When you’re a single and childless-by-circumstance woman approaching the event horizon of your fertility, still hopeful that somehow partnership and children might happen for you, one of the most common pieces of ‘helpful advice’ (and I use those quotes advisedly!) you might hear is, ‘Why don’t you just have one on your own?!’ It can also be phrased in the past tense, once you’re a little older, accompanied by that pitying head-tilt…
These enquires are usually delivered as if this were (a) something that hadn’t ever occurred to you and (b) slam-dunk easy. When Guthrie Woods found herself in exactly that position – turning forty without Mr Right anywhere in sight – she decided it was time to seriously consider it.
This book, ‘The Mother of All Dilemmas’ is the result: part memoir, part reportage, it records Guthrie-Woods’ painfully honest fact-finding mission as she tries to work out whether she had what it took to be a single mother by choice: emotionally, logistically, financially, physically and spiritually.
One of the things that this book touches on, which is something many Gateway Women members have shared with me over the years, is how perhaps sometimes the desire for a child can be wrapped up in a deep and natural craving for daily love and physical companionship; being a single and childless not-by-choice woman over an extended period of time can lead to acute feelings of physical and emotional deprivation that are rarely discussed openly; I really appreciated how Guthrie Woods was determined to be honest with herself about her own motivations and whether they were reasonable expectations to place on a child
I feel this book should be thrust into the hands of every person who dares to say ‘Why not have one on your own?’ to a single, childless woman – I guarantee they’ll never say it again!
I also think it would offer information and solace to a great many single childless women struggling to move forward either with pursuing the hope of solo parenthood or making peace with not doing so. This is the first time I’ve seen the dilemma of whether to have a baby, or not, as a single woman so well-articulated, and Guthrie Woods has done future generations of women facing this difficult choice a great service with her painstaking honesty and emotional generosity.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a San Francisco–based freelance copywriter and editor. For eight years she wrote a weekly column for LifeWithoutBaby.com, a website and blog dedicated to giving a voice to women who are childfree by chance, choice, or circumstance. She currently runs her own blog, 52Nudges, in which she takes weekly “risks” to push her out of a sometimes-too-comfortable nest. With Lisa Manterfield, she co-authored Life Without Baby: Holiday Companion, a compilation of humorous, healing, and thought-provoking posts designed to help other childless women get through the holidays and get closer to making peace with being childless. In July 2021, she released her memoir with a message, The Mother of All Dilemmas: Dreams of Motherhood and the Internship that Changed Everything which is on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats.
What's your experience?