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Childless: A Story of Freedom and Longing
I always wanted to have children. The earth might be in trouble—overpopulated, descending into ecological crisis—but I was always sure my kids would help make the world a better place. I would be a green-feminist supermum, having it all. Nothing turned out the way I expected.
Like many women, Sian Prior arrived at the point where she was ready to start having babies—and found they were not hers to have. Three miscarriages with a supportive partner; a new partner who already had all the children he wanted; step-children; step-grandchildren; the decision to parent solo, followed by many rounds of fertility treatments.
After all this Sian found herself, at fifty, childless and coming to terms. Weighing up the freedoms against the losses. Dealing with the unacknowledged legacy of her own lost father. Observing parenthood itself—how we succeed at it and how we fail—from a perspective outside the trenches.
Compelling, moving, beautifully written and unexpectedly uplifting, Childless is her story.
Like many women, Sian Prior arrived at the point where she was ready to start having babies—and found they were not hers to have. Three miscarriages with a supportive partner; a new partner who already had all the children he wanted; step-children; step-grandchildren; the decision to parent solo, followed by many rounds of fertility treatments.
After all this Sian found herself, at fifty, childless and coming to terms. Weighing up the freedoms against the losses. Dealing with the unacknowledged legacy of her own lost father. Observing parenthood itself—how we succeed at it and how we fail—from a perspective outside the trenches.
Compelling, moving, beautifully written and unexpectedly uplifting, Childless is her story.
272 pages, Unknown Binding
Published March 29, 2022
2 people are currently reading
266 people want to read
About the author
Sian Prior
4 books5 followersSian Prior is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in the arts and popular culture, a media consultant, and a teacher at universities and writers centres. She has a second career as a musician and recording artist.
Sian lives in Melbourne. Shy: A Memoir is her first book.
Sian lives in Melbourne. Shy: A Memoir is her first book.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 15, 2023
Sian Prior said something at the Melbourne Writers Festival last year that has stuck in my mind - “‘Childless’…there’s that threat of deep sadness in that one word.” She went on to say that if she walked into a bookshop and saw the title,
Childless
, she wouldn’t buy the book. But I did.
Prior had always assumed that she would have children, however, the timing of relationships, trouble conceiving and miscarriages meant that she reached her late thirties without the baby she longed for. By that point she was in a committed relationship with a man who did not want more children (I will mention that that man was singer Paul Kelly).
Prior tells her story, rich with personal details, as well as highlighting some very important themes around not having a child (whether that be by circumstance or choice). Predominately, she describes the immense grief that was complicated by feelings of guilt, failure (“I’m not a person who fails. That’s not a boast, it’s a neurosis.”) and a profound sense of disempowerment (Prior has long been an active environmentalist, so her desire to ‘add to the population’ was always at odds with her beliefs about the future and wellbeing of the planet - she openly admits that this is something she never quite resolved).
Of her first miscarriage she says -
Prior is incredibly honest about her relationships with and feelings toward other peoples’ children. I have read a number of memoirs about the desire to have a child, but no author I have read has been so open about other children in the way that Prior has in Childless. There were sections where she discusses her partner’s grandchild that made me weep, as did the new wave of grief that she felt when she broke up with her partner and lost contact with his family in the process - she queries what one is ‘entitled’ to in such circumstances (and the answer is not much other than more loss).
Prior’s present life is very different to the one that she imagined for herself decades ago. And although she has discovered unexpected freedoms and happiness in her present, her memoir highlights how the concepts of ‘closure’ and ‘moving on’ are dangerous myths, because they ignore how human emotion works, constantly recalibrating. Grief doesn’t ‘go away’ but we adjust around it, and Prior explores this adjustment so eloquently.
4/5
Prior had always assumed that she would have children, however, the timing of relationships, trouble conceiving and miscarriages meant that she reached her late thirties without the baby she longed for. By that point she was in a committed relationship with a man who did not want more children (I will mention that that man was singer Paul Kelly).
Prior tells her story, rich with personal details, as well as highlighting some very important themes around not having a child (whether that be by circumstance or choice). Predominately, she describes the immense grief that was complicated by feelings of guilt, failure (“I’m not a person who fails. That’s not a boast, it’s a neurosis.”) and a profound sense of disempowerment (Prior has long been an active environmentalist, so her desire to ‘add to the population’ was always at odds with her beliefs about the future and wellbeing of the planet - she openly admits that this is something she never quite resolved).
Through all those years I spent trying to have a child, I thought giving birth would stop me feeling like a failure. Probably it would just have been the beginning of a different way of failing.
Of her first miscarriage she says -
We’re allowed to feel anger when it’s clear who’s at fault. We can be angry with the neglectors and the abusers and the murderers. It’s expected. But anger is not acceptable in a situation like mine. Sorrow is okay but it should be quiet, modest sorrow.
Prior is incredibly honest about her relationships with and feelings toward other peoples’ children. I have read a number of memoirs about the desire to have a child, but no author I have read has been so open about other children in the way that Prior has in Childless. There were sections where she discusses her partner’s grandchild that made me weep, as did the new wave of grief that she felt when she broke up with her partner and lost contact with his family in the process - she queries what one is ‘entitled’ to in such circumstances (and the answer is not much other than more loss).
Prior’s present life is very different to the one that she imagined for herself decades ago. And although she has discovered unexpected freedoms and happiness in her present, her memoir highlights how the concepts of ‘closure’ and ‘moving on’ are dangerous myths, because they ignore how human emotion works, constantly recalibrating. Grief doesn’t ‘go away’ but we adjust around it, and Prior explores this adjustment so eloquently.
Treading water: that’s how you deal with grief. Not waving, not drowning. Just staying afloat till you can catch your breath and you’re ready to head back to shore.
4/5
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March 2, 2023The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Childless: A Story of Freedom and Longing
'An acutely observed, beautifully written and moving account of the pain—and consolations—of childlessness. Childless is shot through with life, joy and the willingness to face the present with a powerful and unflinching gaze. A wonderful book.’
Lucy Treloar
‘Honest, gentle, full of grief, joy, and wisdom. I adored this book.’
Monica Dux
'The fluidity of [Sian Prior’s] prose matches her description of grief as treading water…This book is the product of her time afloat and shows her full immersion in the one life, by chance or choice, that is hers.’
Saturday Paper
'Childless is a welcome interruption to the ideology of motherhood (frequently presumed to be the natural state of the female subject), and an incredibly candid account of the way that the female body can torture and foil the person who inhabits it… There is a sadness here, of course, but also many moments of joy and humour, and a story of living with purpose and intention...I hope so many people read this book—people with and without children, by choice or by fate—to understand an experience that is infrequently given space to exist in public, but which is by no means unique.’
Readings
‘Rich with evocative detail…Memoirs like Prior’s remind us that human experience is far more complex, that there are so many gradations, so much light and shadow.’
Conversation
‘In Childless, [Sian Prior] brings a fresh and at times caustically honest approach to a subject that often remains unspoken: a woman of a certain age not having children. Prior’s writing is precise and stripped of sentimentality and her pinpoint powers of perception bring to light the assumptions that surround her status in the world, often at great cost.’
Kirsten Krauth, Australian
‘Unsentimental yet deeply intimate…ultimately a book about loss, hope and building a life that looks quite different to the one you’d always envisaged.’
West Australian
‘A generously intimate and insightful book. Prior is porous and vulnerable with her story as she describes the rollercoaster of relationships, miscarriages, IVF cycles, love, lust, loss and loneliness that comes with trying to conceive over many years…alive with questions and a subterranean depth…This is the work of a beautifully observant writer who leans into life’s hardest moments.’
Natasha Mitchell, Age/SMH
‘Deeply raw and potent…I recommend this for anyone who’s experienced infertility, or anyone who knows someone who has experienced infertility—which, I have to tell you, is everyone.’
Lian Hingee, Readings
'An acutely observed, beautifully written and moving account of the pain—and consolations—of childlessness. Childless is shot through with life, joy and the willingness to face the present with a powerful and unflinching gaze. A wonderful book.’
Lucy Treloar
‘Honest, gentle, full of grief, joy, and wisdom. I adored this book.’
Monica Dux
'The fluidity of [Sian Prior’s] prose matches her description of grief as treading water…This book is the product of her time afloat and shows her full immersion in the one life, by chance or choice, that is hers.’
Saturday Paper
'Childless is a welcome interruption to the ideology of motherhood (frequently presumed to be the natural state of the female subject), and an incredibly candid account of the way that the female body can torture and foil the person who inhabits it… There is a sadness here, of course, but also many moments of joy and humour, and a story of living with purpose and intention...I hope so many people read this book—people with and without children, by choice or by fate—to understand an experience that is infrequently given space to exist in public, but which is by no means unique.’
Readings
‘Rich with evocative detail…Memoirs like Prior’s remind us that human experience is far more complex, that there are so many gradations, so much light and shadow.’
Conversation
‘In Childless, [Sian Prior] brings a fresh and at times caustically honest approach to a subject that often remains unspoken: a woman of a certain age not having children. Prior’s writing is precise and stripped of sentimentality and her pinpoint powers of perception bring to light the assumptions that surround her status in the world, often at great cost.’
Kirsten Krauth, Australian
‘Unsentimental yet deeply intimate…ultimately a book about loss, hope and building a life that looks quite different to the one you’d always envisaged.’
West Australian
‘A generously intimate and insightful book. Prior is porous and vulnerable with her story as she describes the rollercoaster of relationships, miscarriages, IVF cycles, love, lust, loss and loneliness that comes with trying to conceive over many years…alive with questions and a subterranean depth…This is the work of a beautifully observant writer who leans into life’s hardest moments.’
Natasha Mitchell, Age/SMH
‘Deeply raw and potent…I recommend this for anyone who’s experienced infertility, or anyone who knows someone who has experienced infertility—which, I have to tell you, is everyone.’
Lian Hingee, Readings
May 20, 2023
It takes a daring amount of vulnerability and courage to write a book about such longing, yearning and, at times, bone-deep desperation. Prior demonstrates that she consistently takes a keen and detailed gaze to the world around her and applies it to her own struggles in attempts to make sense of her situation - but never in a self-indulgent way. I admire the consistent use of motif, the elusive way in which she describes great lovers to further illustrate the narrative but maintain their dignity, and her own acknowledgement of the fallibility of memory in creating memoir.
March 12, 2023
Trigger warnings for infertility, miscarriages, death of a parent.
This book caught my attention a while back, and I'm annoyed at myself for taking so long to read it. The subject of children (to have or not to have) is a common one for people around my age, and I have many friends and family that have been trying to expand their family in the form of small versions of themselves. So, the perspective of someone who has lived through this was an intriguing read. It was heartbreaking, the trials Prior went through in the pursuit of a child, but sadly I think this is more of a common story that I realised.
I'm generally a slow reader from the page (audiobooks are another thing thanks to being able to speed up the playback), but I read this in 1.5 days. A credit to Prior's ability to write a memoir in an accessible way. She speaks of her environmental activism and her concerns about bringing a child into the world that is worse off due to the generations that have come before, but also for her yearning for the role of motherhood and the love that comes with it.
Prior is clearly well researched & eloquent. She speaks about studies she has found about infertility, also about memoir writing and I had to google a number of words that she used to understand their meanings (my favourite was limerence). At first I found the style of jumping from one memory in one time (e.g 2003) to another far in the future (e. 2018) with not a lot to bind them to be a little bit of a strange choice. She does mention this in a way by mentioning the fallibility of memory, and that "If you recount your memories one at a time, in chronological order, you can't see the big picture. You miss out on the way those stories echo and intersect, inflected with hindsight and insight, creating something like wisdom" (p.239). I'd say this is why the reading experience was so good, it was more than just a recounting of events - it was more profound than that.
This book caught my attention a while back, and I'm annoyed at myself for taking so long to read it. The subject of children (to have or not to have) is a common one for people around my age, and I have many friends and family that have been trying to expand their family in the form of small versions of themselves. So, the perspective of someone who has lived through this was an intriguing read. It was heartbreaking, the trials Prior went through in the pursuit of a child, but sadly I think this is more of a common story that I realised.
I'm generally a slow reader from the page (audiobooks are another thing thanks to being able to speed up the playback), but I read this in 1.5 days. A credit to Prior's ability to write a memoir in an accessible way. She speaks of her environmental activism and her concerns about bringing a child into the world that is worse off due to the generations that have come before, but also for her yearning for the role of motherhood and the love that comes with it.
Prior is clearly well researched & eloquent. She speaks about studies she has found about infertility, also about memoir writing and I had to google a number of words that she used to understand their meanings (my favourite was limerence). At first I found the style of jumping from one memory in one time (e.g 2003) to another far in the future (e. 2018) with not a lot to bind them to be a little bit of a strange choice. She does mention this in a way by mentioning the fallibility of memory, and that "If you recount your memories one at a time, in chronological order, you can't see the big picture. You miss out on the way those stories echo and intersect, inflected with hindsight and insight, creating something like wisdom" (p.239). I'd say this is why the reading experience was so good, it was more than just a recounting of events - it was more profound than that.
August 6, 2023
I found this book to be a raw, honest and alive reflection on the author’s heart rending path to realise her dream of having a child. For the author this memoir doesn’t fit a chronological structure as that would not reveal the big picture. “You miss out on the ways those stories echo and intersect, inflected with hindsight and insight, creating something like wisdom.”
The book is a vulnerable offering and I resonated with the shifts in energy as Prior encounters hope, despair, loss - the loss of nothingness… The book touches on the stereotypical reactions that still exist when encountering women who have not had children: “So you’re a career woman”, “Don’t you want to have children?” and so many more. In that, this book is a powerful contribution to women who would love to have had children but have not been able to.
I’m telling myself the book is well written - and - for me I did find the chronological jumping around challenging and somewhat draining… and that says more about me than the author. 6.5/10
The book is a vulnerable offering and I resonated with the shifts in energy as Prior encounters hope, despair, loss - the loss of nothingness… The book touches on the stereotypical reactions that still exist when encountering women who have not had children: “So you’re a career woman”, “Don’t you want to have children?” and so many more. In that, this book is a powerful contribution to women who would love to have had children but have not been able to.
I’m telling myself the book is well written - and - for me I did find the chronological jumping around challenging and somewhat draining… and that says more about me than the author. 6.5/10
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December 15, 2025I’m not sure why I read this now. I don’t feel as clucky as I once did, though I still feel a fondness for certain children I see around my neighbourhood. And I’m grateful for my fleeting interactions with dogs without having one.
Longer term it seems on the horizon but I feel a deeper appreciation of the freedom I enjoy now. I guess that’s what appealed to me about this memoir about a woman who longs to have biological children but had to reckon with not being able to.
She fought for, and lost, an idea of what she thought her life would be. And in that idea, there was just this all-consuming pressure.
So what then is that desire to have children when you can otherwise be so free?
First, I think it’s just a biological desire that the mind tries to make sense of.
Second, I think it’s about the desire to care. To take everything you know about living – practical and emotional – and offer that to someone who needs or can benefit from it.
Third, I think it’s memetic desire. You see a cute kid, a rambunctious teen, an adult child visiting at Christmas, and you want it for yourself, even if you don’t see all the work involved.
That absolutely works the other way around.
Fourth, I think it’s just an emergent property of a certain life. You find a partner, you have a job or an income, you feel ‘mature’, whatever that means. And it's just something you do. It arises from love but is sustained by more than it.
Fifth, maybe a life focused on one’s self doesn’t lose its intrigue per se, but you wish to focus on something or someone else.
What doesn’t appeal to me is the identity of parenthood. I don’t want it to be about me or consume me. I just want it to be a thing I do with a partner, in a neighbourhood, in a community. I don’t want to fill a hole or fix the past.
If it is meaningful, then the meaning is relational, not personal.
Do I want children? Of course. Would I grieve if it never happened? I don’t know. Wouldn't I just feel how I feel now. Or would something creep up or bear down.
There’s a lot of life to live in the meantime. To celebrate and love. To be safe and in community.
*
2019-2025
Today on the light rail I saw a man sitting down with greying hair, a blue t-shirt and glasses. He was reading a book as his daughter wearing a high-school uniform rested her head on his shoulder with her eyes closed. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
I want to live in a small house or flat in a small town or city where I am part of the community, not trying to change the world but contributing to what's already good. Bicycling around, reading regularly, cooking for the children, laying in bed with Anna, washing sheets, asking what she would like to do tomorrow, being good parents, leading by example and showing them what it is to love and be loved.
Why do I want to move to a small town or city? Nature, quiet, colours, shade, chirps, peace, calm, space. I suspect, too, a better job. A job that matters. One where meaning you can't conceal in a big city. You make a difference that people can see. You fix the street, you plant a tree, you build a house or a block of flats. You contribute to community life. You give, not take. People know your children and care for them. They make local friends and play in the street together while you cook dinner with your wife.
Speaking of things I can't control, I'd like to have a family by age 40. Why? So I can have loving relationships into my later years. So grandchildren come visit. Maybe it won't play out that way though.
I dreamt I had a daughter named Claire who I carried with me while getting coffee. I think that's the first time I have dreamt I had a child.
A pressing question is love and family. I can't seek it though. It emerges from following a rewarding career path and achieving my goals: to have money, to be healthy and well-dressed, and to travel and enjoy restaurants, music, films and books.
Why do I want to be a father? To be there for someone. To support someone. To be someone's home base. To lift someone up. To let someone grow.
The other thing I learned from Michelle Obama's podcast is that children have their own personalities very early on. So, in addition to basic parenting skills, raising children is as much about working with a particular person and adapting to their temperament as you would with anyone. They are essentially people like anyone else who just know very little about the world and your job is to help them learn.
I spoke with Rob yesterday and explained that one of the reasons I want a dog – a silken windhound – is to be responsible for someone and to train and look after someone; to be there for someone; to be less self-focused. That and to have a companion while I work from home and to have a jogging buddy.
Christmas alone this year. In truth, I don't really want to go to anyone else's home as I want to host others at mine with my own family.
A dog demands responsibility: physical needs like shelter, food, exercise, bathing. But also emotional needs: affection, discipline, training, attention, company. I feel like owning a dog might be an educational experience that prepares me a little bit for children.
I had a lovely lunch with Tom yesterday at Gardener's Lodge. I asked about his family and whether his mum still dated. He didn't know but figured there was nothing a man could add to her life. But we talked about the importance of having children for companionship and a social network and meaning and the opposite of loneliness later in life. Companionship, family and meaning. That is what relationships can add to life.
Read a great article on The Conversation about canvassing children's views on what makes a great city. I love that kind of research. Cities are about people's needs and desires. Respect to the researcher.
There was a beautiful young woman who stood near me on the light rail platform and then opposite facing me on the light rail itself. Yes, she was beautiful but oddly the desire I felt was to care for her. To give her nourishing food, to ensure she had slept well in a nice bed and had clean teeth, and to hope that she was successful in what she wanted to achieve.
I saw a beautiful woman cradling her friend's child this morning at a café and held back tears.
Dreamt the other night that I had a daughter with long blonde hair who ran up and jumped on me to give me a hug. She was five or six. And I felt like I had forgotten I had a daughter because I had been away so long that I never saw her.
Cried last night going through my personal documents. It was the card from Helen and Patricia they gave me for my 25th birthday. '25 - the year of great achievement'. They had helped me through one of the hardest years of my life completing the preparation program. That lunch I told them I wanted to change my name. One of the best decisions of my life.
Spoke with Helen last night. I don't know what prompted her but she raised how much easier life is for children with good parents. She said that she knew she had made a difference for me but it doesn't change the degree of setback I faced. I told her about the card and that I was eternally grateful for her.
I would like to raise my children in the Flour Mill. Circumstances will dictate whether that is possible but I see how happy all the children here are – they are around other people, they have neighbourhood friends – and that's what I want for my children. I am grateful I live here and for all that I've seen and enjoyed here. Maybe like Helen suggested I should buy a place here.
I was at Birchgrove Oval yesterday on my Sunday run. It was 21 degrees; a comfortable heat. It was sunny. I sat down on the park bench overlooking the water and felt mesmerised by the movement and the blueness. I wasn't thinking anything and was reminded of Michael Pollan's observations about mescaline where you are just present and taking in the natural world. Then there was a mother with her two children there playing on the shore. She and her children were beautiful. I had a thought phrased in this specific way: 'if you are capable of it, it would be a shame for it to go to waste'. And what I meant by that was to be a father who could provide love, care and material support to children as part of a team with the right woman. It was a strong philosophical argument: that if a child could appreciate the joys of being alive – to play on the shore of Birchgrove Oval in the spring sunshine on a clear blue day when the air feels cleaner because of the water, and had the joy of being loved and cared for, and had warm clothes, a full tummy of nutritious food, someone to take them places and read to them at night in a comfortable home – then bringing that child into the world would be a gift to them; it would be unambiguously the right thing to do.
A beautiful thought: imagine my children marry and we get to welcome their chosen people plucked from the world into our home to have Christmas lunch.
Had a lovely neighbourly moment yesterday when putting my key into my door, [Other] Paul was getting into the lift with [his dog] Lorenzo who whimpered with excitement seeing me at the end of the hall. I decided to take my key out of the lock and go up to him, gesturing to come here and giving him a ruffle.
Maybe I'd like to learn to drive. Yesterday walking to the furniture store I gave up and caught a cab home because it was pouring so hard. And that made me think what if I needed to drive my daughter somewhere in the rain. I may orientate myself around walkable places but they will face experiences where driving is required. Plus if I had a dog maybe I'd like to drive to a secluded beach for a frolic in the sand and water.
Absolute privilege yesterday afternoon to sit with Rob over Teams and do the Vote Compass quiz with his son Edward.
I feel like I'm becoming better with interacting with children. A gaggle of young children were in the elevator last night when one of them offered me some fairy floss. Later when I was coming home they were there again and they said they will give me more fairy floss the next time they see me.
A key responsibility parents have to their children is to provide them with social connection. To model for them in your relationship what will make the biggest difference to their lives which is to connect with others. So what does that look like? To ask them how they're feeling, to guide them through that through recognition, validation, and questioning, and listening. Like food, clothes and a beautiful home, it's actually emotional support and connection that you have a responsibility to provide. It's almost greater than love – to love them is just how you feel; you have to make it about them.
Bumped into John and his kid Joseph at The Rio sitting here for hours just people watching on the street. He left Joseph with the couple sitting next to me who he knew from school, ordered his fish and chips across the street, came back and got us pinot noir and chatted, thus merging the conversation with the couple next to us. The woman, the mother, was stunning, everything I could hope to have in a partner and something about the interaction made me feel it was possible – that it was in my future so long as I held on long enough, was patient enough, persevered enough. And then John left me with Joseph while he got the fish and chips and it was kind of exhausting talking to him. He was so full of energy and sporadic thoughts. I could handle it but there was no sense of connection. As children they can't give back. They just share and absorb. They can't offer connection at that stage but your job is just to be there for them and their thoughts.
