Hey, rePro-Truth Community!
I’m recovering from a week-long cold and have spent the last 7 days sleeping instead of writing. As such, two of my planned articles for this week will not be published until next week. (Great content upcoming!!)
But I couldn’t let this week go by without at least a brief post to let you know that this week is World Childless Week. This week is near and dear to my heart.
“World Childless Week aims to raise awareness of the childless not by choice (cnbc) community and enable every childless person to share their story with confidence. It's for anyone who is childless despite their longing to be a parent because they have never been pregnant (for any reason), not carried full term or have suffered the sadness of a baby born sleeping. World Childless Week is here to support those who have felt the heartbreak of knowing they will be childless for life.”1
Involuntary childlessness brings with it pain and grief too deep to put into words. It is sharp, isolating, and othering, and it effects everything from mental health to interpersonal relationships with friends and family, to one’s sense of identity and self-worth.
Millions suffer this pain in silence.
Perhaps you, precious one, are presently existing with the oft-consuming heartache of the disenfranchised grief of being childless not by choice (cnbc). — I see you. You are not invisible. Your pain and your grief are real, valid, and important.
I am right there with you in this experience.
Because World Childless Week is about raising awareness, I am asking the rePro-Truth Community to read the paper linked here.👇
The paper illuminates some of the aspects of being involuntarily childless. While the paper focuses on several women in Evangelical communities, their experiences coupled with the research and experiential overview of involuntary childless offer a deep and meaningful opportunity to understand your own feelings and experiences, to understand what your loved one is going through and learn how to better support them, and to question the grip which antiquated, cultural and gendered scripts continue to have on us all.
I will be publishing a very personal article on this topic next week.👀
Many thanks to you!
S. Paige Rogers
World Childless Week. (n.d.). https://worldchildlessweek.net/