Others Like Me
The Lives of Women Without Children
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- £5.49
Publisher Description
'A must-read for everyone' Stylist
'Tender, emotive and quietly revelatory' Irish Times
'A vital work' Stella Duffy
In a world that expects all women to become mothers, what happens to those who circumvent motherhood?
Now and throughout history, women without children have been misunderstood and even vilified for not conforming to the prescriptive path of daughter, wife, mother, whether by choice, circumstance or ambivalence. But with an increasing number of people choosing to forego children, Nicole Louie knew she was not alone. As she recounts her own journey towards embracing a life without children, Louie weaves in stories from the women around the world she found in her search for community and guidance, from their pasts to their presents to their hopes for the future.
Others Like Me is a candid, tender and distinctive exploration of how fourteen women found fulfilment and flourished outside of motherhood, upending stereotypes and offering reassurance and recognition down a much-treaded but lesser-known track.
'Deeply felt and deeply researched, books like this will help women decide what is right for them' Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
'An uplifting read about finding fulfilment outside of motherhood' The Gloss
'With candour and self-reflection, Louie takes us on her journey to a deeper understanding of wanting a life that does not include motherhood' Laura Carroll
'An important, beautiful, self-excavating memoir about female autonomy told with great tenderness' Nuala O'Connor
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Essayist Louie debuts with an introspective memoir exploring her decision not to have children and recapping the stories of other women who made the same choice. Louie presents brief, stylized first-person vignettes drawn from interviews with 14 other childless women, who offer up an intriguing range of rationales—among them a lack of maternal urge, a passion for other experiences, asexuality, their own difficult upbringings, and medical conditions—as well as sharp insights into both childlessness and parenthood ("There is of course more freedom without children, but being single takes a lot of time in other ways. Everything is done by one person, there is no sharing of responsibilities... I sometimes wonder if those who are parents are truly selfless"; "I do wonder how this is going to affect me in the future... I try to save money. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist society, so a part of me thinks, Well, if I have money, I'll probably be all right"). However, the lion's share of the book is devoted to Louie's own experiences—including the dissolution of her marriage, partly due to conflict over having a child—which are narrated in a far more sprawling and less refined way, making for a jarring contrast that is also short on insight. Readers will be left unsatisfied.