I've thought about this more overnight and want to reflect on something about my parents who I am estranged from. I think in a similar way they didn't value me. They didn't see me as an individual and want to know me. Our relationship was about them. For my mother, it was because she wanted the identity of being a mother and she wanted to be high on that drug of maternal love, and the moment it got too hard or real I was neglected and ultimately discarded. For my father, it was about wanting to be an admired medium of spiritual wisdom and a provider. The moment that got hard and I challenged that, I was dismissed and discarded. The pattern is that I was idealised not for who I was — a person they didn't know, in part because they didn't ask — but for what I could provide to them: attention, admiration, identity. I was never valued for my sense of self. That is what my grandparents did and my friends have done throughout my life. They valued my unique characteristics without wanting anything from me other than the enjoyment of my company.
That mom I see with the dog at the café most mornings who wears athleisure is so hot.
Interesting chat with Dea today. The challenges she faces with her children make me think I don't need to accelerate that life choice. I should relish the freedom and relative care-free responsibilities I have now.
I saw the most depressing scene this morning: a father seated at the café, grey hair, glowering at his phone, his young daughter in a school uniform asking him to watch her while she traversed riskily down the top of stair railing, him ignoring her, her asking again.
Louise offered for me to take care of Peppa.
Interesting dream where Paul taught me to drive a Volvo.
"If anything happens to us know that we love you and we care about you and that we love having you in our lives."
^ Helen as she ends our regular call on Sunday before her final trip overseas.
Café dad. His daughter sits on his knee while he arm wrestles his son. Before-school ritual.
Longer term it seems on the horizon but I feel a deeper appreciation of the freedom I enjoy now. I guess that’s what appealed to me about this memoir about a woman who longs to have biological children but had to reckon with not being able to.
She fought for, and lost, an idea of what she thought her life would be. And in that idea, there was just this all-consuming pressure.
So what then is that desire to have children when you can otherwise be so free?
First, I think it’s just a biological desire that the mind tries to make sense of.
Second, I think it’s about the desire to care. To take everything you know about living – practical and emotional – and offer that to someone who needs or can benefit from it.
Third, I think it’s memetic desire. You see a cute kid, a rambunctious teen, an adult child visiting at Christmas, and you want it for yourself, even if you don’t see all the work involved.
That absolutely works the other way around.
Fourth, I think it’s just an emergent property of a certain life. You find a partner, you have a job or an income, you feel ‘mature’, whatever that means. And it's just something you do. It arises from love but is sustained by more than it.
Fifth, maybe a life focused on one’s self doesn’t lose its intrigue per se, but you wish to focus on something or someone else.
What doesn’t appeal to me is the identity of parenthood. I don’t want it to be about me or consume me. I just want it to be a thing I do with a partner, in a neighbourhood, in a community. I don’t want to fill a hole or fix the past.
If it is meaningful, then the meaning is relational, not personal.
Do I want children? Of course. Would I grieve if it never happened? I don’t know. Wouldn't I just feel how I feel now. Or would something creep up or bear down.
There’s a lot of life to live in the meantime. To celebrate and love. To be safe and in community.
*
2019-2025
Today on the light rail I saw a man sitting down with greying hair, a blue t-shirt and glasses. He was reading a book as his daughter wearing a high-school uniform rested her head on his shoulder with her eyes closed. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
I want to live in a small house or flat in a small town or city where I am part of the community, not trying to change the world but contributing to what's already good. Bicycling around, reading regularly, cooking for the children, laying in bed with Anna, washing sheets, asking what she would like to do tomorrow, being good parents, leading by example and showing them what it is to love and be loved.
Why do I want to move to a small town or city? Nature, quiet, colours, shade, chirps, peace, calm, space. I suspect, too, a better job. A job that matters. One where meaning you can't conceal in a big city. You make a difference that people can see. You fix the street, you plant a tree, you build a house or a block of flats. You contribute to community life. You give, not take. People know your children and care for them. They make local friends and play in the street together while you cook dinner with your wife.
Speaking of things I can't control, I'd like to have a family by age 40. Why? So I can have loving relationships into my later years. So grandchildren come visit. Maybe it won't play out that way though.
I dreamt I had a daughter named Claire who I carried with me while getting coffee. I think that's the first time I have dreamt I had a child.
A pressing question is love and family. I can't seek it though. It emerges from following a rewarding career path and achieving my goals: to have money, to be healthy and well-dressed, and to travel and enjoy restaurants, music, films and books.
Why do I want to be a father? To be there for someone. To support someone. To be someone's home base. To lift someone up. To let someone grow.
The other thing I learned from Michelle Obama's podcast is that children have their own personalities very early on. So, in addition to basic parenting skills, raising children is as much about working with a particular person and adapting to their temperament as you would with anyone. They are essentially people like anyone else who just know very little about the world and your job is to help them learn.
I spoke with Rob yesterday and explained that one of the reasons I want a dog – a silken windhound – is to be responsible for someone and to train and look after someone; to be there for someone; to be less self-focused. That and to have a companion while I work from home and to have a jogging buddy.
Christmas alone this year. In truth, I don't really want to go to anyone else's home as I want to host others at mine with my own family.
A dog demands responsibility: physical needs like shelter, food, exercise, bathing. But also emotional needs: affection, discipline, training, attention, company. I feel like owning a dog might be an educational experience that prepares me a little bit for children.
I had a lovely lunch with Tom yesterday at Gardener's Lodge. I asked about his family and whether his mum still dated. He didn't know but figured there was nothing a man could add to her life. But we talked about the importance of having children for companionship and a social network and meaning and the opposite of loneliness later in life. Companionship, family and meaning. That is what relationships can add to life.
Read a great article on The Conversation about canvassing children's views on what makes a great city. I love that kind of research. Cities are about people's needs and desires. Respect to the researcher.
