Hearth

DOORS OPEN

Guided gatherings for childfree women

"Before Hearth I didn't realise how much it changes the dynamic when it's only childfree women."

LARA

What nobody tells you about being childfree

It’s not the questions that wear you down. It’s not the judgement you feel, in the office, out on dates, at family dinners.

It’s your friends. The slow drift that happens when they become mothers. The group chat that fills up with things you can’t relate to. The plans that get harder to make. One day you look up and the community you created has shifted, leaving you on the outside of something you don’t want for yourself.

You’re not struggling with your decision. You know who you are.

You’re struggling with the loneliness that comes with it.

Here's the thing nobody says out loud:

When your closest friends become mothers there’s joy. Geniune joy that she got the thing she wanted. And underneath it, something quieter. A grief you’re not sure you’re allowed to feel. Because she’s happy. And you love her. And the last thing you want is to make it all about you.

But parents get a whole new community the moment a baby arrives. And we lose ours.

What’s worse, we can’t talk about it. Not with friends who have children. Not with family who already think we’re making a mistake. We can’t be truly open and honest with anyone.

You’re allowed to feel like this.

So what is Hearth?

Six gatherings. Every two weeks. A small group of childfree women who show up for each other, go deep together, and leave with something most of us have never had.

It’s not a course. Not a webinar. Not more content to consume and forget.

Hearth is a guided gathering.

Every two weeks you meet with Zoë and the same women on Zoom, to have the conversations that truly matter. The ones you’ve never had with anyone else in your life.

And between gatherings, there’s a private online space where your people will be waiting to support you.

You came in alone.
You leave with your people.

Six gatherings. One journey

GATHERING 1

I am childfree

For a lot of women this is the first time they’ve said it and truly meant it. Without defensiveness. No apologies. Just as a fact. Proud, clear, not up for debate.

“This is who I am.”

We start here. Together.

GATHERING 2

I am enough

Capitalism. Patriarchy. Pronatalism. They all want you striving, producing, proving your worth. Never resting. Always feeling not quite enough.

When you don’t have children the pressure can feel even heavier. Like you owe the world something extraordinary instead. Like you need to earn your place on the planet.

You don’t.

This gathering we talk about what a good life actually looks like for you. It might be a long walk. A lie-in. A quiet morning with your dog. Rest. Pleasure. All the things women are told to feel guilty about. We let go of the guilt, together.

GATHERING 3

I trust myself

Wobbles are normal. Seeing a friend’s baby and thinking “Wow, that’s something” doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It means you’re human. Society weaponises these moments against women. Takes a feeling and turns it into a judgment.

A moment is just a moment.

This gathering we sit with the “What-ifs”. We name them. Move through them. In a space where no one will judge you for asking.

GATHERING 4

I am allowed to grieve

Nobody talks about this one.

The friends who move to the country to have children. The ones whose whole identity shifts overnight. The group chats that go quiet. The invitations that stop coming. The specific loneliness of being the only one in the room without a cute kid story to tell.

Parents get a whole new community. We lose ours.

You are allowed to feel this.

In this gathering, we give the grief a proper space. We name it, hold it, and start to imagine what comes next.

GATHERING 5

I am embracing my future

As childfree women, we’re supposed to be scared about growing older, going through menopause, finding community and companionship in our later years. We’re taught to fear our futures.

So much of what’s been written about this chapter of our lives assumes children – and grandchildren – and you deserve a conversation that truly reflects your hopes and dreams.

Here we shine a light into the big unknown that is our future, and talk things through with a trusted group of women who are facing the same things, together.

GATHERING 6

I belong

When childfree women find each other, really find show up for one another, something lifts. You stop feeling like the odd one out. You stop bracing yourself. Your choice stops being something you defend and starts being something you’re proud of.

Maybe for the first time you have cheerleaders. Women who get it without needing it explained.

By this point in Hearth you won’t have to go looking for your people. You’re already sitting with them. And you can head back out into the world with a childfree community who have your back.

What Hearth Women Are Saying

"The last few folks who didn't have kids started to, and it felt like a tidal wave."

Finding Hearth came at exactly the right time for me.

Throughout my life I’ve mostly been confident in my identity as a childfree person, but the past few years it got harder. The last few folks who didn’t have kids started having kids, and it felt like a tidal wave.

