#MicroblogMondays: Post-Voldemort Day odds & ends

• 
  BIL called dh late Saturday night:  Older Nephew had invited them to come there on Sunday (MDay/Voldemort Day) and he (BIL -- not Older Nephew) wanted to know if we wanted to come too.  
• Dh declined:  I'd already committed to co-hosting two hours of an all-day ongoing text chat on the private Lighthouse Women (formerly Gateway Women) community, late Sunday afternoon. (Dh told him I was on a Zoom call for one of my book clubs... close enough, I guess!  lol)  
• Even if I wasn't already committed, I'm not sure I would have wanted to go.  I generally like to spend the day quietly with dh, just the two of us. Older Nephew didn't invite us directly, after all (BIL often issues these invitations of his own accord, without consulting the people he's visiting...!) -- and I thought SIL deserved to be able to spend MDay with her son & grandson, without having us hanging around (as we often are...!). 
• (I did wonder if BIL was hoping dh would drive, as he often does...!).  
• I was feeling a little more inclined to mope than usual this year, but the day turned out better than I had anticipated. I spent most of it online, chatting with various online friends from the childless/infertility/loss communities (which always buoys me up), and the day (thankfully) flew by.  The weather was slightly overcast, but pleasant, enough so that we had the balcony door open most of the day (NO humidity!!)(yet...!).  Dh gave me a card, made brunch and cooked dinner. 
• And yes, I remembered to call MY mom!  lol  
• Why I was inclined to mope:  I couldn't help remembering that 25 years ago, Mother's Day for me was one of happiness, hope, excitement and expectation:  as I wrote in this 2008 post, I was in the first trimester of what would be my one & only pregnancy, and looking forward to Mother's Day 1999, when there would be three of us to celebrate together. 
• It was not to be. But I still have the Boyds Bears figurine dh gave me that year (which I wrote about here), sitting on my bedside night table.  (I don't remember when I stopped doing it, but I no longer rub its belly for luck, as I did when I was still hoping for another baby.)  
• Seen on social media this weekend, from the mother of two grown sons:  "I always wonder if organizers of Mother/Daughter teas for Mother’s Day weekend realize they are leaving out us boy moms." (!!!!!!) (She's a nice person, but seriously??!)  
• She got lots of sympathy in the comments, too. 
• From Yael Wolfe on Medium:  "Honoring the Childless Women Who Feel Invisible Today." 
• Writer Anne Lamott -- who is a mother -- posted her annual diatribe about Mother's Day on Facebook this weekend. Well worth a read! 
• From The Atlantic by Kelly McMasters (also a mother):  "Why I’m Skipping Mother’s Day:  Should people feel compelled to celebrate a holiday that is painful for so many?" 
• Megan Pillow guests on Lyz Lenz's Substack newsletter ("Men Yell at Me") with "A Single Mom’s Manifesto for Mother’s Day." If you can get past the mom stuff, there's some interesting history there about Mother's Day's origins and how its original intent has been perverted. 
• Heather Cox Richardson writes mostly about American politics & current events from a historical perspective on her Substack newsletter ("Letters From an American" -- and I highly recommend it!) -- but her Saturday night/Sunday morning newsletter was about Mother's Day and a non-mother who played a significant role in her life. I loved it!  
• Anne Helen Petersen has been taking a break this past week from her Culture Study newsletter on Substack, following the loss of her beloved dog, Peggy.  She was back yesterday with a post about grief, titled... "This is Not Just a Post About Dog Grief."  Excerpt:  

I think most people understand this feeling when it comes to close family, and a lot of people understand it when it comes to animals. But we have such a limited understanding of who and what is worth grieving, who and what deserves time...  

There’s a refrain Americans often bandy about as a sort of explanation for the emotional constipation that structures the national character. We’re so bad at grieving, people say, when the “we” in question is really white Christians or Christian-adjacent, steeped in the Protestant Work Ethic that demands the sublimation of grief to productivity. When growth is always God, there is no space to breathe, to break in half, to take the time that’s actually necessary to find some semblance of self amidst the wreckage.

It’s not normal, or ironic, or even slightly funny that we’re this bad at making space to process loss and suffering. It’s fucked up, and I’m increasingly convinced it’s at the heart of our national regression. Around Covid, of course, but also around mass gun violence, and addiction, and eldercare. We have so little language to describe the onset of grief in our lives, and so little expectation of accommodation for it. We don’t know how to be still in our sadness. And if you won’t allow yourself that grace, it’s so difficult to authentically extend it to others.

