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.

Odds & ends

I've been collecting "odds & ends" of links for at least a month now... I know I've missed out on recording a LOT of great stuff I've read lately, but I think it's time to share what I do have! 

• Big (((hugs))) to Mali at No Kidding in NZ, who recently lost her husband.  :(  
• Ali Hall at Life Without Children ponders something many childless & childfree women have realized:  too many people wanting (expecting?) a village, too few people stepping up as villagers. ("How Expecting One-Way Support From Women Without Kids to Mothers Is Anti-Village.") 
• Also from Ali Hall: "Why It’s Important for Childfree and Childless People to Have Friends Without Kids" (as well as parent friends).  
• Jody Day shares more details about her Alterkin project, one year after it began, on her Gateway Elderwomen Substack. 
• Not necessarily ALI/CNBC related, but worth a read (made me smile!):  Mary Elizabeth Williams, an American living in Glasgow and writing on Substack, ponders "What Scotland's Tartan Army can show us about joy."  :)   (One memorable line:  "be the chaos goblin you wish to see in the world."  lol) 
• This one might not be an an easy read for some of us in our community -- I certainly found myself cringing as I read it.  And for a "Critic's Notebook," I wish the article contained less of fashion commentary and more actual criticism, and had more to say about pronatalism and the agenda at work here, etc.  But it certainly reflects where American society & politics are right now...! Gift link:  "The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image." 
• A member of my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club -- where we recently read "You Are Here" by David Nicholls, one of my favourite novels of recent years -- alerted us recently that the BBC is adapting the novel, and has cast Claire Foy and Matthew Macfadyen in the roles of Marnie and Michael.  Nicholls is doing the screenplay, and the director, Lenny Abrahamson,  was in charge of the exquisite screen version of "Normal People,"  so this bodes well!  
• Sara Petersen at "In Pursuit of Clean Countertops" on Patreon talked to Kathryn Jezer-Morton about her new book ("The Story of Your Life"), "the flat story," "snark communities" and redemption narratives. Fascinating stuff!  
• Kirstie Kimball at "beyondbeurreblanc" is an independent food critic from Minnesota, who wrote a moving essay about her infertility:  "The Ghost in My Third Bedroom."  (T/W:  Cancer.)  
• Jill Holly at "Spinster-esque" on Substack has some great content related to being childless/free, including several recent posts with reading recommendations. Example:  "Books to become a feisty childfree elder:  All the inspo you need to age disgracefully."  ;)  
• Lana Manikowski has had several thoughtful posts lately on her Substack "Infertile and Childless. So Now What?"  including "The Hardest Part of Infertility" and "I’m Not the Same Woman I Was When Fertility Treatment Ended." Sample passage:  

For years, I thought surviving fertility treatment was the hardest part. Looking back, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Turns out, the hardest part wasn’t going through IVF. It was figuring out who I was when there wasn’t another protocol to try or another cycle to start.

Odds & ends

• Anyone else feeling overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of prom, graduation and last day of school photos on social media this week??  (In Canada/North America, anyway -- I know different countries have different school year calendars!) It's been going on in dribs & drabs over the past month or so, as the school year wound down, and I've been doing OK so far -- but today/tomorrow is the last day of school hereabouts, plus lots of grads & proms this week, and it's like I've reached the saturation point…! 

• Mel is marking a big milestone over at Stirrup Queens! Go over and congratulate (and thank) her!  

• Sue Fagalde Lick at "Can I Do it Alone?" recently landed in the hospital :(  Go wish her well and read some of her posts from the past month about what happened and what childless seniors living alone can do to better cope with these crises. 

• On a related note:  Jody Day was interviewed about her Alterkin project, aging as a childless person, and aging generally, as part of an article on aging in The Atlantic! Here's a gift link for "Americans Are in Denial About Elder Care." (Not just Americans...) 

• Jody Day also flagged this thought-provoking article from "The Shift by Sam Baker" -- a guest post from Kim Willis:  "Stop calling me 'child-free'." 
• I wrote a similarly themed post in the early days of this blog, almost 19 (!) years ago (and have returned to the subject several times since then):  "Am I childLESS or childFREE?"

• Nora McInerny reminds all of us who take photos to "Get in the picture." (That includes those of us without kids -- a subject I have written about in the past -- here, for example.)  

I’m only asking you to consider that with the exception of the worst people in the world, life is tragically short. Someday, you will look upon this version of yourself and see yourself through new eyes. Eyes that might need bifocals or cataract surgery, but eyes that still work well enough to see that you, with that rogue chin hair or the jeans that Gen Z TikTokkers are trying to bully you out of wearing are more beautiful than you know.

Someday you will long for the version of you that exists today, however flawed you believe her to be. Give future you something to marvel over, grab your Cybershot, and get in the picture.

• “Everything happens for a reason.” Or does it?  Lexi Weber Johnson at "Not Expecting" explains why this is not a helpful thing to say to someone who is grieving. 

Underneath the “everything happens for a reason” line is something more universal: a discomfort with uncertainty. We want life to make sense. We want outcomes to add up. We want suffering to belong to a larger story. Because the reality that some things simply happen, full stop, is harder to bear.

• Jennie Agg at Life, Almost says "I can't keep up." (She is singing my song...!)
• Jennie also has thoughts on "Trimester Zero" (!). ("Let's not do this.") 
  

