What is it like to have had no children? I don’t know. Never having given birth, I have nothing with which to make a comparison.

But what does it feel like to have childlessness used against you as a condemnation, an insult designed to cause pain, a judgement? Ah… I can tell you about that.

There is, in truth, no reason why I should even try – except that I’ve learned a lot about insults from being at the receiving end of some and believe the lesson, which has, ridiculously troubled me for weeks, worth sharing.

“You fat, squinty-eyed, barren crone,” he said. “I have an Oxford first in insults. And I’m going public.” He warned me to prepare my family for exposure of me as a barren woman… as if they didn’t already know.

To be fair to him, he probably thought he had good cause. He thought I’d called him a misogynist. In truth, I hadn’t. Someone else – one of his friends (a man) – had done that at a party. And I’d laughed. Perhaps I shouldn’t have laughed. His friend reported back.

And yes, I had agreed with the same “friend” that he’d done little to ease racial tensions in the town where we’d all been brought up. Probably, as a squinty-eyed, barren woman, I should have kept my own counsel. I’m not good at that.

Furthermore, he’d been correct. Even though he’d taken to Facebook to say it, I had to concede to him, in all honesty, he had been impressively accurate in his description. I am overweight. I do have a damaged eye. I am knocking on in years. I was always unable to have a child. But barren. There’s a word to be conjured with. Barren.


Anne Pickles Within that word are old connotations of failure, uselessness; inability to fulfil purpose. A woman’s only purpose.

In addition, he being a journalist, editor, publisher and owner of his local newspaper – not the most comfortable of positions, some might say – he could say/write what he wanted. So, I warned the folks to be prepared. In my old home town there was every chance I would be denounced as… barren.

There’s a lot in that word. As much as there is in cripple or mad, queer, foreign, no-hoper, loser… you get the picture. Having had a lot of time to think about it – I really should stop thinking about it – I should by now know how to let it go. I’m not a mother. Never will be. Could never have been. That’s my failure.

But neither am I entirely dumb. Insults are made thoughtlessly for maximum effect. And credit where due, he managed to hit target, as was the intention.

I’ve rarely given my childlessness or even the squinty eye a second thought.

People who have disappointments, disabilities or handicaps rarely do. They get on with life quite cheerfully – until someone hits them with deliberately contrived poison.

Nobody is perfect and what’s perfect anyway? I’ve always got on with everything as best I knew how. But now… barren? Ouch.

To be a bully, someone needs to be accomplished in the art. And it is an art. They need to know how to go right to the crux of the matter of buried insecurity. Possibly it makes them feel good. And it’s surely easier to feel good when you throw it out online than in any other way. I get that. But have a think. Is that really who you want to be? I somehow doubt it.

Bullying is in itself a failure of intelligent thought. Hurting someone, because it feels good at the time, achieves little – unless you relish the idea of inflicting continuing pain. And I prefer to believe most of us are not made that way.

So, having been at the receiving end of a bully’s barbed attacks and threats, I’d advise only that a moment’s pause for consideration and one-to-one engagement will always be the better option.

From that we’ll all learn a lot more than we anticipated. I’ve learnt something. Can’t do anything about the eye, the age or the childlessness – but the diet started yesterday. And that’s a start.