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Other Than Mother - Choosing Childlessness with Life in Mind: A Private Decision With Global Consequences
Choosing to have children is a private decision with global consequences. Other Than Mother explores the decision-making process around not having children. It is in three parts: Part I "The Worldly Winds" explores the backdrop to deciding whether or not to have children, including the cultural changes brought about by a rise in voluntary/intentional childlessness. Part II "A Private Decision with Global Consequences" explores the pros and cons in the decision-making process, including ecological and environmental considerations. Part III "New Horizons and Baby-sized Projects" explores living with the decision.
288 pages, Paperback
Published April 29, 2016
About the author
Kamalamani
4 books8 followersEmma Palmer works as a body psychotherapist, ecopsychologist, supervisor, facilitator, trainer, and author living and working in Bristol, England. Under her previous name, Kamalamani, she has authored three books: 'Other than mother: Choosing childlessness with life in mind', 'Meditating with character', and 'Bodywise: weaving somatic psychotherapy, ecodharma and the Buddha in everyday life' also on Goodreads. In 2018 she co-edited with Dr. Deborah Lee and wrote a chapter for '#MeToo: Counsellors and Psychotherapists speak about sexual violence and abuse.'
As well as book-writing, she writes a regular column for 'Somatic Psychotherapy Today' and is former editor of 'Transformations', a publication of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR), and a former steering group member. Her articles have also appeared in 'Therapy Today' (journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy - BACP), Psychotherapy & Politics International (published by Wiley International), 'Self and Society' (the International journal for Humanistic Psychology), 'Transformations' (the journal of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility), and 'Indra's Net' (journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists.
Emma has been practising Buddhism since her early 20s. She enjoys meditating and facilitating Buddhist study and practice, particularly in the areas of ecodharma and the ecopsychology, applying age-old practices to contemporary life and work. She gives public talks, retreats and trainings in ecopsychology and 'Wild Therapy'. Prior to training as a therapist she worked with small and micro enterprises on sustainable development projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In parallel she lectured at the Universities of Bristol and Gloucestershire and worked as a family business trainer and facilitator, working with families going through transitions. She continues to work as a director in her family business.
@emmapalmer2018
https://www.facebook.com/emmapalmer2018/
As well as book-writing, she writes a regular column for 'Somatic Psychotherapy Today' and is former editor of 'Transformations', a publication of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR), and a former steering group member. Her articles have also appeared in 'Therapy Today' (journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy - BACP), Psychotherapy & Politics International (published by Wiley International), 'Self and Society' (the International journal for Humanistic Psychology), 'Transformations' (the journal of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility), and 'Indra's Net' (journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists.
Emma has been practising Buddhism since her early 20s. She enjoys meditating and facilitating Buddhist study and practice, particularly in the areas of ecodharma and the ecopsychology, applying age-old practices to contemporary life and work. She gives public talks, retreats and trainings in ecopsychology and 'Wild Therapy'. Prior to training as a therapist she worked with small and micro enterprises on sustainable development projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In parallel she lectured at the Universities of Bristol and Gloucestershire and worked as a family business trainer and facilitator, working with families going through transitions. She continues to work as a director in her family business.
@emmapalmer2018
https://www.facebook.com/emmapalmer2018/
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 21, 2021
‘There have been times in the past when I have winced at hearing a child call “Mummy!” knowing that person will not be me. Yet there has also more latterly been a sense of growing freedom in roaming new horizons.’
This is an invaluable book. It is clearly and deliberately aimed at women, those who are already considering, or who are living with the fact of, not having children. It is not, as might be assumed, a devaluing of motherhood, or children, or the nuclear family. It is, maybe unexpectedly, a celebration of life – just from a new angle. Kamalamani says, ‘As much as being about whether or not to bear children, this book is about life … It is not about a lack of something, which the word “childless” can so often denote, particularly in the context of childlessness being judged harshly. It is not about negating or disapproving of life and those who wish to procreate. Essentially, it is about consciousness and honouring the children who are already on the planet and those who are yet to arrive, welcoming them as fully as we are able.’
I feel like this is a discussion that everyone should have earlier than we do at present. I realise that choosing not to have children impacts women much more than men, not least as a social stigma, but I think it’s something that men would gain much from talking about too. Kamalamani says ‘I am not sure I can write a very meaningful piece aimed at men… I cannot write … from the experience of having a man’s body and a man’s conditioning,’ but as a man I found the book extremely enlightening, I think she may underestimate this.
Kamalamani covers every conceivable aspect of the topic, for example how the concept of family may change as increasing numbers of people choose not to have children, aunts would have a greater role in the lives of their nieces and nephews. The global impact of an ever increasing human population. The fact that some people are just not that interested in being a parent.
Although Kamalamani draws on the work of many other authors, the book is tied together by the thread of her exploration of her own life and her own changing views of being without children. This changes what could have been a rather dry and academic work into something very relatable and personal. Particularly revealing of my own thoughts on becoming a father is chapter 13, where she goes over all the reasons whether or not to be a parent, reasons such as people tell her she would make a good mother, or that it would be the most meaningful thing one could do with one’s life.