Not seeing yourself and your choices reflected in the people closest to you had an impact on my sense of the validity of my own choices. What participating has meant to me is feeling validated that there are so many other women out there with similar feelings, struggles, doubts, joys, interests. You’re not alone.

Anything is better when you actually talk about it, and Hearth helped me do that. Lately my sister’s had another kid, a bunch more friends have decided to have kids, and even a few months ago I would have found those things much more destabilising. Now I’m just like, “Great, that’s what you want to do.” It doesn’t fundamentally destabilise me the way it was starting to.

I’m really grateful, and I feel way more confident.

- Ellie, UK

"I'm ready to stop masking and start being honest about the life I'm choosing to live."

This journey that we’ve all been on together over the past several weeks has truly been life-changing for me.

Over the last twenty or more years, I always thought that perhaps I’d have children, but deep down I knew that most likely I wouldn’t, but I never said it out loud.

I’ve said things during our meetups that I didn’t even realize were true about my life and about myself until I had the opportunity to really listen from the heart whenever anyone else in this group shared. I’m ready to stop masking and start being honest about the life I’m choosing to live.

I’ve struggled throughout my life to find my community. I am so grateful to have found one here, among all of you. I sincerely hope our last “official” Hearth meetup is not one where we say goodbye, but one where we say “talk to you soon” and really mean it. I know I will.

- Amy, USA

"Right now I'm ready to embrace being childfree as a choice, even as a gift."

Hearth has been a true gift for me that found me just in the right moment. A safe and empathic space that felt like a warm hug when you need it most.

I was initially childfree not by choice, but by circumstances. But this self-appointed “definition” always made me feel rather passive, like a victim to circumstances, someone who deserves pity, not someone who actively shapes her life.

Hearth gave me the chance to meet and connect with so many wonderful women, each with a unique journey and story. Yet all seemed to have the same determination: reclaiming their own path in life, writing their own story, rather than having circumstances or other people write it for them.

Sharing our experiences, our struggles and pain, but also our dreams and joy for life, made me feel ready to embrace being childfree as a choice, even as a gift.

- Anna S, Austria

"There was room for every story, every feeling, and everything we brought with us."

I signed up completely on a whim and honestly had no idea what to expect. But Zoë created such a warm and welcoming space that everyone felt at ease right from the start.

I find it so beautiful that we’re such different women, and yet we felt so deeply connected right from the very beginning. There was room for every story, every feeling, and everything we brought with us. I always felt met with understanding.

It meant so much to realize that I’m not alone with my thoughts and feelings. It felt so good to share out loud and find words for so many things that I had previously mostly been carrying quietly in my own heart. I really liked the simple agreement that we would just listen to each other instead of trying to fix one another. It made such a difference.

Before Hearth, I didn’t realize how much it changes the dynamic when it’s only childfree women. The conversations were different too.

- Lara, Germany

"I was feeling alone with both my anger about pronatalism and my excitement about the choice to be childfree."

Hearth has been an incredible gift to me.

Before I started I was feeling alone with both my anger about pronatalism and my excitement about the choice to be childfree. Meeting other women who share a similar outlook and excitement for life, as well as the grief over changing friendships and the frustration with pronatalist assumptions, felt so encouraging and important.

I learned so much from others about being true to yourself, standing up for yourself, and choosing to invest in relationships that are equitable.

I feel seen, and it’s been an honour to be there for others who also deserve to feel seen and belong in a community of women who are brave and making their own choices.

- Anna M, USA

"There was something quietly powerful about recognising my own story inside someone else's."

What drew me to Hearth was the hope of finding a community where more parts of my life might align, which matters a great deal at the stage I’m at now, 39 and childfree by choice. That’s not an easy thing to come by, and I wanted to be somewhere I didn’t have to “explain” myself.

What I hadn’t realised until the first session was that this is a global community. Hearing such similar stories from women across Europe and the US was genuinely insightful.

It was my first real experience of other people living childfree lives, first-hand, in their own voices, and there was something quietly powerful about recognising my own story inside someone else’s. It gave me a deeper sense of the community that childfree people are, and that’s what I’ll carry with me.

- Aimee, UK

"Listening to others share their thoughts, feelings and struggles has been healing."

Being a part of Hearth has been an incredibly nourishing and helpful experience for me.

