World Childless Week 2026, Day 6: We Are Worthy/Our Family Tree

(Reposted with updates and additions from previous years' WCW Day Six We Are Worthy posts.)   

The focus of Day Six of World Childless Week 2026 is "We Are Worthy." 

This is a frequent WCW theme!  From the website description: 

Childless does not mean less of a person or less of a life. We did not see our dreams come to fruition but it is not a reflection on our personality, life style or morals. We Are Worthy of finding happiness, equality, speaking our truth and celebrating everything that we are. Our voice, our thoughts, our reality should be expressed freely without fear of other people’s opinions. 

So you tell me, why WE ARE WORTHY?

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Back in 2018, there was an online summit for childless people during National Infertility Awareness Week on the theme of "We Are Worthy," and I wrote about it and my thoughts on the subject of worthiness here. 

I can't think of any other posts I've written about worth/worthiness in particular -- but I have pointed out plenty of examples of pronatalism and how the childless/free experience has been marginalized, when I've found them. I didn't know the term "pronatalism" when I first started this blog, so I started using the tag "mommy mania" -- the best I could come up with at the time. I've since re-tagged most of those posts as "pronatalism." 

The "bible" on pronatalism from a childfree (by choice) perspective would be "The Baby Matrix" by Laura Carroll (which I reviewed here).  A real eye-opener, and highly recommended!  

On the flip side, I suppose, would be the posts I've written about/touching on feminism, tagged as "the f word." Growing up, I was thoroughly steeped in the second-wave feminist messages of the 1970s (for good and for bad);  I have always believed and often said that I am more than my uterus. Unfortunately, that's still not the message that society tends to send us or the people around us....!  -- and pronatalism is, sadly, making a resurgence these days. There's a real push in some quarters to erase the progress we have made over the past century, and send women back to the kitchen. Childless/free people are increasingly, openly scapegoated for political purposes. 

We shouldn't have to -- we need not -- justify or apologize for our lack of children. We are so many things besides our parental status, our ability to reproduce. We are more than our uteruses.  We have so much more to offer the world than (just) children -- if the world would only take the time to stop, think, and see us -- REALLY see us.  We are whole, complex, amazing, valuable, human beings, just as we are. 

We are worthy. 

Check out today's content on the WCW Day 6 page, including community members' contributions, and FIVE free, live webinars related to this subject, including ones related to preserving a childless legacy, writing our stories, making new connections, rebuilding your life, and a "fireside chat" with Jody Day and a great group of childless elderwomen. They will be recorded and the links will be posted later on the Day Six page and WCW YouTube channel for anyone who cannot watch live.  

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Today is also about "Our Family Tree":  

This will be an ongoing project based on love, loss and remembrance. A memorial of the children we hold in our hearts; those we dreamt of but never conceived and the children we lost during pregnancy. Our Family Tree will be twofold and you are invited to participate in one or both sections:

A list of our children’s names to recognise they live in our hearts.

A gallery where we share images that feature our children’s names. It can be as simple as handwriting their name on a piece of paper, in the sand or on your skin and taking a photo; or something you create in Canva. You can add text or images, but their name is the focus. 

This is OUR FAMILY TREE

(I didn't manage to put together a submission for WCW this year -- but I did submit Katie's name for this! And I am looking forward to seeing it today!)  

World Childless Week 2026: Day 5: Why Do You Want Time Off? You Haven't Got Kids

The topic for World Childless Week 2026 today (Day 5) is "Why Do You Want Time Off? You Haven't Got Kids!"  From the WCW website description:  

Has anyone ever questioned why you want time off over the summer months or for a particular holiday such as Christmas, Halloween or Easter? Have your religious beliefs been ignored because “it’s all about family”? Have you had to schedule appointments outside of work hours because caring for elderly parents, friends or a pet is not seen as important, despite parents being given time off at short notice to be with their children, no matter the reason? 

HOW DOES it MAKE YOU FEEL when your requests are declined, based solely on not having children?     

