by When a child’s birth is registered in Britain, the ONS takes fertility data for the child’s mother. This gives researchers all kinds of information about how motherhood changes women’s lives – whether or not they’re happier, physically healthier, or more likely to earn a higher wage.
But such records are not accepted for men. Because of this, no one knows exactly how many fathers there are in this country, but it is worth remembering how being a dad changes a man. You know even less about how not to be a dad when you want to have a family. This is a taboo subject that most men don’t know how to discuss.
As a 64-year-old childless man who always wanted children, here’s the truth: it’s a lonely and sometimes brutal experience. There is a certain sadness that comes with unintended childlessness, but men like me are assumed to be happy, and are always told that we are “free”. You won’t tell a woman the same thing. People look at you like you’re weird when you reveal that you’ve always dreamed of being a dad.
Before you assume I’m some desperate loner, you should know that I have the potential to be a father. I got married in my early 20s, to a woman who wanted children, but things didn’t work out between us and I was divorced before I turned 30 years old. I went into a relationship with another woman who wanted children with me, but we weren’t meant to be. It was in my late 30s that I met my wife, Maryan, to whom I have been happily married for the past 20 years.
My own father was in the middle of the road, not good but not particularly bad, either. By the time my 20s were over, I really wanted to give a child the kind of close parental connection I had always wanted. My 30s were a very stressful time – I was constantly thinking about how badly I wanted a family, and my jealousy of my friends with children grew and grew.
Because we don’t tend to put words to our horror, those feelings were confusing and distressing. In other areas of life too men are conditioned not to express their feelings. Keeping your emotions bottled up will take a toll on you psychologically. It should come as no surprise that childless men are, on average, angrier and more depressed.
As all of my friends were starting to have their first babies, I developed a strong sense of being “left behind” in some way. Fatherhood is also still associated with social status, so I began to feel less than my peers. It didn’t help that suddenly everyone my age couldn’t come to the pub with me after work or hang out with me at the weekend.
I clearly remember the moment I realized I would never be a dad: Maryan and I had just bought a house in Manchester, shortly before we got married, and I was wallpapering one of the bedrooms, where I thought only. our children could sleep one day. I felt all miserable – the wallpaper kept falling down, and one of my best friends had just become a dad, which felt like a reminder that I had fallen behind in life.
I called Maryan, who was in London for work, and told her how I was feeling. She said, “If you want children, you have to accept that it’s not going to happen to me.” Maryan also wanted very much to be a parent in her 30s, but her desire for children faded in her 40s. For one, she felt that as an older couple with less energy, we might not be able to cope with the work that a child with a life-limiting disability might require. This chance may increase after a woman reaches her mid-40s, when we would actually have our first child together.
You might ask me why I didn’t leave Maryan and try to find a younger woman, if children were so important to me. Men are told that this is always an option if you don’t have children by your mid-30s – there is no “biological clock” that can stop us. (That’s wishful thinking anyway: the chances of you being able to have a biological child diminish from your mid-30s onwards).
First of all, I was not willing to end a relationship with the person I loved for the prospect of having children with someone else. But by the time you are almost 40 years old, most of the younger women will not be interested in you. In reality, you won’t be interested in them as life partners, either.
By then I was friends with a lot of 20 somethings without kids, and I didn’t want to keep up with young people and their lifestyle of partying, drinking and doing drugs. I was ready to settle down and didn’t like the prospect of being in a relationship with someone 10 years younger than me.
It’s not easy either. Maryan and I considered it, but we would probably be adopting an older child whose background could be very difficult. If we knew we couldn’t properly care for a disabled child, how could we expect to be good parents to a potentially traumatized child, either?
Over time I got used to the idea that I would never be a dad, but that I still loved children. I find them interesting. I like to spend time with my friends’ children, even their teenagers, and it makes me happy to hear children playing on the street or in my neighborhood garden. For women, that’s expected, but sometimes men in my position who still love children are treated as if we don’t have good intentions.
That’s another layer of isolation as I get older, and so does the fact that some of my friends now, when I’m in my 60s, are becoming grandfathers. For a few years they had time to come out for lunch at the weekend, and while I’m over the moon for them and their families, it’s hard to see that camaraderie slowly disappear again.
That’s not to say I don’t have a good life. In addition to having a wonderful partner, my own experience with childlessness led me to a new career researching the effects of infertility and childlessness on men.
After being a trainee technician and then a technical photographer for Manchester University since leaving school at 16, with few qualifications, I decided to train as a consultant in 2003, when I was 43. At the end of my master’s. In counseling, in 2007, I had to write a thesis related to mental health, and I chose the topic of male infertility, because not much research had been done on its effects on men.
This led to a funded PhD at Keele University, where I looked at the impact of childlessness on men in their old age, when they may not have close family to look after them. Around one in five women in Britain are childless, but the figure for men is estimated to be around one in four, so this is an issue that affects us disproportionately.
The experiences of other men with childlessness, documented in my own research and in the work of others, showed me that I was far from alone in my 30s emotional turmoil – indeed, one study I led showed that men are just as likely to feel hurt as women.
Because of the stigma surrounding it, being involuntarily childless makes us men stronger: four in 10 childless men reported depression, compared to three in ten childless women, and twice as many men said that I interviewed felt a strong sense. of isolation.
Although I still wish I was a father, I’m glad I found a meaningful life to help explain the experiences of men with childlessness. I see him as a kind of parent, passing on what I’ve learned throughout my life about this topic that needs to be discussed for future generations, so that one day there will be more understanding of the issue. I hope that one day the stigma surrounding childlessness and male infertility will not be so stifling and we will be able to talk about the issue more freely.
As told by Lauren Shirreff
