Imagine yourself in a room filled with women of all ages who are not mothers, women who will not ask you how many children you have or when you’re going to get around to having them, women who will not brag about their grandchildren because they don’t have any either. That’s what it’s going to be like at the NotMom Summit, a conference for childless and childfree women happening Oct. 6 and 7 in Cleveland, Ohio.

I will be one of the speakers there. Other speakers will include many of my heroines from the childless/childfree world. They include Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and author of Living the Life Unexpected; Laura Carroll, author of The Baby Matrix and Families of Two; Marcia Drut-Davis, longtime parenting choice advocate and author of Confessions of a Childfree Woman: A Life Spent Swimming Against the Mainstream; Laurie Lisle, author of Without Child: Challenging the Stigma of Childlessness; Karen Malone Wright, founder of The NotMom, and so many more amazing women.

I have never been to Ohio, and I have never met any of these women except online. I expect to be totally jet-lagged and star struck.

Topics include “Women Without Children: Then and Now,” “NotMoms on the Job,” “How to Manage Your Money,” “Singles Without Kids,” “The Medical Upsides and Downsides of Being a NotMom,” “Getting Older Just Like You Planned It,” and “On the Big Screen: Childless and Childfree Stories.” There will be opportunities for women in similar situations to meet and for women who live near each other to get together.

Attendees will get a chance to talk about the stuff that they can’t always discuss with their families, their friends or even their partners because they just don’t get it or don’t want to hear it. This is amazing to me.

It’s $395 for the whole conference. You can also opt to attend for one day or one of the keynote speeches. For details, visit https://notmomsummit2017.sched.com/tickets. If you are anywhere nearby or can get there in October, think about attending. To be honest, I’m spending much more than I’m making, but I think it’s going to be worth it. If nothing else, I’ll have a lot of new things to share with you here on the blog.

There’s more to The NotMom than just the conference. Visit the website at https://www.thenotmom.com. They’ve got a blog, a list of resources, a list of famous women without children, and a forum where people can talk about this stuff. Click around the site and have fun. Just don’t forget about me. 🙂

Meanwhile, keep those comments coming on the existing posts. I love a lively conversation.