Instead: Navigating the Adventures of a Childfree Life By Maria Coffey Rocky Mountain Books, October 2023
Instead: Navigating the Adventures of a Childfree
Life, is part coming-of-middle-age memoir, part travelogue, part love story. It is Maria Coffey’s deep reflection on her decision to choose adventure over having children, a choice initially made out of self-preservation after the tragic loss of her boyfriend, the British alpinist Joe Tasker, who, along with Pete Boardman, disappeared on the Northeast Ridge of Everest in 1982.
Following Joe’s death, Maria made her way from her home in England to the coast of B.C., where she eventually met Dag, a veterinarian and adventurer. Maria continued to resist societal stigma, her mother’s Catholic guilt, her own numerous doubts and her new husband’s desire to become a father to stick with her decision to remain child-free. Instead of having kids, they were determined to “keep life interesting.” They travelled and explored the world together and eventually started an adventure company, Hidden Places, with its conservation branch, Elephant Earth. Despite her numerous accomplishments, wherever she found herself—the small villages of India, Vietnam and Kenya, even in England and Canada—maria continually dodged the question: “Where are your children?” Her answer was often followed by pity, shock, hostility and even abject horror. What was wrong with this woman? How dare she consciously make the choice to be childfree? Scandalous!
Instead is an important book, raising the deep and topical question: “What is the purpose of a woman’s life?” So much is out of our control, something especially apparent when we lose someone to a high-risk sport, but our fertility, our right to bear or to not bear children, should never be.
This is a story of complex choices, self-discovery, loss, love, joy, adventure and—strangely enough for a memoir about a child-free life– about Maria’s realization that she is indeed a mother of sorts, or maybe more of a “fairy godmother,” to Vinh and Bac, two Vietnamese beggar children; to Agnes, a young woman in Kenya who stood up to her village and refused to undergo female circumcision; and to her own dying mother. What is so compelling about Maria’s journey is that her deep loss gave rise to an empathy for others’ suffering that led her to a life of generosity and social conscience, not simply self-serving adventure.
While reading Instead, I felt I was across the table from Maria with a glass of wine, chatting about her wild, unconventional life. In vibrant, descriptive language, she transported me to the white sands of the Soloman Islands, the olive groves of Spain, to tiny village huts in Asia and plunked me into a kayak to paddle around Vancouver Island, all “salty and feral.”
It is no mean feat to squeeze such a big life into 300 pages, but Maria moves seamlessly through time, weaving the past, present and even the future together with her travels. This is storytelling at its finest.
All in all, Maria Coffey shows us that there are many lives a woman can live, and that we can indeed choose to be not childless, but child-free. Moreover, she reminds us of what it is to be fully awake, to be vibrantly alive and engaged with this world. To give back as much or more than we receive.
Instead is Coffey’s thirteenth book and will be available on Oct. 3, 2023, from Rocky Mountain Books.
End of the Rope: Mountains, Marriage & Motherhood.