The Reclamation of Legacy: Journeying Through Grief and Praise as a Childfree, Middle-Aged Woman

Abstract

What rights to legacy can the childfree woman claim in middle age? Can childfree, middle-aged women embrace waves of loss regarding legacy and family lineage in such a way that adds legitimacy to their life choices and callings, resulting in increased joy and praise around their childfree identities embedded within an ancestral line of mothers? These questions are explored through the author’s reflections on her own journey through grief and loss as a childfree, cisgender, heterosexual woman, which is an identity that is often disenfranchised and pathologized in pronatalist culture. An invitation is offered to revision grief and mourning as hosts to a deeper sense of joy, a robust connection to lineage, and the enrichment of self-identity for childfree women in middle age and beyond.