Every One of Us Is A Unique Work of Art — Whether We Have Kids or Not

Childlessness is a palette, not a spectrum

Jan 16, 2025

close up of a human eye with all different coloured paint on the face like a rainbow — Image credit: Alexander Grey via Pexels

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According to mainstream society, we can use several labels to describe our parental status.

We can be childless; usually not a choice and as a result of circumstance or infertility.

We can be childfree; usually a choice or often described as a default state (“I knew I’d never have kids” for example).

We can be stepparents, foster parents or adoptive parents.

We can be mum or dad. We can be primary carers.

When I think about my own category of childlessness, I never quite fit in any of the pre-labelled boxes.

I don’t have a biological child, but I did foster a 9-year-old for a year, and I worked with kids for a large chunk of my adult life (until it got too difficult because of infertility struggles).

I’ve never been anyone’s Mum, but I live with someone else’s teenager who calls our house her home.

Over the years, I’ve often asked myself if this means I’m not really childless?

I identify strongly with the childless label, and chime loudly with childfree most days too.

I don’t have kids, and I never will.

I have children in my life, but I’m not responsible for keeping them alive, or educated, or nutritionally healthy.

This led me to describe parental status as a spectrum; a linear line upon which everyone falls somewhere.

But recently, at an event about neurodiversity, someone used a different analogy which I loved even more. A way of describing our uniqueness without the divisive narratives of being at different points on a single line.

Let me explain.

A spectrum tends to be a linear thing. You have something on side A, and the opposite thing on side B. In the context of living without children, parents are on one side, and non-parents are on the other.

But this pits us against each other as opposites.

I’m not the opposite of a person with kids

There’s just this one area of our lives where we walked very different paths.

We might also love the same authors, watch the same comedy shows, or enjoy the same types of food. We probably have much more in common than not.

Instead of a spectrum, how about we think of our parent status as a palette?

The combination of which produces a brilliant, unique work of art.

You. You’re the art.

We’re each made up of a unique and ever-changing suite of colours and textures.

We might have a touch of red, a dab of blue, a splatter of yellow. Or something else entirely.

I might have the same hue of purple as someone else, but a completely different balance of orange.

A tiny difference can lead to a completely different person.

Our individual life experiences and choices all add to our palettes, too.

Every decision we make changes our life’s trajectory a little or a lot. It changes the painting of our life, forever and ever.

And we’re a painting that’s never finished. We’re always tweaking it, adding to the overall experience.

We could go even further and say that each thread of ‘life’ is a colour, and our unique experience of each thread determines the tapestry of our individual lives.

Perhaps parental status is shades of blue.

Brain chemistry and mental health could be shades of yellow.

Physical elements are shades of purple.

Sexuality and gender experiences are shades of green.

You get the idea?

My life as a Picasso or Monet

I have a splash of turquoise from working with kids for most of my adult life, until it became too painful for me emotionally. I’ve had years of experience being around children and young people and I’ve trained in how their brains work.

There’s a touch of lavender, for the times I babysit for friends’ children and family members. I’m quite capable of keeping a child alive, feeding them and wiping their arse. I’d rather not, though.

With my husband, we have a sprinkle of gold from when we fostered a child for a year. We chose not to adopt because the fostering experience was a complete shit show. I very rarely talk about this experience and it probably has more of an effect on me than I admit. It’s a dramatic fizz of colour in an otherwise muted space on my canvas.

The background of my painting is navy blue, because I have stepchildren who’ve been in my life for over a decade. I’ve wiped away their tears and made them meals and had fun family days out. I’ve also been treated terribly by their mother, purely because I exist. I’ve attended their weddings and been a trusted carer for their children.

Infertility struggles added a hint of mauve and a flash of amber, when I found out I was menopausal and would never conceive. We decided not to pursue IVF because it had such a low chance of success and we didn’t want to destroy our mental health or our marriage because of it.

I’m currently adding some lemon and mustard yellows, by exploring my brain chemistry and what neurodivergent looks like for me. In a surprise twist, these new shades are bringing it all together and suddenly make everything else make sense.

My husband is a parent who shares some shades of his palette with mine, but who also has his own history and nuance too.

My friends are a multifaceted carnival of colours, some the same but many different to my own. We complement each other and sometimes we clash and contrast. It all adds to the experience of friendship.

It boils down to understanding and being open to all the experiences life can offer us.

Having children is just one of the experiences we can have in a lifetime.

If we all learn to embrace our colours and lean into the vibrancy of our individual life experiences, perhaps we can recognise that we’re each a masterpiece in our own right.

I wonder, if you take away the labels you carry and replace them with colour, what does the painting of your life look like?

Written by Lisa Kissane

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