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In this week’s episode of Spinsterhood Reimagined, I talk to photographer, Jackie Dives.

Jackie is a lens-based artist focused on issues of grief and identity, who lives in Vancouver, Canada. She has been working within the topic of the overdose crisis in her community since 2016. She is trained as an addictions counsellor and volunteers as a bereavement photographer, wherein she is invited into hospitals to make the first and last family portraits in the event of the loss of a baby during childbirth. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally, including in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Time Magazine. Jackie is also single and childfree and has always known that she didn't want to have children. 

In this conversation, Jackie and I talk about the art project for which she set up a gift registry to celebrate her choice to be childfree; how she’s known since she was a child that she didn’t want children, and has never doubted her thoughts and feelings on the subject; and the 5-year relationship that came to an end because she didn’t want kids, as well as the pain that ensued following the split.

We also discuss how many women get married and have children because they think it’s what they’re supposed / expected to do; how people telling women that they’ll ‘change their minds’ when it comes to having children actually shows a complete disregard for their feelings; how getting married and having children is still the only thing that is truly celebrated in our society; and how being different and living a life that is ‘outside of the norm’ can be both lonely and difficult. 

Jackie and I also chat about how being partnered is only ever seen as ‘adding’ to your life, whereas the things that can be ‘lost’ by getting into a relationship are largely disregarded and ignored; how she does not care about being single at the age of 38 and how a relationship isn’t something that she ‘needs’ in her life; and finally, how her father tragically died from a drug overdose in 2017 and how photography helped her to process the extremely confusing and upsetting emotions that followed his death.   

Follow Jackie on TikTok: @jackiedives

Follow Jackie on Instagram: @jackiedivesphoto

Link to Jackie’s Gift Registry: https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/2HGU9FYMLYQCG?ref_=wl_share

Link to Jackie’s book, Becoming Not A Mother Book:

https://www.jackiedivesphoto.com/becoming-not-a-mother-book

Jackie’s Websites: 

www.jackiedivesphoto.com

www.jackie

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