• I haven't quite lost all my elders yet -- I still have my dad, and most of my dad's siblings, and my maternal uncle's wife, and several of my mother's cousins (and am thankful for every day I still have them all in my life). But I found myself nodding vigorously as I read Cyndie Spiegel's post from "Life, Created" ("v. 70 One Day You Realize That There's No One Left to Ask"). 
• I have been feeling this keenly since my mom's death in January, and the task of sorting through several generations' worth of possessions. More and more, I feel my past slipping through my fingers and receding into the distance. And I'm mourning that loss alongside the loss of my mom.  

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.)  

Pre-Voldemort Day thoughts, and some odds & ends

You will understand that, as a childless-not-by-choice woman (via stillbirth & infertility), That-Day-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, coming up this weekend (which I've dubbed "Voldemort Day") is not exactly my favourite on the calendar. (Check out the tag "Voldemort Day (Mother's Day)" for past posts on the subject.)  And as someone who hasn't lived within 1000 miles of her parents in 40 years, whose mother-in-law died before I ever met her, I haven't had to worry too much about family considerations on this day either.  I'd send a card, give Mom a call, maybe chip in on a gift that my (childfree by choice) sister would buy and deliver, and do whatever I wanted for the rest of the day.  

This year, I'll be spending Mother's Day AT my parents' house, for the first time in about 35 years. (I had a business trip in the early 1990s that brought me to Winnipeg just before Mother's Day, as well as my grandmother's birthday. I arranged to spend the weekend with them. I am so glad I did.)   

Except (major plot twist) Mom won't be there -- she died in January. I am now motherless, as well as childless. I was lucky enough to have my mother for almost 65 years;  my daughter never took a breath outside my body, but I miss them both, and especially on days like this one.  

My dad and sister have not mentioned MDay at all. (Yet?)  

I am not going to remind them. 

And now for some links:  

• We were at the mall one morning earlier this week.  It's not uncommon to see young moms there, out with their babies in strollers -- sometimes by themselves, sometimes in pairs. I thought I'd seen everything the day I saw four moms with four strollers. 
• Reader -- I had not. On this particular day, I encountered a group of moms with babies in strollers coming my way. TWELVE of them!!!  (I counted.)  12!!! Walking in a group, two or three abreast.  
• (A while later, I saw another group of five!  Not sure if they had broken off from the earlier group I saw, or if this was an entirely different group??)
• All I could think was that it was a good thing that I'm in a relatively good place these days. I mostly just shook my head in disbelief, texted dh (who also saw them, and thought it was hilarious) and... carried on.  Also that if this had been 20-25 years ago, it would have finished me off, sent me home immediately, and kept me away from the mall for weeks.(Progress?) 
• (I also wondered whether this en masse outing had anything to do with the fact that it was just a few days before Voldemort Day/MDay??)  
• Y.L. Wolfe absolutely nails it with her latest Substack piece at On the Outside: "Why This Childless Woman Chooses to Celebrate Mother's Day...Alone."  (Content warning:  Photo of mother & baby at the top of the page.)  A couple of excerpts:  

Don’t misunderstand - I absolutely believe mothers deserve a day of celebration and pampering. They deserve more than a day, in fact.

But that doesn’t mean it has to come at the expense of other women or exist in a space that ignores any other woman’s life circumstances...

I believe women like me need the same thing that mothers ask for: space to take up, validation, and support. In the absence of getting that from a culture indifferent and sometimes hostile to women without children, then we must give it to ourselves.

• This article also absolutely nails the childless-not-by-choice experience and why it can be so painful.  The lengthy title says it all:  "The hardest part of being childless by circumstance, not choice, often may not be the grief people expect — it may be the invisibility of living a life other people have no template for."  Excerpt:  

When women in this position describe the hardest part, they rarely lead with the absence of children. The absence is familiar by the time they’re forty-five. They’ve been around it. They have, on most days, made some sort of working peace with it.

What they describe instead is something more like a slow, ambient erasure. The conversations at dinner parties drift to school catchments and they’re not in them. Their friends speak in shorthand about a life stage they don’t share. Their own parents go quiet about future grandchildren. They are, increasingly, in rooms that aren’t built for them, and the architecture of those rooms gets repeated until it begins to feel like the architecture of the world.

• Virginia Evans, author of "The Correspondent" (which is high on my "want to read" list), is a mother, but she wrote an article for People that I can heartily agree with:  "Mothering Takes a Village. This Mother's Day, Let's Celebrate the Other Mother Figures."  (h/t to Kathleen Guthrie Woods for flagging this one on social media!). (And content warning:  there's a photo at the top of Virginia with her children.)  
• I got tears in my eyes reading this interview in the New York Times with Tracy Clark-Flory:  "My Mom Had a Secret Daughter. I Finally Found Her."  I've put her book on my wish list. (Gift link.) 
• At Afterglow, Katie Dunn welcomes a guest post from fellow Substacker Lexi Weber: "The unexpected intimacy of infertility."   
• Lexi writes at "Not (What I Was) Expecting." I've added her to my blogrolls here and on Feedly. Recent (also excellent) post: “You never know what could happen.” (and why that's not something you should say to someone going through infertility or facing permanent childlessness).  