She is very influenced by her Buddhist belief. As a person without faith, surrounded by people of different faiths, I put a lot of store in this. I grew up in an England that was almost aggressively atheist, and from this point in my life this seems like a great shame. Those with faith, in my experience, are more considered and considerate people. I wish it were possible for me to make the leap. However, though I think Kamalamani’s Buddhism adds a valuable perspective, occasionally it jarred. She quotes Dr. Brenda Shoshanna, a psychologist and zen practitioner, who says ‘the homeless man on the street is just as precious as our own child.’ Maybe I’ve misunderstood, I mean I understand it in the abstract sense of the universal value of human life, but not on a personal level.
I never wanted children, then I hit 27 and suddenly I wanted a dozen, it was a very odd experience, emotional tectonic plates shifting inside me. It is interesting that it was at age 27 Kamalamani came to the realisation that having children was a choice, not an inevitability. She decided to experiment with the provisional decision not to have children. My head was full of television ads of smiling babies on cotton pillows, and the words ‘happiest day of my life.’ I became a father in my early thirties, but it was not as I imagined.
The reality was two miscarriages which ended in a bloody mess in the toilet, a labour of 22 hours that was horrifically painful and dangerous, and then a baby that would scream intensely whenever I got within a metre of him. Kamalamani quotes a statistic that half of all women do not feel an immediate sense of love for their babies. So if you feel like that it’s normal, not sociopathic – why is this not in the baby books?
The first few years of parenthood were tedium interspersed with dealing with shit and vomit. None of this ranked as the ‘happiest day of my life,’ and when I talked to other parents it seemed they all had similar experiences. None of it was the soft focus tv commercials of sunshine and giggles.
Once my son was able to talk things transformed, and now he’s a teenager and I love him more than ever. But that’s not to say that the whole experience of having a baby, as it’s presented in society and in the media, is not one massive lie. And talking to friends around me who are either single or in a couple without children, it’s impossible to say there’s a right choice. Each of these ways of living have advantages and disadvantages. Having children makes life fundamentally different, but not superior. I feel like that’s never made clear.
I like this quote Kamalamani chose from Irena Klepfisz:
‘There are pleasures that one gives up when one decides not to have children. But as I keep telling myself: You cannot have everything. Choices have to be made, and consequences have to be lived with. The act of choosing inevitably brings loss. It is a difficult lesson to understand and accept. I keep trying to relearn it.’
Like (thankfully) most parents, I am happy I decided to become a father. My son is truly my pride and joy. On a selfish level, being a father led me to teaching, which is unlikely to have happened otherwise, and even though I’m starting late it is the most fulfilling and enjoyable job I’ve ever had. As for the experience of parenthood, Kamalamani includes a poem by Kahlil Gibran which expresses all my feelings about it:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
I always imagined that children would be an amalgamation of the traits of their father and mother. But they aren’t, they are utterly separate individuals in their own right, not little clones. I think this is what the Shoshanna quote may mean, what the thread running through the book is, that being a parent is not just a personal choice, not just about what it means about you, how it will change you. It’s the responsibility of bring another self-contained human being into the world. Or not.
This is an invaluable book. It is clearly and deliberately aimed at women, those who are already considering, or who are living with the fact of, not having children. It is not, as might be assumed, a devaluing of motherhood, or children, or the nuclear family. It is, maybe unexpectedly, a celebration of life – just from a new angle. Kamalamani says, ‘As much as being about whether or not to bear children, this book is about life … It is not about a lack of something, which the word “childless” can so often denote, particularly in the context of childlessness being judged harshly. It is not about negating or disapproving of life and those who wish to procreate. Essentially, it is about consciousness and honouring the children who are already on the planet and those who are yet to arrive, welcoming them as fully as we are able.’
I feel like this is a discussion that everyone should have earlier than we do at present. I realise that choosing not to have children impacts women much more than men, not least as a social stigma, but I think it’s something that men would gain much from talking about too. Kamalamani says ‘I am not sure I can write a very meaningful piece aimed at men… I cannot write … from the experience of having a man’s body and a man’s conditioning,’ but as a man I found the book extremely enlightening, I think she may underestimate this.
Kamalamani covers every conceivable aspect of the topic, for example how the concept of family may change as increasing numbers of people choose not to have children, aunts would have a greater role in the lives of their nieces and nephews. The global impact of an ever increasing human population. The fact that some people are just not that interested in being a parent.
Although Kamalamani draws on the work of many other authors, the book is tied together by the thread of her exploration of her own life and her own changing views of being without children. This changes what could have been a rather dry and academic work into something very relatable and personal. Particularly revealing of my own thoughts on becoming a father is chapter 13, where she goes over all the reasons whether or not to be a parent, reasons such as people tell her she would make a good mother, or that it would be the most meaningful thing one could do with one’s life.
