Patricia Faulks set up her blog, Lilley and Me, during Covid lockdowns to share the story of ageing alone with childlessness and the challenges that brings including learning how to use her computer and Zoom calls. Denise Jackson returns to the podcast to talk about bias around money saving having challenged UK money expert Martin Lewis to tackle solo households.

Patricia and Denise cover so much ground here that applies not just to childless people but to those who are creating online environments and apps as we discuss digital exclusion. They also discuss bias and exclusion around power of attorney, the cost of living crisis, human rights and make a call for more support and awareness. 

We cover the difficulties of Mother’s Day and daily life with our guests Ken and Lisa. We talk about society’s perception of being a step parent both within the childless community and outside it. We ask about the problems of language and how that affects the sense of place in a family.

We’d like to introduce you to Anastasia MacDonald who many of you may already know from her constant and reassuring presence online. We gather to talk about how the menopause affects us as the childless not by choice community. Is it a relief? A time of mourning and what’s it like on the other side?

We’d like to introduce you to our guests who are rather marvellous company, as you’ll find out in our 47th episode. Mike Sparks restores vintage electrics (yes, we also through he has a great name!) and teaches water skiing, how this two areas of his life come about? Caroline Stafford sells gorgeous biscuits and she talks about how she came to create a baking business. Also joining us is Vicky House who founded Clem’s Garden which we’ve long loved, and she explains her vision andher boundaries.

In this episode we were joined by your words. We were delighted to receive messages from our community which we’ve shared with you. And it was a chance for the three of us to reveal our themes for 2023, ask if you’d like be a guest and a little on how we’ve grown over 2022.

More people are childless due to being single than any other reason but it’s not spoken about. Are we in danger of creating bingos in our childless community and how can we support each other? These were all questions we put to our guests Elaine and Penny. Listen for their answers.

In episode 44, we were joined by Charlie Bishop, Palo Barker and Steph Penny. Often the wider world can assume that the only reasons we do not have children are failed IVF, failed adoption or didn't try. This narrative excludes many for whom getting pregnant can be life threatening. Charlie, Palo and Steph all spoke about how invisible illnesses can compound and complete the unseen grief of not having children.

Annie first appeared on our podcast in episode 2, way back in 2019. In episode 42, she joins us again as The Hollow Sea is published with Michael Joseph. She shares the experience of Pengin’s Write Now programme, agents and the experience of being published.

In Episode 41, meet Rob Hutchings, a seasoned endurance athlete and author of Downriver Nomad. In his autobiography, Rob tells tales of his nomadic adventures in triathlon, marathon swimming and sports, navigating hairpin bends, whirlpools and white-water rapids and the pain of childlessness.

In Episode 40, we were honoured to share spacing with Katy Seppi who joined us in early June to talk about the forthcoming Childless Collective Summit. It’s happening again on 14-17th July. Join us as we meet Katy and discuss the event and creating communities for people.

In this episode we were joined by Katy Schnitzler who is a trainer, researcher and lecturer, studying for a PhD. She’s doing amazing work as the founder of MIST (Miscarriage & Infertility Support Training) providing workshops and information for businesses who want to support employees who are struggling with miscarriage, infertility and childlessness, and give them advice on creating a balanced workplace.

Join us - Sarah, Michael and Berenice - as our guests turn the tables on us. We were not able to have an in-person party because of COVID and travel restrictions across the world, so we set up an open house with Jody Day, Robin Hadley, Sarah Roberts, Victoria Firth, Yvonne John and Lesley Pyne, with a special message from our podcast inspiration, Civilla Morgan.

When Jody asked us if she could celebrate 10 years of Gateway Women with The Full Stop podcast, we were delighted. All three of us are proud to call Jody a friend and an inspiration.

Gateway Women means a lot to Sarah and Berenice who have been members for many years and the model and thinking of the community has inspired Michael who has seen great change.

This episode actually began as an ‘admin’ chat! We hit record and we realised there might be a few nuggets of wisdom. Join us as we riff about screen sharing, Covid in our countries (we do get a bit emotive here, and this was recorded in early February so the statistics have changed), handling Zoom meetings and boundaries.

We are delighted to share with you, our next episode with Kate Kaufmann in another cross-continent broadcast - we get very excited about making connections across the world! We’ve called this episode Navigation because Kate, for us, is a fantastic voice for our community, not just through her book Do you Have Kids, Life When the Answer is No, but in the many articles she has published, as a World Childless Week Champion and a good friend to many of us.

In this episode we were joined by Victoria Firth and Meriel Whale as we continue to explore the the unheard voices in our community. We wanted to explore what it means to be LGBTQI+ and involuntarily childless. Trigger: This episode discusses alternative parenting including adoption and IVF.

In this episode Michael, Sarah and Berenice were joined by Meriel Whale to talk about Mental Health as the world pauses to acknowledge World Mental Health Day. We would like to make you aware that this episode does contain mention of suicide and therefore may not be suitable for everyone to listen to.

Sarah Lawrence hosted this episode and asked some amazing questions which inspired Steph, Jody Day, Robin Hadley, Rod Silvers, Vicky Page, Anne Barratt, Karin Enfield De Vries, Yvonne Maier, Bibi Lynch and Yvonne John to talk about what World Childless Week means to them and the community. We also lingered on the big issues that challenges us and themes to tackle for the future.

In this episode we talked about Writing It Down with Tessa Broad who chatted to us about her experiences of writing Dear You and Lesley Pyne, author of Finding Joy Beyond Childlessness. Plus we’re running a competition to win a copy of Lesley’s book! Read on for more details…

In this episode we talked about Writing it Down with Dr Lorna Gibb who shared her experiences of writing and researching Childless Voices and Dr Annie Kirby, winner of the Asham Award 2005 and author, spoke to us about plans for her creative writing workshops for our community.