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Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent
In Aotearoa the number of people who will never have children is growing — and they’re pushing back against the narrative that if they don’t, their lives will be somehow ‘less than’.
Otherhood’s essays are by writers who’ve felt on the outside looking in, who’ve lived unexpected lives and who’ve given the finger to social expectations. Some chose to be childfree, some didn’t get to choose and some — through bereavement or blended family dynamics — ask themselves: Am I a mother or am I other?
Thought-provoking, moving and often hilarious, Otherhood opens a more inclusive conversation about what makes a fulfilling life.
Otherhood’s essays are by writers who’ve felt on the outside looking in, who’ve lived unexpected lives and who’ve given the finger to social expectations. Some chose to be childfree, some didn’t get to choose and some — through bereavement or blended family dynamics — ask themselves: Am I a mother or am I other?
Thought-provoking, moving and often hilarious, Otherhood opens a more inclusive conversation about what makes a fulfilling life.
303 pages, Paperback
Published May 9, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
May 26, 2024
Really really loved this- such a wide range of stories, people and moods. People who don’t want or can’t have children, queer trans and disabled voices, people who have lost children, foster parents, etc… each one with a great challenge to what we think of when we think of children and family.
Each story had such a clear voice and feeling to it. One to savour, and really glad to read it at this point of my life.
Very privileged to read my good friend Raina Ng’s work in here too. You really feel the bravery in the openness of all of these works.
Each story had such a clear voice and feeling to it. One to savour, and really glad to read it at this point of my life.
Very privileged to read my good friend Raina Ng’s work in here too. You really feel the bravery in the openness of all of these works.
August 5, 2024
4.8/5. Basically every essay left me moved. Can’t recommend enough.
July 20, 2025
Aren't people creative? Aren't people amazing? This was such a detailed collection of stories and lived experiences; I felt I resonated with some essays more than others (which is the case with a set of stories like this one).
no other words, just thanks for sharing to all the authors.
no other words, just thanks for sharing to all the authors.
October 15, 2024
Currently surrounded by what feels like every second person having babies which has got me questioning all the things and what motherhood means so it was good timing for me to find this book. A thought provoking collection of short stories. Everyone should read this.
May 24, 2024
Inhaled this gorgeous essay collection. Highly recommend to anyone and everyone really!
Some of the essays made me cry, many made me laugh, and the thoughts / feelings explored are so very relatable and refreshing to read about in a world that finds it very odd if you don’t have a child after a certain age, and perhaps make assumptions about that… a book I will gift to many friends, assuming they don’t already have a copy!
Some of the essays made me cry, many made me laugh, and the thoughts / feelings explored are so very relatable and refreshing to read about in a world that finds it very odd if you don’t have a child after a certain age, and perhaps make assumptions about that… a book I will gift to many friends, assuming they don’t already have a copy!
January 7, 2025
A beautiful book of essays. A perfect read for someone in their 30s, when it feels like so many people around me are having babies! Some very important stories included in this collection. I was given the chance to explore perspectives I had never considered before. I’m proud that this book exists.
May 11, 2024
5 stars for me.
Every single essay is utterly amazing. This is a must read. A combo of heart, pain and humour.
Every single essay is utterly amazing. This is a must read. A combo of heart, pain and humour.
August 26, 2024
Extremely thought-provoking read
August 30, 2024
Must read for all humans, regardless of who you are & where you’re at. It doesn’t argue for or against kids, it just opens you up to a kaleidoscopic collection of experiences that are so much more diverse than I could have imagined.
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January 11, 2025This was a really thoughtful collection of essays about how bananas and patriarchal pro-natal norms are, and how normal but painful it can be to not narrowly fit within them. A worthwhile read!
November 25, 2024
This is the book I’ve longed to read for years! Beautiful, funny and heartbreaking, so many brilliantly written honest stories.
June 8, 2024
so affirming
December 6, 2024
Nice to read some broader representation on the topic of being childless/childfree/child adjacent.
