Childless & Childfree Role Models Archives

Mother’s Day Guest Post: ‘Holding Both’, by Carrie Hauskins

May 10, 2025 Jody Day 1

It’s the second Sunday of May in the US, the flowers are blooming, and the call to be in nature is strong. It’s also the day we honor and celebrate the mothers in our lives. But what if the day comes with grief? As an infertile woman, that’s precisely what comes: the grief of the life I never got. It’s something I thought I’d “get over.” Years later, I realized this might not be something I ever get over. With that simple acknowledgment, I allowed myself to feel the grief. This doesn’t mean it feels good. To be clear, it […]

[WATCH NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: Navigating Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman, with Katy Seppi and Jody Day

April 28, 2025 Jody Day 0

RECORDED LIVE ON 10 MAY 2025 Katy Seppi and Jody Day talk Mother’s Day and More Mother’s Day takes place in May for most of the world, earlier in the year for the UK & Ireland. But whenever it lands for you, it’s rarely inconsequential for those of us who are childless not by choice. The day can be tricky for many intertwined reasons on top of our own thwarted motherhood, including mourning our own mothers and/or managing our challenging relationships with them; insensitive family members, colleagues and the wider culture; the exaggerated visibility of our difference on Mother’s Day […]

[WATCH NOW] GATEWAY WOMEN MASTERCLASS WEBINAR: AN AUTHOR INTERVIEW AND BOOK GIVEAWAY WITH LANA MANIKOWSKI

March 30, 2025 Jody Day 0

In this conversation, recorded on 12 April 2025, Jody Day, the founder of Gateway Women, speaks with Lana Manikowski, life coach and author of So Now What? Create a Life Your Love Without the Children You Always Dreamed Of, published in the US by LM Publishing on April 2nd, 2025, and which debuted at #1 in the ‘New Releases’ section of ‘Fertility & Infertility’ on Amazon.com. Lana shared with us all the various elements that inspired the cover design, did a short reading from her book, and we then discussed some of the questions sent in by the audience, including: […]

[WATCH NOW] ‘FRIENDSHIPS ACROSS LIFE’, A WORLD CHILDLESS WEEK SESSION OF FIRESIDE WISDOM WITH CHILDLESS ELDERWOMEN

August 26, 2024 Jody Day 0

Recorded live on Thursday 19th September for World Childless Week 2024 Issues with female friendships (particularly with those who become mothers when we do not) are such a common part of the childless experience that I termed it ‘the friendship apocalypse’ of childlessness. And although I wouldn’t wish this painful experience on anyone else, it did come as a huge relief to me when I discovered that it’s something many of us can identify with – I thought I just must be a rubbish friend! The friendship issues that get stirred up can take us into deep waters that can […]

[Father’s Day Guest Blog] ‘Time for Men to Speak Up’ by Robert Nurden

June 13, 2024 Jody Day 0

A guest blog for Father’s Day 2024 by Robert Nurden, author of I Always Wanted to Be a Dad: Men without Children I was recently interviewed by BBC Radio 5 about my book I Always Wanted To Be A Dad: Men without Children and what it was like being a childless man. It went quite well and afterwards, I posted a short message about it on Facebook. I chose three childless Facebook groups – Childless not by Choice, Childless over 50 and Ageing without Children (AWOC). I received great support – a total of 198 likes and lots of lovely […]

[WATCH NOW] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen on ‘Courageous Conversations’ (Recorded 19 June 2024)

June 3, 2024 Jody Day 0

For the June 2024 Solstice, Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women brought together a panel of #NomoCrones (nomo=not-mother + crone is not an insult!) to explore the topic of ‘Courageous Conversations’. As all women grow up (and exist within) a patriarchal culture that valorizes female silence and compliance, this is no small task. Although some of us may have grown up in families and cultures that role-modelled and supported some freedom around speaking up for your needs, correcting misunderstandings and seeking to redress injustices, we are often encouraged by the overculture to become more compliant as move through puberty and […]

[WATCH NOW] Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen: Caring for the Caregiver – Recorded 20th March 2024

March 17, 2024 Jody Day 0

For the March 2024 Equinox session of ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen,’ we focused on the topic of caregiving; both the care we give to others, and thinking too about the care we might need ourselves as we age without children… It’s often the case that childless women are expected to be the ‘natural’ caregivers for vulnerable family members, although our own potential care needs for the future are often hard to talk about or plan for. This is a topic I explored in some depth in my Substack essay ‘It’s not like she’s got anything else to do, is […]

[WATCH NOW] ‘The Power of Elderwomen Role Models’ – Recorded December 2023

November 2, 2023 Jody Day 0

NEXT SESSION – WEDNESDAY 20TH MARCH 2024, 8PM GMT. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER AND ALSO SUGGEST OUR TOPIC! For December 2023’s Solstice session, we gathered around the Zoom Fire to unpack ‘The Power of the Role Model’ for those of us ageing without children. Who are they? Where the heck are they? How do we find them? How do we become them? And why is all this so important?! As well as discussing our role models, I shared the results of the poll of YOUR role models (for those who chose to answer that question on the registration form). You […]

[WATCH NOW] Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Reclaiming Your Childless Festive Season!’

October 27, 2023 Jody Day 0

To watch previous GW Masterclasses click here. To sign up to future free GW Masterclasses, click here. 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 life that we are excluded from. From Halloween through to New Year’s Eve, there seem to be so many different days in the holiday calendar, whatever your faith (or not), and whether […]

[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 […]

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