#MicroblogMondays: Seriously, CNN??

I was tickled to learn (via social media) that CNN International had featured a five-minute segment about World Childless Week (!) late last week, and interviewed WCW founder Stephanie Joy Phillips, who gave some very articulate answers to the interviewers' questions in the brief time allotted.  So wonderful to see WCW, and childlessness generally, getting such a prominent platform, and reaching such a huge potential audience! (although I am not sure whether the segment was shown here in North America?).

HOWEVER!!  (and content warning, should you watch the video):  Stephanie's words were undercut by a flow of visuals over her responses... a stream of close-up pregnant bellies and babies!! (Yes, really!!)  

I found this HORRIBLY distracting and wince-inducing (not to mention jaw-dropping...!)  -- and I'm 25 years out from my last fertility treatment. I can't imagine someone just new to childlessness -- perhaps fresh off their last fertility treatment, or a miscarriage that proved to the final straw in their ttc journey -- being able to sit through that!  I mean, seriously?? 

That said, here's the link, if you'd like to watch!  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

World Childless Week 2026, Day 7: Moving Forwards

The focus of Day Seven of  World Childless Week 2026 (ADD LINK) (as it usually is for the final day of WCW) is "Moving Forwards."  (Parts of this post are based on my previous "World Childless Week: Moving Forwards" posts.) 

From the website description: 

What is moving forwards for you? Is it a giant change of direction emotionally and mentally or small little changes you didn’t even notice  taking place? You may still have moments of feeling life is at a standstill but on reflection feel different inside. If your grief has changed, what has created those changes and how does it make you feel? 

Does each day now bring you NEW OPPORTUNITIES, smiles and laughter?

*** *** ***  

The passage of time (25+ years!!) since I left fertility treatments, and looking back on certain milestones will often bring a shock of recognition of how things have changed, how far I've come and how differently I feel now than I did then. (One advantage of getting older is that fewer and fewer people ask and hint and prod you about pregnancy plans and children... although eventually, you start getting questions about how many grandchildren you have instead...!)

I think back to one particular incident, at Christmastime, a few years after we had thrown in the towel on infertility treatments, which showed me that perhaps I was further down the road of acceptance than I had realized.  I wrote about it here. 

Another measure of progress would be my increasing ability/willingness to enter a Baby Gap (or other baby/kids' clothing) store. (And, dare I say, to even enjoy it??)  Once, it was a source of pain, to be avoided. I eventually did get to the point where I could go in to buy a baby shower gift (even if was often just a gift card...!). These days, I love to go there (and other children's wear stores) to shop for our three great-niblings -- albeit the little girls' racks in particular still give me occasional pangs... 

There are probably other markers of progress that I've written about over the years, although I can't recall any other specific posts to share here with you right now. 

One thing I remember from our pregnancy loss support group days is that you never realized just how far you'd come down this road less travelled -- until someone new arrived, fresh and raw in their own grief. I still see that to some extent today, when I'm on Zoom chats with a group of childless women that includes a newcomer(s), or when I read social media posts and responses from younger women who are new to the stunning realization that they will not have the children they assumed they would have. 

My life today is very different from the life I once imagined I would be leading. I will never stop missing my daughter, and wondering about that other life I might have had, that once seemed within my grasp... 

But even so, all things considered? I have a pretty damn good life. I don't think it's better or worse than the life I might have led, if I'd had children.  It's just different. It's a good life, on its own merits.  And I'm not going to pretend otherwise, or apologize for it. I didn't get a "rainbow baby," but I think I've found rainbows in my life in other ways. The strong relationship I have with my husband, closer relationships we've forged with our nephews and now their children (closer than if we'd had our own kids & grandkids to focus on, I'm sure), the ability to retire early (after I got dumped by the company I'd served faithfully for 28 years...!), a nice home, occasional travel, mornings that I get to sleep in, freedom and flexibility in other ways... I consider all these things and more the "silver linings" in the dark cloud of pregnancy loss, infertility, involuntary childlessness and grief that shadowed my life for so many years.

I think I've earned them. 

Check out today's content on the Day 7 page of the WCW site, including community members' contributions, and FIVE free, live webinars related to this subject, including ones about grieving the dream and navigating a way forward, creative tools, finding purpose beyond parenthood, what's changed, and reflecting on the past to help us move into the future. They will be recorded and the links will be posted later on the Day Seven page and WCW YouTube channel for anyone who cannot watch live.  

Thanks (again) to Stephanie Joy Phillips, the driving force behind World Childless Week for the past 10 (!) years. If you've enjoyed WCW content during the past decade, consider making a donation to help Steph cover the costs of running the website and webinars, sending out regular newsletters, etc.  Here's a link! 

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?

*** *** ***  

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.  

*** *** *** 

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.  :)  

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." 

#MicroblogMondays: World Childless Week 2026: Day 1: Our Stories

(Reposted with updates and additions from previous years' WCW Day One: Our Stories posts.)  

World Childless Week is here!  -- an entire week filled with inspiring and comforting things to read, watch, listen to and participate in, focused on a different topic/theme each day (and new material posted daily too). If you miss some of the live webinars, don't worry;  they are posted on the WCW website later in the day/week to be enjoyed and consulted indefinitely. (Previous years' WCW content is also available onsite -- what a great resource for our community!) 

As usual, I didn't manage to get my act together to write something new (or even in time for a morning post...!)  -- but (as I recently posted) I will be taking part in a webinar on Thursday. And I'm always happy to promote WCW here!  

A couple of years ago, it occurred to me that I've already covered many of the WCW topics in my blog over the almost (gulp) 19 (!) years I've been writing here. So each day this week, I will *attempt* (I have great intentions...!) to post about the day's topic here, with some links to some of my own previous writing here on the subject (if any). (Some of the content I wrote for previous years' WCW summary posts may be repurposed for this year's posts.) 

Enjoy! :) 

*** *** *** 

Day One is focused on the theme "Our Stories" (as it usually is). 

This is the day to speak from your heart about your childless life. The reasons you became childless, or the life that just led you where you are today. The emotions that have swelled in your heart, the grief you are living with. The pain of pronatalism and the cruelty of disenfranchised grief. 

Be raw, be honest, BE YOU. 

I'm a firm believer in the power of telling our stories (if only to each other, at least at first). Meetings of the pregnancy loss support group that dh & I attended and later facilitated (1998-2009) would always begin by going around the room and having each person introduce themselves and tell their story, what brought them there. Sometimes (especially at first), the stories would be long, detailed and filled with tears. Over time, new details would emerge that we hadn't heard before. And we'd learn to develop a shortened "Reader's Digest" version of our story, which left more time for the longer stories (plus, over time, the "regulars" would all get to know each other and each others' stories pretty well, so it wasn't quite as necessary or important to go through all the details for the umpteenth time). 

Telling and retelling our stories to each other like this, week after week, in a supportive environment among others who had similar stories to tell, was good practice for handling those inevitable innocent questions and awkward encounters that all of us experience, sooner or later. In training sessions, we also learned that telling our stories, or some version of them -- over and over and over again -- actually helps our brains to process what happened. Over time, telling our stories repeatedly (or some version of them) gradually becomes less difficult.  

I think the same principles apply to our stories about our childlessness.  Our stories matter, because they're OURS, and because by telling them, we light the way for other childless women looking for support and comfort.  

Our stories remind each other that we are not alone.  

This entire blog, of course, is my story :) (or at least parts of/a version of it) and it has evolved, along with my story, over the past 19 years.  A barebones, thumbnail version of my story can be found in the "About me" Blogger profile near the top of this page on the right-hand side (or in the link here). You can find a slightly longer version in the "About me" page (found just under the title/header of this blog). The "Timeline" page (link right beside the "About me" link) also gives you an idea of how my story unfolded and some significant dates & events. 

If you're *really* interested in all the gory details (and be forewarned, some of them ARE a bit gory, emotionally if not physically), I wrote a series of posts tagged "1998 memories" in which I relived my one doomed pregnancy, 10 years after the fact. I did the same thing with "The Treatment Diaries," all about our foray into infertility treatments, written 10 years after we abandoned them and resigned ourselves to permanent childlessness. 

I also wrote a few posts shortly after I started this blog, where I told a condensed version of my story (up to that time): 

• Blogtivism: My Story (& how mandated coverage could have helped) (November 2007)
• How we made "the decision" (November 2007)

If you have some difficulty telling your story to others (and I know I have!) -- especially to parents who might not understand/appreciate the subtleties of involuntary childlessness -- take comfort in the words of Brene Brown -- who emphasizes the importance of telling our stories -- but also this:  

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions. Today's webinars have all concluded (as World Childless Week is a UK-based initiative, most webinars take place in the early morning through mid-afternoon hours, North American time), but all were recorded, and the videos will be posted to the WCW 2026 Day One page, as well as the WCW YouTube channel, for anyone who missed seeing them live.  

There will be more community submissions and webinars tomorrow, when the topic will be Childless:  Disability and Chronic Illness. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

(Oops, I was trying to schedule this to post tomorrow morning and accidentally published it now. Oh well...!) 

Odds & ends (including a World Childless Week webinar!)

I've been struggling a bit lately, with writing more regularly in this blog -- and with other parts of my life too. It feels like there are a gazillion things demanding my attention, and all I want to do is bury my nose in a book (Kobo reader?) or my phone and scroll mindlessly. I bounce from one thing to another and accomplish nothing, and fret over the dumbest little things. Frankly, I think I might be a little depressed -- and I guess it's not surprising, given the events and stresses and losses around me this past year(s/) -- both personal and in the broader world. 

Writing IS (always has been) a comfort and an outlet, though, and I have been collecting more odds & ends to share with you here (albeit there are a lot I meant to flag that have slipped through my fingers). Here are a few things I've been noticing and thinking about lately:   

• Latest annoying/anxiety-inducing thing:  Our GE Profile dishwasher (original to the condo, so likely about 12 years old) is leaking water from the bottom. :(  We've stopped using it (washing dishes by hand), and even turned off the valve to shut off the water to it, but it's still getting wet under there. 
• I've been sliding rags or sheets of paper towel underneath to catch and mop up the drips, and swapping them out for dry ones every few hours. 
• Beyond the leak, the springs on both sides of the door have snapped in recent years -- meaning we can't just open the door and let it drop (because it DROPS!) -- we have to either hold it or balance it against a hip and load/unload the dishes that way -- or lower the door very gently, and then rehook the hinges up to close it back up properly again. 
• Given these issues (and the likelihood of more to come), and given that 12 years seems to be ancient in appliance terms these days (yikes), we recently went dishwasher shopping. What to pick, from a dizzying array of choices?? (Did I mention I've been having some anxiety issues lately??)  
• We eventually selected a KitchenAid model. It's being delivered next Monday. 
• (I had to notify the property manager of the impending delivery -- and cough up a $500 (Canadian) security deposit in case of damages to the elevator or hallways during delivery/removal of the old machine. It will be returned, assuming all goes well. Sigh...) 
• Huge congratulations to Mali at No Kidding in NZ, who has been named People's Champion for World Childless Week 2026!!  She wrote about it here, and you can read her WCW profile here  So well deserved!!  
• Speaking of World Childless Week, it's next week!  I'll be writing more about it in the days ahead, but I especially wanted to give you a heads-up that I'll be appearing in a Zoom webinar/panel discussion on Thursday, Sept. 17th at 9 AM (Eastern time), along with three of my friends from the Childless Collective:  "All in the Family: Childless women, Caregiving/Caring and Family of Origin Dynamics." 
• Y'all know, I live some 1000 miles away from my family of origin -- and my (younger) sister has been the main point person as our parents have aged (and, in mom's case, passed away in January). But Sandy, the webinar organizer, thought it would be interesting to have my perspective on caregiving and contributing from a distance, so...! 
• You can watch live on Zoom, and the video will be posted on the WCW 2026 website and YouTube channel later that day for later viewing. More details and a sign-up link here.  
• We lost three childless/free icons in short order recently:  first Dolly Parton, then Tim Curry, followed by Gloria Steinem. (Did I mention I've been a bit depressed lately?? -- this didn't help...!) There's been some great writing on various childless/free blogs, etc., about these three and what they meant to us. 
• Gloria Steinem in particular was a familiar presence when I was growing up in the 1970s. Going through my old school essays when we were cleaning out my parents' house last spring, I was amused to find a declaration in one along the lines of "I'm not a big women's libber" -- ah, youth!!  Even if I was reluctant to embrace the F-label as a teenager (lol), there's absolutely no doubt what a huge impact Steinem and the women's movement had on my life, and that I have evolved considerably since then.  ;)  
• I was fortunate enough to briefly encounter Gloria Steinem twice in my life:  
• In 1994, I stood in line at a bookstore in the underground city that runs below Toronto's Financial District during my lunch hour to get her to sign a copy of her latest book, "Moving Beyond Words" (which I still have).  
• Several years after that, she was speaking at a convention of the Ontario Human Resources Professionals Association. Someone had given one of my coworkers tickets;  she was working, but my mom was visiting me and I was off that week, so she gave them to me and Mom & I went to the Toronto Convention Centre to hear Gloria speak.  We also caught a glimpse of her walking through the halls outside the meeting rooms. She was in her 60s then and wearing a miniskirt -- and she looked fabulous in it.  :)   Rest in power, Gloria. And thank you. 
• I was sad to read in the Toronto Star that Gilda's Club recently closed its doors here. 
• I was reminded of a post I wrote wayyyyyy back in 2012 (!) about Gilda Radner (who was childless not by choice) & Gilda's Club. (I also mentioned Gilda in this post from last year, about the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebrations.) 
• Sidenote:  The O'Keefe Centre/Hummingbird Centre/Sony Centre I refer to in that 2012 post has been Meridian Hall since 2019.  Sigh... 
• (The SkyDome is still the Rogers Centre -- but there's now also the Rogers Stadium, which -- as many unsuspecting event ticketholders have discovered, to their dismay! -- is about 20 miles away from the Rogers Centre, in a completely different part of the city...!) 
• New York Times gift link:  "When the Choice to Be Childless Is Not Your Own" by Anna Louise Sussman, author of the upcoming book “Inconceivable:The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty.” The article is U.S.-specific, but some of the questions it raises would apply in many other countries. 
• Sample quote:  "...what if we thought of starting a family as a fundamental human experience that should be available to all? What if we extended the ability to have a family — one that many possess as a matter of good fortune — into a basic human right?"
• (Not sure I have the "right" to have a family -- no one can guarantee that -- but I believe it should be a lot easier to TRY to have one, if that's what I want...)
• You've probably heard of "manspreading" -- entitled and oblivious men, spreading out and taking up valuable public space (particularly on public transit). How about "mumspreading"?  Emma Harris thoughtfully explains (on her own website, and on the Life Without Children Substack -- well worth a read!):   