(Part of this post is taken from what I wrote in 2022 for Day Four of WCW then, "Childlessness in the Workplace, " and I'd encourage you to click over and read the whole thing. Most of my work-related posts on this blog are tagged "work/office.")

I'm retired now -- downsized out of my job in 2014 (12 years ago now), at the age of 53 -- but before that, I worked in communications for a large Canadian bank for 28 years. I never thought much about it at the time, but later realized that, for more than 15 years, my immediate team of closest co-workers was a core group of older women, most of whom did not have children (and some of whom had pets they doted on). I knew that several of them had thought they'd be mothers someday, but it didn't happen for them, for various reasons. Perhaps because of that, they rallied around me and supported me (for the most part) when my only pregnancy ended in stillbirth in 1998. 

I was lucky! 

Although I do remember always feeling nervous about whether a request for holidays, personal days, an early getaway time, or other time off would be granted, those requests were almost never turned down. I managed to get at least a few days off every year at Christmastime every single year to travel west (1000 miles/2.5 hours by air plus an hour in the car) to see my family. Our team worked hard, often through lunch hours and overtime, and as a result, I never felt guilty about taking an extra-long lunch hour from time to time, or time off during the day for appointments (although I always told my boss where I was going and when I'd be back in the office), because time-wise, things usually evened out. So long as someone was in the office to cover any urgent requests from executives, and a skeleton staff over Christmas -- and there usually was -- there were usually no problems. This was (mostly) in the days before cellphones made us all available 24-7, and I wasn't really "important" enough to be always on call, but even so, I usually left a phone number where I could be reached in case of an emergency. I don't remember anyone ever using it.  

By the mid-1990s, "flexibility" was a new buzzword -- and the bank adopted flexible benefits and flexible working arrangements (such as working from home/remotely, compressed work weeks, flexible hours and job sharing). I wrote stories for the staff newsmagazine about these new arrangements, explaining what they were and how they worked. 

With the backing of Human Resources, I did a number of interviews with employees across the country who were already using flexible arrangements, hoping they could serve as role models for others to follow. One interview that has stuck with me in the years since then was with a woman who worked a compressed work schedule -- putting in longer days for nine days over two weeks, and then taking the tenth day off.  I asked all the employees I interviewed why they had asked for the new arrangement. The reason why you wanted one was not part of the application and was not a factor in approving or rejecting it (at least, it was not supposed to be a factor!) -- you simply had to explain how you proposed to get the work done -- but we wanted to convey that there were a lot of different reasons why employees might want to take advantage of the new policy. 

I asked her if she had children, assuming that she wanted to spend more time with them (as many women did). At that time, I was still hoping & expecting to have children myself.  I was surprised when she said no. She spent her days off working on a novel, and attending theatre matinees with friends.  And she said something that really resonated with me, and made perfect sense:  "Why shouldn't I (ask for flexibility)?  My time is just as valuable as anyone else's."  

Yes!  It is!

I was actually working a flexible arrangement long before the bank had an official policy about it: my husband's workday revolved around standard stock exchange trading hours (with a little time before & after worked in):  9 AM to 4 PM. Standard hours at my office were 8:30 to 5. This was fine when we lived in the city and lived a short walk away from a subway station, and could come and go on our own and meet up at home later -- not quite so easy when we moved out to the suburbs and were dependent on the commuter train schedule. There was bus service near our house that could take us to the train station, but it was just easier for us to drive to & from the station and commute together -- so dh put in a slightly longer day, and I asked if I could tweak my working hours slightly, arrive by 8 AM and leave at 4:30 PM. We worked in the same office tower and would usually meet up downstairs after work (or sometimes at the train station itself), hopped on a rush hour express train and arrive home at a reasonable hour (generally before 6, but often not long after 5:30).  Many of our colleagues also used the commuter trains to get to work and had flexible schedules, so this wasn't an issue (at least, it wasn't for many years, until a new boss asked me where my paperwork was granting me the arrangement -- what?  There was no such paperwork back then;  the agreement was made verbally. Thankfully, they let me continue the arrangement.) 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added throughout the day) and three free, live webinars: disenfranchised childless grief in the workplace, what progressive employers are doing differently, and what happens when your time doesn't count. These sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Five page and the WCW YouTube channel for later viewing. 