She is very influenced by her Buddhist belief. As a person without faith, surrounded by people of different faiths, I put a lot of store in this. I grew up in an England that was almost aggressively atheist, and from this point in my life this seems like a great shame. Those with faith, in my experience, are more considered and considerate people. I wish it were possible for me to make the leap. However, though I think Kamalamani’s Buddhism adds a valuable perspective, occasionally it jarred. She quotes Dr. Brenda Shoshanna, a psychologist and zen practitioner, who says ‘the homeless man on the street is just as precious as our own child.’ Maybe I’ve misunderstood, I mean I understand it in the abstract sense of the universal value of human life, but not on a personal level.
I never wanted children, then I hit 27 and suddenly I wanted a dozen, it was a very odd experience, emotional tectonic plates shifting inside me. It is interesting that it was at age 27 Kamalamani came to the realisation that having children was a choice, not an inevitability. She decided to experiment with the provisional decision not to have children. My head was full of television ads of smiling babies on cotton pillows, and the words ‘happiest day of my life.’ I became a father in my early thirties, but it was not as I imagined.
The reality was two miscarriages which ended in a bloody mess in the toilet, a labour of 22 hours that was horrifically painful and dangerous, and then a baby that would scream intensely whenever I got within a metre of him. Kamalamani quotes a statistic that half of all women do not feel an immediate sense of love for their babies. So if you feel like that it’s normal, not sociopathic – why is this not in the baby books?
The first few years of parenthood were tedium interspersed with dealing with shit and vomit. None of this ranked as the ‘happiest day of my life,’ and when I talked to other parents it seemed they all had similar experiences. None of it was the soft focus tv commercials of sunshine and giggles.
Once my son was able to talk things transformed, and now he’s a teenager and I love him more than ever. But that’s not to say that the whole experience of having a baby, as it’s presented in society and in the media, is not one massive lie. And talking to friends around me who are either single or in a couple without children, it’s impossible to say there’s a right choice. Each of these ways of living have advantages and disadvantages. Having children makes life fundamentally different, but not superior. I feel like that’s never made clear.
I like this quote Kamalamani chose from Irena Klepfisz:
‘There are pleasures that one gives up when one decides not to have children. But as I keep telling myself: You cannot have everything. Choices have to be made, and consequences have to be lived with. The act of choosing inevitably brings loss. It is a difficult lesson to understand and accept. I keep trying to relearn it.’
Like (thankfully) most parents, I am happy I decided to become a father. My son is truly my pride and joy. On a selfish level, being a father led me to teaching, which is unlikely to have happened otherwise, and even though I’m starting late it is the most fulfilling and enjoyable job I’ve ever had. As for the experience of parenthood, Kamalamani includes a poem by Kahlil Gibran which expresses all my feelings about it:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
I always imagined that children would be an amalgamation of the traits of their father and mother. But they aren’t, they are utterly separate individuals in their own right, not little clones. I think this is what the Shoshanna quote may mean, what the thread running through the book is, that being a parent is not just a personal choice, not just about what it means about you, how it will change you. It’s the responsibility of bring another self-contained human being into the world. Or not.
July 26, 2017
Well written and insightful. There were lots of wee nuggets in the book that were personally useful. For me, the book was thought provoking, tear inducing, and healing.
April 18, 2022
Kamalamani is a Buddhist priest from the UK who has chosen not to have children. In this book, she looks at the reasons why one might choose a childfree life and how one makes that decision. There is a lot of brilliance here about the childfree life. There is also a lot about Buddhism that is interesting but has minimal connection to the topic. This book is well-written, heavily referenced, and adds new ideas to the discussion, especially about whether our trouble planet needs any more people and whether remaining childfree might be the best response. Women trying to decide whether or not to become mothers may find it helpful.
August 30, 2024
This is a lovely and thoughtful book for anyone seeking resolution on whether to be childfree or not. Guiding readers through a contemplative and reflective decision-making process, it is divided into three parts. Part I explores the backdrop to this decision on whether or not to have children, including the cultural changes brought about by a rise in voluntary/intentional childlessness; Part II looks at the pros and cons in the decision-making process, including ecological and environmental considerations; and Part III examines living with the decision. Written by the childfree psychotherapist and Buddhist, Emma Palmer (also known as Kamalamani), it tackles issues such as the pro-natal nature of our society, the stereotyping of those without children and the growing phenomenon of being childfree.
It also explores the parenthood decision from an eco-psychological point of view; acknowledging the impact of pro-natalism on the world and other life forms in our damaging anthropocentric age. This aspect is where the book best reaches out beyond just being a book for childfree people - there are concerns and topics here of love for the planet and love for all living things that speak to parents and non-parents, the childless and the childfree. Emma's suggestions around alternative ways to express love and 'parent' within the world, without further contributing to its destruction, are touching and deeply relevant for our current times.
It also explores the parenthood decision from an eco-psychological point of view; acknowledging the impact of pro-natalism on the world and other life forms in our damaging anthropocentric age. This aspect is where the book best reaches out beyond just being a book for childfree people - there are concerns and topics here of love for the planet and love for all living things that speak to parents and non-parents, the childless and the childfree. Emma's suggestions around alternative ways to express love and 'parent' within the world, without further contributing to its destruction, are touching and deeply relevant for our current times.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews