Free, live & recorded. Thursday 19th September 2024. 8pm BST UK (12pm PDT; 2pm CDT; 3pm EDT; 8pm BST; 9pm CEST. Click here to register to attend live and/or receive the recording the next day.
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 be treacherous to navigate. Those who become parents may envy us our ‘freedom’, whilst we may envy their experience of parenthood and the socially acceptable status that goes along with it. And, as their children grow up and we pass through the menopause transition, things may begin to change again; sometimes we get our friends back for a while only to lose them once more to doting grandparenthood, whilst the emotional maturity that we may have developed from integrating the loss of parenthood and living life outside socially accepted norms, changes us too.
But our need for friendship across the life course remains and, as we move into ageing without children, takes on new importance.
As part of 2024’s World Childless Week, the NomoCrones (nomo=not mother + crone is not an insult!) are coming together around the Zoom fire for the ‘Childless Friend or Foe‘ themed day on Thursday 19th September to discuss ‘Friendship Across Life’.
With panellists from their mid-fifties to their mid-seventies, we hope to unpack some of the things that can happen to our friendships (old and new) over the life course as childless women, and how we can best navigate those changes, and learn how to keep making new friends too.
The webinar is free to attend as part of World Childless Week 2024 and everyone who registers will receive a copy of the recording by email the next day. To keep up to speed with all the amazing events that are happening in the week of 16th-22nd September, you might want to subscribe to the World Childless Week newsletter – this year, WCW’s 8th, looks like it’s going to be the best so far, and I’m so proud to have been an Ambassador every year.
So what do you want us to explore about childless friendships? Where are you struggling? We welcome your questions and you can either share them live (and anonymously) during the webinar, or there’s a space on the registration form to share them.
Hosted by Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and her guests:
- JODY DAY (UK/IRELAND, 60) is a psychotherapist, founder of Gateway Women, and the author of ‘Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children’. A World Childless Week ambassador since its inception in 2017, her work now focuses on her emerging ‘Gateway Elderwomen’ project. www.gateway-women.com
- PAMELA MAHONEY TSIGDINOS (US, early 60s) was voted a World Childless Week Champion in 2023/4 for her groundbreaking and tireless work for the childless community globally. An award-winning author, journalist, researcher and truth-teller about the realities and the aftermath of ART (IVF). www.silentsorority.com
- SUE FAGALDE LICK (US, early 70s) is a musician, journalist, poet and the author of ‘Childless by Marriage’, ‘Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both’, the ‘Up Beaver Creek’ trilogy (featuring a great childless heroine) and ‘No Way Out of This’ (2024), her memoir of caring for her husband as he declined and died from Alzheimer’s Disease. https://suelick.com/
- RUTH BERKOWITZ (US, mid-50s) is a Holistic Well-being Coach for childless not by choice people and an Insight Meditation Teacher. As well as leading the Mishpascha group for Jewish women in the Childless Collective online community, she is a co-host (with Jody) in its Childless Elderwomen group. www.yourlemonadelife.com
- KATE KAUFMANN (US, early 70s) is the author of ‘Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer Is No’ and writes the ‘Unapparent’ blog for Psychology Today. A World Childless Week Ambassador, she is childless due to failed infertility treatments and single after divorce. www.katekaufmann.com
- PATRICIA FAULKS (UK, mid-70s) writes candidly about living alone in a small English town with her dog Lilley, as well as being a regular speaker on childlessness on podcasts and local government panels. Trish is childless due to infertility in her early twenties and was widowed when her subsequent partner died. www.justmeandlilley.co.uk
- JACKIE SHANNON HOLLIS (US, mid-60s) is the author of “This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story” about her journey to making peace within her marriage to a man who chose not to have children. As a survivor of sexual assault, Jackie also writes and speaks about the unfolding impact of sexual assault on survivors and those who love them. www.jackieshannonhollis.com
- KAREN MALONE WRIGHT (US, early-60s) is the founder of The NotMom and The NotMom Summit, which was the first organisation and event to bring together both childless and childfree women or ‘not moms by choice or chance’ as she expresses it. www.thenotmom.com
- SUE NEWSOME (UK, early-60s) is a psychosexual therapist, coach and educator, and in 2013 was named ‘Sex Therapist of the Year’ by Outsiders, the UK charity that provides sex and relationship support to physically and socially disabled people. Childless-by-circumstance, Sue has been a long-time member of Gateway Women. www.suenewsome.com
- TESSA BROAD (UK, mid-60s) is the author of ‘Dear You: A Letter to my Unborn Children’ (2017). When she has time in between caring duties for her elderly mother, she is working on her first novel. www.tessabroad.co.uk
Find out more about Jody’s Gateway Elderwomen project here. Read Jody’s essays on Substack, free here. Join Jody’s ‘Childless Elderwomen’ subgroup (hosted by the Childless Collective) here. Join the Gateway Women newsletter so you don’t miss the next Fireside Wisdom call here.