Odds & ends

• Personal note:  10 years ago today (!), we took possession of the condo where we're now living, and moved out of our home of 26 years, on the other side of the city. (We spent the night at BIL's and moved our stuff in here the next day.) 
• "Boy, that went by fast," commented dh, when I reminded him. No kidding. 
• At the same time, what a lot has happened in those 10 years!:  our nephews' weddings, the arrival of three great-niblings (and a dog!),  the deaths of both FIL & my mom, as well as several other people we've loved, BIL's transplant surgery... 
• I've hashed out the pros & cons of condo living and of moving here several times before on this blog, so I won't go into those topics all over again here. Suffice to say, I'm still not wild about the community itself, but overall, we do love the condo and being closer to family.  :) 
• Mom stuff:  
• I had my first dream about Mom since she died, last week. I don't remember much about it, but she was there. I like it when the people I've loved and lost show up in my dreams. It's like a little visit from them. 
• Dh was looking for a newscast the other night, and landed on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. Which got me teary, because my parents always ate supper late -- partly because Mom insisted on watching "her" news (on ABC -- the network broadcast, followed by the "local" news, from Fargo, ND -- although she almost always fell asleep before the end...!). She really liked David Muir and how he delivered the news as well.  It's the little, unexpected moments like that that catch me off guard and set me off (very similar to after we lost Katie).  
• Vision update:  We went into the city today for follow-up visits with our optometrist, following my opthamologist appointment earlier this month. The opthamologist determined that surgery was not necessary at this point, but there's still a small patch of developing nodules on my left cornea (as well as the small beginnings of a cataract).  Even so, my vision has not changed significantly since I last changed my glasses almost 12 (!) years ago (although both my regular and computer glasses have some scratches on them. The optometrist didn't think the scratches were that bad, though?). 
• The optometrist gave me an updated prescription for my glasses, but suggested it might be worth waiting a while longer to get new ones. We have a number of large expenses right now -- current, upcoming and anticipated:  we just paid our taxes (ouch), paid for flights to visit Dad soon (and will be going there again this summer and at Christmas), possible purchases for his new apartment to fund, as well as subsidizing his rent until he sells the house -- and we still need to purchase a cremation niche or plot at the cemetery for both him and Mom, and inter her ashes at some point -- etc. etc.... So I've decided to hold off on new glasses for a while longer.  (Dh's glasses are about the same age as mine! and he'd like new ones too, but agreed we should both wait.)  We'll be back for checkups again in six months, so we'll see what the situation is then... 

And now a few links to share: 

• Non-ALI/CNBC-related, but I thought it was worth sharing:  Canadian Returnee explains Bill C-18, Meta's response (why I'm unable to see or post news links on Facebook or Instagram), and "What Facebook's News Ban Taught Canadians."   
• I see posts on social media -- from both Americans and Canadians! -- claiming that the Canadian government is "censoring" news.  Not true!  News (actual news, from actual journalists) is readily available, online and elsewhere -- you just can't find it or share it on Facebook or Instagram. And that's because of a decision made by Meta, not the Canadian government. (The article explains more.) 
• (For some reason, Meta's ban doesn't apply on Threads??  But shhhhh, don't remind them of that...!  lol)    
• Great news:  One of the "OG" voices in the CNBC blogging world is back! Welcome back PJ at Making Sense of It All. 
• I love, love, loved this blast from the past via Tracey Cleantis Dwyer (another longtime blogger who recently launched a Substack): "The Hardy Boys and the Mysterious Case of the Magical Meeting." (Featuring Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy, and an older/childless woman role model who changed Tracey's life.)  
• Speaking of Shaun Cassidy, Alan Osmond, oldest of the performing Osmond Brothers, died earlier this week at age 76, after living with MS for 40 (!) years.  Another brother, Wayne, died in early 2025 at age 73.  You know you're getting older when your teen idols start dying...  :(  
• Katie Dunn at Afterglow writes about whether children give your life "purpose" -- something that many childless women struggle with, when parenthood doesn't work out for them ("what's my purpose now?"). Part of the post is paywalled, but what's free to read is worth a look!  
• Another brilliant post from Ali Hall at Life Without Children:  "When Women Supporting Women Defaults to Mothers Supporting Mothers." (Subhead: "Compassion is never found in comparison.")  
• I vividly remember the story about the doctor whose daughter asked her that painful question -- and her response (or lack thereof) -- and posted about it at the time (during the height of the pandemic). 
• Ali is offering half-price annual paid subscriptions during the month of May. 
• Also from Life Without Children, childfree Rosie Diell ponders "What fence sitters can learn from the childless community." 
• Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless. So Now What?" looks at "What Happens to Your Marriage When IVF Doesn’t Work?" A couple of excerpts: 

...for many couples, IVF doesn’t work.

And when fertility treatments end without a baby, you are left with more than grief. You are left with questions about your marriage that no one prepared you for.

I remember thinking very clearly, is this going to be enough?

 

...a marriage without children is not a lesser version of life. It is a different version of life. It can still be connected, meaningful, and something you feel proud of.

Not because you convinced yourself to be okay with it, but because you built something real together after infertility.