There was a beautiful young woman who stood near me on the light rail platform and then opposite facing me on the light rail itself. Yes, she was beautiful but oddly the desire I felt was to care for her. To give her nourishing food, to ensure she had slept well in a nice bed and had clean teeth, and to hope that she was successful in what she wanted to achieve.
I saw a beautiful woman cradling her friend's child this morning at a café and held back tears.
Dreamt the other night that I had a daughter with long blonde hair who ran up and jumped on me to give me a hug. She was five or six. And I felt like I had forgotten I had a daughter because I had been away so long that I never saw her.
Cried last night going through my personal documents. It was the card from Helen and Patricia they gave me for my 25th birthday. '25 - the year of great achievement'. They had helped me through one of the hardest years of my life completing the preparation program. That lunch I told them I wanted to change my name. One of the best decisions of my life.
Spoke with Helen last night. I don't know what prompted her but she raised how much easier life is for children with good parents. She said that she knew she had made a difference for me but it doesn't change the degree of setback I faced. I told her about the card and that I was eternally grateful for her.
I would like to raise my children in the Flour Mill. Circumstances will dictate whether that is possible but I see how happy all the children here are – they are around other people, they have neighbourhood friends – and that's what I want for my children. I am grateful I live here and for all that I've seen and enjoyed here. Maybe like Helen suggested I should buy a place here.
I was at Birchgrove Oval yesterday on my Sunday run. It was 21 degrees; a comfortable heat. It was sunny. I sat down on the park bench overlooking the water and felt mesmerised by the movement and the blueness. I wasn't thinking anything and was reminded of Michael Pollan's observations about mescaline where you are just present and taking in the natural world. Then there was a mother with her two children there playing on the shore. She and her children were beautiful. I had a thought phrased in this specific way: 'if you are capable of it, it would be a shame for it to go to waste'. And what I meant by that was to be a father who could provide love, care and material support to children as part of a team with the right woman. It was a strong philosophical argument: that if a child could appreciate the joys of being alive – to play on the shore of Birchgrove Oval in the spring sunshine on a clear blue day when the air feels cleaner because of the water, and had the joy of being loved and cared for, and had warm clothes, a full tummy of nutritious food, someone to take them places and read to them at night in a comfortable home – then bringing that child into the world would be a gift to them; it would be unambiguously the right thing to do.
A beautiful thought: imagine my children marry and we get to welcome their chosen people plucked from the world into our home to have Christmas lunch.
Had a lovely neighbourly moment yesterday when putting my key into my door, [Other] Paul was getting into the lift with [his dog] Lorenzo who whimpered with excitement seeing me at the end of the hall. I decided to take my key out of the lock and go up to him, gesturing to come here and giving him a ruffle.
Maybe I'd like to learn to drive. Yesterday walking to the furniture store I gave up and caught a cab home because it was pouring so hard. And that made me think what if I needed to drive my daughter somewhere in the rain. I may orientate myself around walkable places but they will face experiences where driving is required. Plus if I had a dog maybe I'd like to drive to a secluded beach for a frolic in the sand and water.
Absolute privilege yesterday afternoon to sit with Rob over Teams and do the Vote Compass quiz with his son Edward.
I feel like I'm becoming better with interacting with children. A gaggle of young children were in the elevator last night when one of them offered me some fairy floss. Later when I was coming home they were there again and they said they will give me more fairy floss the next time they see me.
A key responsibility parents have to their children is to provide them with social connection. To model for them in your relationship what will make the biggest difference to their lives which is to connect with others. So what does that look like? To ask them how they're feeling, to guide them through that through recognition, validation, and questioning, and listening. Like food, clothes and a beautiful home, it's actually emotional support and connection that you have a responsibility to provide. It's almost greater than love – to love them is just how you feel; you have to make it about them.
Bumped into John and his kid Joseph at The Rio sitting here for hours just people watching on the street. He left Joseph with the couple sitting next to me who he knew from school, ordered his fish and chips across the street, came back and got us pinot noir and chatted, thus merging the conversation with the couple next to us. The woman, the mother, was stunning, everything I could hope to have in a partner and something about the interaction made me feel it was possible – that it was in my future so long as I held on long enough, was patient enough, persevered enough. And then John left me with Joseph while he got the fish and chips and it was kind of exhausting talking to him. He was so full of energy and sporadic thoughts. I could handle it but there was no sense of connection. As children they can't give back. They just share and absorb. They can't offer connection at that stage but your job is just to be there for them and their thoughts.
I've thought about this more overnight and want to reflect on something about my parents who I am estranged from. I think in a similar way they didn't value me. They didn't see me as an individual and want to know me. Our relationship was about them. For my mother, it was because she wanted the identity of being a mother and she wanted to be high on that drug of maternal love, and the moment it got too hard or real I was neglected and ultimately discarded. For my father, it was about wanting to be an admired medium of spiritual wisdom and a provider. The moment that got hard and I challenged that, I was dismissed and discarded. The pattern is that I was idealised not for who I was — a person they didn't know, in part because they didn't ask — but for what I could provide to them: attention, admiration, identity. I was never valued for my sense of self. That is what my grandparents did and my friends have done throughout my life. They valued my unique characteristics without wanting anything from me other than the enjoyment of my company.
That mom I see with the dog at the café most mornings who wears athleisure is so hot.
Interesting chat with Dea today. The challenges she faces with her children make me think I don't need to accelerate that life choice. I should relish the freedom and relative care-free responsibilities I have now.
I saw the most depressing scene this morning: a father seated at the café, grey hair, glowering at his phone, his young daughter in a school uniform asking him to watch her while she traversed riskily down the top of stair railing, him ignoring her, her asking again.
Louise offered for me to take care of Peppa.
Interesting dream where Paul taught me to drive a Volvo.
"If anything happens to us know that we love you and we care about you and that we love having you in our lives."
^ Helen as she ends our regular call on Sunday before her final trip overseas.
Café dad. His daughter sits on his knee while he arm wrestles his son. Before-school ritual.