Whether you realize it or not: you have allowed me that space. I knew you wouldn’t unsubscribe en masse, which meant you effectively gave me bereavement leave. I allowed my sadness to expand and envelop my days. I went on long walks with Steve and felt Peggy’s presence over and over and over and watched it turn to joy, to utter gratitude.

I’m not nearly done with this grief but I also know that its foundation has been laid. What a gift you have given me — and what renewed conviction I have that this right to grieve should be universal.

How was your day yesterday? 

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

Voldemort Day mindset ;)

 

This popped up in my Facebook memories today, and it reflected my mindset perfectly. 
Hope you all found your places in the sun today!
(And snacks! 😂👍) 
❤❤❤

"Mommy bloggers" or not, we owe a debt to "Dooce"

I've continued to think about the late, great Heather Armstrong, aka "Dooce," as the tributes pour in. (Adding to the sadness is she died just before Mother's Day.)  So many wonderful pieces of writing, and I linked to a few of them in my previous post that mentioned her death.  

This morning, I read another, particularly good one from Jessica Grose at the New York Times that I wanted to unpack here a little more:  "Dooce and Other 'Mommy Blogs' Deserve Credit for Shaping the Internet."  It's from her subscriber-only newsletter, but I've gift-linked it for your reading pleasure, because I think it's worth a read in full. 

Grose writes about the changing online world, with giants from the past 20 years such as BuzzNews, Vice and Gawker either gone or in danger of disappearing.  Then she adds (and I apologize for the slightly wonky formatting, not sure how to correct that...?): 

But I think there’s an expanse of popular media from the past two decades that risks being left out when we recount this period in online history: The publications called “mommy blogs,” an often dismissive term that many of their writers hated but used as shorthand anyway.

With the sad passing of Heather Armstrong, who started the website Dooce, was often affectionately called “Dooce” and was known for her radical candor about motherhood and mental health, it’s a moment to remember just how revolutionary this kind of confessional felt when it was new, and how influential it has been. It’s also a moment to remember that Armstrong and her peers, including Glennon Doyle of Momastery, Joanna Goddard of Cup of Jo and Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman, have left a lasting imprint on our culture and run successful businesses, some of which have outlasted upstarts run by men.

Assessing Armstrong’s legacy for The Times on Thursday, Lisa Belkin, who profiled her for The Times in 2011, explains that Dooce was part of “a brief but golden age of women making themselves heard on the internet, proving what is now assumed but was then brand-new: that a woman writing about her life from her kitchen could make her life into a living.”

 

She goes on to say:  

I also hope that Armstrong and her contemporaries aren’t left out of the story of how online media, as we know it, was built. And that we finally stop thinking about women chronicling domestic life as less than — if I had to do a shot every time someone told me that motherhood was a “niche” subject, I’d stay tipsy. So I want to be sure that these women are given the same swashbuckling credentials as Nick Denton of Gawker and Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed.  

Ummm... if motherhood is a "niche" subject, try writing about involuntary childlessness...!  (Sorry, I digress, but I couldn't resist that aside.) But I wholeheartedly approve of her conclusion:     

...Let’s acknowledge that, and stop thinking of women writing from the heart as something that’s silly and small. It’s tremendous, and it has changed so many lives.

Lyz Lenz, in her Washington Post tribute (you can find a gift link in my previous post), said of Armstrong,  "She showed a generation of women who would become mothers that the stuff of our lives was valuable and important, that our voices and stories mattered."  And: "If she’d been a man, she’d be a humorist and memoirist. But she was a woman, so she was a mommy blogger." (Touche!)  

Well, I'm a woman, but I am not a mother (of a living child, anyway -- although somehow I did wind up on a list of Parenting magazine's "Must-Read Moms 2010" (!!) -- alongside Dooce, no less!! and other notable bloggers of the time) -- and yet, I recognize the debt that I and other women bloggers, regardless of subject matter, owe to Heather Armstrong.  

Would there have been "mommy blogs" without Dooce? Would someone else have ultimately been dubbed "Queen of the Mommy Bloggers"?  Maybe, but maybe not. And without "mommy blogs" like "Dooce," I wonder, would childless women like me have felt the need to respond by writing about their/our much-different experiences in the same, highly personal way?  

