LIVE kidfree

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.

Every generation has had its distinct parenting challenges, and in response to those challenges, novel parenting styles and philosophies and mantras have been touted as the antidote to those challenges. In my book, three of today’s distinct parenting challenges are covid, social media and climate change, and very few parents seem to be coping all that well, understandably.

Having kids isn’t just about the kids. It’s about signing up to be a Parent, and an active participant in Parenting culture, which to me, looks pretty savage and downright miserable most of the time. The words “competitive sport” come to mind. I fully believe people can love their kids and simultaneously hate the role of Parent.

In this episode, I explore why covid, social media and climate change make 2021 an especially sucky time to be a parent, and make me more grateful than ever to live kidfree.

While it's normal for childfree people to be asked why they don't want kids, asking a parent why they want or have kids can be seen as taboo. I’ve taken the liberty of identifying a few reasons why I think people want or have kids. 

1. Their family life growing up was amazing and they want to re-create it

2. Their family life growing up wasn’t amazing and they want a do-over

3. They meet someone who makes them want kids

4. They want to feel unconditional love without having to earn it

5. They want to feel needed

6. They want to be a better person and need a forcing mechanism

7. They are bored

8. Everyone around them is having kids

9. They are terrified of being alone or dying alone

10. They crave purpose and legacy

11. They think they will regret not having kids

12. It’s the only lifestyle choice they have ever considered

In honor of International Women’s Day, I allowed myself to imagine a new world. A world in which women are so empowered and have so many equally amazing opportunities they are free to pursue, that being a mother is no longer the primary goal to which they are socialized to aspire.

A world in which the costs of motherhood increasingly outweigh its benefits, and women are less interested in having babies as a means of personal fulfillment. A world in which women are more determined to rule the world and less willing to rule the roost. And lastly, a world in which non-moms are valued equally to moms.

What does that world even look like? In this episode, I dive into the implications, specifically for men, hetero relationships, and most significantly, the future of human procreation.

My dog is, unequivocally, a reason I am no longer married and a reason I neither have nor want children.

The pandemic has been a win for dogs. According to the Washington Post, shelters cleared out, foster dogs were adopted at double the pre-covid rate, and breeders had waiting lists. At the same time, due to covid, Americans are having fewer babies: a June 2020 report from the Brookings Institution estimated the US could see as many as 500,000 fewer births in 2021, a 13% drop from the 3.8 million babies born in 2019. The fact that there has been an increase in demand for pets and a simultaneous decrease in demand for babies is not only interesting, but in my opinion, related.

My dog, Cinco, was not only a catalyst that eroded my marriage, he was also what validated, beyond any shred of doubt, my intuitive feeling that I could never, ever, have children with my ex-husband. If you are a pawrent who is currently evaluating whether you want kids, or want to have kids with your current partner, you’ll want to tune in.

In honor of my fluffy companion, this episode explores 5 lessons I learned from pawrenting with a partner.

A parent who “doesn’t gamble” is, in fact, a gambler. Bringing human life into the world is the ultimate gamble with the highest possible stakes.

There are three reasons why it’s helpful to think of procreating as a high-stakes gamble:

1. It’s risky: between physical risks to the mother, mental and emotional health risks and the potential for kids to destroy relationships, it’s safe to say having kids is a risky bet.
2. The odds are not calculable: a human isn’t a mathematical equation whose output is a function of the input. The range of potential outcomes from having kids is infinite with an emotional spectrum of bliss to misery.
3. The outcome is uncertain: it’s a box of chocolates, and you never know what you’ll get!

When a woman is pregnant, she is said to be “expecting.” “Expecting” goes hand in hand with “accepting” the fact that having kids could bring devastating heartbreak as much as it could bring unbridled joy.

This episode breaks down four things I think people tell themselves before they place a wager in favor of parenting.

It’s a bizarre exercise to think about who you were a year ago, when you didn’t know covid existed. What were your resolutions or intentions for 2020? What was top of mind for you a year ago? What were you planning to do or be or accomplish?

