Starting the Conversation: Book Recommendations

My last post stated that baby-stealing was a great way to get a conversation started about the ways we think about women and children, and more specifically women without children. But baby-stealing is, rightly, illegal in this country.  So where else would a conversation start? Books! Books are a great way to start thinking about something, and talking about it!

There have been, in the past few years, a small number of voices speaking up about this non-conversation, about this well of loneliness at being single and childless and ‘of a certain age’. I’ve read all of these books this year, and while my experiences are different from these women in the practical, the feeling of sorrow at watching one’s life unfold in a way you didn’t expect seems to be universal. I remember reading Notkin’s book and underlining whole paragraphs, scrawling “YES!!!” in the margins. These aren’t books that have all the answers, but they showed me that I am not alone in asking the questions:

1) Otherhood, by Melanie Notkin

I found Notkin when I was frantically googling things like “childless women who are sad about it” and “women who want kids and don’t have kids”, crazy stuff that was running through my mind as I came to end of a long, emotional journey where I realized that I did not want to have a child on my own. I was not going to be a ‘Single Mother By Choice’; instead, I was going to be something else, something undefined. My searching brought me to Notkin’s Huffington Post article ‘I’m 45, Single, and Childless, and There’s Nothing ‘Wrong’ With Me’ which deserves a read as well.

I found out from there that Notkin had just (just! as in, that very week!) published a book called ‘Otherhood’ about her struggle as a single, childless woman in New York City. Was it perfect? No. In fact, large swaths of the middle of this book read like episodes of Sex & The City, complete with disastrous dates with high-powered attorneys and conversations about egg donation over cocktails. Her life is far more glamorous than mine, and her friends have far more money than I will ever see in a lifetime of non-profit work. But the chapters that start and end her book are smaller, introspective pieces of writing that strip away the trappings of five-star Upper East Side eateries and weekend visits to the Hamptons and show Notkin to be a woman who struggled for years to come to terms with her own truth - that she wanted a family more than a baby, and that she wasn’t okay with settling for mediocre when it came to finding a partner. And, at 45, she wasn’t going to have the family she’d always envisioned. It’s worth checking out, even if you skim the Sex & The City parts.

2) Rocking the Life Unexpected, by Jody Day

Day’s book comes out of the UK, and her experience is as a woman who ended up divorced in her mid-30s, single for the first time in ages just as her fertility was about to nosedive. Her battle through the grief and anger around her circumstances led to a book that is full of hope and encouragement. Day has spent the last few years in training to be become a counselor, and it shows in her writing. She doesn’t point fingers, but gives some practical exercises for women to work through as they are thinking about their worth as women in the world who are not mothers.

Day also founded Gateway Women, an online community for those who are struggling with their circumstances. Much of the focus of the site seems to be around women in the UK, but there are meet-up groups all over the globe. I haven’t fully explored the community online, mostly because it’s a closed community and joining seems daunting, and would solidify my membership in a club I’m not really thrilled to be a member of.

If you want to get a flavor of Day before you read the book, check out this great short talk she gave as her book was coming out.

3) The Mother Within, by Christine Erickson

In her non-writing life, Erickson is an “equus coach”, which (as far as I can tell from her website) is a kind of life coach who works to help people while they ride horses. This seems odd, but Erickson’s short polemic on childlessness is earthy, personal, and accepting. She wants to be okay, and she wants you to be okay too. It’s a lovely read!

(She has also tried to get some discussions moving around childlessness at her Mother Within website, but it doesn’t look like the conversation has started there either.)

Not all of these books are for everyone. And yes, there need to be more voices from poor women, from queer women, from women of color, all of whom face this same challenge. But what I got from these books was a sense of shared loss, a sense that I may still be at the bottom of a well of loneliness, but that there are other women down here too, grasping in the dark for someone’s hand to hold. These books were a helping hand for me. I hope that this blog can be a helping hand for some of you, who will then open your hands to even more women.

I really do think we have to overcome the shame of perceived failure at not having children before the conversation can really open up. No one wants to be the first to raise their hand and say “me! I didn’t end up with the life I wanted!!” Thank goodness these writers made their voices heard! 

Do you have other books, articles or blogs to recommend to those struggling without children? Let me know in comments!