• Poorna Bell dismantles "the myth of grandmotherhood" (and why it's important for everyone, whether or not you have grandchildren).  Most of the post is about grandmothers, but near the end, there's this: 

What about the women who aren’t grandmothers? Where is their place in society? Most of these women will have experienced a sense of isolation and an erosion of community the first time round, when it came to not having children. Having spoken to a number of women including Jody Day about this, it appears there is a second wind in one’s 60s, around grandmotherhood that raises the same issues.

(Bell muses that this particular issue "may merit a spin-off Substack" -- I would love to read that!)  

Odds & ends

A couple of personal notes: 

• I got a little choked up watching the launch of the Artemis II from Cape Canaveral in Florida yesterday, more than 50 years after the last Apollo lunar mission in December 1972. (There have been space shuttle trips in the interim, of course, but somehow without quite the same cachet.)
• I was 11 (almost 12 years old) and, I will admit, pretty blase by that time about trips to the moon. The early ones *were* exciting, and the first moon walk in July 1969 (when I was 8 -- witnessed on a black-and-white TV set, while at my grandmother's in Minnesota, on my dad's 30th birthday) -- but after a while, the novelty wore off -- and (likewise with the Watergate hearings, around the same time) the wall-to-wall coverage pre-empted my Saturday morning cartoons and other favourite TV programs. (Priorities, people...!)  But if I'd known I'd be a senior citizen before we headed back to the moon again, I might have paid a little more attention...!  
• I've seen a lot of people on social media commenting on how all they could think about was the doomed launch of the space shuttle Challenger, 40 years ago. I'll admit that crossed my mind as I watched too. (I was recently married, unemployed and ironing laundry in our midtown Toronto apartment when that happened.) Very glad that history did not repeat itself in this case. 
• Artemis is also notable for Canadians because there's a Canadian astronaut aboard, Jeremy Hansen. Other Canadians have been in space before, but he'll be going farther than any of them have. Godspeed.   
• Dh & I drove into the heart of the city today for my long-awaited appointment with the opthomologist who did a keratectomy (surgery) on my right eye four (!) summers ago.  As mentioned in this post from November, my optometrist thought she saw something similar happening with my left eye, and sent me to have it checked out. I had all my crossables crossed that I wouldn't need more surgery -- but was pretty much resigned that I'd need to have it done .  
• So I was thrilled when the doctor told me yes, there was a small, shallow area on the left cornea that should be monitored (also the beginnings of a small cataract) -- but she didn't think surgery was necessary, not right now, anyway.  What a relief!  (And this on top of my improved cholesterol readings a few weeks ago! -- maybe I should buy a lottery ticket??)  
• I hadn't thought much about it when I made the appointment, but today is the day before Good Friday (i.e., the kickoff to the Easter long weekend).  Moreover, it's the first day of Passover too -- and the route we took to the hospital where the eye clinic is located runs straight down a long street (about 20 km or 12 miles) through the heart of Toronto's Jewish community. (We counted almost 10 synagogues and temples, and a good half-dozen Jewish schools and community centres along the way.)   Given this confluence of holidays, plus rainy weather, I expected traffic would be heavy -- and it was! (especially heading out of the city in the late afternoon).  
• En route home, we passed by several police cars and vans-- and realized they were probably patrolling the area in case of trouble. :(  I'm glad they were being vigilant, but what a sad commentary on the times we currently live in... 

And now a few recent notable links to share:  

• Elizabeth Day at Daylight ponders "When Did Reading Become A Competitive Sport?"  (Many of her posts are paywalled;  this one isn't!)  
• Ali Hall at Life Without Children on "How Pronatalism Is the Oldest Ism of Our Time" is WELL worth a read!  
• And speaking of pronatalism, Ali Hall also noted this extreme example of pronatalism running amok:  "Russia Is Sending Women, Who Don’t Want Kids, To Have Their Heads Checked." (!) 
• Another wonderful interview with a childless/free woman from Anne Helen Petersen for her "Big No-Kids Energy" series in her Culture Study Patreon newsletter: "Christy, Who Cares For Herself." 

Happy reading! and happy long weekend!  

A few odds & ends

A couple of articles/posts to share: 

• Tracey Cleantis Dwyer -- formerly at "La Belette Rouge" (a blog which no longer exists) -- has returned to blogging via Substack!  Check out "The Next Happy Project." 
• I highly recommend Tracey's 2015 book "The Next Happy," which is all about letting go of the life you had planned -- something Tracey, who is childless after infertility, knows a lot about. 
• Disclosure:  I'm in the book. :)  I answered survey questions for Tracey as part of her research.  I also reviewed the book on my blog not long after it was published, here. 
• This Sunday, March 15th is "Mothering Sunday" in Britain, and The Full Stop community and podcast has published a post on Linked In with suggestions for "Navigating Mother's Day When You're Childless Not by Choice." (Also very applicable for Mother's Day in May, here in North America & elsewhere in the world.)  

