No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood
A profound and honest anthology in which twenty-two writers share everyday experiences from their pursuit of parenthood.

No One Talks About This Stuff is a support group for almost-parents: it is a place to share journeys of loss and limbo, to confront social pressure and to find courage in the darkness of tragedies which happen every day yet are brushed under the carpet.

So, we hear from a stepmother who wrestles with infertility. A husband and wife each tell their experience of losing their baby. A lesbian comes of age at a time when gay people rarely become parents. A father finds loss to be his unlikely superpower. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder impacts a person’s choices about having a family. A black woman unpacks ancestral shame while finding renewed purpose. And each person shares how they lived through it.

This captivatingly beautiful, profound and honest anthology opens a much-needed conversation about society, family and honouring the missing children we will never forget.

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No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood
A profound and honest anthology in which twenty-two writers share everyday experiences from their pursuit of parenthood.

No One Talks About This Stuff is a support group for almost-parents: it is a place to share journeys of loss and limbo, to confront social pressure and to find courage in the darkness of tragedies which happen every day yet are brushed under the carpet.

So, we hear from a stepmother who wrestles with infertility. A husband and wife each tell their experience of losing their baby. A lesbian comes of age at a time when gay people rarely become parents. A father finds loss to be his unlikely superpower. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder impacts a person’s choices about having a family. A black woman unpacks ancestral shame while finding renewed purpose. And each person shares how they lived through it.

This captivatingly beautiful, profound and honest anthology opens a much-needed conversation about society, family and honouring the missing children we will never forget.

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No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood

No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood

by Kat Brown
No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood

No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood

by Kat Brown

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$18.99 
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Overview

A profound and honest anthology in which twenty-two writers share everyday experiences from their pursuit of parenthood.

No One Talks About This Stuff is a support group for almost-parents: it is a place to share journeys of loss and limbo, to confront social pressure and to find courage in the darkness of tragedies which happen every day yet are brushed under the carpet.

So, we hear from a stepmother who wrestles with infertility. A husband and wife each tell their experience of losing their baby. A lesbian comes of age at a time when gay people rarely become parents. A father finds loss to be his unlikely superpower. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder impacts a person’s choices about having a family. A black woman unpacks ancestral shame while finding renewed purpose. And each person shares how they lived through it.

This captivatingly beautiful, profound and honest anthology opens a much-needed conversation about society, family and honouring the missing children we will never forget.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781408783566
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date: 01/13/2026
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Kat Brown is a freelance journalist and commentator whose national work on ADHD, mental health stigma and other social and arts commentary has appeared in the Telegraph, Grazia, Woman's Hour and The Times. She is also the author of No One Talks About This Stuff, a groundbreaking anthology sharing people's untold experiences of infertility and baby loss.

Table of Contents

Introduction - xi

Disenfranchised Grief

The Story Which Does Not Have an End by Alice Jolly - 3

Pronatalism and Me: Waking up from the Trance of Motherhood by Jody Day - 14

A ‘Nearly Life’ by Rosie Wilby - 24

The Unspoken Trauma of Almost-Motherhood by Noni Martins - 29

Small, Soft, Grey Pig by Laura Barton - 38

Society

A Historical Perspective on Women Without Children by Emma Duval - 47

The Silence of Shame by Yvonne John - 57

Grief is Not a Competition by Alice Rose - 71

‘Other People’ Problems by Gemma Stone - 79

Choice

Elodie by Hilary Freeman - 89

Flashbacks and Tricycles: Chosen Childlessness and Trauma Disorders by Quinn Clark - 102

Decisions by Sophia Money-Coutts - 117

‘Happy Ending’ by Seetal Savla - 124

Parenting

Self-portrait, Pregnant by Miranda Ward - 137

The Baby Loss Diaries by Nana-Adwoa Mbeutcha - 153

Loss as a Superpower by Tom Wateracre - 173

The Baby Loss Diaries by Donald Mbeutcha - 181

Living

Eshet Chayil by Sarah Lewis - 197

Work in Progress by Rageshri Dhairyawan - 210

Notes from Here by Kat Brown - 220

Imogen and Delilah by Natalie Sutherland - 235

Hard Glad by Stella Duffy - 247

Resources - 257

Acknowledgements - 263

Supporters - 266

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