Women Without Kids
The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood
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What is "woman" if not "mother"? Anything she wants to be. Foregoing motherhood has traditionally marked a woman as "other." With no official place setting for her in our society, she has hovered on the sidelines: the quirky girl, the neurotic career obsessive, the "eccentric" aunt. Instead of continuing to paint women without kids as sad, self-obsessed, or somehow dysfunctional, what if we saw them as boldly forging a new vision for a fully autonomous womankind? Or as journalist and thought leader Ruby Warrington asks, what if being a woman without kids were in fact its own kind of legacy? Taking in themes from intergenerational healing to feminism to environmentalism, this personal look and anthropological dig into a stubbornly taboo topic is a timely and brave reframing of what it means not to be a mum. Whether we are childless by design or circumstance, we can live without regret, shame, or compromise. Bold and tenderhearted, Women Without Kids seeks first and foremost to help validate a path that is the natural consequence of women having more say about the choices we make and how our lives play out. Within this, it unites the unsung sisterhood of non-mothers as a vital part of our evolution and collective healing as women, as humans, and as a global family.
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“Women Without Children” was like a wise and open hearted friend welcoming me home after a long, arduous journey.* As per usual, I knew nothing about the book outside of cover, and I likely never would have given it a chance if it wasn't for it being free to borrow from the Libby app. I had finally made peace with not being a mother, so what was the point? Well, it turns out, I needed to feel a deep connection with Ruby. It's as if she saw parts of my life, read my mind, and shared my heart through her baby memoir. (“Baby” meaning a new child, and also meaning “small amount” of her life's story.)
I wish this book was around when I found myself unable to become a mother over a decade ago. No amount of money, treatments/science, hard work, or creativity was able to make my life's dream come true. For the first time ever, I was not able to “make” something happen in my life (including adoption, fostering, etc.) I grappled with the question: “Who am I if I'm not a mother?” (Even though I knew, deep down, I was still worthy of being alive and contributing to humanity even though others in my realm felt inclined to discount this or, at worst, pity me.) I then found myself slapped with the understanding that I didn't truly have a mother, either (though she was always extremely present in my life. See: enmeshment). Ruby touches on aspects of family dysfunction, the toxic beliefs of our society, along with a boatload of female empowerment. It was in 2019 when I realized that not only was I “okay” with not having children, but that I actually loved it and am genuinely happy to be childless. To go from absolute devastation to genuine gratitude in this area really blew me away and, ironically, shows me that all things are possible. ;)Ruby wrote a real gem. It's one I can listen to over and over again......I'm sure if I stuck with it and refused to let my dream go, I could have eventually became a mother via adoption, fostering, or having step children, but I had a knowing that my form of mothering in this lifetime would not be conventional.
