A Guide to Accepting Yourchildless Journey

The Mother Within

A Guide To Accepting YourChildless Journey

by Christine J. Erickson

Kindle Publishing Package

ISBN: 978-1-942646-19-8

DISCLAIMER

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email without permission in writing from the author.

Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretations of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.

Cover Design:John Matthews

Cover Art: LissaFlemming& Annabel Humber

Editing: Sarah O'Leary

Author's photo courtesy of Yaqui M. Lara

Dedication

To the Mother Within every woman who is learning to live with the unmet desire of having a child.

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Guiding Terms

PART I: The Mother Within

Chapter 1: You are Part of a Growing Tribe

Statistical Overview

Tribe

The Mother Within

Self

Other

The World And Your Environment

Chapter 2: Conscious Living Got You Here

Unpacking The Loss

How I Got Here

Doing The “Right” Thing

Where Does Your Energy Live?

Honoring Our Conscious Choices

The Mother Within

PART II: The Value Of A Woman

Chapter 3: The Spaces Between

The Journey Of Acceptance

Odd Woman Out

Your Nuclear Family – More Unconscious Conversation

Misguided Assumptions

Your Intimate Partner

The Things People Say

Unsolicited Inquiry

The Things People Do

Getting Past Deserving

The Mother Within

Chapter 4: The Shame Game

The Spiral Of Shame

The Mother Identity

Exclusion Of Childless Women

On Being A Whole Woman

Feminism And Choice

Bridging The Gap Between Childless Women And Mothers

Conscious Listening

The Mother Within

PART III: The Changing Village

Chapter 5: Teaching The Village

Culture And Consequence

The Evolving Family Unit

The Economics Of Childlessness

Conscious Consumerism

Changing Paradigms And A Call To Higher Consciousness

The Mother Within

Chapter 6: The Mother Within Legacy

Your Journey

The Mother Within

The Tribe

The Face Of Childlessness

Leading A New Conversation

Creating And Supporting Our Own Spaces

How Do We Begin To Recognize Each Other?

Acknowledgements

About The Author

About Difference Press

Your Delicious Book

Tackling The Technical End Of Publishing

Ready to write your book?

Other Books by Difference Press

Thank You

Imagine a world where women’s accepted

and respected birthright

is to fully receive her own immensity,

the tap root of her nature based cyclical flow,

the fullness of her intuitive wisdom and knowing,

the ocean of her emotional landscape

and her limitless capacity

for love, beauty, pleasure and creativity?

What could become possible

if we could give ourselves permission

to simply receive and embody who and what we really are

as woman, and then bring ourselves forward, fully alive

into the great turning towards balance

that is the calling of our time?

- Clare Dakin, Founder, treesisters.org

Introduction

I wanted to be a mother. I assumed I would become a mother how and when it was supposed to happen. Along with millions of other women, I believed that for the most part, motherhood was a given, as long as I chose it.

Perhaps you did too, andyou now find yourself trying to comprehend living the rest of your life without realizing the dream of having a child. Whether the limitations of age and fertility, indecision or other life circumstancesclosed this option for you, the scope of its impact weighs heavily on your heart and mind. Whether you knew from childhood that you wanted to have children, or came to this knowing in your adult life, the hole in your heart has caused you to deeply reflect on your life choices.

Motherhood has eluded a growing number of us, for various reasons. Many of these reasons are not fully understood or readily accepted. You too may be struggling to accept this new life identity and the scope of unexpected emotional and social consequences that come with it.

The expectation of having a child is a human assumption that lives at the core of ourcollective existence. While there have always been women who do nothave children, I am hard pressed to think of aconversation in which being childless was openly discussed as an intentional option. Nor did I hear many in terms of the limitations of fertility, illness, adoption and intimate partners who do not want children. These perspectives were excluded in the everyday life discourse and rituals that we learned as young women. Even today, we still speak to young girls and women in terms of when, and not if, they will have children.

The culturally defined roles of women have traditionally produced negative social and economic consequences for those who remain childless. Now we have expanded choices and are living in a time when we are being called to a higher consciousness, yet these socio-economic exclusions remain.

The childless women who are publicly acknowledged in a positive light are those women whose individual legacy or fame has diffused the lack of cultural acceptance around childlessness. These women are the exception.