Non-ALI/CNBC related:  

• It wasn't just our imaginations -- this winter really was as cold and snowy as it seemed, the Toronto Star confirms by looking at the historical weather data.  
• The time changed last weekend -- and it struck me that my mother was no longer here to complain about it (as she always, always did!).  Wherever she is now, I know it's a place where time is meaningless. Enjoy, Mom.  :)  
• This coming weekend (Sunday night) is the Oscars. 
• I used to follow the Oscar races like a hawk (I even won the office Oscar pool once!), and tried to see as many of the nominated movies as I could (the ones that interested me, anyway).  These days, I think I am only aware of "Hamnet" (with its ties to a well-known book and its grief/child loss theme -- not to mention Paul Mescal, lol), but not many of the other nominees.  
• Mel recently posted about "The Last Movie I Saw;" I think the last one I saw in-theatre was "1917" (which was very good, and one of those movies that really deserves to be seen in a theatre). The pandemic began not long after that and, well, you know the rest. We used to go to the movies, perhaps not every Sunday, but usually at least one Sunday a month. Many things have returned to some form of normalcy since then, but we still haven't been back to the theatre.  I am not sure how we got out of the habit, but we did.  I do miss it sometimes. 
• Nevertheless, I will be watching on Sunday.  :) 
• This will be my first Oscar night without my Mom. :(  She always watched, and when I was growing up, she would let me stay up late -- on a school night! -- to watch with her. I more recent years, I would always call her before the show started (even though she hadn't been to a movie theatre in years either). 
• I'm sure she will be watching from wherever she is now.  And I hope there's a bottomless bucket of popcorn, and that it doesn't bother her stomach, as it did in her later years (to the point that she had to stop eating it).  

Accumulated odds & ends

I haven't been that diligent about compiling notable stuff I've read lately, but for what it's worth, here are a few links!  (Some are a little dated, but no less readable!) 

• Have any of you seen the movie "Hamnet" yet, or read the book it's based on, by Maggie O'Farrell? I have done neither -- yet -- although I would like to partake of both. (For one thing, I think Paul Mescal is an amazing young actor.)  
• An online group of loss mothers that I belong to were debating whether to see it or not -- drawn to the themes of grief and loss of a child, and yet wondering whether it would hit a little too close to home? 
• I really appreciated the perspective offered in this post from Jennie Agg, who writes a Substack about pregnancy loss and grief called Life, Almost, about "Hamnet" the movie, and whether it's "grief porn" (as some are apparently describing it). 
• **NOTE: there are spoilers about the movie, including specific scenes and how they unfold. Also, Agg has a living child.**
• Excerpt: 

...for me, the film’s presentation of loss and grief is nuanced, considered, grounded in something true.

...What do we mean when we dismiss something as ‘grief porn’? I guess it’s implying something gratuitous, debasing, bordering on shameful.

Which is interesting when you consider the way many bereaved parents today often describe being made to feel, shamed into silence: it’s too much, we don’t need to hear it.

• Anne Helen Petersen (childfree by choice) -- whose Culture Study community has moved over from Substack to Patreon -- has been giving a lot of coverage to infertility and childless/free topics recently. A couple of highlights (I'm not sure whether some of these may be paywalled?):  
• A series of occasional posts titled "Big No-Kids Energy," about the joys of not having kids. 
• Here's the kickoff post where Anne explains what the series is about. 
• Anne has interviewed several childfree & childless people/couples for the series about their no-kids life. The most recent subject was Cathy, who is 60-something and childless not by choice, but making the most of things. She was a delight to read about. :)  
• A Culture Study podcast episode featuring a standup comedienne, about being a "childless freak" (!) that will have you nodding! The comment section is worth a read too.  :) 
• An earlier podcast episode (from back in early February) about "The Heartbreaking (and Largely Unregulated) Business of IVF."  A lot of what's discussed would not be surprising to many of us, but it might be an eye-opener for people not intimately acquainted with the fertility industry.  
• I made a comment that's received the most "likes." In part, I said: 
  

One point I will take exception to:  the comment that "IVF works! -- it's very effective."  IVF is still (almost 50 years after the first IVF baby was born) very much a crapshoot.  Your odds of success might be better if you're in your 20s or early 30s -- and/or if you have the money and stamina to endure multiple cycles -- but once you hit 40,  they drop like a stone. There are many of us out here who went through infertility treatments and did not wind up with a child. You just don't hear about us. Clinics certainly don't want to acknowledge our existence, and patients currently in treatment don't want to hear about us either. 

I would also add that most clinics are abysmal at providing emotional support & counselling to their patients going through treatment -- and even less is available for those of of us who aren't successful. Even a referral to an outside counsellor, or a pamphlet listing resources we might consult would be helpful.  Any support I got was entirely the result of my own research.  

• Carrie Hauskins, who is childless after pregnancy loss and infertility, writes at Blooming With Care about the matter of "Heirlooms for No One" -- dealing with things from a childless aunt, as well as wondering about her own stuff after she's gone (something I think about a lot, especially as my childfree sister & I go through the painful process of emptying out our parents' house...). Excerpt: 

I told her we weren’t having kids, and when she said I could pass down her things to my children, I didn’t correct her. She knew the truth. And she still gave me her things. If she didn’t want to believe that her lineage of items will end with me, that’s her problem to work through, not mine. She was aware that I’m a dead end in our family's genealogy. 

 

...Legacy used to mean what I would pass down to my children. Today, it means deciding what to do with the ring once I melt it down. It might not mean the same thing five years from now. But for today, I think of my kooky aunt and her curmudgeonly way of life. I might not inherit her moods, but I do love the quirky jewelry. I do plan on having an eccentric estate sale. One that people line up for early in the morning and wraps around the block. Would my aunt love that? Who knows? It’s my legacy.  

• Katie Dunn at Afterglow (childless after infertility) ponders a question that doesn't get enough attention --"IVF doesn't work for everyone. So when do you stop?" -- and explains her own process for making that difficult decision. 
• Katie Hawkins-Gaar at My Sweet Dumb Brain writes movingly about grief, nine years after her first husband's death:  "The Grief Math Changed This Year." 
• "Anyone Can Be an Auntie. It’s a State of Mind," proclaims a New York Times Magazine article by Maya L. Kapoor. 

#MicroblogMondays: A few odds & ends, after holidays & loss

• 
  We are home... four weeks/one month after we left, and two weeks later than we'd originally planned. 
• I still have to (mostly) unpack. 
• There are 20 gazillion things on my to-do list.
• I am exhausted. 
• The original plan was for my sister and her partner to come out from the city on Friday night, and for her & me to spend Saturday clearing our our mother's drawers and at least some of her closets, then head into the city on Sunday morning before our early afternoon flight back to Toronto.  
• Those plans were somewhat derailed when high winds and blowing snow reduced visibility to nil in many areas of southern Manitoba and closed several highways leading to & from the city, including both routes to the small town where my dad lives. (What can I say? -- it's winter -- in Manitoba... snow happens, lol.)  
• Saturday was much better, and they arrived late that morning -- BUT, the forecast called for more blowing snow overnight, into Sunday morning, including blizzard conditions in some rural areas. (Not to mention extreme wind chill values that could lead to frostbite within minutes, if stranded.)  
• So we decided that we'd head back into the city after supper, spend the night at my sister's house, and she'd take us to the airport the next morning. (Dh frets about getting to the airport in plenty of time, even in the best weather conditions, so he was much relieved.)  
• Our plans to do some closet cleaning went by the wayside as we wrapped up some loose ends, packed, ran a few errands for Dad and rounded up some dinner. 
• It was very hard to leave our newly widowed 86-year-old dad alone for the first time since Mom died (barring a few times when we'd been out briefly, shopping and running errands).  :(  His neighbour was coming over that evening after we left to watch the hockey game with him, thank goodness. Knowing he has great neighbours who will look out for him and help him out made it a little easier to go.  My sister will be taking some long weekends and working remotely from time to time over the next while as well, so that she can spend time with him (and time working on the big house clearout...!). And I promised him we'd be back in the spring to help;  sooner, if needed.   
• We watched "Wicked" that night at my sister's house before heading to bed, exhausted.  Dh actually did go to bed before it was over -- he was exhausted (and later confessed to me that he was bored stiff by it).  I thought it was OK -- Ariana Grande & Cynthia Erivo can certainly sing! -- but it didn't thrill me. (I've never seen the play.)(Perhaps the movie played better on the big screen??)  Your mileage may vary, of course...! 
• The roads in the city were far worse than the highways outside had been. At the airport on Sunday morning, the visibility was so poor we could hardly see the airplanes parked at the gates!  But things were running relatively on time, and visibility began to improve while we sat in the waiting area.  Our flight touched down in Toronto just six minutes later than scheduled!  
• In the waiting area outside our gate at the airport, they made the standard request to have a piece of government-issued photo ID ready, along with your boarding pass. Unusually this time, they emphasized that it must be a valid piece of ID.  (I don't remember them saying that before.)  
• "Uh oh," I said to dh, as it dawned on me: my driver's license and health card had expired on Jan. 12th (my birthday) while we were still in Manitoba. I've always just used my driver's license as photo ID when travelling within Canada, and had not brought our passports with us (which are only required when travelling to the U.S. and other destinations outside the country). 
• I could not just renew and pay my fee online, because it's been 10 years since my last photo was taken, and I was required to have a new one taken at a Service Ontario office. (The same photo is used on my Ontario health card, which also expired on my birthday.)  
• I had received a reminder to renew about a month before my birthday, but of course we were busy with pre-Christmas stuff (and behind schedule after recuperating from the nasty cold I'd had in late November/early December), and I assumed I'd have time (a full week!)  to renew when I returned home. (The best-laid plans...!)  
• I called Service Ontario (would I have to do a road test again??), and they'd assured me that I could simply show up at one of their offices once I was back in Ontario, pay my fee and have a new photo taken.  BUT, until then, my license/health card would be invalid, 
• Sure enough, when I presented my boarding pass and driver's license at the gate, the flight attendant did a slight double-take as he scrutinized my card. "Your license expired on January 12th," he pointed out. I explained that we'd originally been booked to return on Jan. 4th, but had to rebook and extend our stay because of a death in the family. He beckoned dh (who'd already been cleared to board) back and looked at HIS ID, and then looked at my profile on his screen. "You arrived here on Dec. 21st?"  he asked me and I said yes. He made a few more clicks and then said, "Okay," handed me back my ID, and turned to the next person in line. Whew!  
• (Moral of the story: renew your ID as soon as possible, even if it's not a convenient time and you think you will have plenty of time later before the deadline...!) 

• Here at our condo, one of the building's two hot water boilers is on the fritz. A part has been ordered, but until it's fixed, the property manager is asking residents to conserve hot water and try to use it during off-peak hours. Oh dear...! 
• The Christmas tree and other decorations are still up. I have the tree lights plugged in today (because, why not??).  We will take it down later this week, before we clean. 