Overall I feel extremely happy with my childfree-by-choice life and it brings me a lot of joy. But there are things about it that I find a little unclear about how to navigate or even put words to. Hearth has made that a lot more possible.

Listening to others share their thoughts, feelings, choices, where they find happiness and also their struggles, has been healing and really encouraging to me. I feel like I’ve come away more confident and like I’ve met some incredibly wonderful women who inspire me to keep growing and keep engaging with community where you feel seen, heard and held.

- Simi, UK

What you'll get

6 live gatherings on Zoom, 90 minutes each
Guided gatherings every 2 weeks for 3 months
A small intimate group to connect more deeply
Recordings in case you can’t attend live
Workbooks with prompts to help you reflect between sessions
Private Whatsapp Group for ongoing support

What you'll leave with

Women who know you. Who you never had to explain yourself to. Who became your people over six sessions of showing up and being real.

The ability to say “I am childfree” and mean it. Without apology, without justification, without waiting for someone to give you permission.

A life that feels more like your own.

Join Hearth

Spots are limited. Once the cohort is full, doors close.

6 live gatherings on Zoom
Small intimate group
Recording of each gathering
Weekly workbooks and prompts
Private Whatsapp group
Payment plan available

Starts Sunday 6th September

6pm UK time (10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 7pm CEST)

Can’t make these dates?

Add your name to the waitlist and you’ll be the first to know when the next cohort is announced.

Can’t make the date?

Who holds the space

Hey lovely, I’m Zoë, founder of We are Childfree.

I know what it feels like to watch your social world reorganise itself around something you didn’t choose. To be the one without children in a room full of parents and feel yourself go quiet. To make yourself smaller so other people can be comfortable.

That pain cuts deeply. I know because I’ve felt it.

Now in my 40s, I’m living my best childfree life. I will not dim my light to make others feel okay. I built We are Childfree because I realised the most meaningful work I could do was connect with women and lift them up. Over nine years I’ve sat with hundreds of childfree women and heard the most honest conversations of their lives.

I’m also a trained facilitator in the Way of the Council – a practice built on deep listening and creating spaces where people feel safe to speak their truth. Which is exactly what Hearth is.

The women in this community make me stand taller every day.

Hearth is the programme I always wished had existed for me.

We are Childfree has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue and the BBC

Details

FAQs

Our sessions together will run for 90 minutes at 6pm UK time (10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 7pm CEST), on the following Sundays: Sep 6th, Sep 20th, Oct 4th, Oct 18th, Nov 1st and Nov 15th.

And if you can’t make every live session, no worries – we’ll share the recording with you!

Hearth is for childfree women – however you got here. Whether you always knew, decided at some point along the way, or arrived at childfree through circumstance — illness, infertility, timing, a path that didn’t go the way you expected – you belong in this room.

What matters isn’t the “why” behind your childfree life. It’s that you’re living it now, and you’re looking for people who get it without you having to explain or defend it. Our cohorts have included women childfree by choice from the start, women who decided later, and women who arrived here through circumstances they didn’t choose but have come to feel at peace with.

Each gathering has a theme to guide the conversation and give it shape. Whatever you’re carrying in your heart that week is welcome in the room. The themes are a starting point not a rule.

Hearth is an intimate gathering that’s best experienced live! But if life ever gets in the way, don’t worry. You’ll get a recording of every session, a workbook with prompts to follow along, plus you can jump into our private WhatsApp support group to catch up on what you missed!

If this cohort isn’t the right timing, we hope to run Hearth again. Join the waitlist and you’ll be first to know when the next cohort opens.

Nope! This is totally optional, for folks who’d appreciate some extra support and connection.

Of course! However, if you’re a cis man, this isn’t the programme for you. We recognise that everyone’s been harmed by pronatalism, but particularly those of us who were born and/or raised as girls. Hearth is a space to face and overcome the specific challenges we face, as cis women, non-binary and trans people alike. (If you are a man and would be interested in getting together like this, we’d be interested in hearing from you – please get in touch.)

No. Hearth is a facilitated gathering to bring community, connection and reflection, which can be therapeutic, but it’s not therapy. Zoë is a trained Way of the Council facilitator, not a therapist or counsellor. If you are experiencing something that needs professional mental health support, we’d always encourage you to seek that alongside or instead of Hearth.

No worries, just get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!

Ready to find your people?

WE ARE CHILDFREE