Saturday's (Day 6) topic will be We Are Worthy, together with the unveiling of Our Family Tree.  :)  

"Trespasses" by Louise Kennedy

PBS will be showing a four-part adaptation of Louise Kennedy's debut novel, "Trespasses," starting this Sunday night (Sept. 20th).  I like to read the book a TV show or movie is based on before watching, if I can, and so I picked this one up about a week ago.   

"Trespasses" takes place in a small town near (suburb of?) Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1975 -- during a fraught period of violent sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants, republicans and loyalists to the British Crown, known as "the Troubles."  Cushla Lavery is a 24-year-old Catholic primary schoolteacher. She's concerned about Davy McGeown, one of her young pupils, who is the target of bullying, and whose family is struggling. In the evening, she often works a shift in the bar her brother inherited from their father, while also tending to her alcoholic widowed mother at home. 

One night at the bar, she meets Michael Agnew, a much-older, married, Protestant lawyer, who (nevertheless) defends suspected IRA terrorists in court. Sparks fly, and a passionate affair begins... 

Given the time and setting, I knew when I started reading that there wasn't going to be a happy ending for at least one (and probably more) of these characters. (I was right.)  It was a grim read in some respects -- but I kept turning the pages as the tensions mounted, and wound up staying up late to finish it off last night. I could not put it down. 

Framing the book are two brief chapters set in 2015, which rounded out the story beautifully (particularly the final chapter) and gave us a satisfying glimpse into what happened to some of the main characters during the 40 years in between. (And confirmed a couple of things I'd guessed while reading!)  

Midway through, I wasn't sure what the rating for this book was going to be -- but towards the end, I knew it would be at least 4 stars if not higher.  

4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded up to 5 on Goodreads.   

I'm looking forward to seeing how this story is handled on screen!  

Content warnings/ALI notes: There are sex scenes.  There is an authoritarian priest who, quite frankly, gave me the creeps.  Obviously, there is violence and threats of violence. A man is horribly beaten. A minor character tells Cushla about a recent miscarriage (one of several she's endured). 

This was Book #28 read to date in 2026 (and Book #3 finished in September), bringing me to 70% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am currently back on track to meet my goal! You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."  

World Childless Week 2026, Day 4: Childless Mother's/Father's Day

Today's topic for World Childless Week 2026 (Day 4) is "Childless Mother's/Father's Day."  From the WCW website description:  

What does it feel like when this day comes around? Do you feel torn celebrating your own parents whilst grieving for yourself? Was your relationship with your parents difficult and it hurts to not be able to right the wrongs with your own unborn children? Do you hate the weeks of build up and constant commercials that don’t see anyone but parents? Do you avoid social media and the ‘bragging rights’, stay away from church and the parental sermons and avoid stores and restaurants that distribute flowers to the mums? Do you celebrate being a pet parent, or has that been ridiculed? Is it really just one day that can be ignored? 

HOW DO YOU FEEL about Mother’s / Father’s Day?

I've written a number of posts (more than 60!) over the past 19 years related to the day I like to refer to as "Voldemort Day" (The Day Which Shall Not Be Name) (lol), and you can find them tagged as "Voldemort Day (Mother's Day)."  I've also written a little about Father's Day, and you can find those posts here. 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and webinars, including ones on motherhood grief, pronatalism -- and  "All in the Family: Childless women, Caregiving/Caring and Family of Origin Dynamics," featuring yours truly as one of the panellists! If you're reading this before the webinar begins at 9 AM Eastern time, you can still register to watch live (just click on the link in the webinar name). All webinars are recorded and will be posted later in the day to the WCW 2026 Day Four page, as well as on the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

Tomorrow (Day Five) will be "Why Do You Want Time Off?  You Haven't Got Kids." 

