Involuntary Male Childlessness with Dr Robin Hadley.
On Sunday 21 September, I aired a very special conversation with Dr Robin Hadley - researcher, advocate, poet, and all-round diamond 💎.
Timed perfectly with World Childless Week, Robin and I explored the often overlooked reality of involuntary childlessness in men - the grief, the stigma, and the silence.
Some of Robin’s words that stayed with me:
💔“It’s grief without a death ... a disenfranchised grief because there’s no ritual, no structure, no recognition.”
🔢“If you’re not counted, you don’t count. And if the people who do the counting won’t count you, then you’re excluded twice over.”
🐥“I thought I was the only one who felt so broody, who felt like there was a cloud over them. Then I discovered there were many men like me.”
We also spoke about:
✨ The ache of Father’s Day for men who longed to be dads
✨ The policy blind-spots that leave childless men invisible in planning and services
✨ Aging without children and who advocates for you when family isn’t there
✨ Male vulnerability - why it needs to be understood on its own terms
✨ Robin’s very personal health update about how a routine check led to an early prostate cancer diagnosis
This is an interview I absolutely loved. Robin’s ability to weave his own lived experience with groundbreaking research is rare and powerful. I have enormous respect for his work and I’m grateful he shared it with me .. and now, all of you ☺️.
What does it feel like, being you, today?
www.raebonney.au
#InvoluntaryMaleChildlessness #MensHealth #Fathering #ProstateCancer #GetChecked #MensHealthResearch #MensHealthPolicy #WorldChildlessWeek