August 13, 2022
There are countless books exploring the experience of motherhood, and countless books about choosing to be child free. This book explores a topic that has been largely ignored in literature: Being childless *not* by choice, and how one navigates that vast ache. The number of childless adults grows every year, and many of them envisioned a very different life for themselves. So often, this topic is misunderstood by people who assume that childless people have chosen that circumstance for themselves or that they haven’t tried hard enough if they end up in middle age without their own offspring. Sian Prior dispels these myths by laying her own journey bare, from miscarriages to breakups to multiple failed IVF cycles. In beautiful, succinct prose, Prior takes the reader through the multiple experiences in her life of loss and failed attempts to become a mother before ultimately accepting her circumstances. Any woman (or man) who has yearned for a child of her own will recognize herself in this moving memoir and feel seen. Prior’s strength and resilience in redirecting her love into other people, animals, and pursuits ultimately offers hope and beauty without resorting to sentimental, false platitudes about living a life without the child(ren) for whom she so deeply yearned. I recommend this book to anyone who feels they are wandering alone as a childless woman with the soul of a mother. It is a reminder that we are not alone.
June 26, 2022
https://www.cheerfulworrier.com/2022/...
‘I always assumed it was a matter of when, not if, I would have a child.’
Childless is Sian’s second memoir, which dives deep into the heartbreak of not being able to have what you thought would always be yours. It is about her heavy journey that should have supported a better destination, except it did not.
Going by the rave reviews, I had anticipated a five-star read. But I soon realised that this book was beyond any rating spectrum when I flipped to the last page. You cannot rate somebody’s unimaginable trauma or pain, can you? This important book raises awareness about a woman’s endless despair when her own body fails to listen to her. Sian has sensitively expressed her disappointments about not being able to have a child she was always meant to have and the eventual acceptance of the reality that spoke otherwise. We know about many famous books that touch on the theme of motherhood, but not many on missed motherhood. Childless is that book!
‘I always assumed it was a matter of when, not if, I would have a child.’
Childless is Sian’s second memoir, which dives deep into the heartbreak of not being able to have what you thought would always be yours. It is about her heavy journey that should have supported a better destination, except it did not.
Going by the rave reviews, I had anticipated a five-star read. But I soon realised that this book was beyond any rating spectrum when I flipped to the last page. You cannot rate somebody’s unimaginable trauma or pain, can you? This important book raises awareness about a woman’s endless despair when her own body fails to listen to her. Sian has sensitively expressed her disappointments about not being able to have a child she was always meant to have and the eventual acceptance of the reality that spoke otherwise. We know about many famous books that touch on the theme of motherhood, but not many on missed motherhood. Childless is that book!
August 30, 2024
The Australian writer and broadcaster Sian Prior has created a beautifully written memoir, casting its net back and forth across different reaches of her life. She interweaves reflections on her own childhood, which featured the loss of her father whilst she was still a baby, with the relationships and career path of her adult life. Sian's adult story follows her first marriage, which ultimately ends when she walks away due to the pain of infertility and multiple miscarriages. Her next serious relationship is with a free-spirited man who already has several children and Sian takes on a stepmother role, but he doesn't want to be burdened with any more. Sian is instead left to try solo IVF, whilst he hovers in the background, but it ultimately doesn't work out for her. When she decides to stop, she also has to fully face up to her childlessness. That pain of trying so many avenues and means to attempt motherhood is one that will feel familiar to many of us who have arrived here through a variety of circumstantial and/or physical reasons.
Sian used to be involved in environmental activism and clearly cares deeply about this topic still, and she discusses her ongoing concerns with climate change's effects in Australia throughout the book - a reminder that, yes, even us childless women still care about the world around us and what will be left of it after we're gone. Sian worries about what she will leave behind of herself as well, feeling that much of her previous writing was ephemeral. But this book feels like a legacy to me, and I'm sure to any childless woman who reads it - it tells Sian's story, but it also tells all of our stories. How at this moment in time, we stand at a turning point in which the grief of childlessness is no longer something to hide, but we can now tell the world how we feel, what our lives look like and what change we want to see take place so that all women can feel valued in society. We definitely need more Sians who are willing to step forward, open up and tell their story.
Sian used to be involved in environmental activism and clearly cares deeply about this topic still, and she discusses her ongoing concerns with climate change's effects in Australia throughout the book - a reminder that, yes, even us childless women still care about the world around us and what will be left of it after we're gone. Sian worries about what she will leave behind of herself as well, feeling that much of her previous writing was ephemeral. But this book feels like a legacy to me, and I'm sure to any childless woman who reads it - it tells Sian's story, but it also tells all of our stories. How at this moment in time, we stand at a turning point in which the grief of childlessness is no longer something to hide, but we can now tell the world how we feel, what our lives look like and what change we want to see take place so that all women can feel valued in society. We definitely need more Sians who are willing to step forward, open up and tell their story.
June 6, 2025
I finished this book while hunched over a desk over at my local library, surrounded by mothers and young kids and babies, just before closing time. Promptly afterwards, I closed the book and looked around me, allowing a moment of solemn reflection before returning it to the librarian on the way out the door. I wish it brings the same comforts in equal measure to the next person - whomever reserved it not long after I borrowed it a couple weeks ago - who shall pore over its pages.
This is a book of sorrow, loss, love, pain, hope, more sorrow, a betrayal of the body, grief, and then, a realignment and reckoning with the freedom that comes with taking (albeit unwillingly) the "other path".
A raspy word of thanks as I relinquished my transient ownership of this paperback, back in to the hands of the public. I am emotionally spent after spending the last 24 hours immersed in a brief history of Prior's life. The part of me that's good at finding metaphors likens the exchange at the library not too dissimilar to that which I do anytime I look after a vulnerable baby at the hospital. I keep hoping for an enoughness that doesn't come, the distant yearning and gaping space in all the nothingness, the aftermath. There was mention of the old childless hag who steals children into the night - have I not had similar thoughts myself, of a time? Perhaps it is not so uncommon as I had thought.