World Childless Week 2026, Day 3: 10 Things You Should Know About Me

Today's topic for World Childless Week 2026 (Day 3) is "10 Things You Should Know About Me."  From the WCW website description:  

In recognition of this being World Childless Week’s 10th year imagine sitting in a room with a captive audience. What are the 10 things you’d want them to know about how childlessness has shaped you? Would you explain the heartache and pain or the glimmers and new found dreams? The struggles of not being heard or seen when pronatalism bends and distorts the reality of being childless in the press, media, workplace and politics etc? Your lost dreams and doubts about your worth, or the inner courage, strength and resilience you have fought for? The sorrow of living with a disenfranchised grief or the beauty of who you are as a unique individual regardless of being childless? 

What 10 things EXPLAIN YOU?

I didn't have time to put together a submission for this topic (or any other one) -- and I will admit I did not give this list a lot of thought! -- but off the top of my head, this is what I came up with for this post (listed in no particular order of importance):  

1. My childlessness was not a choice. I chose to end the insanity of fertility treatments and move on with my life, but I did not "choose" to be childless. It is not something I wanted, or decided on the spur of the moment. It is beyond hurtful when people (particularly politicians trying to score political points) say nasty things about those of us without children.  

2.  I don't talk a lot about my stillborn daughter, the trauma of failed fertility treatments or the pain of permanent involuntary childlessness. I have learned to live with my grief over the past 28 years -- and it does not dominate my life the way it once did. (But make no mistake, it has shaped the person I've become, and it is there, lurking in the background. Always.)   

3.  Not everyone understands what pregnancy loss involves (and different women will experience it differently, depending on the gestation of the baby and the circumstances of the loss).  I may not be sharing my labour & delivery story (because I'm really not sure you want to hear it...!), but believe me, I have one too.  I held my dead daughter in my arms for the first and only time. I have just six precious Polaroid photos of her, taken by the nurse (and you can't even see her wee face in three of them.)  Not all losses are marked by a funeral, but I had one for my baby.  I visited her niche in the cemetery almost every week for the 18 years after her stillbirth that we lived in that community, and we still make a stop at the cemetery every time we're in the area. 

4. Fertility treatments have helped a lot of people, but they don't work for everyone. Likewise, adoption can be a wonderful thing, but it is not the solution for everyone, and it is not as simple or cheap as many people seem to think it is. 

5. Sometimes I'm happy to come to your baby shower or child's birthday party. Sometimes it's just too hard to be around happy parents & kids and be confronted with the reality of what I've missed out on. But I do appreciate being invited.  Thank you for inviting me (please keep doing so), and thank you for understanding if and when I decline, or if I go quiet and leave the room when the "mom talk" gets to be too much. .    

6. I absolutely love being an auntie and great-auntie. It's a special relationship, I'm lucky to have them, and I treasure the time I get to spend with them.  But it's not a substitute for being a mother to my own children.   

7. I always wanted and hoped I'd be a mother -- but it was not the only thing I wanted to do with my life, and not the only thing I wanted people to know about me. I've always said "I am more than my uterus" and I think that belief is one of the key things that's helped me get through these past 25 years.  

8. I have made so many wonderful friends in the childless community over the past 25 years (most of them online. I am so very thankful my childlessness arrived around the same time widespread use of the Internet did!

9. I don't want pity. And I don't expect you could understand my life, when it's been so different from yours. But I sure would appreciate a little respect and consideration.  

10.  My childless life is not better or worse than a parent's. There is a good life, and joy, to be had without children too. It's just different.  

See also this similar/somewhat related 2021 post: "20 years of childless living."

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and webinars, including ones on how our relationships with childlessness can change over time, rewriting our dreams, and aging and thriving (not just surviving!) without children. All webinars are recorded and will be posted to the WCW 2026 Day Three page, as well as the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

Tomorrow (Day Four) will be "Childless Mother's/Father's Day."  I'll be taking part in one of the webinars then too:  "All in the Family: Childless women, Caregiving/Caring and Family of Origin Dynamics."  Hope to see some of you there!  