March 24, 2025
I’m so glad this book exists to give validity to different experiences than the norm. I’m childfree-by-choice so I resonated with those essays especially but I also have experience through egg donation of infertility so those perspectives were relevant to me too. Highly recommend. I tried to eke it out but it was hard!
August 8, 2024
Thank you pals for the recommendations - this was a magical essay collection and I’m so glad I picked it up at this stage in my life. Some incredibly moving pieces and I learnt a lot and thought a lot. In line with my professed dislike of some people due to their memoirs, I thought a couple essays were grating, but everything else was an unexpected gift
July 18, 2025
This book was such a nuanced and layered insight into what it is to not be a mother, to not feel like you can call yourself a mother, and to want to be a mother to more when you aren’t able to.
I loved the way this collection of essays challenged me to think about experiences that weren’t my own and consider them in the complex question of what it is to be a mother and what a privilege it is to want to be one, especially without barriers of disability, infertility, or need for intervention to support the process. I am sure that every well meaning person that tells me it would be a crime for me not to have children doesn’t consider these factors that impact so many women. I know that people, myself included, don’t often consider the reality that 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
Stories of what it was like to lose children challenged the tired idea that you must have kids so that you aren’t lonely and so that there is someone to take care of you when you get old. But having a child and loosing them is expressed as a very powerful loneliness in the pages of this book, as well as something that no one can change or control.
This collection reminded me that we are at the mercy of life and life’s circumstances, despite what choices we make. It also reminded me that we are here on earth to live and try to love the way that we are living. There is no right or wrong to that, just many days, and many different memories, motherhood or otherhood regardless.
I loved the way this collection of essays challenged me to think about experiences that weren’t my own and consider them in the complex question of what it is to be a mother and what a privilege it is to want to be one, especially without barriers of disability, infertility, or need for intervention to support the process. I am sure that every well meaning person that tells me it would be a crime for me not to have children doesn’t consider these factors that impact so many women. I know that people, myself included, don’t often consider the reality that 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
Stories of what it was like to lose children challenged the tired idea that you must have kids so that you aren’t lonely and so that there is someone to take care of you when you get old. But having a child and loosing them is expressed as a very powerful loneliness in the pages of this book, as well as something that no one can change or control.
This collection reminded me that we are at the mercy of life and life’s circumstances, despite what choices we make. It also reminded me that we are here on earth to live and try to love the way that we are living. There is no right or wrong to that, just many days, and many different memories, motherhood or otherhood regardless.
July 10, 2024
Heart wrenching and warming. I commend the editors on including such a wide range of experiences of otherhood. Particularly compelling were stories about secondary infertility, loss of an only child to suicide, and choices made to be childfree due to trauma / mental health. The negative impact of religious upbringing on the experience of otherhood was an understandably reoccurring theme. I only wish that there was more diversity in these examples, e.g., where people made peace with their faith and their otherhood, rather than always inevitably deconstructing as if the two cannot coexist.
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December 19, 2025As is the case with most anthologies, it is hard to give this one a singular rating, so I won’t. I appreciate all the care that the editors and essayists put into this diverse and inclusive collection of essays and I am happy to have read it.
My favorite ones were The Addington House, My Favourite Girl, and DINKs on a plane.
My favorite ones were The Addington House, My Favourite Girl, and DINKs on a plane.
June 3, 2024
Superb and so important.
June 13, 2024
Well-considered and far-reaching. Confronting and thoughtful collection. It’s almost impossible to live a life completely without children and this digs into all those nuances and maybes and almosts.
June 26, 2024
Powerful and important.
April 5, 2026
From a woman who hasn’t birthed children, but has many many children I deeply love in my life this is a book of insight and extremely relatable stories.
I glad to have my child free life, while also having beautifully special children in my life.
I glad to have my child free life, while also having beautifully special children in my life.
December 22, 2024
Very timely read as a lot of people around me are currently having their first child or talking about it, whereas I don't see myself having a child any time soon (if ever). I would like to read this again in a few years to see how my thoughts have changed.
December 1, 2024
A really excellent collection of essays. As is natural with essay collections, some resonated with me more than others. Definitely something to delve into again in future
June 4, 2024
If I could give this book all the stars in the universe, I would.
