LIVE kidfree

If you want to live kidfree, you are either celibate or engaging in some sort of birth control. And while women and men are both equally responsible for not having a baby, it’s really women who ultimately shoulder most of the responsibility.

This double standard on birth control is real. We have to manage and control our bodies in ways that men don’t.

While this is an unfortunate reality, I would also never trust any man (or really anyone other than me) to shoulder this responsibility on my behalf. It isn’t because men are dumb or incompetent or careless, it’s because I genuinely don’t believe men have been taught to take ownership over birth control the way women have. Also, I have a lot more to lose should there be an “oops.”

If you are a man who wants to live kidfree, I have some solid advice for you:

1. Take ownership over and actively participate in birth control.
2. Don’t assume anyone other than you is going to take responsibility for protecting you.
3. Just because you don’t want kids, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook if you get her pregnant.
4. Birth control is not failsafe and there are risks and potential for human error that you can help manage.
5. The least you can do is be aware of what she needs to do to not get pregnant with your child.
6. Get involved in the process so your partner doesn’t have to shoulder this massive responsibility alone.
7. A vasectomy is an easy option for you. The equivalent procedure for women is costly, invasive and is both difficult and demeaning to obtain.
8. People who don’t want kids do have them, and do regret it, and you could be one of them.
9. Pay attention. Show up. