There’s a question that has haunted me for years. A question that echoes in fertility clinics, family gatherings, even in whispered conversations with friends:
“But did you try everything?”
It’s not asked with cruelty (usually). Sometimes it’s wrapped in concern, curiosity, or even admiration. But the message underneath is always the same: prove it. Prove that you wanted it enough. Prove that you worked hard enough. Prove that your grief is legitimate.
And layered into that pressure is another word society throws at us: childless.
A word that makes us sound empty. Deficient. Defined only by what we don’t have.
The Silent Burden of Justification
When your journey ends without children, the cultural script demands an explanation. Why did you stop treatment? Why not adoption? Why not try one more round?
And then the label comes. Childless. As if the only story that matters is the absence of children.
No one asks new parents to prove how many sleepless nights they endured before they conceived naturally. No one demands spreadsheets of expenses to validate their path to parenthood. But when you’re stamped with “childless,” you become a witness on trial—defending your choices, your body, your very humanity. This feeling of being judged isn’t just personal—it’s been documented in research on infertility stigma.
It’s exhausting and it’s unfair.
Stigma in Disguise: “Did You Try…?”
The language of infertility is often cloaked in helpful suggestions:
- Have you tried IVF again?
- Have you thought about surrogacy?
- Have you considered adoption?
Each one lands like an accusation. What they really mean is: you didn’t fight hard enough, you gave up too soon, you don’t deserve peace yet.
This is how cultural stigma works. It hides inside words like childless—a word that suggests we are somehow less, incomplete, defined by a missing piece. It forces women like me—women who spent years, sometimes decades, on the battlefield of infertility—to constantly justify why we stopped fighting. I wrote about this before about the toxic never give up culture.
The Cultural Expectation to “Finish the Race”
Infertility treatment is not a marathon with a finish line. It’s not about who can push themselves the hardest or endure the most. But society treats it that way.
We are conditioned to believe that perseverance equals worthiness. That if you push through enough rounds of IVF, if you drain your savings, if you chase every possible “next step,” then and only then are you allowed to say: I tried.
But where does that end? With our health destroyed? Our marriages broken? Our spirits crushed beyond repair?
And what does it say about us when the only word available is childless—a word that erases the wholeness of who we are beyond motherhood?
Reclaiming Our Right to Enough
Here’s the truth: no one else gets to decide when your “enough” is enough. Not your doctor. Not your in-laws. Not society.
And no one gets to define your identity with a word that makes you smaller. For me, childfree not by choice is not just a phrase—it’s a declaration. I am free from the expectation that my life must revolve around proving my worth through parenthood. My story is more than the absence of a child.
The Healing Power of Refusing to Justify
I am finally at the point where I am beginning to stop explaining myself. It isn’t easy. For so long, I thought I had to provide the “right” answer to why we didn’t adopt or why we stopped treatments.
But healing comes when I allow myself to say, simply: This is my story. This is my life. I don’t owe anyone proof. And I am not “childless.”
Final Thought
So here’s my challenge to anyone reading this.
Stop asking for proof. Stop demanding justifications. And stop calling us childless.
Instead, start listening. Start honoring. Start believing women when they say: I tried.
Because sometimes the bravest act isn’t in trying again. Sometimes it’s in saying enough. And sometimes it’s in claiming a new word for ourselves—one that does not erase who we are.
