who register. The chat is moderated and is usually pretty lively too! Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen is a series of quarterly webinars I host with an inspiring panel of childless elderwomen ranging from their late 50s to their mid-70s (I am fifty-nine-and-a-half!) The webinars are public, free, open to all and you are very welcome to join us whatever age you are – we have noticed that people from their 20s to their 80s usually attend. We meet each Equinox and Solstice for […]

[FREE: REGISTER NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Reclaiming Your Childless Festive Season!’ – Sat 8th December, 7pm UK (and recorded)

October 27, 2023 Jody Day 0

Join us for this free Gateway Women Masterclass as our gift to help you reclaim your childless festive season on Friday 8th December 7-8pm GMT UK time and recorded too. Click here to register to attend live and/or to receive a link to watch the replay the next day. Christmas and the December holiday season can be some of the most challenging times of the year for those of us who are childless-not-by-choice. It can made even harder as our consumer society uses images and ideas of ‘togetherness’ and ‘happy families’ as relentless marketing tools to sell us a fantasy […]

[Watch now] ‘Challenging the Lazy Stereotypes of Childless Women in Fiction and Films’. A free World Childless Week webinar: Thursday 14 September 2023, 7pm BST

August 14, 2023 Jody Day 1

This special World Childless Week webinar, ‘Challenging the Lazy Stereotypes of Childless Women in Fiction and Film’ was filmed live on Thursday 14th September as part of the ‘Childless in the Media’ themed day of World Childless Week 2023. From fairy tales through to modern fiction, childless women are often portrayed as damaged, deranged and deviant. Whether it’s Snow White’s evil stepmother, the psychopathic puppy-killer Cruella de Vil, Glenn Close’s bunny boiler in ‘Fatal Attraction’ or the unreliable and half-cut narrator of ‘Girl on a Train’, we never seem to come out well! Unconsciously, it seems writers default to using women […]

[WATCH NOW] ‘You’re so Lucky to Not Have Kids! — Does that include when we are old?’ A Special Fireside Wisdom session for World Childless Week 2023

August 14, 2023 Jody Day 0

The NomoCrones (nomo = not-mother = crone is not an insult!) gathered around the Zoom cauldron for a special ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’ session for World Childless Week on Friday 15th September. Our discussion was framed around the World Childless Week theme for Friday 15th September which was ‘Words That Hurt: You’re So Lucky to Not Have Kids”. We explored whether the perceived ‘luck’ in that bingo (throwaway statement) holds true for those of us ageing without children too… It was, as ever, a lively and frank discussion which did not shy away from the challenges of aging/ageing without children […]

WATCH NOW: Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen. What does it mean to be a ‘Radical Old Woman?’ [Recorded 21 June 2023]

June 22, 2023 Jody Day 0

Sign up to Jody’s mailing list for future sessions here. CAPTIONS ARE AUTO-GENERATED AND NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE! 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 what it means to each of us to be and become ‘Radical Old Women’. What does the word radical actually mean? Recorded on the June 2023 Solstice; a powerful fulcrum moment in the year, whether you are in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, this was a conversation by turns powerful, tender, shocking and surprising. Featuring: […]

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 […]

Getting through Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman

March 18, 2023 Jody Day 0

UK and Ireland have their version of ‘Mothers Day’ (it’s called ‘Mothering Sunday’) on March 19th 2023. With International Mother’s Day coming up in May, we hope this helps you too. Both of the recording below were offered from our hearts in the hope that by sharing the strategies that we’ve each developed over the years, we can help you to naviage the complex emotions and triggering situations of this very multi-layered holiday with more ease. As this is one of the most difficult days of the year for many childless not by choice women, over the years we have […]

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 […]

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 0

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 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 […]

[Watch now] ‘Why Your Story matters’ – a free GW Masterclass with Australian author Sian Prior, hosted by Judy Graham & Sarah Roberts

April 15, 2022 Karin Enfield de Vries 0

Childlessness can feel like a dance between opposites – hope and despair, grief and renewal, freedom and longing. In her new memoir, Childless: A story of freedom and longing, Australian author Sian Prior takes us beyond words to the place where we grieve our losses and re-learn ourselves and the world as childless women. Hosted by GW’s licensed Australian facilitators, therapists Judy Graham and Sarah Roberts, this free Gateway Women Masterclass explored the healing power of storytelling and the unfolding nature of what it is to live a childless life. It was a powerful, nurturing and expansive conversation between three […]

‘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 […]

[WATCH NOW] ‘Childless vs. Childfree: Does Age Soften this Distinction?’

February 24, 2022 Jody Day 0

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 […]

‘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 0

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 […]

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

December 9, 2021 Jody Day 0

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 […]

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