What Are You Going To Do With All That Wisdom?
Finding your passion and purpose is a life-saving accomplishment if you’re childless not by choice. And it should be celebrated.
If you’ve found your passion and purpose, it means you’ve put a whole lot of work into healing your heart, and that’s not easy.
It means you’ve done a whole lot of grieving, probably by yourself, but perhaps with the support of a partner or of another strong, childless woman.
It means you have a whole lot of love and wisdom bottled up inside of you that needs to get out. And trust me, there will be someone (probably plenty of someone’s) that desperately need to hear the particular wisdom that only you can share because you’re the only person who’s learned it in the way that you have.
My Passion, Purpose, and Crusade
I don’t know about you, but I’m always at my happiest when I have cause to fight for. It must fill some need in me, I guess, but I don’t think it’s tied up with my childlessness because I was fighting for causes before that was an issue.
The cause I’m fighting for now? It’s the same one I’ve been fighting for since I got my first job in mental health. I’m fighting to eliminate Depression and Anxiety from this world. There’s no need for either of these conditions to exist. They are completely unnecessary.
And I should know. Depression and I have been walking side by side since my childhood. Sometimes Depression’s been a couple of steps in front of me and sometimes a couple of steps behind me, but always with me.
So, how am I going to achieve this lofty goal? By telling my story. Loudly. And over and over again. I figure if enough of us Valtie women tell our stories, the rest of the world might start to get it.
They might start to realize that childless women have value and the very fact that they are childless means that they have learned skills that make them uniquely placed to teach the next generation some important stuff that parents can’t teach them. At least not as well as we can.
Is It Our Responsibility to Teach Someone Else’s Children?
Yup. I’m afraid it is. Nobody else can teach them what we know about resilience, grief, and tolerance. That’s why it’s our responsibility. Nobody knows better than us that you can’t make assumptions about other people’s lives. That we should all practice love and tolerance for those that are different from ourselves.
And most importantly, that every single person, on this earth, is important. It doesn’t matter what color you are, what gender you are, how you live your life, or whether or not you produce children. None of that stuff matters.
Children, whether yours or someone else’s, need to see adults treating other adults like they matter. And that starts with the very young. Our children, and I’m using that phrase deliberately (it takes a village after all), need to feel that they, their thoughts, their feelings, matter. Whatever those thoughts and feelings are.
That’s how you get rid of Depression. That’s how you get rid of Anxiety.
It Takes a Village to Change a Society
One of the many ways I describe myself is as a mentor and guide for women who are childless by circumstance and not by choice. I’m a Valtie, a valued, Valkyrie, Auntie who has achieved nearly 50 years on this earth without meeting an untimely death due to my own stupidity. Or any other reason for that matter.
What did those (nearly) 50 years give me? A whole lot of wisdom and experiences that I didn’t expect to have. Some of these were due to my childless status and some weren’t.
I don’t have any doubt though, that the path I’m on now is entirely due to being childless by circumstance. In fact, I believe that the reason I don’t have kids is so that I can travel this path.
My passion is writing, you can tell because, at the moment, I’m writing for my two blogs, as a freelance writer for other people, a non-fiction book about being a Valtie, and a Vampire novel about childless women.
But, I’m about to take it one step further. I’m creating an online community for readers and writers. It will be a place for people to tell their stories, safely. And with encouragement, help, and support.
It’s not just for childless women, it’s for anybody who has a passion for writing, reading, and or illustration. And there’s a special place there just for young people to learn, share and grow.
I would love for you to be part of this community, but if it’s not your thing, I’m still grateful you’ve read this far, and I hope you’ll help my crusade by sharing this link to as many people as you can.
We’re creating a village of strong, self-confident, and healthy people.
