Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About Thoughtless Holiday Greetings

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

The holiday cards are arriving in the mail, and it got me thinking about the worst holiday greeting I ever received.

I was recently single again and in the throes of an if-I’m-going-to-be-a-mother-I-need-to-have-a-child-on-my-own-NOW panic attack. Friends’ cheery letters celebrated new homes, new babies, and full lives, and while I so wanted to be happy for them, each new photo was a painful reminder of all that I lacked and so desperately wanted.

In the pile of unopened mail one afternoon was a delivery from a long-time friend. In an effort to save time, she had mass produced address labels and affixed them to the envelopes. Smart. Mine was addressed to “The Guthrie Family,” although my friend had crossed out “The” and “Family” and written “Kathy” above. Not so smart. The insensitivity took my breath away.

I’ve talked to friends who have lost spouses to death or divorce, and they share a similar hurt when cards are inappropriately addressed. I want to shout “THINK, PEOPLE!” I know we’re all busy, I know this season is crazy, I know we are each shouldering our burdens, but please, take an extra minute, waste that extra stamp, and practice sending goodwill to all.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. When she can plan ahead, she prefers to send Thanksgiving cards.

Just in time for the not-always-happy holidays, Life Without Baby Holiday Companion by Lisa Manterfield and Kathleen Guthrie Woods is available. The $2.99 ebook offers more than 50 pages of classic blog posts with inspiration and encouragement for getting through the season when you’re childfree. Order your copy from Amazon or in PDF format at Gumroad.

Gratitude Wednesday

thanksgivingIn honor of Thanksgiving, we’re mixing it up a bit. Instead of the usual Whiny Wednesday, I want to ask you this:

What are you grateful for?

Often when we’re in the thick of grief it’s hard to find anything positive, but my Thanksgiving wish for you is to find a patch of sunshine this week.

Next week we’ll get back to whining. 😉

A Little Thanksgiving Self Care

By Lisa Manterfield

Photo courtesy: Clemens v. Vogelsang

Photo courtesy: Clemens v. Vogelsang

It’s Thanksgiving here in the U.S. this week. For many of you, that’s going to mean spending a long day, perhaps a long weekend, with people who care about you, but perhaps don’t really understand what you’ve been through or what you’re going through still. It can make for a lot of unintentionally hurtful comments, strained emotions, and reignited grief.

This year, we have post-election fatigue to throw into the mix. No matter your political affiliations, I think it’s safe to say that most of us have been completely worn out by this year’s election horror show. I certainly reached a point where I didn’t even want to hear from the people I agreed with, never mind the opposing sides.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been hibernating from the news and social media, needing a post-election detox. Consequently, I’m sleeping more restfully, spending more enjoyable time with Mr. Fab, and my brain is starting to function with clarity again. In sitting down to write this post, I also realize that I haven’t had any of the weird headaches I’ve been experiencing for the previous month or so.

I’m aware that this seems like I’m sticking my head in the sand, but I prefer to call it self-care, putting my own needs first for a while, so that I can regain enough mental strength to keep moving forward.

I also believe that self-care is one of the most important tools for making it through the upcoming holiday season, especially if your grief is still raw. But even if you’ve been making progress, the holidays can be a breeding ground for tactless comments, reminders of loss, and emotional triggers galore!

So, here are a few suggestions that have helped me navigate the holidays over the years:

Say no to difficult events. If you know a gathering will be problematic, make an excuse and don’t go. You may have some guilt about it, but that will pass, and you’ll end up much better off emotionally than if you go and end up upset. If you’re in the early stages of grief, take a year off from the holidays. Seriously. The holidays will be back next year, and they’ll get progressively easier to deal with.

Have an escape plan. If you do go to a gathering that might be difficult, have an escape plan. That might be as simple as borrowing the host’s dog and going for a long walk or volunteering to be the person to run to the store for last-minute ingredients. A little time alone is like a mini detox, so you can gather yourself together before facing people again.

Use this community. I promise you, you won’t be the only person looking for an understanding ear over the holidays. Use the community and connect with someone who know what you’re going through and can offer support and encouragement.

