Page 12 - CNBC Mag Free Issue Edition 6
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Navigating social events
Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women explains how knowing
about the Red, Amber and Green stages of grief helps at social events.
Possibly one of the most common My own experience as someone who has
questions I get asked by childless women made peace with her childlessness is that
goes something like this: “I have to go to social events are no longer problematic for
[insert dreaded event here] and last time me. Boring sometimes, yes, but not
I went [insert hideous memory here] difficult! But I’ve been to hell and back to
happened—how on earth am I going to get there, including a couple of years as
cope this time?” an almost total recluse, hardly able to
leave the house because the sight of
Some of the many things I’ve heard mothers, children, couples, and families
include: felt like being kicked in the chest by a
horse.
• Being given the floor to sleep on during
Christmas whilst your sibling’s kids get Obviously, human beings are a lot
“your” old room, and their surprise that more complicated than traffic lights,
you have the audacity to “mind” about but I hope that by identifying
this…
roughly where you are in the
• The graceless exclusion from a child- process, you’ll find some tips and
focused event because, “Well, as you
don’t like kids, we didn’t think it was strategies that feel helpful.
your sort of thing…”
So, based on my own experience of
• A round-company email inviting recovering from childlessness, and that of
everyone to an out-of-office social the thousands of women I’ve worked with
event billed as a “Great chance for our in my workshops and many more through
kids to all get to know each other” that the Gateway online community, here are
leaves you floored and unable to know some of my thoughts on what can help.
how to respond… I’ve divided it into three stages, like traffic
lights. Obviously, human beings are a lot
• Finding out that the annual “girls’ get- more complicated than traffic lights, but I
together” that’s been going since you hope that by identifying roughly where
all left college is going ahead without you are in the process, you’ll find some
you as it’s become “more of a family tips and strategies that feel helpful.
thing now” but that it didn’t occur to
anyone to see if you were OK with RED LIGHT – raw grief
that—or even to invite you!
If you’re in the “red light” stage, you may
• And of course, let’s not forget the total find that being around children, mothers,
absence of invitations, even socially families, or pregnant women is
awkward ones, if you’re both single and excruciatingly painful. Whether it was last
childless! week or decades ago that you realised
you’d be childless forever, there’s part of
12 The Childless Not By Choice Magazine: Launch Issue
