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A review by greensalbet
Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children by Jody Day
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
This is a first-of-its-kind book about the biases women without children face in both American and European societies. The author is a British psychologist who was married to an alcoholic and didn't want children with him until he was sober. The process took longer than expected, they divorced, and her window for becoming pregnant closed.
From her own experience of forlorn childlessness, author Jody Day has gone on to work with clients struggling through this life predicament, created a blog site, started weekend workshops, and engaged in advocacy work to raise awareness in work environments around non-Mothers, whom she calls NOMOs.
There are many new ideas and helpful observations in this book, including the following:
The Concept of Pronatalism
"The current cultural adoration of motherhood, at a time when somewhere between 15 and 30 percent of women are reaching menopause without having had children, is particularly hard on childless women, It's a role that we will never be able to play and are also not considered to have a say in. A whole new generation is being reared to inhabit and inherit our world and we are expected to have no part in it, or influence over it. The glorification of motherhood can be explained as what happens when rampant pronatalism meets rampant consumerism.
If 'pronatalism' is a new term to you (it once was to me), it's explained by Laura Caroll in her 2012 book 'The Baby Matrix" as: the idea that parenthood and raising children should be the central focus of every person's adult life. Pronatalism is a strong social force and includes a collection of beliefs so embedded that they have come to be seen as 'true' " (70).
Melanjoy
"Jessica Hepburn, a veteran of nine unsuccessful IVF procedures and the author of "The Pursuit of Motherhood, published in 2014, coined a brilliant word for the confusing combination of feelings that many of us (childless woman) will recognize around other women's pregnancies: 'Melanjoy' -- a combination of melancholy and joy," (94).
The Status of Marriage
"In a patriarchal society our value as women is judged on our partnerhood and reproductive status. In my twenties and thirties, I would have thought this was complete nonsense and, as someone who considered herself a feminist, would have seen it as rather backward-thinking. Imagine my shock when, as a newly divorced woman of forty, I discovered how much my 'status' from my married state had carried," (96).
Childless Women's Isolation
"Because most people succeed in having children, those who don't are seen as 'different' and don't fit the social mode. It's never explicit, but what wind's up more than anything is the assumption that I'm a career woman instead. I AM NOT defined my work." Claude: 44, Single, UK (162).
And the Number One Source of Empathy Failure
"Stop expecting others to understand your situation. In answer to a question I put to Brene Brown at a public talk in 2012, infertility and childlessness has shown up in her research as 'the number one empathy failure.' Your friends and family are not not uniquely able to understand!" (225).
I've rated this book 4.5 stars. It's a 5-start read for female, childless readers, therapists, and IVF sufferers: however, for the general public, however, this is probably a 4-star book. Some parts are too intensely focused on the issues of fertility and childlessness to connect with a general reading public. Having said that, I think Chapter 9, "Reconnecting to Your Source" offers a beautiful investigation into what self-care and self-compassion are, and are not, and can apply to any reader -- regardless of gender or child status.
From her own experience of forlorn childlessness, author Jody Day has gone on to work with clients struggling through this life predicament, created a blog site, started weekend workshops, and engaged in advocacy work to raise awareness in work environments around non-Mothers, whom she calls NOMOs.
There are many new ideas and helpful observations in this book, including the following:
The Concept of Pronatalism
"The current cultural adoration of motherhood, at a time when somewhere between 15 and 30 percent of women are reaching menopause without having had children, is particularly hard on childless women, It's a role that we will never be able to play and are also not considered to have a say in. A whole new generation is being reared to inhabit and inherit our world and we are expected to have no part in it, or influence over it. The glorification of motherhood can be explained as what happens when rampant pronatalism meets rampant consumerism.
If 'pronatalism' is a new term to you (it once was to me), it's explained by Laura Caroll in her 2012 book 'The Baby Matrix" as: the idea that parenthood and raising children should be the central focus of every person's adult life. Pronatalism is a strong social force and includes a collection of beliefs so embedded that they have come to be seen as 'true' " (70).
Melanjoy
"Jessica Hepburn, a veteran of nine unsuccessful IVF procedures and the author of "The Pursuit of Motherhood, published in 2014, coined a brilliant word for the confusing combination of feelings that many of us (childless woman) will recognize around other women's pregnancies: 'Melanjoy' -- a combination of melancholy and joy," (94).
The Status of Marriage
"In a patriarchal society our value as women is judged on our partnerhood and reproductive status. In my twenties and thirties, I would have thought this was complete nonsense and, as someone who considered herself a feminist, would have seen it as rather backward-thinking. Imagine my shock when, as a newly divorced woman of forty, I discovered how much my 'status' from my married state had carried," (96).
Childless Women's Isolation
"Because most people succeed in having children, those who don't are seen as 'different' and don't fit the social mode. It's never explicit, but what wind's up more than anything is the assumption that I'm a career woman instead. I AM NOT defined my work." Claude: 44, Single, UK (162).
And the Number One Source of Empathy Failure
"Stop expecting others to understand your situation. In answer to a question I put to Brene Brown at a public talk in 2012, infertility and childlessness has shown up in her research as 'the number one empathy failure.' Your friends and family are not not uniquely able to understand!" (225).
I've rated this book 4.5 stars. It's a 5-start read for female, childless readers, therapists, and IVF sufferers: however, for the general public, however, this is probably a 4-star book. Some parts are too intensely focused on the issues of fertility and childlessness to connect with a general reading public. Having said that, I think Chapter 9, "Reconnecting to Your Source" offers a beautiful investigation into what self-care and self-compassion are, and are not, and can apply to any reader -- regardless of gender or child status.