World Childless Week 2026, Day 2: Disability & Chronic Illness

Today's topic for World Childless Week 2026 (Day 2) is Childless: Disability and Chronic Illness.  From the WCW website description:  

Has your situation meant you were unable to have children or did you decide to not have children because you felt you were unable to give them the life you wanted to? Have you been judged for your decisions when others with the same disability or illness decided to have children? Have people compared your life to theirs and dismissed the reality of your situation? Have people been surprised to discover you wanted children because they made assumptions based on your health/ability. Have you been made to feel like a fraud because “you don't look ill”? Has anyone dismissed your grief and implied you are childfree because they don’t understand you made the toughest of decisions?

What is the truth of your story?

I don't really have anything personal to offer regarding this topic, but I know health issues (both physical and mental) are a major reason why some women don't have the children they wanted.  

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and webinars, including ones focused on endometriosis, and navigating healthcare.  All webinars are recorded and will be posted to the WCW 2026 Day Two page, as well as the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

In honour of WCW's 10th (!) anniversary, tomorrow (Day Three)'s topic will be "10 Things You Should Know About Me." 

"The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy

Way back in March, I decided to read -- or at least to START reading! -- "The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy, in advance of a new TV adaptation ("The Forsytes") that started showing that month on PBS. (It ran for six episodes, and has been renewed for a second season.)  One of my blog readers (you know who you are!) offered to join me in a "slow readalong," and we have had fun comparing notes as we both slowly made our way through the book (while juggling others at the same time)!  

"The Forsyte Saga" is a massive book, running more than 900 pages (!) in paperback. (I read an e-version.) It's actually a trilogy -- three volumes in one:  The Man of Property (1906), In Chancery (1920), and To Let (1921). (I should really count this as three books read instead of one, no??) Galsworthy was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga," and was only the second English author to receive the award since its inception in 1901.

The book tells the story of three generations of the Forsytes, a large, upper middle-class English family, starting in 1886 and ending in the early 1920s -- years of great social change and upheaval in Britain, including both the Boer War and First World War.  There's a broad cast of characters spotlighted at various points in the book, but the focus throughout is particularly on the very proper (and very pompous) "man of property," Soames Forsyte, his unhappy marriage to Irene Heron, and its reverberations throughout the family over the years.   

Galsworthy was a well-known social activist who advocated for the women's suffrage movement, prison reform and animal rights, and the book is surprisingly modern in its treatment of women, who (as the book reminds us at several points) were then considered the property of their husbands (!).  Divorce was extremely difficult to get and was considered highly scandalous -- thank goodness laws have evolved since then!  Interestingly from my perspective, it also includes several strong, independent childless female characters, including June, who runs an art gallery and nurtures young artists; and her younger half-sister Holly, who marries her cousin and decides not to have children as a result. 

The ebook edition I read had helpful clickable footnotes explaining the unfamiliar terms and historical references, as well as a family tree at the front, which helped a lot, especially at the beginning when I was trying to figure out all the relationships!  (Spoiler alert:  The tree does contain some spoilers re: various births, deaths and marriages.) 

Content warnings:  The book includes a traumatic episode of marital rape (not shown) and its aftermath. As well, a racial slur that is considered strictly verboten today is used in Book 3, Part One, Chapter V.   

It's a very long book, but overall, I enjoyed it tremendously -- and although the final few chapters were not quite what I expected, I thought it was a great way to wrap up the book.  And I'm very glad I at least got a start on reading it before I watched the TV show -- it helped a lot in figuring out who was who (even though -- as I mentioned in posts here and here -- the TV show is a highly soap-ified "reimagining" of the books that doesn't stick too strictly to the source material -- caveat emptor!) (I got a real kick out of reading the catty comments on this Reddit thread!  lol)   

A solid 4 stars. 

This was Book #27 read to date in 2026 (and Book #2 finished in September), bringing me to 68% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am currently 1 book behind pace to meet my goal. You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."