You can be a mother in more ways than one
You don’t need to give birth to play a loving, nurturing role in someone’s life
I always thought I’d be a mother. I’m the eldest of seven — with approximately 12,000 aunts, uncles and cousins. Having children is what our family does. I was going to have one: Frankie. A great name for a boy or a girl, I thought.
But it didn’t happen. I’m what’s called “childless by circumstance” (or CbC). I was never in a relationship long or strong enough to hold children.
One-in-five women reaches age 45 without bearing children. While 10 per cent are childless by choice (these women are “child free”), 10 per cent are childless due to infertility, and 80 per cent are CbC, like me.
My mother died when I was 22 and my dad died in front of me 20 years later. And that grief, that suffocating pain, that devastation that would have me gurgling with tears on the Northern Line, was nothing compared with the loss I feel over the baby I never had.
Earlier this year, actress Jennifer Aniston opened up about the “reckless assumptions” that people make: “No one knows what’s going on behind closed doors. No one considers how sensitive that might be ...” she told In Style. “There is a pressure on women to be mothers, and if they’re not, then they’re deemed damaged goods.”
The deepest loss of not being a mother comes from not being able to mother — to give and receive love, warmth, knowledge, life.
But then I heard the actress Kim Cattrall on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour say: “I am not a biological parent, but I am a parent. I have young actors that I mentor. I have nieces and nephews that I’m close to.”
I wanted to crush-hug her. The childless are made to feel less. Cattrall showed she’s not — she unapologetically owns her life. She made my brain and heart click: I mother people, too. I don’t have to be a mother to do that.
My mother died 30 years ago at age 40 and my youngest sibling was only two years old. My sister was still living at home, so she played a strong maternal role with the babies, but as the eldest, I feel I’m now the matriarch of the family. I love them. I’m proud of them, I talk incessantly about them, and a photo of us all together is my “wallet” photo.
I’m maternal with my six nieces and nephews. They all have great relationships with their mothers — but my relationship with them is an important one, too. I’m the bridge between friend and parent; they can talk to me honestly, and will get a onestep detached but loving response.
I hope I give them solid advice and support with everything from love, life, careers and clothes.
My niece, Elly, 20, regularly comes to stay with me. Another niece, Billie, 23, will always call me when she’s upset. We make each other howl with laughter.
I now realize how maternal I felt with my uncle, Roycie, last year. Talking to oncologists for him when his lung cancer was diagnosed three months previously, sleeping in his hospital room with him during his last days, and holding him to me and singing to him as he died.
I’m also maternal with young people I’m not related to. I’m a keen mentor and I have met the most amazing young people through my show on Soho Radio. I respond to their every achievement like a proud mom and I hope that being a 52-year-old who is still “relevant” is a great “there are no rules” lesson.
I offer a non-judgmental ear and lots of life experience — bad life experience, too, which brings compassion and understanding. If you’ve suffered the level of sadness I have and survived, then you really do “find yourself.”
I get so much from non-mother mothering. I get to give and receive love. I get warmth, respect and joy. And I get a sense of belonging and value that’s sometimes very hard to find.
I’m now a godmother — to Elisa. When her mother, my cousin, Little Julia, asked me, I cried. That word “mother” is still so powerful, and I’m so excited to help shape this gorgeous child’s life and to offer moral guidance.
That I wore leopard print to her christening gives a hint to the direction I’ll take her. The kid’s got the best non-mother ever.