Regardless of whether you're a mother -- if you're a woman and you're "writing from the heart," about deeply personal things in a raw and honest way (or have done so during the past 20 years), you can trace at least part of your lineage back to Heather Armstrong and Dooce.  So I think all of us, moms and not, owe her our heartfelt thanks and appreciation. 

Pre-Voldemort Day odds & ends

• I was shocked to see a notification on my phone yesterday afternoon that Heather B. Armstrong, better known as "Dooce," the pioneering "mommy blogger" and "influencer" (one of the first to be known by those labels, I think), was dead, at the far-too-young age of 47. Even more shocked to read that it was a suicide. :(   (And more so still to read that her daughters, Leta & Marlo, are now 19 & 13...!)   My heart goes out to them, and to the rest of her family.   
• Dooce was blogworld royalty when I first started blogging in late 2007. The NewYork Times, in a 2011 profile, dubbed her "Queen of the Mommy Bloggers."  
• We read & discussed her book in October 2009 for Mel's Barren Bitches Book Tour -- "It Sucked and Then I Cried." I went searching for -- and found! -- my post for that tour, here. (Apologies -- the original formatting got screwed up/removed when I went back to add in some new labels a few years ago, and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.  :p  ) 
• I also found a couple of other posts that mentioned her.  From this week in May 2009 (14!! years ago now!!):  

I also picked up It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong, better known on the Internet as Dooce. I had never heard of Dooce until several bloggers mentioned meeting her at last year's BlogHer conference in San Francisco. I checked out her blog & while she definitely falls into the category of mommyblogger (albeit one who's had her own struggles, with PPD), she is also hilarious & worth a read. (But be forewarned -- she is in the last few weeks of her second pregnancy at the moment.)

• And in this post from August 2010, you can read about how I, a childless woman, wound up on a list of "Must-Read Moms 2010" from Parenting magazine, no less (!!), alongside  other notables of the blogosphere of the time, including Dooce. Thanks to Mel for that one too!      
• Here's The Washington Post's article (gift-linked), which does a great job of explaining Armstrong's impact. 
• Also from the WaPo, also giftlinked:  a heartfelt tribute from Lyz Lenz (whose Substack, "Men Yell at Me," is a great read)(I'm a subscriber).  
• Meg Conley from Homeculture writes (and talks, in an audio clip) about Armstrong and what she meant to her. (I haven't listened to the audio yet.)
• It's THAT day again this weekend -- but fear not!  Mali has written a wonderful blog post full of tips on how to get through with your sanity intact (more or less...!).  Well worth a read! 
• Mali's post says it all -- but feel free to browse through my own previous relevant blog posts here. 
• Just in time for "that day," a wonderful new video from Helen Louise Jones of Our Healing Voice and Childless Voices, a choir of involuntarily childless women, singing an original song written by Helen: "Calm After the Storm." I dare you to watch and listen without getting a lump in your throat and/or tears in your eyes!  Please watch, like and share! 
• Helen -- along with a couple of special guests -- is offering a free chanting session for childless-not-by-choice women on Sunday. Details on her website. 
• There was an opinion piece by Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, author of "Without Children" (which I read and reviewed here), in the New York Times recently (drawn from the book material):  "Why Women Not Having Kids Became a Panic." She makes the point here (as well as in the book) that women not having children is not a new phenomenon, and the reasons why are not really a mystery. (Content warning: Matters of politics, including reproductive choice, and hurtful/enraging comments by political and religious leaders are mentioned.) 
• The article ends by asking for stories from women who chose not to be mothers. I don't consider my childlessness to have been much of a "choice" -- and I know many of you don't either -- but I would encourage you to respond, if you feel so inclined! -- remind them that we're out here too!   
• Lauren Kelly, Senior Staff Editor at the NYT, spotlighted the article in the morning Opinion Today newsletter. I loved her comments:  

Like other women who’ve chosen not to have children, I’ve received my share of well-meaning if unhelpful advice. 

You’ll regret it when you’re older.

But you’re missing out on one of life’s great experiences!

 It’s OK to change your mind, you know.

To which I usually say: I appreciate the concern, but I promise — I’m good. 

As Peggy O’Donnell Heffington makes clear in a guest essay for Times Opinion, I’m far from alone in feeling that way — and not just among my fellow millennials, whose reproductive decisions have stirred up something of a moral panic. Throughout history, Heffington writes, women have chosen not to have kids, sometimes because they were unable to but in many cases because, for any number of reasons, they did not want to.