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

Pre-Christmas odds & ends

• Counting down to Little Great-Nephew #2's birthday party, and our flight west for Christmas... 
• I mentioned our most recent plumbing issues in my last post, and that I wound up taking a shower in the second bathroom for the first time in nearly 10 years (!). 
• What I didn't mention was that the tub walls are quite high,  my left knee is rather stiff and it was a bit of a step to get in and out. And I slipped and banged the back of my left thigh, just above the knee, on the edge of the tub as I was getting out. 
• It ached briefly, but I didn't think much about it -- until dh, seeing my bare leg on Wednesday morning as I was getting dressed (three full days after I banged it), said, "You've got a big bruise back there!"  I ran to the full-length mirror. 
• Sure enough, there was a big purple blotch, about the size of my palm.  Greeeaaaat... Cue the anxiety and the consultations with Dr. Google:  "Flying with a bruise."  (Yikes.) 
• Since then, I've been taking ibuprofen and using an icepack a couple of times a day to attempt to reduce the swelling and attempting to elevate the leg when I'm sitting (albeit that can be awkward...!). I bought (and began using) an arnica-based gel that's supposed to help relieve muscle aches and bruises, etc., a neoprene compression sleeve that fits over the knee and covers the bruise, a wrap-around tensor bandage (in case the neoprene sleeve feels too tight), and a pair of compression stockings (that only go up to the knee). I've been trying both wraps out at home and will probably wear one of them on the plane. 
• Any tips for me??  
• (Like I need one more thing to worry about...!) 
• (For what it's worth, dh thinks it's looking a little better than it did on Wednesday? But it's still very much there...) 
• I've discovered an alternative to the dearly departed Pocket! Anne Helen Petersen of Culture Study has been recommending Instapaper to her readers as a way to get around paywalls for at least some (if not all) weblinks.  I signed up, downloaded the app to my phone, and gave it a try with a couple of links. Worked like a charm. :)  I was even able to import my Pocket links (which I'd downloaded to my laptop before Pocket's demise). 
• Another alternative I'd been using that often works:  Archive Today. 
• Timely:  A friend from the Childless Collective shared this article from British "agony aunt" Philippa Perry: "My 10 rules for a happier Christmas."  Applicable for everyone, but childless people who are often torn over what to do about the holidays will likely appreciate some her advice. 
• In "2025 Childfree Trending," Laura Carroll -- author of the groundbreaking book on pronatalism, "The Baby Matrix" (reviewed here), offers some thoughts on the state of pronatalism in 2025, and the positive developments in the childfree movement, including online community building, and the growth in the number of businesses that are marketing to non-parents.  
• In Life Without Children, Charlie Brown explains "Why We Must Stop Assuming The Fertility-Challenged Eventually Get Their “Miracle Baby”."  (Hear, hear!!)  
• Also in Life Without Children, Charlie Brown also explained "Why I Want To Help Break the Silence That Surrounds Infertility." (While I'm not as likely to talk openly about my experiences, I could relate to just about everything Charlie wrote!)  
• Katie Dunn at Afterglow describes what it's like "When every friend has a baby" and "How I went from feeling left behind and left out, to grateful and thriving." 

Do you know the feeling? That sharp, visceral sting when your heart aches for something you don’t have, while everyone around you celebrates exactly that? For anyone navigating infertility or baby loss, being the only non-parent in your circle can be absolutely brutal.

• This Toronto Star article gave me the heebie-jeebies. :(  "She wanted a natural pregnancy and childbirth. It ended in tragedy." (Gift link.) 
• Also in the "heebie-jeebies" category (but worth a read):  "They Answered an Ad for Surrogates, and Found Themselves in a Nightmare." (Gift link.)
• The New York Times's Modern Love column explores "Why It’s Best to Imagine the Worst" and why "I can't imagine" is one of the worst things you can say to someone.  
• Subheading:  "After learning devastating news about our young son, we needed to feel connected to friends and family, not just exist beyond their imagination."
• A recent post by The Nomo Book Club Substack features "A collection of non-fiction books that are building a community of non-mother voices."  I've read many of these books myself (and others are in my massive to-be read pile). Worth checking out!  
• This was followed up more recently by another post about "solo NoMos":  "A collection of memoirs by solo women who are embracing lives outside the mainstream narrative." I've read and can enthusiastically vouch for several of the books on this list. 
• And Lisa Sibbett at The Auntie Bulletin posted about "The Best Novels I Read in 2025." There's actually a lot more than novels listed -- 70 books in all!  And coincidentally, or not, many of them are relevant to aunties, chosen family and friendship. (I see at least a couple that I've read and loved!) Enjoy! 

Odds & ends

• Not ALI/CNBC related, but y'all know I am a huge fan of L.M. Montgomery -- and Modern Mrs. Darcy recently pointed her readers to a Substack post that ranked the men in Montgomery's novels. (Guess who tops the list?)  
• I wouldn't argue with her choices, although it's been many years since I last (re)read "Kilmeny of the Orchard" and now I want to find myself a copy...! 
• Ali Hall cross-posted this Substack post from Nadia Huq through her own Substack, Life Without Children -- "How I Grew to Love The Single, Childfree Me." Even if you're partnered and consider yourself childless vs childfree, as I do, I think you will probably find a few things here you can relate to! 
• Also on Life Without Children, Ali ponders why parents can talk about their children while childless/free people are expected to shut up about their different life experiences ("Being Childfree Is Not My ‘Whole Personality’ but Here’s Why I Need to Talk About It"). 