Mumspreading, as I use it, describes something analogous: the ways in which some mums can take up physical, conversational, emotional space without much awareness of the impact on those around them.

This is, ultimately, a post about the invisible grief of childlessness, and what it means to take up space in a world not designed with you in mind.

#MicroblogMondays: World Childless Week 2026 is coming!

World Childless Week 2026 is coming in September -- the 10th annual!  Every year, WCW is built around submissions from childless people around the world -- essays, poems, letters, lists, videos, paintings... There are also webinars featuring community members, discussing relevant topics related to the daily themes. 

I always have great intentions to submit something 🙄 which never seem to materialize... and the deadline for submissions WAS this past weekend. However, things have been slow and so Stephanie Joy Phillips, the organizer, is keeping submissions open. If you've been thinking of submitting something, now is the time!  

(I just submitted Katie's name for the Our Family Tree project -- and I'll be taking part in a webinar on Sept. 17th... more details on that closer to the time!)  

Have a look at this year's daily topics (below) and go to the website for more information. You can also browse previous years' submissions for inspiration!  

This year's themes include:  

• Monday 14th September: Our Stories
• Tuesday 15th September: Childless Disability & Chronic Illness
• Wednesday 16th September: 10 Things You Should Know About Me
• Thursday 17th September: Childless Father's and Mother's Day
• Friday 18th September: "Why do YOU want time off? You haven't got kids!"
• Saturday 19th September: We Are Worthy
• Saturday 19th September: Our Family Tree (an ongoing remembrance project for our children's names)
• Sunday 20th September: Moving Forwards

Details on the themes and how to submit can be found here: https://worldchildlessweek.net/past-events . 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

Recent odds & ends

• World Childless Week (WCW) has announced the daily topics for WCW 2026 (Sept. 14th to 20th).  Learn more about WCW 2026 and how you can get involved here.   
• In a blog post for the World Childless Week website, Gayle Letherby offers "Some Reflections on Being ‘Other'." 
• Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless: So Now What?" poses an important question: "When IVF Fails Again and Again: How Do You Know When Enough Is Enough?" 
• Lexi Weber at "Not Expecting" shares five observations about infertility (including that "Infertility makes you weird at brunch").  
• PJ is "In Transition" -- and yes, PJ, this all definitely sounds familiar!!  (Read her post and a few of my latest, and you'll understand why...!)  
• Every now & then, a long-dormant blog on my blogroll will pop to the top of the list with a new post. "Tips on Triplets" re-emerged recently with a post ("Trauma Chameleon") looking at the lingering effects of loss and trauma, 15 years later. 
• Y'all know I love the Flavia de Luce novels by Canadian author Alan Bradley. Sadly, I learned through one of my book clubs (where we read the first Flavia book together which was happily very well received!) that Bradley died on May 19th at age 87. How he managed to channel an 11-year-old girl (from 1950s UK -- when he'd never set foot there before he wrote the first book!) so incredibly well will remain a mystery...!  
• Very happily, he left one final Flavia novel for us:  "Numb Were the Beadsman's Fingers," available on Nov. 3rd.  :)  Also, "Flavia" the movie (based on the first Flavia book, "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie") will be released in North America on Dec. 4th! (It's been out in the UK since early April.)  

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

• 
  "I had an accident," my 86-year-old father sheepishly confessed over the phone on Sunday afternoon. (!!!)  VERY thankfully!! he's fine!  
• However! -- the wall between the garage and the laundry/mud room of the house is not. :( 
• He was bringing the car into the garage when it started raining on Friday. His foot slipped on the brake and the car crashed into the wall. (!)  :(  There is a sizeable dent in the wall that I am told you can see daylight through. (My sister was there this weekend, and has promised to send photos.) 
• Funnily enough, the car came through with barely a scratch too. 
• It will probably cost several thousand dollars to repair the wall -- money that my parents do not have to spare. ("Dust off your chequebook,"  my sister told me grimly.)  My sister's partner has boarded up the crash site to keep out the cold, rodents, etc., until it can be fixed.   
• The potentially good (?) news to come out of this is that my parents have agreed to add their names to the waiting lists for seniors housing in several different places in town this week -- something we've been wanting them to do for several years now. 
• I always thought it would probably take a crisis of some sort to get them to move. I'm just glad it wasn't something worse! 
• Big changes to come in the next few months/year, I think...  :(  
• World Childless Week is over and (sadly, as is often the case for me), I still haven't read or watched very many of the wonderful offerings now available on the WCW 2025 website. If you haven't yet done it yourself, go have a look! 
• I did manage to post something every day during WCW about the daily theme and any relevant posts I've written, all tagged "WCW 2025." 
• Seasonal allergies haven't bothered me much in recent years -- and when they have, it's usually in late May/early June. But this past week or two, I've been suffering through violent sneezing fits, scratchy throat & ears;  itchy, burning, sticky eyes; fatigue.... ugh. I've been taking Claritin daily since this started, which usually does the trick... I'm feeling somewhat better this weekend (fingers crossed...!), but it sure took its time kicking in...!  
• I know everyone advises you to close the windows & run an air purifier, but I hate to do that when it's been so nice outside (and the time that we can do that is rapidly dwindling, as temperatures start to drop...!). 
• I was so sad to hear that Robert Redford died this past week. (How was he 89?!!).  
• I fell in love with Redford at age 12 when I saw him (and Paul Newman! -- were there ever two more gorgeous men on screen, together or separately??) in "The Sting." (I didn't get to see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" until several years later, on TV.) 
• My sister & I saw it with our two cousins, while our parents watched "Blazing Saddles" -- rated R -- in an adjacent theatre. And "The Exorcist" was playing in the theatre right next to ours.  I remember my cousin pressing his ear against the wall to see if he could hear people screaming, lol. 
• A few years later, my mom took my sister & me to the drive-in theatre -- on a school night! (such was the power of Redford back then...!) -- to see "The Great Gatsby." (But first, we had to sit through "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" -- what a double bill!!)  
• We saw "The Way We Were" around the same time.  And, in the years that followed, "The Great Waldo Pepper," "All the President's Men" (which I wrote about here), "Three Days of the Condor," "Sneakers," "The Natural," "Out of Africa" (saw that one on one of my birthdays), "The Horse Whisperer," and so many more -- not to mention the amazing movies he directed -- among them "Ordinary People," "Quiz Show," and "A River Runs Through It." 
• I was reminded of a popular dessert from the 1970s (which my mom still makes from time to time). It was commonly known as "Better Than Sex"(lol) -- but on my Mom's recipe card, it's called "The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford" (or simply "Robert Redford"), lol. 
• I realized the minute I mentioned this dessert, someone was going to ask for the recipe -- and while I think I have a copy somewhere, I took the easy way out and Googled, and sure enough, up it popped. If this isn't the exact same recipe my mom had, it's pretty close!  Enjoy! 
• ALI note:  Did you know Redford and his first wife Lola lost their first son Scott to SIDS in 1959?  He was just two months old. :(   (His parents were in their early 20s.) He also lost his second son, James, in 2020, to cancer, when James was 58.  
• They don't make 'em like that anymore... 
• While dh watched the first NFL game of the season on a recent Sunday afternoon, involving his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, I blocked out the cursing and yelling (lol) by catching up on some podcast episodes, including a couple from The Full Stop.
• I also listened to episode #71 -- the one I appeared on with Sandra McNicol in February, talking about childlessness and pregnancy loss. (I posted about it here.) This was the first time I'd actually listened to the finished episode on audio only, although I'd watched a video recording the day after we recorded it. Maybe it was because I was actually just LISTENING and not WATCHING myself on a screen too, or maybe enough time has passed, but it was (thankfully!) not as difficult to listen to at this point..
• Y.L. Wolfe muses "This Is Why We Hate Childfree Women"  ("we" = society). (The answer is in her subhead:  "They represent everything the patriarchy fears.")  
• British podcaster and author Elizabeth Day had an article in The Guardian recently about a life-changing call with a psychic. (There's an ALI angle.)  
• I've been following Charlie Angus's Substack, "The Resistance," for a while now. Charlie is a year or two younger than me, a punk rocker in his youth (!) who still plays in a band, and who was, until recently, a member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party (NDP), representing the riding in northern Ontario where he was born. He's been one of the most vocal and effective advocates for a strong, independent Canada in recent months. 
• This particular post is about the Group of Seven (a group of influential 20th century Canadian artists), and how Tom Thomson's famous painting "The Jack Pine" personifies and symbolizes the country and our spirit of survival and resistance. 
• As a proud Canadian, and a member at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which has a large holding of Group of Seven artwork, this one struck a chord. ;)  
• I appreciated this Substack post from Garrett Bucks at The White Pages about social media and the role it plays in building community, for good and for bad:  "The Internet is Killing Us." 
• In a similar vein:  I'm an unpaid subscriber to Katherine May's Substack "The Clearing," and while most of this post -- also about social media -- is paywalled, I completely agree with her thoughts in the portion that's visible (particularly the second paragraph I've quoted here):  

I was one of the true believers in the early days of Twitter, and I’m still grateful for so much of what I’ve found and learned across the various platforms I’ve been on. But I think, on both a personal and professional basis, social media has become unmanageable. It’s addictive by design, primed to draw us into tribalism and conflict, and - unless your creative practice is making short videos - a major distraction from the work that matters.




And yet; and yet. I’m averse to the view that social media is uniformly evil or dangerous; I still believe that it can bring isolated people together in a way that we’ve never seen before. I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of author who does no socials at all. I love the opportunity to be in contact with the the people who read my books and with other authors. I often think of how unnerving the author’s life must once have been before we could do this: sending out books into silence, and perhaps waiting months for any response.




So I remain on social media, but in a far more controlled way than I once did... 

I've been trying (trying!) to wean myself away from social media a bit, especially the mindless scrolling. I still have a Twitter/X account, but rarely go on there. I'm on Bluesky & Threads, but try to limit the time I spend scrolling there. I am not on TikTok. 

On Facebook, I generally just go straight to "Feeds/Friends," where I only see content posted by my friends. (There's a feed for "Groups" too.)  Depending on the friends (lol), I may not may not be interested in or agree with what they post (but that's where the "mute" button comes in handy, lol), but the "Friends" feed is much more curated than just scrolling through the random stuff in the general feed, and I get to see more of the stuff that matters to me -- i.e., my friends' posts -- which is what I came to social media for in the first place.  

• Infertile Phoenix has noticed a substantial increase in the number of views her blog has been getting lately, and asked readers to indicate if they're human (or bots?).  
• Someone commented on Phoenix's post to say it was probably "'referral spam—fake visits that try to show up in your Google Analytics so you’ll click the link or buy their “traffic” service. It’s noise, not real customers.'" That's good to know. 
• I don't often look at my stats -- I've never been one to worry about increasing readership and getting clicks, etc; I'm just happy if people who are looking for support and want to feel less alone find my blog. 
• But I was curious, so I had a look. Sure enough, there's been a SUBSTANTIAL spike in page views recently. If I look at the trends over time, there was a small spike in mid-2023, a larger spike in early 2024, and then a HUGE spike this past month, peaking at almost 86,000 views on Sept. 19th alone (an all-time high)! That's BONKERS!! (compared to what I was getting in years gone by). 
• The U.S. is still a top source of viewers, but I've had a huge uptick in viewers from Hong Kong, Singapore and Brazil, among others.  
• "Referral spam" or not, it's a bit creepy. I wonder if AI is scraping my blog (our blogs?) to fuel its databases... or possibly (even worse) whether childless women are being targeted and monitored in some way for political purposes?    
• I try not to get too overtly political here -- but it seems like everything is political these days, especially when it comes to women, reproductive matters, and those of us who have deviated from the "norm" (even when that's been despite our desires and best efforts). 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