Heffington notes that modern birth control methods and abortion access have certainly made it easier for many women to avoid having children, but “they hardly gave women the idea that they might want to do so.”

“Women have needed no help coming up with that idea all on their own for centuries,” she writes.

It’s valuable to be reminded that while childlessness among women might not be the norm, it is neither new nor rare — and that society’s skepticism toward childless women has always been there, as well.

The next time someone asks me why I’m not having kids, maybe I’ll say: I appreciate the concern, but like centuries of women before me, I promise — I’m good.

• Dh to Little Great-Nephew (age 3), earlier this week:  "Come here, I have a present for you!"  LGN scurried over expectantly, and dh gave him a kiss. LGN:  "Where's the present??"  Dh:  "I gave you a kiss!"  LGN (with a "duh!"  expression on his face): "Uncle Dh!  A kiss is NOT a present!  A PRESENT is a TOY!!"  We've been laughing about it ever since then!  
• Dh has discovered Louise Penny's Three Pines/Inspector Gamache mystery novels, has blazed through the first two within the past week and is starting #3 (which I just read and reviewed a few weeks ago...!). Guess I'd better hurry up and start #4 soon or he's soon going to surpass me...!  

"Sarah's Cottage" by D.E. Stevenson

My D.E. Stevenson fan group's next selection under discussion is "Sarah's Cottage," a 1968 sequel to "Sarah Morris Remembers," which we read late last year (reviews here and here). 

The war (World War 2) is over, Sarah & Charles are (finally!) married, and the book opens as they arrive at their newly constructed cottage in Ryddelton, Scotland -- built on land gifted to them by Sarah's delightful grandparents (who live nearby) -- to begin their married life together. 

Things are idyllic at first -- but then reality intervenes when Charles becomes obsessed with a book he's writing, leaving Sarah feeling lonely and irritated. Later in the book, he's summoned home to Austria by his estranged family, leaving Sarah -- and us -- uneasily remembering what happened when he made a similar visit in the first book. The couple also take an interest in their neglected niece Frederica (Freddie, daughter of Sarah's extremely spoiled and self-centred sister Lottie). The book spans more than a decade, from the time Freddie is 5 until she is in her late teens.  

Sarah & Charles are a doting aunt & uncle to Freddie and, as another doting childless auntie, I was pleased to see this relationship at the core of the book.  I did wonder if/when a baby was going to show up -- and there is a passage, late in the book (Chapter 34), when Sarah, watching her husband with the boys at Freddie's 15th birthday party (after about a decade of marriage), wishes she could give Charles a son. (Not just a baby, of course, but a SON! -- this WAS, after all, 1950s Britain...!):  

"Freddie seems all right now," said Charles smiling. He added, "They're enjoying themselves, aren't they? Does it make you wish you were fifteen, Sarah?" 

"No," I said. My wish was quite different (it had struck me like a sword in my heart so that for a few moments I could scarcely breathe).  I wished -- oh, how I wished! -- that I had been able to give Charles a son.  It wasn't the first time -- nor the hundredth time -- that I had wished it. Gradually I had settled down, accepting the inevitable and teaching myself to be grateful for my blessings, which were many, but today the pain had been revived. It was seeing Charles with the boys, so good with then, so happy and popular...

After reading that, I braced myself for the inevitable "miracle baby" ending -- which (SPOILER ALERT!) -- surprisingly!! thankfully!! did NOT happen!!  

The last few chapters (and the last one in particular) seemed kind of rushed, and there were a few plot points that were left sort of dangling.  There's not much of a real plot here, but it's a pleasant read with some very nice characters (and a couple of not-so-nice ones to add a little drama now & then!). Ryddelton is the setting for several other DES novels, and there are a few crossover characters here who make an appearance -- notably, members of the Dunne family from "Celia's House" (reviewed here).  As well, Freddie goes to school at St. Elizabeth's near Larchester, where Sarah & Lottie were students, and which also figures in a couple of other DES books, most notably "Charlotte Fairlie" (reviewed here and here).   

I decided to give this book 3 stars on Goodreads.

I will count this book as a re-read when we finish our group discussion later this summer.  

This was Book #18 read to date in 2023 (and Book #1 finished in May), bringing me to 40% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2023 tagged as "2023 books."   

