Human Rocks

LIVE BROADCASTS ARE BACK! We're happy to invite you to our new live broadcast where we continue speaking about childlessness. This Friday, September 17, at 5 pm CEST, we'll be discussing the attitudes to childlessness in different cultures. Here's our amazing panel: Cristina Archetti, Professor in Political Communication and Journalism at the University of Oslo; Co-Founder of the Norwegian association for childless women, and the author of the book “Childlessness in the Age of Communication: Deconstructing Silence”, Norway Tatyana Fertelmeyster, Founder at Connecting Differences LLC, Inclusion Facilitator, Expert in Intercultural Communication, Licensed Clinical Professional Counsellor, USA Palo Barker, Ex-Banker and Audit Manager, and Entrepreneur, UK Sandra McNicol, Life Coach working with childless not by choice women, Spain Anna Lundin (AL), member of the Swedish network for permanently childless women, Sweden The guests will speak on four general topics: 1. Parent...

Come ha notato Giorgio M. Ghezzi, l'autore del libro "No, non abbiamo figli. L'amore ai tempi dell'infertilità ", nella lingua italiana non esiste una parola per identificare le persone senza figli. Nei secoli lontani si usava la parola "orbo (-a)" che significava una persona priva di qualcosa o qualcuno. Guardiamo il dizionario:  orbo [òr-bo] Aggettivo: 1. Privo del senso della vista. 2. Privo, privato di una cosa o di una persona cara: stette la spoglia immemore (Manzoni); è rimasto orbo del figlio. Sostantivo: 1. Chi è privo della vista, cieco. 2. Persona senza senno, senza giudizio. Impressionante! Le persone senza figli le si immaginavano come tali da avere una disabilità oppure da non avere un giudizio. Infatti, non esiste la terminologia per i concetti di essere senza figli per scelta, non per scelta, per l'infertilità, per aver perso un figlio o una figlia, per non aver trovato un partner giusto, per non essere stato pronto economicamente, p...

LINK TO FOLLOW THE BROADCAST : https://youtu.be/_FifXR5ECEI Join us on May 27, at 4 PM CEST / 10 AM EST

  Recently, I've asked a wise lady and my role model about how to maintain friendships with girlfriends who are mothers. When you are childless and all of your close friends are mothers, and your siblings are parents, too. You sincerely love them, and you're happy for them from the bottom of your heart. But you have a battle going inside of you: you love to hear about their children, since they are such a great part of their lives, but at the same time, it's often hard for you. You have a lot in common that you can talk about, but you feel that if your friends are not allowed to talk about their kids, so as not to hurt you, your communication is not as rich, profound and sincere as it used to be. Here's what she said: "Intimacy and honesty are the same thing". When you start feeling it hard to be honest with your friends, you start losing intimacy. So, gradually you might begin to "ghost" such friendship: stop answering the calls, avoid meetings, and...

There is a lot of talk these days about the changes that the pandemic has brought to our lives, habits, lifestyle, and work. While we sympathize with parents who work from home in the chaos of the “child management” and household duties, we often forget about the group of people that is hardly heard and almost invisible – our childless colleagues, who are sometimes also single. For them it’s just as hard, if not harder, to survive the social distancing and smart working, due to the profound feeling of loneliness. So, can we even compare these temporary challenges of parents to the existential struggles of the childless? Childless people, as well as singles, often have to fight the stereotype of their life being easier because they don't have children to look after. In some ways it may be true but childless people themselves, especially those not by choice, don't see it this way. Living alone has its own difficulties, they are just different in nature from those in the famil...

LINK per seguire la DIRETTA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw5NFdaKJdM

D iversity appreciation, engagement and inclusion, as well as granting equal employment opportunities   that almost all companies claim to promote  nowadays  are not only about accepting  everybody’s  right to their religious beliefs, political views, cultural traditions and sexual preferences, but it’s also about respecting one’s personal life choices and circumstances, including those related to procreating, and consequently – one’s social status as a parent or a non-parent.  A non-parent of both categories: no kids by choice (“childfree”) and no kinds not by choice but by circumstance (“childless”).   We often speak about maternity in the workplace and the discriminational attitude (so called “motherhood penalty”) that pregnant women and mothers can experience at work. At the same time we almost never speak about the situation childless colleagues might find themselves in, nor we even consider their state of mind and a myriad of issues – personal an...