World Childless Week, Day Seven: Moving Forwards

The focus of Day Seven of  World Childless Week 2025 (as it usually is for the final day of WCW) is "Moving Forwards."  

From the website description: 

Have you seen glimmers of hope or changes in your mood that make you smile? Have you started to make new plans or found new ideas popping into your head? Are you starting to like and celebrate who you are, the life you have and the future that is waiting for you? 

Has the road forward become LESS OF A MOUNTAIN and MORE OF A RAMBLE?

*** *** ***  

The passage of time (almost -- gulp!! -- 25+ years!!) since I left fertility treatments, and looking back on certain milestones will often bring a shock of recognition of how things have changed, how far I've come and how differently I feel now than I did then. (One advantage of getting older is that fewer and fewer people ask and hint and prod you about pregnancy plans... although eventually, you start getting questions about how many grandchildren you have instead...!)

I think back to one particular incident, at Christmastime, a few years after we had thrown in the towel on infertility treatments, which showed me that perhaps I was further down the road of acceptance than I had realized.  I wrote about it here. 

Another measure of progress would be my increasing ability/willingness to enter a Baby Gap (or other baby/kids' clothing) store. (And, dare I say, to even enjoy it??)  Once, it was a source of pain, to be avoided. I eventually did get to the point where I could go in to buy a baby shower gift (even if was often just a gift card...!). These days, I love to go there (and other children's wear stores) to shop for our three great-niblings -- albeit the little girls' racks in particular still have the power to give me occasional pangs... 

There are probably other markers of progress that I've written about over the years, although I can't recall any other specific posts to share here with you right now. 

One thing I remember from our pregnancy loss support group days is that you never realized just how far you'd come down this road less travelled until someone new arrived, fresh and raw in their own grief. I still see that to some extent today, when I read social media posts and responses from younger women who are new to the stunning realization that they will not have the children they assumed they would have. 

My life today is very different from the life I once imagined I would be leading. I will never stop missing my daughter, and wondering about that other life I might have had, that once seemed within my grasp... 

But even so, all things considered? I have a pretty damn good life. I don't think it's better or worse than the life I might have led, if I'd had children.  It's just different. It's a good life, on its own merits.  And I'm not going to pretend otherwise, or apologize for it. I didn't get a "rainbow baby," but I think I've found rainbows in my life in other ways. The strong relationship I have with my husband, closer relationships we've forged with our nephews and now their children (closer than if we'd had our own kids & grandkids to focus on, I'm sure), early retirement, nice home, occasional travel, mornings that I get to sleep in, freedom and flexibility in other ways... I consider all these things and more the "silver linings" in the dark cloud of pregnancy loss, infertility, involuntary childlessness and grief that shadowed my life for so many years. I think I've earned them. 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions, and five free, live webinars related to this subject. They will be recorded and the links will be posted later on the Day Seven page and WCW YouTube channel for anyone who cannot watch live.  

World Childless Week, Day Six: We Are Worthy

The focus of Day Six of  World Childless Week 2025 is "We Are Worthy." 

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

There are times we doubt who we are, and question where we fit in society. Today is the day to yell “here I am, and I am wonderful and worthy to be seen and heard for being exactly who I am”. So polish your crown, stand up tall, and belief in your worth.  

Today is your day to smile and SHOUT about HOW WONDERFUL YOU ARE!

*** *** ***  

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." I was brought up 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. 

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 site, including community members' contributions, and five free, live webinars related to this subject. 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.  

Also be sure to check out the separate page of member submissions for the #IAmMe gallery! From the website:  "#IAmMe is about finding your positives, seeing your achievements, sharing your joys, celebrating what you love: your hobies, personality traits, relationships, achievements, qualifications, inner worth and who you are in this world. #IAmMe is about anything you want it to be."