Childless Men Express Their Grief And Depression: "I Might Find Myself Entirely Alone"

Robert Nurden never prioritized fatherhood – until it was too late. At age 72, Nurden published I Always Wanted To Be A Dad: Men Without Children, a gripping memoir of pain and regret from being childless. There are various reasons why some men live their entire lives without ever experiencing fatherhood. For the author, it was “complacency, bad luck, bad judgment."

The book details his life story: Nurden had a "sheltered upbringing." Once he reached adulthood, all he wanted to do was to partake in what life had to offer. As a result, he placed having a family on the back burner. "Having children was a very low priority. I was complacent: I just assumed it would happen," he admitted.

By the time he had reached his 40s, Nurden was ready for kids, but he later realized that most women his age were already mothers. Desiring a family of his own, Nurden naturally avoided relationships that he knew wouldn't result in children. "I went into this 15-year period of not going into relationships or ending relationships quickly because I knew that person wasn’t going to want or be able to have a child with me – or that the relationship wasn’t going to be strong enough to last if we did have a child," Nurden told The Guardian.

The media likes to show off the older men who impregnate younger women. This year, Al Pacino, 83, made headlines after it was announced that his 29-year-old girlfriend, Noor Alfallah, was pregnant. In 2020, Mick Jagger announced that he was having a baby at 72 with his girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick. But this sensationalization of senior men becoming fathers is rare and only influences men to be more complacent.

"If I’m honest, even when I was in my 50s, I believed that it might happen for me. But in real life, the Mick Jagger and Jon Snow-age fathers are actually very rare – and in any case, it’s medically not wise, as regards sperm quality," Nurden said.

Nurden observed a noticeable absence of discussions regarding the emotional distress men face when they are unable to have children. We often hear about the statistics on women being single and childless in their 40s, and we're aware of the stories of the distress they face when they find themselves alone, yet the same doesn't go for men. "There’s lots of publicity, quite rightly, about women and childlessness, but men are very mute about this," he added. "Married men don’t want to hear it either: I’ve had men with children react with anger, as though they feel threatened, when I’ve tried to talk about my pain."

"This grief compounds itself as it gets older: I wasn’t a father, but now I’m not a grandfather."

Men are alone, not just in their relationships but in their despair as well, as they continue to suppress the dialogue surrounding this issue. "I was mute too until recently, because as I aged, I found the regret grew into a great pain,” Nurden continued, “Unlike many other forms of grief, this compounds itself as it gets older: I wasn’t a father, but now I’m not a grandfather. When I’m even older, I might find myself entirely alone."

Nurden discovered that plenty of men are going through the same thing. "It turns out that there is a lot of pain, regret, and sadness out there," he revealed. Research by Dr. Robin Hadley found that 25% of men past 42 are childless, 5% more than women around the same age. Hadley is facing the same predicament as Nurden – his wife wanted kids, but having one at her age would have been too great of a risk. "I chose love, but that doesn’t make the pain of not having children any less," Hadley said. "When a close colleague had his first child, I was so jealous that I couldn’t be in the same room as him." Father's Day proves itself particularly painful for men like Hadley. Nurden, for example, stays indoors to avoid the special celebrations.

"I was so jealous that I couldn’t be in the same room as him."

Hadley understands that the West doesn't value fatherhood compared to other countries. He said, "While there has recently been a lot more public discussion about how to be a good father, we still don’t have any narrative or celebration about how important it is for men to become a father in the first place."

We're at a unique time when most men remain single and childless by choice, believing the time will come naturally. While women are deemed to have a "biological clock," men have a "financial clock" – and most will not settle down until they feel they are where they need to be financially. Others are under the illusion that they have numerous options thanks to dating apps and social media, further persuading them to put marriage and parenthood on the back burner. A few intend not to have kids, but they may change their minds as they get older. How many of them will realize that their time is running out?

Paul Goulden – the chair of Ageing Without Children – said he was "not convinced that there’s this Game of Thrones genetic push felt by men to have children." Rather, "There’s this mistaken belief that men are fertile across their lifespan, so there’s no imperative to get on with it."

Men's silence about their grief from being childless plays a role in persisting complacency. Goulden hopes that Nurden's voice will help change that. "I hope Robert’s book will trigger a change in public dialogue around this issue," he said. "I think there’s an overwhelming sense of loneliness and fear out there about who is going to be there for these men, when they’re old and all alone."

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