There is no denying that we have all grown immensely more than we would have on a “normal” year, so if you haven’t acknowledged this, or given yourself the love you deserve, please do so immediately.

Covid gave many of us permission (in the form of a mandate) to take time out, to interrupt our routines and thought patterns and behaviors, to sit with ourselves, by ourselves, and face a few things we otherwise may not have had the opportunity, courage, time or space to confront.

A few practices I took from 2020 include:

• Learning to love my own company
• Being intentional with my time
• Cultivating peace and clarity amid chaos and discomfort
• Managing my mind

One of the many gifts of living kidfree is being able to curate a life that brings us the joy, adventure, challenge, hardship and beauty that others fulfill by being parents. Childfree people spend entirely too much time and energy defending who we are, justifying our lifestyle, and validating our existence to others as well as ourselves.

So I intend, for this year and all years to come, to build such a boss kidfree life that no one, including me, will ever question me again.

In this episode, I expand on what 2020 taught me and how I plan to build my boss kidfree life!

It’s interesting how curious we are about whether women have children, especially is she is being recognized for an accomplishment that has nothing to do with children. She could cure cancer and her uterus would somehow still be relevant to the conversation.

So, why the curiosity? I think it’s because motherhood is revered to a degree that makes it impossible to ignore. At a basic level, it’s 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.

People are revered for two potential reasons: fear or awe, with reverence for moms deriving from the latter. And the reason people are in awe of mothers, is because on some level, we acknowledge how much motherhood can really suck sometimes, and we admire their ability and willingness to embrace and endure the suck.

The thing is, reverence doesn’t work in moms’ favor, and in fact, it works against them where it really matters. It doesn’t benefit kidfree women either, as it is frequently weaponized against us.

This episode exorcizes the reverence of motherhood. It’s a doozie, you should totally listen, and your mom friends should too.

If you think "RIP friendship" when your friends become parents, you aren't alone. You also aren't a terrible person. Can we all just admit that it's sad when our friends become parents?

Yes, we love them. Yes, we are happy for them. But we also grieve the loss of a friendship that, while it may endure, will never be the same. Perhaps this loss is a mutual feeling: I'm sad she is being taken away from me while she may be sad that I won't be walking the parenting path with her. Regardless, it's undeniable that a baby causes an inflection point in all of its parents' relationships, and not all of those relationships survive.

So why do we feel sad? I have bucketed this into three major reasons:

1. I will become a lower priority for my friend
2. My friend will never be the same
3. My friend will become a Parent

I also have a few words of [unsolicited] advice for kidfree folks who are not only feeling sad about losing friendships, but are also feeling guilty or ashamed for feeling sad.

Listen as I dive into the reasons why we're sad and help you change your perspective so you can preserve precious friendships.

Ever since covid intensified in March, our lives have been in a state of constant flux. What the pandemic has exposed, among many things, is how we define our comfort zone as individuals, communities, and nations, and how flexible and adaptable we are (or aren’t). What we are comfortable or uncomfortable with has gone from a semi-conscious reaction to a continuous, real-time calculation.

Much of what we would define as “comfortable” is simply an absence of strong emotion, positive or negative. It’s neutral. It’s your resting heart rate. Nothing exciting or devastating happens in the comfort zone, but no personal growth happens there either.

I think two things have the ability to shape our comfort zones in very different and powerful ways :

1. Fear, and the role we allow it to play in shaping our lives
2. Awareness, of what fits or doesn’t fit with who we are

One reason I don’t have kids is because, being a mom is not in my comfort zone. Am I afraid of having kids? Yes. Do I fear being a mom? Yes, I believe I do. Have I challenged this fear? Absolutely. Have I challenged it by having a kid? No.

Listen to the podcast episode as I expose the two co-creating forces that shape our comfort zones, and share some ideas of how you can challenge your fear if you’re deciding whether to have kids.