I wrote this book to raise my voice against the backdrop of the oftensilent presence lived by many childless women. I also wanted to contribute to and support the conversations of women who are leading the efforts in educational awareness and community building for childless women. These leaders chose to speak out, share their experiences, and support us in public and private ways. I am grateful for their courage.

For the purposes of this book, I define “childless women” as those women who wanted to be mothers, and due to extenuating circumstances and conscientious choices, did not get the opportunity. In the book, I make reference to “coming out” around sharing our stories as childless women and being "outed" as much for the pervasive assertions and insistent questions around not being a mother, as for our invisible wounds. My hunch is that you too have experienced moments of being “outed” with respect to your childless status by someone, either privately or in front of others.

We are diverse women with unique stories, who share a common connection. You may live with a revolving well of emotions that dances between disbelief and acceptance of your childlessness. Like so many of us, you may experience an ever changing heart space of grief, wounding and re-wounding invoked by daily interactions and the celebrated or anticipated milestones in your life and the lives of others.

One of the key misperceptions about us is that we are not maternal. While we have not experienced physical motherhood through giving birth, adoption, or directly raising a child, I assert that in each of us remains the Mother Within. This Mother Within is your maternal essence that lives on.

She has held your deep desire to have a child. She has walked the long road of failed natural conception and fertility treatments, of adoption processes and the heartache of a seemingly uncompassionate partner who does not want to have a child. The Mother Within has been with you on your conscious life path, while you made important life choices masked as your indecision to have a child or not;and time marched on. She is with you now, as you grieve your loss and when the ache or heart pang of witnessing a child in a simple moment takes your breath away.

This book speaks to childlessness from the perspective of yourself, your relationships and how you experience others to how you want to truly express yourself inthe world. I invite you to journey with me as you acknowledge your maternal self, come to terms with being childless, and move forward to lead your best life. You will find ways to connect and learn from other childless women, and to change your conversation for yourself and your relationships.

This book is for you. I honor the grief of your unrealized motherhood, and hold the deepest empathy for the Mother Within you. She is truly a love story waiting to be shared.

Guiding Terms

Childfree-Honoring one’s desire not to have a child.

Childless–One who wanted to have a child and due to extenuating circumstances and conscientious choices, did not get the opportunity. When I refer to your desire to have a child in this book, it is inferred that you may have wanted more than one child, even though it is not written.

Circumstantial Childlessness-Childlessness due to age, illness, infertility, mental or emotional wellbeing, financial or housing limitations, failed fertility treatment, adoption or surrogacy.

Conscious Childlessness-Choosing not to have a child for specific reasons, including a stance onoverpopulation,or intentionally choosing not to bring a child into an unhealthy situation or negative circumstances.

Physical Infertility-Biological reasons for infertility or partner infertility.

Physical Mother - A woman raising a child as her own.

Relational Infertility- Having a partner who does not want to have a child, adopt a child, or pursue alternative ways of having a child.

Social Infertility - Not having a partner with whom to have a child.

Please note:These terms and circumstances are neither exhaustive nor do they represent the experiences of all childless women. They are provided only for the general context of this book.

PART I: The Mother Within

Chapter 1:You are Part of a Growing Tribe

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”
- Jane Howard

We are women without children in a world that unquestionably prioritizes the role of women as mothers over any other role a woman may live. We are women without children at a time when our collective presence is increasing at an unprecedented rate. We are women without children in at a time when the social priorities, economic assumptions and mainstream projections around childless women are seriously misaligned with the truth of our journeys and the essence of who we are. We are a growing tribe of women embracing many tribes among us.

Statistical Overview

This may surprise you, but according to 2012 US Census data, nearly half (47 percent) of women of childbearing age (defined as ages 15-44) do not have children. For women between the ages of 44-46 only this number is around 20 percent. The United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada echo similar numbers, with 1 in 5 women being childless, and in Australia, the percentage is even higher. The Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts that by 2031 the number of childless couples will surpass those with children, making childless families the fastest growing family type in that country.

You are not alone. There are millions of us. Millions. There are also millions of women who are childfree by choice, women who are angel mothers whose children have passed or were stillborn, women who have experienced miscarriages or abortions and women whose children are missing or estranged. Many of the same social conversations, behavior and language impact them emotionally, albeit in different ways.