#MicroblogMondays: A royally good morning

Well, as mentioned in Friday's post, I got up at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning, and even after taking a nap in the afternoon (which I rarely do), I was exhausted all day -- but it was worth it to watch history unfolding on my TV screen in such a spectacular way.  

I'm talking about King Charles III's coronation in London, of course. ;)  The first royal event I can remember watching was his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969 (when I was 8 years old), and I have rarely missed a major royal wedding, funeral or jubilee celebration since then. So -- much as I am not an early riser these days! -- I was not likely to miss this one!  

As usual, my favourite part of the day turned out to be watching the kids (i.e., the Wales children), and especially Prince Louis, who once again stole the show, lol.  Commentators mentioned that he might not be present for the entire two-hour-plus ceremony (I envisioned a nanny on standby, waiting in the wings to whisk him away if/when he got restless...!), but every time the camera panned in the family's direction, he was still there.  The sheer spectacle of the event was also amazing to take in. Beyond the dresses and jewels and gold coaches and red tunics and the amazing architecture of Westminster Abbey, as well as the wonderful music (etc. etc. etc.), I'll admit I was lusting over the lush green lawns and trees and the tulips, already in bloom!  

I know a lot of people are not fans of the monarchy, or of Charles in particular (especially when compared to his late mother, or his more popular son and heir William) -- but I think he will be a good king -- and I think the system has its merits, as outlined by the Globe & Mail in a weekend editorial. 

(Besides which -- doing away with the monarchy in Canada would require unanimous agreement from all the 10 provinces plus 3 territories on a constitutional amendment -- and there is, quite simply, no more than snowball's chance in you-know-where of that happening right now, not to mention no political appetite to open up that particular can of worms...!)(Sorry if I'm mixing metaphors here...!)   

Did you watch? 

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

Taken shortly after I got up on Saturday morning, 
with the clock on the wall attesting to the time!  
I mostly watched CBC's coverage, occasionally flipping over to BBC World. 

Coronation weekend odds & ends

• Well, my alarm clock is already set for (YAWN!) 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. CTV's coverage of King Charles III's coronation begins at 3 a.m., CBC's at 4 and CNN's at 5, my/Eastern time.  I figure 4 a.m. sounds about right -- time for me to have some breakfast while watching the dignitaries arrive and listening to the talking heads. I'll probably be flipping back & forth between CBC & BBC World.  And live-chatting (texting) with my longtime New Zealand penpal :)  which we've done for the last several big royal events -- something we could never have imagined doing when we first started writing to each other as teenagers in 1977!! (This is when I love technology, lol.)  
• According to the schedules I've seen, Charles & Camilla will leave for Westminster Abbey at precisely 5:20 a.m., the service will begin at 6 and Charles will be crowned around 7. The balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace (and Royal Air Force flypast) will happen around 9:30 a.m.
• BIL seems skeptical that I would want to get up at 4 a.m. for such an event (let alone that I'm capable of actually getting up at that early hour, lol). He obviously doesn't know that I've been doing this for every major royal wedding & funeral for the past 40-odd years, and watching royal events for well over 50!  The first one I can remember watching is then-Prince Charles's investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, then Princess Anne's first wedding in 1973, which was especially notable because we'd only recently gotten our first colour TV set).   
• Who else is planning to watch??  
• In my last odds & ends post, I flagged an article about "wedding sprawl."  I'm seeing it in action this weekend... my cousin's daughter is getting married this summer, and her friends have spirited her away to Los Angeles for a bachelorette weekend (!).  Not only that, one of her friends tagged her on social media with an image of a Vennmo (U.S. mobile payment system, like PayPal, but not available in Canada) QR code, inviting people to scan it and "buy the bride a drink." !!!  Now I think I've seen everything... I mean, if I was there in LA, enjoying the sunshine and fun, sure, I'd buy her a drink, but...??!  (Has anyone else ever heard of this??)  I'm sure something else will come along to top that one soon, though...! 
• An oldie (which I may or may not have shared here before?) but a goodie (and a timely one too):  From John Pavlovitz:  "For Those Who Hurt on Mother’s Day." 
• This weekend is International Bereaved Mothers Day (always marked on the Sunday BEFORE that "other day"). ;)  It was created in 2010 by an Australian woman, Carly Marie Dudley, in memory of her stillborn son Christian and to honour all mothers who have lost a baby and feel overlooked on Mothers Day.  
• Many loss mom bloggers who were around back then will remember Carly Marie and the gorgeous photos she used to take and send to bereaved moms of their child's name written in the sand by the ocean at sunset. She has gone silent online in recent years, and most of her sites and social media accounts are no longer active, but every year at this time, I still see people in my social media feeds posting about the day she founded.  
• At the time she created it, Carly Marie said, "International Bereaved Mother’s Day is intended to be a temporary movement. It is a heart-centered attempt at healing the official Mother’s Day for all mothers. I believe that we can do this and that sometime in the near future there will be no need for this day at all because all true mothers will be recognized, loved, supported, and celebrated.” 
• (It's a nice idea, but I don't think we're anywhere close to that point yet...!) 
• Here's an article that Carly Marie wrote in 2016 for Still Standing Magazine about International Bereaved Mothers Day:  
• From Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (a charity which provides beautiful professional photos for parents experiencing the loss of a baby), an article reminding us that not only was Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day, childless herself, she created it to honour her own mother -- who lost most of her many children. 
• In a recent Substack newsletter, Jill Filipovic had a very long and wide-ranging interview with Ruby Warrington, author of the recently released book "Women Without Kids." Both Ruby & Jill are childfree by choice, so the interview is mostly from that perspective -- but there is a LOT there that I think we all can relate to -- AND! (bonus!) Ruby gives a shoutout to Jody Day and Gateway Women and Jody's childless elderwomen project!!  (Unfortunately, there may be a subscriber paywall.)  
• The Washington Post recently reviewed two (other) thoughtful new books related to birth and motherhood and... childlessness, in an article titled "In Defense of the Childless." (I read one of the books! -- reviewed here.) 
• Also a great read from Jill Filipovic (and NOT behind a paywall): "What Do Women Need?" Answer in the subhead:  "Better men. Until then, we'll freeze our eggs."  Sample passage: 

