Grandchild freedom and grandchildlessness – an introduction

Over the past few years, articles have started appearing online discussing child freedom. Communities have started to develop, and people who identify as childfree are describing their experiences and the reasons for their choice not to have kids. 

For the uninitiated, and because this article is going to build off of this concept, “childfree” means “to choose not to have children”. It’s distinct from childlessness, which is the experience of not having children even though they’re wanted. Childlessness can be divided into childlessness due to infertility and childlessness due to circumstance (e.g. holding back from having children because the parents don’t yet have the financial stability to raise kids).

While childfreedom and childlessness tend to be lumped in together (due to the fact that, either way, the person doesn’t have children), the autonomy involved in each one reveals a very different story, and childfree vs. childless communities can be very different spaces.

That’s been discussed elsewhere, but for this article, I’d like to discuss a related issue, one generation ‘up’: grandchild freedom and grandchildlessness.

Let’s do a deep dive.

Grandchild-free

The contraceptive pill, and the reproductive control that it represented for women, became publicly available in the UK via the NHS in 1961. The pill may have had a powerful impact on the culture of the time (and it’s been pivotal in shaping our culture since), but tradition can be a powerful influence: many women still had children anyway. The average age of a first-time mother in 1960 was 24-25. 

Those women will now be around age 85. 

Some women will have had their fill of parenthood by the time their children reach adulthood, and hope that their kids don’t have kids of their own. Assumptions can be made that the parents of adult children eagerly await grandkids and will form the core of the famous “village”, whether they really want to or not. 

If you’re a parent of adult children and are crossing your fingers that they don’t have kids because you don’t want to have to deal with any more ankle-biters, then you’re not alone.

Plenty of parents want grandchildren – for them, watching the next generation be born and grow up is one of the pleasures of having a family. Good for them. However, if you don’t feel the same way, then having a friendship group who are on the edges of their seats waiting to become grandparents may leave you feeling like you don’t fit in. You may feel even more so when those friends actually get grandkids. 

This echoes the experience that both childfree and childless folk have: many of the people in our friendship networks have children, and when they do, a rift forms in the friendship. Even friends who agree before the baby comes that they’ll both work on keeping their friendship alive can be caught off guard by how much of an impact the baby has. 

Having a stable friendship network matters, and that’s why community is just as important for grandchild-free folk as for childfree folk. Grandchild-free folk can’t join childfree communities as they have children, so they need their own communities.

Perhaps, in a few years’ time, when grandchild-free communities are as well-established as childfree ones, the two can mix. That could be a wonderfully affirming, powerful combination! Until then, I believe they need careful nurturing separately.

Reluctant grandparents

There also needs to be space for reluctant grandparents. It’s inevitable that some parents were quite enjoying being grandchild-free… right up until the grandchildren arrived. This sort of extra nuance is why grandchild freedom deserves its own language, articles, and communities. 

What is one to do with the grandchildren when you didn’t want them? Grit your teeth and try to get to know them? Be honest with their parents that you don’t want much (or perhaps anything) to do with them? It’s a delicate situation that deserves a place of safety to explore, and that’s what I’m proposing to be developed.

Grandchildless

Grandchildlessness bears similarities to childlessness, only with the difference that a grandchildless person wants grandchildren but doesn’t have them. Their child may be either childfree, childless by infertility, or childless by circumstance. It can be tempting to apply pressure to your children to have them, or at least try. Pressuring one’s adult children to reproduce is unethical and is very likely to damage your relationship with them, which makes this a painful situation all of its own. 

Mourning this situation, especially if the mourning is mixed with hope that one day the situation will change, also requires a secure space to explore and process your feelings. Perhaps cultivating a boundaried space like this will help preserve your relationship with your children.

Grandchildlessness due to sexual orientation

One reason that grandchildless folk may not have grandkids is if their children are LGBT+. Discovering that your child isn’t likely to follow the path you expected – to meet and marry their sweetheart, marry, and have children – may be an unhappy surprise. 

