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