Chpt 5, solo without kids, changes things...

Chapter Five – If you don’t have children, do you feel like it has impacted you emotionally &/ psychologically? If so, how?

These are the stories of some respondents to a questionnaire around being single over the age of 40 as a woman.

Donna, 

Not sure how to answer this one. I've been a preschool teacher most of my life, and hear all about the struggles with children, especially the financial implications. So, in my circumstances, I don't know if I would like to bring a child into the world and struggle to make ends meet.

Alyss, 

Yes, I do feel like there has been an emotional and psychological impact. In my 20s and 30s there wasn’t much of an impact as I was busy doing what I believed God had called me to do. Then my 40s arrived, literally a few weeks short of COVID and global shutdown. From that point social spaces seems to become tightknit microcosms. I was in a road with two other amazing single ladies and I had family members nearby, so that became my social circle. I had changed jobs and didn’t find a friendship space there like I had at other posts. Post-COVID, I moved jobs again, into an even harder work space where I am even less connected than ever before. Family have emigrated, so there is a vacuum. In a vacuum with no socially uplifting people around means my thoughts and psychological space are the hardest they have ever been to combat the many what-ifs? Where did I go wrong? It’s continuous psychological trips into the past to figure out if I could have changed anything, if I really chose the space I ended up in, or if it was the divine plan for me to end up where I am. I see friends and their children connecting so beautifully and creating a whole new generation of extended love and friendship, it truly is beautiful… and I can’t be a part of that story. Psychologically, it’s thoughts of who to leave my everything to when I die? In clearing out spaces where other people have passed, the trinkets and outfits, photos and tokens have meaning for the children left behind, but no-one else. Who will even clean out my living space? This leads to emotional spaces of great sadness, internal purposelessness and heartache that my life is a full stop. I realise it’s an ‘ideal’ in my head as there are many estranged parents and children, that there are orphans who have no story of their heritage, there are people who carry a lot of hate, who create sad memories and disappointments. Even so, that happy thought that a child who I loved and loved me in return would mourn me, would care about me, would be there, is purely fictional, but the loss is felt. It’s all selfish thoughts and feelings, but they do rear their heads and I have to pull myself out of it over and over. The older I get, the more real a loss it seems…

CJ 

I have always wanted children and it took me several years to come to terms with the fact that I would not have my own biological kids.

I have wonderful nieces and a nephew and spoil them whenever I can, as well as my friends’ kids.

I do feel the void of having missed out on this amazing experience, but as I did not meet the right partner, I did not want to try and raise a child alone.

Alexa

Yes.  I’m not broody and not 100% sure I actually wanted children but because of my personal choice to not have sex before marriage and therefore no kids without a husband, I’ve struggled with the reality that I will not have children of my own as I’m too old now.  It’s been a real struggle for me because I want to have that choice to have kids and now it’s been taken away from me by age.  It doesn’t feel fair that I’ve been true to my Christian beliefs and now I don’t get to have the choice to have children. 

KA,

Not at all. Like I say, not having children allows me to be available to my family, my friends, my work, my church, Lifeline and other hobbies. I have 3 nieces and a nephew, all of whom I adore, but I’ve never once regretted not having any children of my own.

NH

Just as I never fantasised about a white wedding when I was young, I have never had a burning desire to have children.  I have found it easier to accept that I won’t be a mother than some of my single girlfriends have.

C.B. 

Preference to respond as follows: As a young mother, and often times a single mom, there were times that I did feel embarrassed, however, over time, knowing it was my blessing, I no longer carry that as a burden.I am proud of all I have achieved.

I do have a son.Just the one.If I had not been pregnant as a teenager, the gynaecologists feel that I would never have had a child at all as I have a condition - being born with only half my uterus, a single tube and single ovary.Besides that, the tube was very narrowed and after surgeries to rectify this I had an ectopic pregnancy that messed that tube up too.So, my only child is my blessing from God.