Am I Childless, Childfree or a Proxy-Parent (and why does it even matter)?

Before I found the childless community in 2021, a couple of years after making the decision to stop trying to have a baby, I didn’t know there were words for women like me.

I didn’t know that my grief was disenfranchised. A grief not recognised by wider society because it wasn’t attached to something tangible.

I didn’t know pronatalism was insidiously worming its way into my thought patterns, making me think I needed a child to be of value.

I’d spend hours searching google, using terms like ‘how to cope with not having a baby’, ‘why do I feel so sad?’ and ‘support for when you can’t have kids’.

Eventually, on a day that would unknowingly shape everything that came after, I found something that fit.

I found a community of women who called themselves ‘childless not by choice’. Women who’d wanted to have kids, but for a myriad different reasons, didn’t get there.

I found a place I belonged, with people who knew how I felt.

The label of childless (not a choice)

As I explored this new environment and shared my story, I learned of many other people who’d made failed attempts to start a family. It felt like someone had switched on a light in the very dark place I’d been wallowing.

I wore my new label with wonder, finally having words to explain what I was going through. It helped when telling others about myself; it helped my husband to see what was causing me to be in so much pain. And it helped me to know I wasn’t alone.

The childless not by choice (CNBC) label became a badge I wore when others would ask about my parental status. I’d share this moniker as a way of explaining my situation without having to go into every excruciating detail of fertility appointments, closed-door arguments and a broken body.

Like handing someone a business card, I was able to express years of hurt in just a few simple words.

I now appreciate that not every woman who wanted kids identifies with this label. I understand the reasons for this — it condenses their experience into a neat little box, it brands us. We are so much more than our childlessness.

At the time, I found it a comfort to have language to describe a situation I’d once thought was completely unique. I had an umbrella term that showed I was part of something bigger than myself. A group no-one wants to be in, but a group all the same.

Here was something that allowed people like me to find each other. To share our grief and experience the feeling of, ‘someone else gets it’.

It led me to a world of people who slowly became allies and friends. My first entrance into this world was through Gateway Women (an online community and blog for childless women), founded by Jody Day who talks extensively about living a life without the children she wanted. I read her book, Living the Life Unexpected, and immersed myself in stories like mine.

Gateway Women eventually became Childless Collective, hosted by Katy Seppi, and remains a key touchpoint for women who find themselves in a situation they never wanted.

Katy runs this community beautifully, encouraging women to share their thoughts, feelings and stories with each other. Friendships develop that span geography and bring people together in the online world (and sometimes in person, too).

Later, I found the Full Stop podcast and community, who bring our stories to life and offer support to both men and women who find themselves involuntarily childless.

Childless people have spaces to go for support, and to make sense of the life they’ll live without the babies they wanted.

‘Childless’ is a label that, for the community it serves, seeks to explain the journey of reaching midlife without children after the hope of procreation is dashed.

I once felt myself firmly rooted in this community.

The label of childfree (a choice, or a default state)

At the opposite end of the non-parent spectrum is ‘childfree’, used to describe people who’ve made an active choice not to have children for reasons as varied as the people are themselves.

It’s not for us, or for society, to challenge this decision. Human beings should have authority over their own bodies and the choice not to have children is personal, private and nuanced.

If those who make this choice wish to share their reasons, they must be allowed to, but it must also not be expected of them. We’re all entitled to agency over our own decisions, bodies and lives.

As I’ve moved through life, I wonder if I resonate more with the childfree narrative these days.

I’m only 40 years old, an age where (in modern society), it’s not unusual for people to start to consider having children. There are risks associated with having kids at this stage of life, but for the purposes of this piece let’s say it’s at least possible.

And I choose not to pursue it.

I went through menopause in my 20s and 30s, and the probability of having a baby biologically or naturally are almost non-existent (I’ve got a blocked fallopian tube, too). But there are other routes I could take, if I were so inclined.

I could try IVF, but I choose not to. I’ve decided not to put myself or my body through the financial and emotional cost of IVF.

Does that make me childfree?

To be honest, I don’t know. I feel connected to both labels. I’m childless, because I wanted it, once. But I’m also childfree, because I don’t want it anymore.

The starkest difference in the labelling of non-parents — which people may or may not choose to identify with — is whether it was a choice. A choice to pursue or not to pursue parenthood.

For some who identify with the label of childfree, it was never an active choice, it was their default state. Having babies was never in their life plan. But this is still a choice by omission, a choice not to pursue.

It saddens me that childfree and childless people don’t always see eye to eye. Childfree folk aren’t always aware of the grief that can wrap itself around a person who wants kids but can’t have them.

Childless people can feel bitter about childfree people making a choice they didn’t feel was available to them.

But we’re all just human beings, with our very unique needs and wants.

No-one should be made to feel lesser because of a decision to have kids or not.

The ‘less’ in ‘childless’ can be seen as an unnecessary negative addition, but it seeks to express the grief which comes with this set of circumstances.

We have ‘less’ than we’d desired to have.

Parenthood-by-proxy

There’s yet another layer to my life without children, which is step-parenting.

I met my husband when his children were in primary school, and that put me in a position of caring for them when they were with us. As an ex teacher and social worker, it was a role I stepped into easily. I love kids and having them in my home was a joy.

It was also very painful, because it was the same time at which I was pursuing parenthood. I was trying to get pregnant while watching the man I loved do the thing I was so desperate to achieve for myself — be a parent.

I made them dinner, bought them toys, took them for days out. But I was never their Mum. She was another woman, a woman who hated my sheer existence and tried her best to ostracise me from their lives. I had (and continue to have) a good relationship with my stepkids despite all this. But not once have I ever felt like anyone’s mother.

I have a young woman living in my house right now, but I’m not her Mum. It’s mostly ok, but there are times of severe distress on my part, when I crave the isolation and freedom of a childfree life.

I often explain my relationship with my stepkids as that of a close aunt. I get to advise and direct, but I don’t get to parent. I’m not the person they come to in times of crisis, or when they need a hug. I’m on the outside looking in, watching my family from a distance.

Do we need these labels at all?

Many people have asked me over the years why it’s important to define myself as childless, childfree or a (step)parent.

For me, it’s a way of talking about my experiences without having to relive the trauma of failed fertility, or of watching someone else parent a child I love.

I use ‘childfree’ in my happier moments, to acknowledge the choices I made not to continue to pursue motherhood. To empower myself and to know that I made a choice for myself and for my unconventional family.

I use ‘childless’ to acknowledge the pain and suffering I went through before, and to validate that shared pain and suffering in others.

I use ‘parent’ much less often now, because my stepkids are grown and don’t need an adult to make practical arrangements. I was a ‘parent’ at school events, or at the doctor’s surgery. I was a ‘parent’ when they needed an advocate and couldn’t rely on the woman who birthed them. I’ll be ‘parent’ whenever they need me to be.

If someone chooses to use these labels, I support it. If it helps organise their experiences and compartmentalise the things they’ve experienced, they can be a useful tool.

Labels can be a barrier between an inquisitive stranger and a private, personal pain. They can be the business card given in order to escape a difficult and probing question.

They can also be left behind if and when a person chooses to do so.

Will I still call myself childless when I’m in old age? Yes, possibly.

Will I still call myself childfree when a prominent figure in the community achieves something glorious? Absolutely.

Will I still call myself a parent when my stepchild needs a grown-up to take charge in a moment of despair? Yes, always.

But do I define myself by these labels in everyday life? Not anymore.

Thanks for reading, connect with me here.

This story was originally published on Medium and is cross-posted here for a wider audience. View the original post here.