#MicroblogMondays: Childless/free living odds & ends
Last week was the first World Childless Week, which was created to raise awareness and support for/about people who are childless not by choice. I didn't write anything about it here before, partly because I didn't learn about it the week was underway, and partly because I am still wading my way through the abundance of great related reading I found online.
Through my reading and by following links, I discovered a few new childless/free blogs & sites, which I've added to the blogroll & resources links on the right-hand side of this page. Check them out!
While in general, the ALI blogosphere seems a lot quieter than it used to be, I have noticed an absolute explosion of blogs & other writing (news articles, etc.) related to childless/free living over the past few months/year or so. When I started blogging almost 10 (!!) years ago, I could count the number of childless-not-by-choice bloggers (who blogged with any regularity) on the fingers of one hand, and only one of them (Pamela) still blogs with any regularity -- so this is incredibly heartening to witness. In fact, all the blogs featured in the Stirrup Queen's most recent Friday roundup came from this corner of the ALI community (as Mali noted in the comments there).
I'm so glad this part of the ALI community is growing. You're right that the number of blogs about not parenting after infertility has been small, so I'm glad to see this growth and recognition. It's overdue
I'm so glad that there are so many blogs to help guide the way of ending a fertility journey without a child. That article was interesting... This I found particularly fascinating: "It’s almost as though the thought simply can’t be accepted that, in actual fact, the parenting life path isn’t remotely special – it is, by definition, ordinary, a trajectory shared by countless others, most of whom don’t feel the slightest compunction to drone on about it." I didn't know there was a World Childless Week, I'm glad I'll know for next year so I can spread the word! :)
I'm also saving up all the Childless Week blogs and articles to read for when I have time. (Elderly sick in-laws have been taking up a lot of time recently). Thanks for highlighting this.
And I was like Jess - I loved the sentence that she highlighted.
The blogosphere is so saturated with millions of parenting/mummy blogs that I was actually disheartened when I started writing as a childfree-after-infertility blogger - I nearly gave up after a few months. I started at the same time as my good friend who has a parenting blog: when I still only had about five followers, she had hundreds - the solidarity, support and maybe also the hankering for material success/recognition in the parenting blog community is huge and staggering; it depressed me for a while. I felt like an insignificant little blip. I did build up a community eventually and it heartens me now to see a growing number of people blogging about living without children. I'm sick of the narrative "IVF nearly destroyed us but here are our lovely twins blah blah" - the more we hear from the other side of the coin, the better.
It's good that people are talking more about being childless. I imagine it's harder when it is not by choice!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad this part of the ALI community is growing. You're right that the number of blogs about not parenting after infertility has been small, so I'm glad to see this growth and recognition. It's overdue
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that there are so many blogs to help guide the way of ending a fertility journey without a child. That article was interesting... This I found particularly fascinating: "It’s almost as though the thought simply can’t be accepted that, in actual fact, the parenting life path isn’t remotely special – it is, by definition, ordinary, a trajectory shared by countless others, most of whom don’t feel the slightest compunction to drone on about it." I didn't know there was a World Childless Week, I'm glad I'll know for next year so I can spread the word! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm also saving up all the Childless Week blogs and articles to read for when I have time. (Elderly sick in-laws have been taking up a lot of time recently). Thanks for highlighting this.
ReplyDeleteAnd I was like Jess - I loved the sentence that she highlighted.
The blogosphere is so saturated with millions of parenting/mummy blogs that I was actually disheartened when I started writing as a childfree-after-infertility blogger - I nearly gave up after a few months. I started at the same time as my good friend who has a parenting blog: when I still only had about five followers, she had hundreds - the solidarity, support and maybe also the hankering for material success/recognition in the parenting blog community is huge and staggering; it depressed me for a while. I felt like an insignificant little blip. I did build up a community eventually and it heartens me now to see a growing number of people blogging about living without children. I'm sick of the narrative "IVF nearly destroyed us but here are our lovely twins blah blah" - the more we hear from the other side of the coin, the better.
ReplyDelete