DE-CONSTRUCTING SILENCE ON THE GRIEF OF CHILDLESSNESS: IS IT POSSIBLE A NEW SOCIAL GENERATIVITY?

Abstract Childlessness – for women who struggled to become a parent- is a devastating journey towards an unchosen future. Involuntary childlessness is an unfair experience through the deep grief of a loss, made of heartbreak and dashed hopes, still not recognized enough by society. On the opposite, politics and media seem to ignore childless people by circumstance, confounding them with childfree, pushing them into isolation, silence and learned helplessness. Among these childless women there are professors, lawyers, social workers, psychotherapists. A pioneer is considered the psychotherapist Jodie Day, who created a global community network for childless women, enhancing in de-constructing silence around childlessness and uncovering many different aspects about the topic. Even if pro-natalism is still the mainstream’s narrative, time has come to focus on childlessness by circumstances, because - in 20 years time- this will be a socio-political dimension that society has to deal with. The topic of aging without children is indeed Unavoidable: who will take care of all these childless people that are currently paying taxes, working and living lives in their mid 40ties and 50ties? And what about our social legacy, if it’s not the children and grandchildren we expected to have? From 1972-73 (see chapter 1), the following 3 decades were marked by the gradual disappearance of the centrality of motherhood in women’s lives. The glorification of motherhood, on the opposite, for late Millennials and starting Gen.Z in the last 15 years tends to hide and doesn’t consider women born in the 70ies in Western countries, who ended up without children. Many of these Gen X women had been ‘nurtured’ in last decades with beliefs, strict to duties, being highly educated and struggling to become financially independent first and then, in a such constructed social picture, get married and eventually become a mother just right after. There used to be only few marketing campaigns – nowadays there are plenty of them- about social freezing or about the fact that, after 35, women’s fertility reaches the peak and then drastically falls off the cliff. Everything seemed possible (‘no time to die’) for Gen X, but this wasn’t the truth (and nowadays we see the outcome). That was only one of the Narratives. A change in the social and political systems in many countries is urgent, also because the ‘Symbolic Annihilation’ of Childless women in films and media is still going on. Childlessness In the Literature is taken into consideration, too, especially through Pinocchio and the dream of Geppetto coming true: Geppetto is an old carpenter, single, whose deep desire of parenthood made him create a wooden puppet, who will end up to become a real child with a soul, after a long process of transformation and consciousness. Dealing with Childless in the future: is it possible a new social generativity? Generativity vs. stagnation is the seventh stage of Erik Erikson's theory of psycho-social development, taking place during middle adulthood (approximately between ages 40 and 65). Generativity refers to making a positive impact and contributing to the world, not only through raising children, but also through mentoring others, engaging in meaningful work and /or other plans. Stagnation, on the other hand, represents feeling stuck and unproductive, lacking a sense of purpose. Politicians and society should focus more on these topics, in a constant dialogue with Social psychology, and develop new projects where older and newer generations can stay in touch and work together to make pro-social changes: for example, how about allowing projects where some competent Childless women take care of orphans? Can’t this be considered a new kind of (non biological) type of motherhood? This still seems not to be considered or banned by society.