Having children and becoming a mother is a huge part of our collective cultural script. When you’re single, the question is ‘when are you going to find someone?’ When you find someone, the question becomes ‘when are you having children?’

So what about the many women who don’t have children, either by choice, circumstance or because they’re unable to?

Otherhood is a newly published book of essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent.

Lil O’Brien and Kathryn van Beek are two of the editors of this anthology, which charts the challenges, joys and griefs that being without children brings, and has also inadvertently created space and a lovely community for people who aren’t mothers. Ka pai!

Song credit: Korimako, Performed by Aro, Written by Emily Looker and Charles Looker and published by Songbroker.