Child-Free Characters

As mum to three daughters, who in turn have two children each, I know how important it is for, perhaps, the majority of us, to have at least one child. Nevertheless, I’ve always understood that it isn’t for everyone. There are more and more women now who are happy to make a conscious decision not to have children. And, of course, there are those who would give almost anything to become a mother, but it just hasn’t happened for them. Increasingly today, women simply run out of time, having waited and hoped for the right moment, to be in the right financial position, or with the right man – and then it’s too late.

When I wrote Not Your Child, I deliberately chose a woman with no children of her own, to be the new friend of my protagonist, Gemma – herself the mother of a little girl, Poppy. The reason for Crystal, the friend, not having children in her life isn’t revealed until the end, but the other characters’ reactions to Crystal’s childlessness are an important aspect of the story. Gemma can see Crystal is sad about not having a child, and also that she would have made a good mother. She judges this from how Crystal interacts with Poppy, and how well Poppy takes to her. But Gemma’s parents, especially her own mum, are immediately suspicious about Crystal’s motives in befriending Gemma and Poppy.

I wonder how common this reaction is. As Gemma says to her mother, does everyone assume that, just because a woman hasn’t got kids of her own, they’re going to run off with someone else’s? How hurtful that must be if you wish you had children but are quite capable of having a relationship with your friend’s child without harbouring ulterior motives. And how annoying it must be, too, if you like children but don’t even want one of your own.

Does society still find it so unbelievable, that a childless woman could love a friend’s child without secretly wanting the child for herself? Some women who have never had children enjoy relationships with kids precisely because they don’t have them all the time – throughout sleepless nights, toddler tantrums, schooling issues and teenage moods. Is this, in fact, the key to Crystal’s attachment to Poppy?

Well, all will be revealed in the closing chapters!

Not Your Child was published by Boldwood Books on 23 September 2024.