LIVE kidfree

Motherhood is revered to a degree that is impossible to ignore. 

At a basic level, reverence is recognition for moms, similar to recognition at a job or in any other role that a woman plays in society. At the extreme, reverence is a creepy exaltation and glorification of the role of Motherhood. Those who live kidfree hear it all the time: “you’d be a great mom!” as if it’s the most valuable contribution we can possibly make and the highest honor to which we would be crazy not to aspire.

One reason people rever mothers, is because on some level, we acknowledge how much motherhood can really suck, and we rever their ability and willingness to endure the suck.

In some societies, and increasingly in the US, women don’t have the right to control their bodies, they don’t have reproductive choices, they have no agency over the role they play in society, and their safety and security and status depend on their fertility. 

Privilege is something that we often don’t consciously see unless we’re looking for it. If you are a person of any degree of privilege, once you start to understand what that privilege looks like and you actively start looking for it, you will find it absolutely everywhere you look. Where choosing to live kidfree may not be a universal right, it is a universal privilege, and I’ll explain three reasons why.

1. You can be safe
2. You can support yourself financially
3. You can do things other than have babies

In this episode, I dive into why having the ability to choose to live kidfree as a woman is a privilege that is both beautiful and badass.

Love is love.

This slogan has become synonymous with LGBTQ acceptance and equality. It means that all forms of love are equal and valid and beautiful, no matter who you are and who you love. Despite your personal beliefs, this slogan is, at its core, a rather obvious and indisputable statement of equality.

As childfree people, we are often told by parents that we will never experience true love because we don’t have children, that we will never know what love means because we don’t have children. This is one of the most common and probably one of the most hurtful put-downs parents will throw at us.

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I am reminding you, childfree people, is that our love, is love too. That our love matters, that it is just as powerful and valid and valuable and beautiful as parents’ love. This episode is short and sweet and full of positive affirmations, I hope you enjoy!

According to the CDC, the US birth rate hit a record low in 2020 to a level that the Brookings Institution calls “considerably below replacement levels for the foreseeable future.” While the US population is still increasing, the rate of growth has slowed dramatically: it dropped 4% from 2019-2020 to 1.6 children per woman.

This episode explores five reasons why I personally think preferences are changing towards fewer or no children:

1. Women have money
2. Motherhood can suck
3. Life is expensive
4. Our worlds are bigger
5. Societal strife

At the beginning of 2021, when I was setting my intentions, I told myself that I would build such a boss kidfree life that no one, not even me, would ever question me again.

For far too long I have struggled with inner conflict about my choice to live kidfree, but the pandemic really validated my perception that a traditional nuclear family life can be miserable and stressful and unsustainable. I have seen countless expressions of gratitude and relief pouring out of the childfree community ever since covid intensified early last year as we collectively witnessed the nightmare that parents continue to suffer from and suffocate under.

As 2021 fades to black, I thought it was a good time to reflect on what a boss kidfree life actually means to me, so I’m sharing three aspects of how I personally think about it. These are more philosophical and spiritual things, almost like guiding principles more so than lifestyle-related aspects of a boss kidfree life.

They are:

1. Letting go of attachments
2. Not trying to change other people
3. Not playing into obligations

Being childfree is a choice and lifestyle that can inspire immediate and visceral emotional responses from people, while other lifestyles or pursuits are not particularly scrutinized or triggering. A person who aspires to be a parent is viewed as normal and wholesome, while a person who aspires to live kidfree is often viewed as neither normal nor wholesome.

I view people who react to childfree people with judgement and indignance and disdain as, essentially, basic. In reality, most people lack the intelligence, introspection, curiosity and awareness needed to manage their own thoughts and emotions around the idea of living kidfree: they simply get triggered and react with fear and emotion rather than reason.

In an effort to further normalize our lifestyle, I came up with three analogies that I think may be useful when trying to process your decision to live kidfree or when helping others understand why you might want your life to look different from theirs.

When I launched Live Kidfree, I did so because I felt like I could add value to a childfree conversation that was dominated by fear. When it comes to living kidfree, and specifically to a person’s decision or choice to do so, my goal is really to help you alleviate some of the inner conflict and negative emotions that childfree folks experience as they struggle to reconcile their choice.

On International Childfree Day, I challenge you to practice empathy. Listen as I explore three “mom concepts” including mommy brain, mommy martyrdom and “mombie,” all of which may inspire you to consider choosing a path of empathy and acceptance for moms rather than a path of judgement and resistance.

One of the more common reactions people have to those of us who live kidfree is, “who will take care of you when you’re old?”

Many people have kids at least partially for this reason. Nobody wants to die alone, right? I think the idea behind this is, as a parent, you sacrifice so much to raise your children, that said children are forever indebted to you and therefore obligated to care of you when you can no longer care for yourself or don’t want to care for yourself.

In this episode, I explore four reasons why I abhor the idea of parents having children for this reason, including:

1. It’s selfish
2. It’s presumptuous
3. It’s a cop-out
4. It’s unfair

It can be really, really difficult to be a childfree person whose friends are all becoming parents.

In my episode “Coping with losing friends to parenting,” I talk about my belief that friendships rooted in mutual respect and commitment can endure when one person has a baby, but I also acknowledge that many friendships don’t endure. Ultimately, if you expect too much from your friends when they become parents, you will be let down.

This episode is about adjusting your expectations of your parent friends. I say “adjust” rather than “lower” because they aren’t necessarily lower, they’re just better suited to the reality of the situation that you’re trying to cope with. Changing your thoughts to a position of positivity and empowerment when going through this exercise is everything: setting your own, reasonable expectations is more about preserving your own peace and sanity than it is about holding others to a defined standard.

Six ways you can adjust your expectations include:

1. Expect to flex
2. Expect to be a lower priority
3. Expect the friendship to change
4. Expect to be annoyed
5. Expect to be and/or feel left out
6. Expect to make new friends

Domitilla is a female name of Italian origin that means “tamed” or “little tame one.”

I am increasingly aware of the fact that a) American society is completely and utterly patriarchal b) we haven’t progressed as much as we have been led to believe and c) the amount of progress we have been led to believe has occurred is yet another patriarchal construct that must be illuminated and destroyed because that degree of progress has not actually occurred!

Part of my aversion to motherhood is the aspect of being a mom that requires being “tamed” in a way that is consuming, unique and severe. The data also supports this: women are far more likely to look after sick children or elders, spend more time on domestic [unpaid] work, and take on the emotional labor of parenting. Yet women are also frequently the ones managing not only childrearing household responsibilities, but are making money and managing household finances. So, in reality, today’s family structures are increasingly matriarchal, as in, controlled by women, yet men continue to enjoy the home field advantage pretty much across the board.

I came up with three reasons why the self-actualization (a.k.a “untaming”) of women threatens the patriarchy:

1. It threatens the dominant patriarchal narrative that women can and should and must be mothers
2. It threatens the socialized norm that women must “own” the majority of the emotional labor of parenting, while men are free to conveniently opt out when it doesn’t suit them
3. It threatens the exponential population growth of the human species

This episode explores these ideas and validates your intuitive assumption that motherhood, at the end of the day, can be a bad deal for women.