Women don’t freeze their eggs because they’re selfish careerists who want to climb the corporate ladder; women freeze their eggs because they want to have a child with a great partner, and one hasn’t yet come around... 




It’s easy to look at this issue and say that men just need to get their shit together. And men do need to get their shit together. But some of this isn’t about individual men being bad; it’s about larger cultural and economic forces that have left men untethered, often ill, and often directionless.

 

• The Globe & Mail has a personal finance podcast aimed at millennials and Gen Z-ers called "Stress Test" -- and a recent episode dealt with the realities and costs of fertility treatments in Canada. You can listen to the podcast and/or read a transcript (which -- warning! -- does not seem to be well edited...!), here. 
• From The Toronto Star, written by a fertility doctor:  "The inequity of infertility: Why we need to talk about reproductive health as a shared responsibility." Sample passage: 

Infertility should be considered a public health issue that has the potential to impact everyone through dwindling populations, rising health care costs, emotional stress and lower workplace productivity.

We can share the responsibility for our society’s fertility rate by promoting policies that consider reproductive health and talking openly about infertility to reduce the stigma. 

• Well worth a read:  in her Culture Study newsletter on Substack, Anne Helen Petersen interviews transracial adoptee Angela Tucker about her experiences and about her new book, "You Should be Grateful."  
• I loved Carolyn Hax's response to the second letter in her advice column in the Washington Post, written by a woman whose sister-in-law keeps bringing up how much money she (the writer) makes. (It's actually less than the SIL's salary.)  I was reminded of some of the "bingos" we hear as childless-not-by-choice people (and of course, some of them are related to how much money WE must have, since we don't have kids...), and I LOVE some of the answers Carolyn proposes!
• On social media, Jody Day of Gateway Women flagged a newly released study in the Irish Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy:  "Childlessness as a springboard for post-traumatic growth." 
• The study was the subject of an article in the Irish Times. "There’s more to being a woman than being a mother."  "The longing to have a child didn’t go away for many women in our study," the subheading reads. "But they found other ways to flourish."  Our pain is real -- but it does not have to define us. 
• Said Jody on social media: "I really, really hope this starts to turn the tide on the very ill-informed opinion, amplified by the #pronatalist media, that #childless women 'never' recover from the trauma of childlessness... we can, we do and we find other ways to 'flourish' in our lives and share our mothering hearts with the world around us, and with ourselves. It takes time, love, and support, but we rise again..."

Have a good one!  :)