Loneliness Archives - Gateway Women

Poster affixed to telegraph pole: "lost mojo"

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 […]

How do I meet other childless women in my area?

January 2, 2015 Jody Day 3

If your New Year’s Resolution is to get some new local friends who ‘get’ what it’s like to be childless in a world gone motherhood-mad, I wanted to let you know that there are free Gateway Women meetups around the world you can join! Perhaps one of the hardest (and most unexpected) losses of childlessness is that as well as losing the family we longed for, many of us also lose the vast majority (or even all) of our peer group too. Friendships between mothers and nomos (non-mothers) can be stretched to the limit by the now very different life experiences […]

I’m Dreaming of a Childless Christmas

December 22, 2013 Jody Day 31

Yes, I know the words ‘dreaming’, ‘childless’ and ‘Christmas’ look incongruous together. But for me, it’s really something I’ve been dreaming of all this busy Autumn. Right now I’m at home alone, tucked up in a warm bed with a warm cat delicately snoring at my side. The streets of London are hushed as most people have already left town. After an exhaustingly excellent year with the growth of the Gateway Women Online Community and the publication of my first book, I’m happily in my pyjamas with a steaming cup of coffee made exactly the way I like it and […]

Best friends forever? With childlessness, not always…

December 18, 2013 Jody Day 13

Perhaps one of the most unexpected, and hardest, parts of being a childless woman was coming to terms with the fact that I not only lost the family I longed for, but that I also lost my peer group. It took me a very long time to realise what was happening, as I was so in denial about my infertility (I never actually even identified as ‘infertile’, I was just ‘trying to conceive’) that I was quite happy for everyone else to have children – after all, I knew for sure that I’d be joining them soon… It wasn’t until […]