"Women Without Kids" by Ruby Warrington

From famine to feast: in recent years, more and more good (even great) books about various aspects of life without children have been published -- and not just one but TWO in the last few months.  Both received some good attention in the media: "Without Children" by Peggy O'Donnell Heffington,  which I read and reviewed last month, here, and "Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood" by Ruby Warrington. (Interestingly, Warrington's book seems to be better known in the UK, while Heffington's has been getting more press here in North America. Perhaps that's because Warrington is originally from the UK, albeit she now lives in the U.S.)   

Warrington is childfree by choice, and much of the book is written from that perspective. (She originally wanted to title the book "Selfish C***s.")(!!) But involuntary childlessness is not ignored -- Gateway Women's Jody Day is quoted and referenced several times throughout the book -- and Warrington does, in fact, write extensively and persuasively about the existence of a "Motherhood Spectrum," with hardcore childfree-by-choice people at one end, enthusiastic mothers at the other, and most of us falling somewhere in between. 

The book mixes Warrington's personal story and extensive research with a psycho-socio-political analysis of life without children and what it means to never be a mother, as well as questions to get the reader thinking about their own stories and feelings on the subject.  It ends with a message similar to Heffington's book -- that we all (parents & non) need to support each other and do our part in making this planet a better place for all of us to live -- but Warrington presents these ideas in a way that I found much more palatable/affirming and childless/free-friendly.  

For me, an otherwise good/thoughtful/interesting read was somewhat marred by several irritating factors that could have easily been resolved through editing:  there was an abundance of choppy sentences/fragments, as well as (on the flip side) long, run-on paragraphs that could have been broken up into shorter ones. There were some annoyingly glaring typos/spelling/usage errors -- for example, I noticed "naval gazing," (navel); "now age" (new age), and "alter" (altar). I also found myself wishing that the thought-provoking questions Warrington poses to the reader throughout the book had been highlighted in some way for emphasis and easy reference (boldfaced? boxed? sidebarred?), instead of casually dropped into the copy, where they're more easily buried or glossed over.  (Sorry if all of this sounds picky, but I was an editor in my pre-retirement life and I was paid to notice these things...!)  

But while certain structural aspects were lacking, I very much appreciated the content. There were a few parts that were perhaps a little more "woowoo/new age-y" than I was really comfortable with (particularly in Chapter, 2,"Origin Stories" and its discussion of "Family Constellations").  But -- if I had been reading a paper copy, practically every other page would have been dog-eared;  as it was, my e-copy is littered with bookmarks. I found it difficult to pick just a few quotations to highlight here for you, because there were so many good ones that made some excellent points.  

Overall, this is a worthy addition to the growing library of books about life without children and worth a read.  

A solid 4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #22 read to date in 2023 (and Book #5 finished in May), bringing me to 49% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 4 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2023 tagged as "2023 books."