Plan some post-celebration self-care. Know in advance how you’ll take care of yourself after the event. Go home and take a long, quiet bath, or a long walk, or plan to do something with someone whose time you enjoy.  If you can, schedule a post-Thanksgiving detox day.

If you need more ideas for getting through the holidays, we have several resources available. There’s an entire chapter on navigating the holidays in both Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesn’t Happen and Life Without Baby Workbook 3: Dealing With the Day-to-Day Challenges, and a book full of inspiration and tips in Life Without Baby Holiday Companion. You can also get a free copy of Dealing With Social Landmines when you subscribe to the newsletter, and if you’re already a subscriber, you should have received a refresher via email. Finally, here’s the link to the community forums, where you’ll already find several holiday and family-related threads going.

Please take advantage of these resources and this community and make sure you have a happy Thanksgiving. –x-

Sharing Tips for Getting Through the Holidays

By Lisa Manterfield

thanksgivingNext week we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and I am looking forward to it. A couple of years ago, Mr. Fab and I started a new tradition of spending the day with good friends. Mr. Fab is cooking a decidedly nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner, so all I’ll have to do, aside from a few sous chef duties, is show up and have a good time.

I know for many of you, Thanksgiving might not be such a fun time. Traditionally, it’s a holiday when families gather, which might mean facing insensitive relatives and prying questions about children. It also marks the beginning of what can often be the most difficult time of the year, with social gatherings, kid-oriented activities, and constant reminders of the many ways we don’t get to celebrate the holidays.

I love that this community includes new readers and seasoned pros, so let’s help one another out this year by sharing ideas on getting through the season with our hearts intact.

What are some of the issues you know you’ll face this holiday season? What events are you dreading? What’s going to be hardest for you?

And perhaps most important of all, how to do plan to get through the season with minimum emotional damage?

For more tips, inspiration, and support, check out the Life Without Baby Holiday Companion, available now at Amazon.com and in PDF format at Gumroad.

Whiny Wednesday: Traditions You Won’t Get to Share

Whiny WednesdayThis Saturday is Bonfire Night in the U.K. As a child, it was one of my favorite nights of the year, second only to Christmas Eve.

We’d have a bonfire in the backyard, and my dad would bring home a box of fireworks to set off and a couple of packets of sparklers. We’d have baked potatoes and roast chestnuts, and my mum would make parkin and gooey, delicious bonfire toffee. It was an evening spent outdoors, clustered around the fire. It was about friends and food and a little bit of danger.

It’s one of the many things I miss about my homeland, and it’s one of the traditions I would have enjoyed sharing with my children. And that’s the topic for this week’s Whiny Wednesday:

Traditions you won’t get to share with your children

Happy Bonfire Night and happy whining.

Whiny Wednesday: Halloween

Whiny WednesdayNext Monday is Halloween, which for many of us means streams of cute children knocking on our front doors.

Love it or hate it; it’s hard to avoid it. So the discussion topic for this week is:

How do you handle this difficult holiday?

As it’s Whiny Wednesday, there’s room for your gripes here, too.

Whiny Wednesday: Parental Milestones

Whiny WednesdayBack-to-school season is upon us and social media has been abuzz with snapshots of proud parents and their offspring. So it seems like a good time for this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic:

Feeling left out when friends and relatives celebrate the milestones of being parents and grandparents.


As always, your other whines are always welcome.

Wishing You a Peaceful Christmas

If you’re celebrating Christmas this week, I hope you have a peaceful and loving holiday season, and that you find a way to celebrate in a way that’s right for you.

For now, I leave you with a small gift, courtesy of an old personal favorite, The Muppets.

Merry Christmas!

Holiday Blues and a Celebration

By Lisa Manterfield

That’s me, learning to sail.

Every year it seems I get caught out with a bout of the Holiday Blues.

After a really fun and non-traditional Thanksgiving with wonderful friends, I headed into December ready to celebrate the holidays my way. Then Bam! I came down with the Holiday Blues.

There will always be things I wish were part of my festive season, like hand-delivering gifts to my family, shopping for small children, and creating the kind of Christmas I had as a child. But it wasn’t theses losses and what-ifs that gave me the blues this year.

Maybe it was the rainy weather that kept me indoors for much of the week. Maybe it was the end of year racing towards me highlighting the things that didn’t get accomplished this year. Or maybe it’s that Christmas doesn’t really feel like something to celebrate anymore.

Finally, I took my own advice, and that of a couple of friends, and dusted myself off. I bought a tree, made plans for Christmas Eve dinner at a favorite restaurant, and wrote and sent my cards. And then I made myself a cup of tea and sliced off a chunk of proper English fruitcake, and I curled up in a chair and wrote in my journal.

I made a list of everything good that happened this year—all the fun things I did (see photo, for one), the challenges I overcame, the goals I reached this year, the friends I spent time with, the family I visited.

And guess what I discovered? It’s been another great year this year. I have lived my life, perhaps not always to the fullest, but to the best that I was able. And I had a good time doing it.

That, I think, is plenty of reason to celebrate.

Resetting Holiday Expectations

By Lisa Manterfield

Christmas Stockings Hanging over FireplaceRecently a friend posted this question of Facebook:

“Are you the adult you dreamed of becoming?”

I laughed when I read it. No! Of course I’m not. The adult I dreamed of was an international engineering consultant, living in a large house with a circular driveway, with a fabulous husband and four beautiful children, including one set of twins.

Aside from the fabulous husband, that adult is almost the polar opposite of the adult I am now. I’m a writer, who works from my very small rented beach cottage, and of course, there are no children in my picture. And yet, once I stop to consider my friend’s question, I realize that I’m a lot happier as this adult than I would have been had my expectations been met. I’ve met the person I’d once dreamed of becoming; she wasn’t a very happy person and she definitely had more grey hairs than me.

Half the battle of coming-to-terms with a life without children is letting go of our expectations—and creating new ones. This is never more true than during the holiday season, one of the most difficult times of the year to be childless.

When I think of my expectations of what Christmas should be like as an adult, those four children are always there, gathered around the tree, gathered around the dinner table, and then gathered around me as the day comes to a close. Even when I realized that children wouldn’t be part of my life, I still strived to make Christmas live up to my expectations. Consequently, Christmastime was very sad time for a number of years. I knew there was no way my expectations could be met, and eventually I stopped making an effort to celebrate.

The worst year was when my husband and I found ourselves sitting at home, with no Christmas tree, no plans, no celebration, and we knew we’d allowed our lack of children to take over our lives. We also realized it was time to set new, more realistic expectations.

When I took a step back and looked at what I really wanted for Christmas, not on the surface of gifts, family, and decorations, but on a deeper emotional level, I discovered that my spiritual wish list included love, peacefulness, companionship, and a good dose of silly fun. I needed to explore new ways to get what I really wanted.

It took a couple of false starts to find a new way to celebrate Christmas, but a couple of years ago we nailed it. Mr. Fab and I rented an apartment for three days in a nearby beach town. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a lovely dinner at an historic hotel with an enormous Christmas tree, roving carolers, and even an outdoor ice rink (in Southern California!). On Christmas Day, instead of sitting at home feeling sad about a pathetic Christmas for two, we went to the zoo, like a couple of big kids, and had a whale of a time. I even got to feed a rhino and have an ice cream. We both agreed it was the best Christmas we’ve had for a long time, plus there were no tantrums or mountains of dirty dishes to deal with.

It’s hard to let go of our expectations, especially when they’re often so deeply engrained, but if you’re struggling to find your holiday cheer this year, I encourage you to look beneath the obvious losses and examine what’s really missing for you. Even if you can’t meet your tangible expectations of what the holidays should be, you might be surprised to find you can satisfy your true needs in unconventional—and unexpected—ways.

I sat down recently with Jody Day of Gateway Women to talk about how we’ve adjusted our expectations and reclaimed the holidays. You can find the interview at Gateway Women.