I want to emphasise here the difference between feelings that may come from a position of homophobia and those that come from grief that your children aren’t following a life trajectory that may have had a great deal of meaning to you. Grieving is a natural response to this. Homophobia can only damage your relationship with your children. This is another reason that a well-led grandchildless community may be much-needed.

Other complications

Further complications to all of the above may arise if your grandkids aren’t your own, but are step-grandkids. 

Another group of people who may want to join grandchild-free or grandchildless groups is estranged parents and grandparents. If you aren’t in touch with your adult children, whether it’s by their choice or your own, you may still feel attached to your real or potential grandkids. 

To finish this section on individual nuance, here’s a quote from a colleague and dear friend: 

“I see myself as childfree but grandchildless, i.e. don't want children, want grandchildren - which I realise might feel contradictory. I have a friend who married an older man with children and grandchildren. My friend's husband's children definitely do not see my friend as 'mother'. Although the grandchildren call my friend 'grandma', and of course, my friend was there from the beginning so she is the only grandma they've known. For me, this would be the ideal situation. And yet, I'm happily married to my partner, who is younger than me, and has no children or grandchildren."

- Alexandra, 45

Emotional impact

The emotional impact of grandchildlessness and grandchildfreedom is strikingly different. Grandchildlessness is very much marked by a sense of loss, and the precise nature of that loss can be nuanced for each person. Grandchildless folk may be grieving expectations not met, a change in the identity (or their understanding of the identity) of their adult children, of community with friends who are already grandparents, or they may not have contact with their grandchildren. Dr Mary Ellen Miller runs the Kindred Hearts Circle to offer support and a sense of community for this.

The best-known early literature on grief was delivered by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969. Her five stages of grief were tailored to processing feelings about one’s own mortality. This can be reflected in grieving for grandchildlessness

Grandchild freedom contrasts with this in that, while loss is part of the picture, the issue is more that the grandchild-free individual might lose touch with their peers as those peers become grandparents. When this happens, grandparents often want to talk about their grandchildren a lot. That’s understandable, and a wonderful illustration of their love for their newly extended family. However, this shift in the new grandparent’s focus can decenter the relationship between the grandparent and their grandchild-free friend, so the grandchild-free person can lose their sense of kinship with them.

As the core issue with grandchild freedom can often be the loss of community, the rebuilding of community is likely to resolve this. This is why these two communities resonate with such different energy.

The above exploration doesn’t by any means cover all of the circumstances that might lead a person to call themselves grandchildless or grandchildfree, but it should help illustrate why the emotional impact of each can be so different.

Who are you, anyway?

Grandchildless and grandchildfree folk tend to be older – you would struggle to find one under the age of 40, and most will be much older. This means that it’s very possible that any community you find might be led by somebody who lacks lived experience in either category. 

How do you feel about that? Do you feel you need somebody with similar life experience to you to lead the community, or are you content with a grandchildless or grandchild-free community to be led by someone who’s never been there but is an open book?

The meta quality of grandchild freedom and grandchildlessness – the lack of choice you ultimately have around whether you have grandkids or not – makes the membership of these two groups diverse, and in need of competent leadership. Peer-led groups can be wonderful spaces, but if you’re looking at joining either of the above communities, it’s worth asking yourself: are you content with a peer-led group, or do you think the space will be safer led by a professional? 

At the time of writing, grandchild-free and grandchildless communities are few and far between at best, but one is in development.

This article offers a guide to the language used around groups and what you can expect from each type.  

What about one-to-one counselling?

Groups can be wonderful sources of support, but sometimes counselling with a qualified professional is a more appropriate to your needs. 

For example, individual counselling is appropriate if your situation is difficult enough that you want a professional’s help to work through it effectively. The connection that develops from a one-to-one connection often runs far deeper than a connection with a group, and you may simply prefer depth over community. 

On a more pragmatic note, individual therapists are easier to book for a time convenient to you than a group, which must keep a fixed timetable, and confidentiality is easier to maintain when talking only with a counsellor as opposed to a group. 

I hope you got what you needed from this article. It’s intended to be an introduction, and I hope many will follow – including grandchild-free and grandchildless individuals of all genders and circumstances.