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 […]

Coping with International Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman

May 6, 2020 Jody Day 1

To watch this one-hour recording, click the image above or this link  Whatever stage of your life you’re at as a childless woman, Mother’s Day can be a complex one to navigate. And for my international readers, it’s coming up this Sunday 10th May. For this video chat, I invited four childless guests to explore how they cope with Mother’s Day. Each of them has a unique viewpoint and I hope this conversation begins to represent a few of the less discussed ways that Mother’s Day and childlessness can intersect… As well as discussing their stories, we also answered questions […]

Coping with Mother’s Day as a Childless Woman

March 17, 2020 Jody Day 3

To watch this one-hour recording, click the image above or this link  Whatever stage of your life you’re at as a childless woman, Mother’s Day can be a complex one to navigate. For this one hour chat, I invited four childless guests to explore how they cope with Mother’s Day. Each of them has a unique viewpoint and I hope this conversation begins to represent a few of the less discussed ways that Mother’s Day and childlessness can intersect… As well as discussing their stories, we also answered questions from our viewers, which included some topics that perhaps you can […]

#LTLU Living the Life Unexpected (2nd Edition): World Blogtour, 1-19th March 2020

March 1, 2020 Jody Day 44

I’m so proud to announce that the fully-revised and updated 2nd edition of my much-loved book, ‘Living the Life Unexpected’ is being published by Bluebird (PanMacmillan) in the UK on 19 March 2020. With fifty (I know, fifty!) prestigious endorsements inside the front and back jacket, a lovely new cover, a new subtitle, How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children, and new content, (including a new introduction from me which outlines what’s new), I hope you’ll find it exciting whether you’re a returning reader or a brand new one. 25+ chances to win a personally dedicated […]

‘Meet the Author’ discussion with Jackie Shannon Hollis, author of ‘This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story’

November 11, 2019 Jody Day 4

A recording of a one-hour Gateway Women book club webinar, hosted by Jody Day, author and founder of Gateway Women, interviewing Jackie Shannon Hollis, author of This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story, published in September 2019 and for which I wrote the Foreword. Jackie’s wonderful book (hey, who’s going to argue with Cheryl Strayed?!) is available as a paperback, an e-book and is also available as an audio-book via Audible. Do order it now. And of course, you’ll need to read Jackie’s novel/memoir, for which I wrote the Foreword. It’s available as a paperback, e-book and audiobook Jody Day’s FOREWORD to […]

Book review: “Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer is No” by Kate Kaufmann

July 17, 2019 Jody Day 2

Kate Kaufmann’s book, “Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer is No’ is the latest addition to a pleasingly growing pile of books about women without children that I am now asked to review. A decade ago, when I first realised that my childlessness was the terrifying endpoint of my fifteen year journey towards motherhood, there was practically nothing out there, apart from a couple of books which were out of print then (and now), such as Rachel Black and Louise Scull’s 2012 Beyond Childlessness and Linda Hunt Anton’s 1992  Never to be a Mother, neither of which I […]

“Mum’s not the Word” a moving and candid photobook of women without children by Denise Felkin

May 30, 2019 Jody Day 5

Mum’s Not The Word: Childless, Childfree by Denise Felkin is a new book published by Earthworld in the UK on 4 June 2019 which shares stories of choice, freedom, regret and pain in a series of 50 photographic images, each one of a different woman lying naked on a duvet in the foetal position. All of the women have one thing in common – they do not have children. Statistics show that an increasing number of women remain childless: currently around 20% in the UK. The book sets out to challenge the antiquated and negative stereotypes that picture women without children […]

A whole day of arts programming around childlessness! Sat 27th April at the Barbican (London)

April 6, 2019 Jody Day 1

You wouldn’t think that something called ‘FertilityFest’ is something I’d write about, but as one of its Founders is Jessica Hepburn (childless author of ‘The Pursuit of Motherhood’ and ’21 Miles’) it’s an arts festival about fertility that includes childlessness (for both men and women) as part of the story of modern fertility. Now in its third year, FertiltyFest has been named by the London Evening Standard as one of London’s top arts festivals. Saturday 27th April is the ‘There’s More to Life than Children’ day at FertilityFest and I’m SO proud to be the chair for the day. The […]

Childlessness after hysterectomy: “I am still a woman, hear me roar!” by Sarah Lawrence

February 9, 2019 Jody Day 9

I’m sitting here ruminating on how to talk about how grieving childlessness morphs after a hysterectomy in a way that is engaging… I’ve always loved a challenge, but even so! I guess the first thing would be to tell you my story, so you have some idea about why I know about this topic because it’s not something that usually gets talked about, is it? My dreams of having a family were, abruptly, ended during a 10-minute consultation in 2014. In a very blunt manner, I was told that I had stage four endometriosis and, that as a consequence, I […]

Would you swim the Channel to understand if motherhood makes you happy?

January 19, 2019 Jody Day 3

Jessica Hepburn is an extraordinary woman. I mean, properly extraordinary. Not only is she the veteran of eleven rounds of unsuccessful IVF but she’s also one of a very small group of people who’ve successfully swum the English Channel – that deceptively narrow stretch of water, just 21 miles across – that separates England from France. And she’s doesn’t even like exercise! These two things are intimately and surprisingly connected, as Jessica explains in this short, moving and funny interview she gave to me in 2018 just before the publication of her book, 21 Miles: Swimming in Search of the […]

A Plan B interview with Meriel Whale: becoming a counsellor for childlessness

January 12, 2019 Jody Day 4

Sometimes childless women tell me that they fear that they’re not capable of finding a Plan B; that without Plan A they are bereft not only of children but of any hopes, dreams, plans or even capacity to find an alternative life path. I hear you. That’s grief talking. That’s heartbreak talking. That’s exhaustion and fear talking. You’ve been to hell and maybe even discovered that it’s got a basement and all of this ‘Plan B’ talk feels frankly alienating. That’s why I feel it’s so important to hear from other childless women who are walking the path ahead and […]

10 Tips for Healing from the Heartbreak of Childlessness

July 18, 2018 Jody Day 13

Birthdays can be very hard work when you’re childless not by choice – reminding you of yet another year passed without the family you longed for and also socially excluded from the milestones and rituals that others around you get to experience and you don’t. That’s something that m/others often fail to grasp about our situation, that it’s not just that we didn’t get to have a baby, but that for the rest of our lives we’re either excluded or on the far reaches of the socializing and shared conversations that parenthood involves. Well, some good news for you… Today […]

Surviving the childless weekend blues

March 30, 2018 Jody Day 39

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 […]

IWD2018: Celebrating women means childless women too

March 8, 2018 Jody Day 17

Today is International Women’s Day 2018. Started by the Suffragettes in the early 1900’s, the first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911 and this year’s theme is #PressforProgress. Yet it can be hard if you’re a childess-not-by-choice (CNBC) woman sometimes to feel that you belong to the global tribe of women, as womanhood and motherhood are routinely conflated. Whether it be the way that Facebook algorithms target you with nappies, ‘back to school’ offers and prams, the rise of terms such as ‘Mumpreneur’ or even, for heaven’s sake, a local women’s running club calling themselves ‘MumsRun’, it seems that whichever […]

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