Thank you so much to Prior for the candid telling of your world. My hope is that it makes waves in the hearts of strangers and loved ones in a way that feels meaningful to you. There is so much relating here - that reaching for a more permanent existence, a legacy, something to keep one tethered to this world. I adored this book, thank you thank you thank you-
This is a book of sorrow, loss, love, pain, hope, more sorrow, a betrayal of the body, grief, and then, a realignment and reckoning with the freedom that comes with taking (albeit unwillingly) the "other path".
A raspy word of thanks as I relinquished my transient ownership of this paperback, back in to the hands of the public. I am emotionally spent after spending the last 24 hours immersed in a brief history of Prior's life. The part of me that's good at finding metaphors likens the exchange at the library not too dissimilar to that which I do anytime I look after a vulnerable baby at the hospital. I keep hoping for an enoughness that doesn't come, the distant yearning and gaping space in all the nothingness, the aftermath. There was mention of the old childless hag who steals children into the night - have I not had similar thoughts myself, of a time? Perhaps it is not so uncommon as I had thought.
Thank you so much to Prior for the candid telling of your world. My hope is that it makes waves in the hearts of strangers and loved ones in a way that feels meaningful to you. There is so much relating here - that reaching for a more permanent existence, a legacy, something to keep one tethered to this world. I adored this book, thank you thank you thank you-
January 1, 2023
Part memoir about the loss of her father, part ode to the childless woman, part travelogue, part relationship catalogue, and part conservation plea, this book is a little bit all over the place. Perhaps the lack of focus stops it from achieving the heights that it could have, but I still enjoyed the ride. Perhaps Sian Prior was going for some kind of freeform jazz style feel for the structure of this book, as it truly does jump around from the start, flitting between different time periods, places and people with almost dizzying speed. Ostensibly about the authors forced childlessness through medical issues and poor timing, Prior basically maps out the entire story of her life, in flashbacks that are short in length and show glimpses rather than delving into the depths (no pun intended, due to the role of the sea in the book) of her pain and regrets. This makes for a lighter read than you might expect, which is kind of a good thing, as there is not too much sadder than wanting a child and not being able to have one.
I did not care too much for the environmental proselytising, but that is only a small part of what is a large in scope book that overall comes at the subject with a lot of heart and the occasional sharp insight into society's view of those who don't have children and those who have to live within that society and make a life in and around the lack thereof.
Overall an enjoyable read and one that might not change your mind about those who are childless but might give you a little bit more sympathy for them, whether they want that or not. Four stars.
I did not care too much for the environmental proselytising, but that is only a small part of what is a large in scope book that overall comes at the subject with a lot of heart and the occasional sharp insight into society's view of those who don't have children and those who have to live within that society and make a life in and around the lack thereof.
Overall an enjoyable read and one that might not change your mind about those who are childless but might give you a little bit more sympathy for them, whether they want that or not. Four stars.
September 10, 2022
A book on existential anxiety. The idea that having children creates a forever legacy. To show the world that you existed for a brief moment in time, to make a difference, to leave something behind, instead of being left. I really enjoyed the first half, but the melancholy became overbearing in the later bits. It's not a satisfying read, it's uncomfortable, but it's the reality for many people. She comes to terms with her infertility, and there is a lot of grief, of what could have been.
January 20, 2024
Beautifully written and beautifully honest, I really enjoyed this memoir of fertility struggles and general musings on relationships and grief. I didn't realise she was writing about her long term relationship with Paul Kelly until curiosity got the better of me and Google made the name changes redundant. I love a thematic novel that jumps back and forward through time and space - would recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2024
A woman’s story of longing for a child she would never have. I can imagine that this must have been a very difficult book to write. Opening and sharing your heart with the world, your innermost thoughts and desires. I am lucky to have two children of my own, I never experienced the sadness Sian had to go through multiple times, I can only imagine. Childless was a great insight for me, to the world of longing for something you could not have and could not control the outcome of.
June 22, 2022
Sian Prior is childless and in this memoir we learn why she is childless and the impact that has had on her life. The book is a collection of memories or experiences she has surrounding children or motherhood. Overall I felt sad reading this book but I think at the end Sian found peace in being childless and embracing her life.
June 24, 2022
Despite the challenging subject matter, Sian’s skill with the written word make this a book that is hard to put down. Definitely a book for those who appreciate open and honest explorations of vulnerability, grief and resilience. Loved her first book, Shy, and this second memoir lived up to expectations.
June 26, 2022
This is a truly beautifully written book. The type of book that will stay with you long after you have read it. Heartbreakingly honest and personal, poignant and hopeful. I’m so grateful to Sian Prior for sharing her story, which is such an important story to be told. Boom of the year for me (so far at least!). Love love loved it.
January 27, 2024
“It's not his fault I'm childless. Our timing was off. I have chosen this life. I'm the laughing stepmother, the adaptable girlfriend, the late-boarding passenger on the family cruise ship, seated at the captain's table every night. I cannot also be a petulant sulk. That voice must be silenced.”
November 30, 2022
Pensive, heartfelt, considered and full of small anecdotes and people. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. A special expression of grief.
Read
January 19, 2023...I want to be loved deeply but held lightly...
November 3, 2023
Bitter musings of a barren woman.
Sometimes I wonder about the Melbourne publishing industry (；¬＿¬)
Sometimes I wonder about the Melbourne publishing industry (；¬＿¬)
June 27, 2024
I liked the theme of this book but it was fairly bleak and the writing was quite simplistic.
6/10
6/10
November 21, 2024
Thoroughly enjoyed reading
January 16, 2023
Sian taught me at RMIT and her advice and her energy are all through my thoughts and my writing. A friend reminded me that, even without children, we are each mothers to more people than we can imagine.
July 9, 2022
Heartbreaking
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