August 11, 2024
This was a real ride. I've recommended it to several friends as we are all in our 30s and making big decisions (or not). Cool range of perspectives, if a couple were a bit random.
January 12, 2025
An interesting collection of variable quality, always going to be the case with multiple contributors. I kept reading, waiting for one that "fit" with my lived experience, but alas there's none. So for those in relationships, uncertain about children, it's a goody for reflection. For the sadly single, this ain't the book for us to find a home 😂 (which ironically feels right, considering the subject manner)
July 31, 2024
Some of the essays were too similar thematically but overall a really enjoyable and interesting collection.
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September 9, 2024Interesting stories touching on the subject of not having children in a world where women and mother are often used interchangeably. I would have appreciated more analysis.
October 10, 2026
Not much to say except that this resonated deeply with me. I’ll just reference some of my favourite quotes.
“if I wanted something, even if my body wouldn’t absolutely cooperate, even if the doctors told me it was impossible, I just needed to work really hard and I could make it happen.
This approach probably works perfectly well for many situations, but trying to conceive is profoundly not one of them. I was faced with a process that defied striving, defied effort, defied planning, control and expectations, and defied the deeply felt well-wishes of my friends and my parents. It defied my own breaking and broken fucking heart. I could not ‘effort’ this into happening. I could not ‘try harder’. ”
“‘I think I want to stop trying.’ And he says he thinks the same. We’re both crying. And I say, or I think, I just can’t live with the hope anymore. Because hope has become such a burden by now.”
“Most people who do IVF don’t get pregnant, but you don’t hear about that much. Every story you hear is about how awful it was, how difficult, how the embryos died and the sperm wasn’t viable and the relationship was strained and then — and then — it happened, and here they are, with their miracle baby, their miracle family. I never understood the true meaning of love until I had children. It’s something people say all the time. And I always think, Yeah, fuck you too.”
“Shame stems from the humiliation of having violated a social norm. Not because miscarriage isn’t normal — it is. Not because infertility isn’t normal — it is. But because we’re conditioned from childhood to believe that we’ll have children of our own. We sense that childlessness is strange and suspicious. Culture — like history — belongs to the victors, the dominant group.”
“I love my life, our life, as it is. Our quirks, in-jokes, small routines. The way we mark and shape our time and space as a family of two. The places we intersect, the places we overlap, and the places we hold separate from each other, but nevertheless care for on behalf of each other. The space we’ve created between us already feels replete. We are enough.”
“if I wanted something, even if my body wouldn’t absolutely cooperate, even if the doctors told me it was impossible, I just needed to work really hard and I could make it happen.
This approach probably works perfectly well for many situations, but trying to conceive is profoundly not one of them. I was faced with a process that defied striving, defied effort, defied planning, control and expectations, and defied the deeply felt well-wishes of my friends and my parents. It defied my own breaking and broken fucking heart. I could not ‘effort’ this into happening. I could not ‘try harder’. ”
“‘I think I want to stop trying.’ And he says he thinks the same. We’re both crying. And I say, or I think, I just can’t live with the hope anymore. Because hope has become such a burden by now.”
“Most people who do IVF don’t get pregnant, but you don’t hear about that much. Every story you hear is about how awful it was, how difficult, how the embryos died and the sperm wasn’t viable and the relationship was strained and then — and then — it happened, and here they are, with their miracle baby, their miracle family. I never understood the true meaning of love until I had children. It’s something people say all the time. And I always think, Yeah, fuck you too.”
“Shame stems from the humiliation of having violated a social norm. Not because miscarriage isn’t normal — it is. Not because infertility isn’t normal — it is. But because we’re conditioned from childhood to believe that we’ll have children of our own. We sense that childlessness is strange and suspicious. Culture — like history — belongs to the victors, the dominant group.”
“I love my life, our life, as it is. Our quirks, in-jokes, small routines. The way we mark and shape our time and space as a family of two. The places we intersect, the places we overlap, and the places we hold separate from each other, but nevertheless care for on behalf of each other. The space we’ve created between us already feels replete. We are enough.”
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews