How will you feel about your childless journey 15 or 20 or 30 years from now? 

I’m finding out as I reread my Childless by Marriage book for the first time in years. I’m preparing an audio version. As I listen for mispronunciations, I feel like I’m hearing these stories for the first time.  

It’s not my voice. It’s a computerized voice but one that sounds like it could be me or my mom. She’s good. I listen, mesmerized, as this woman tells of the early years of my marriage, my angst over not having a baby, and my relationships with my stepchildren. 

This book came out in 2012, but I started researching and making notes in 1989, which was a very long time ago. I have changed. The world has changed.

Was there really a time when I thought and acted like a mom, when my youngest stepson, Michael, was a huge part of my life? How could I have forgotten?

How could I forget when my mother and I both had “grandbabies” at the same time? 

Did I really share so many personal and sometimes traumatic moments–My multiple experiments with birth control, having sex in the bathroom while the family watched a movie, sobbing at a women’s retreat because I would never be a mother, listening in horror as my stepdaughter told my husband he was a terrible father–I shared all that? 

Thank God my parents never read Childless by Marriage. The book is not just my story. I interviewed many childless women and did tons of research in the days when you could not find it all online. Chapters include information on infertility, birth control, vasectomies, the childfree movement, pets as child substitutes, losing friends when they become parents, and the physical and emotional effects of never having children. But I had forgotten how much of my own story was in there. It reads like a memoir in essays. 

I was still in the process of transitioning from newspaper reporting to writing creative nonfiction in those days. I hired an editor to look at the book. She said she wanted more of my story and less research. So, I changed it. Some of the stories are also included in my newest book, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s. I duplicated myself. I guess that’s okay. The words are different, and it came from a different time in my life. 

I was so young, still in my 30s, when I started researching childlessness. I was still having periods and still hoping that somehow I would have children. I was also trying hard to develop a motherly relationship with my husband’s kids.

As I reread this book, I miss them. I want to call each of them, hug them, and claim a place in their lives, but we have had no real contact since their father died 14 years ago. Michael visited once so I could show him where Fred was buried. Gretchen is a Facebook friend. Ted . . . nothing.

Ted, Fred’s oldest, was livid when he read the first ebook edition of Childless by Marriage. He threatened to sue if I didn’t take out the things I had written about him. I took them out. Considering what I said about Michael and Gretchen, it’s a wonder all three of them didn’t sue. I didn’t write it to hurt anyone, just to share how it is when you’re a childless stepmother, but not everyone sees it that way.

The kids are 46, 56, and 59 now. Gretchen is a grandmother. I will never see her grandchildren. I feel the loss. For a while, I was a mom of sorts. Does that mean I’m not childless? Well, the stepchildren stepped away. I never gave birth to my own kids. There is no child out there with my eyes and the name I gave him or her. No one calls me “Mom.”  

It’s not a sad book. Portions are funny, and most of it is upbeat. We learn there are many ways to mother and to nurture. I mothered my staff at the newspaper I edited. I mothered my students and the singers in the church choir. I mother my dogs, my plants, and l even mother the spider I capture in a cup and carry out to the lawn. I create books from a thought or a word and turn them into something lasting that I can share with the world. That’s not nothing. 

I know this is unusual post. Eighteen years into this blog, I’m running dry. I have moved on to writing about the issues of aging and living alone (see my Substack, “Can I Do It Alone?”) I have published many other books since Childless by Marriage came out.

I’m 73, widowed and live in an aging community where everyone has cats and dogs, but we don’t see a lot of babies. My friends’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren live elsewhere, so they’re not in my face.

When I see families having fun together, I still feel sad. I read about grown men and women taking care of their elderly parents and worry about who will do that for me. I daydream about having a family like other women my age. But I’m mostly caught up in the day-to-day of life here and now. 

My Childless by Marriage book, the one I honestly thought would make me famous (ha!) is good. I’m relieved. When a writer rereads her old writing, sometimes she shudders at what she let get into print. But no, I think it’s relevant and well-done, as beautiful as that six-foot tall, brown-eyed son I might have had, the one who might have called to take me out to lunch on this sunny spring day. 

One of the early books on childlessness, it is still the only one I know of that focuses on being childless because your partner can’t or won’t give you children. Well, except for my other book, Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both. That one is a best-of-the-blog compilation; you might want to read that, too. 

Why am I telling you all this? Not to sell books (well, okay, if you want to buy one, I won’t mind), but to share how our views of things change over the years. You walk around saying, “I’m not a mom” when in fact you are mothering your husband’s kids or your students or your fur babies. You remember crying in the closest but forget how you also were free to travel the world, go to shows, eat at fancy restaurants, and make love in the living room. You look at some of the choices you made that led to being childless and think: Why didn’t I try harder? Why did I give in so easily to a life without babies? 

You wonder: Why am I not still a size 12?

I have been blogging here at childlessbymarriage.com since 2007. This is my 893rd post. I’m going for 900. Somebody do the math: At least 800 words times 900 equals . . . Oh my God. I had hoped to get to 1,000 posts, but my well has run dry. I have aged out of this gig. I won’t leave you altogether. We have seven more posts to go. I plan to redesign my Childless by Marriage website and keep you up to date on childless events, books, articles, and other things I might want to share. I will maintain my resource list. I will also continue my Childless by Marriage Facebook page. But it’s time. 

I expect to be finished with the audio book by June 1. I’m obsessed, so it’s going quickly. Page after page, this book reveals new things to me. I hope Childless by Marriage is a revelation to you, too, whether you already read it years ago or are hearing about it for the first time. 

Thank you for being here. Your comments are welcome and treasured.