I offer this statistical perspective to reflect the size of our presence and our demographic importance, and to remind you that you are not alone on this journey.Even if statistics revealed that only one percent of women are living without children, my sentiments would remain the same in terms of alleviating judgment and exclusion, and honoring the journey of the Mother Within.

The number of childless women is changing around the world at different rates.Childlessness can have extreme consequences depending on the prevailing cultural beliefs, and religious and family practices.The status of childless women in a given culture is a key indicator of how women are valued in that society, and therefore a concern for all women.

Tribe

Although the question of whether or not to raise a child appears to be straightforward, it does not reflect the complexities of the paths we have traveled that ultimately did not lead to motherhood. We have come toour losses through unique experiences that have merged at the same crossroads.

Beyond numbers, what I do know is that there are countless ways that we all got here, and that each story is unique amidst multilayered dynamics. I also know that we remain a largely unrecognized population. Our voices have been quieted or silenced by the reactions and projections of others and it is time to change the conversation.

We are part of a changing demographic of women that reflects conscious living through expanded opportunities and greater independence. Many of us have found partners and married later in life. We invested in self-development, and are engaged in work that we enjoy. We live in an awareness that has created new values around intention and choice. As we mature, the way we make choices and integrate our life experiences into decision making gives way to increasing consideration of responsibility, and the moral and ethical impact on self and other. Many of us have made choices to better our individual lives that we ultimately believed would also contribute to being a better partner and an intentional mother.

Our unique paths also led some of us to choose to have a child at a more mature stage of our life. The timing of this deferred decision has created a tribe of women who found themselves very ready to have a child and unable to do so. We expected and assumed that when we were ready, we would be able to have children.

There is great diversity in the reasons why we do not have children, and some of these reasons are accepted in mainstream conversation, and others are not. Our individual situations reach far beyond the decision to have a child or not. We have walked many avenues to this shared and layered loss. Some have faced critical diagnoses and chronic disease or physical infertility. Others have pursued long and exhaustive fertility treatments and failed adoption or surrogacy processes. Many women have experienced social or partner infertility, and partners who did not want a child or changed their mind. We also live in a time when we might choose conscious childlessness through in-depth consideration of the personal and environmental circumstances of bringing a child into the world.

Regardless of your own position within this tribe, you and I both know there is much more than a simple decision to the path of becoming childless. The questions we ask ourselves and those that are asked of us often find common ground.

The realization that we will never have a child becomes akin to a closed door that prevents access to what at some point in our life we came to believe was our destiny; a desire that we experienced intensely and somatically. It is a door that leads to many other doors that willnever be personally opened. The reminder of your limited access appears in everyday observations and transactions, at family gatherings and on every holiday and life milestone experienced by those with children. It is triggered in the media and through the overt marketing around pregnancy and motherhood. As we move through various life stagesand experience an age when our friends are becoming grandparents, we live out this perceived loss all over again.

The Mother Within

Given all of the pain, anger, guilt, shame and numbness that many of us have experienced, it may feel like a true leap to honestly now embrace the Mother Within, who reflects your maternal self. How is it possible to tap into a feeling and a knowing so real that you cannot fathom it will not be? The somatic and emotional pangs of recognition that you feel when you imagine having a child, or observe a pregnant woman, a baby or a child, feel nothing less than real in that moment. How could this Mother Within have been so wrong? This seemingly cruel joke of being denied physical motherhood is perhaps an opportunity for you to become visible to what the world needs to notice.

As we move into acknowledgment that we will never have a child, and as grief and other emotions shift over time, the Mother Within remains. When we do not acknowledge her, we ultimately deny a beautiful, living part of us that has given us the strength to face the challenging realities around wanting to become a mother and carried us through the pain and grief.

You ache for the unlived experience of having a child, and all that you envisioned would come about, and guide your life as a mother. In no way can I understate this pain or the hole you feel in your heart. The desire remains because you are a mother. You are a mother without a physical or living child. Your mother energy did not simply disappear the day you realized or accepted that you were not going to have a child. The light that connects with that desire is still you and it does not have to be unrealized in every sense of your being.