The double standard and irony of it all is that, in my experience, often, those beating their drums the loudest about us childfree people talking about being childfree are usually the ones who have made parenting their whole personality and have “mom of boys” or “proud mumma bear” in their bios.

And that’s ok.

But why do they get to build their world around having children and expect those of us who don’t have them to be silent?

• Rosalyn at NoMo Book Club describes the comfort that can be found in books that encompass the worlds of other childless/free women ("Sharing sanctuary"). 
• Carrie Hauskens at Blooming With Care wrote about her childless holidays -- and her Bonne Maman advent calendar tradition (yum!).  
• Further on the New York Times magazine story of the 65-year-old woman who can't stop/won't stop having babies (gift link included in this post), Sara Petersen at In Pursuit of Clean Countertops invites former fundamentalist wife Tia Levings to muse about how "It's Easy To Want Babies:  It's Harder To Raise Them." 
• American journalist Kirsten Powers (who has no children) writes about the panic attacks she's been experiencing as the holiday season approaches ("When Grief Take You Out"). After reading about what her year has been like, you'll understand why...!   
• I've been mulling over an "I hate November" rant these last few days (feeling sick and sorry for myself...) -- and Anne Helen Petersen just posted about "fall regression" on her Culture Study Patreon, and the comments section is filled with people venting about season depression and grief. My comment begins with the words, "You all are my people,"  lol    
• (Unfortunately, the piece is paywalled, but here's a preview link.) 
• Lyz Lenz's list of Sunday links on her Men Yell at Me Patreon included this one (from McSweeney's, a humor site), and I couldn't help but think about infertility as soon as I saw the headline: "When It Happens."  

It’s impossible to say when IT will HAPPEN. But it can’t be too long until IT HAPPENS. Looking at the data (age, high-stress job, cardiac history), it is statistically plausible that IT will HAPPEN in the next thirty-six months.

Odds & ends

• I've been tired and going to bed earlier for the past week or two. And after reading one of Mel's recent Friday Roundups, I realized why!  (Personally, I blamed all those late-night World Series games! lol) 
• "What Might It Look Like Not to Have Children?"  Glynnis MacNicol at Good Decisions (who is childfree by choice) provides links to a decade's worth of her writing on the subject. 
• Pamela Tsigdinos recently discussed "Surviving the Trauma of IVF" on the Beyond Pronatalism podcast. 
• Y.L. Wolfe explains "Why People Who Don’t Have Children Deserve a More Inclusive Label" on the Life Without Children Substack. 
• Subhead: "Childless, childfree, non-parent…we shouldn’t have to define ourselves as the inverse of those who have kids."  
• (Related: The THIRD post I wrote for this blog, back in November 2007, pondered this question of unsatisfactory terminology: "Am I childLESS or childFREE?")  
• Here's an excerpt from Wolfe's post: 

Why do childless and childfree women often do so much soul-searching trying to settle on just the right label when mothers just get to be mothers without any need for distinction or an understanding of how they got there?

I can’t help but think that the answer is simple. Motherhood is the approved lifestyle choice for women in patriarchal cultures. Therefore, no matter how you got there, you get your gold star and no expectations to explain your circumstances.

Being a woman without children, however, will earn you judgment, criticism, and even hate. You can’t just say you don’t have children. People want to know why — and even though it’s rude as hell to ask, they will.

Maybe it just feels easier to preempt the invasive questions by carefully choosing the word we want to use to describe our non-parent status.

• This story, from The New York Times Magazine, is just WILD:  "She Was Ready to Have Her 15th Child. Then Came the Felony Charges."  Subhead:  "MaryBeth Lewis’s desire to be a new mom again, at 65 years old, led to a custody battle like no other."  Among other things, it touches on IVF, donor gametes, surrogacy and adoption. (Gift link.) 
• Related to the NYT Magazine article and the Lewis case, Jill Filipovic wrote a thoughtful post for her Substack, asking "Is it a Reproductive Right to Have Your 15th Child at 65?"  (Subhead:  "When women's desires and children's rights collide.")  
• Unfortunately, I believe it's paywalled for subscribers only -- but I can give you a taste of what's in it. The opening reads: 

Reproductive freedom is a core feminist principle. So are the rights of children. What happens, though, when those principles conflict? And in an era of incredible technological progress in assisted reproduction, should there be any limits to what women can choose?

• And, near the end, there's this: 
  
  

  To be clear, I am a big supporter of reproductive medicine and technological progress, including IVF and various forms of assisted reproduction (I have more misgivings about surrogacy, but still think it should be legal, if tightly regulated). And most people, when handed these new technologies, use them in ways that I find totally reasonable and largely ethical.

  
  

  But there are always outliers...

  
  
• (I thought Jill Filipovic was childless/free, but a recent Instagram post showed her husband wearing a baby carrier and the top of an infant's head peeking out in some photos. I can find nothing she's written about having a baby -- and a few of the photos show her doing some pretty crazy yoga poses, with a body that looks anything but post-partum -- unless they've adopted...??)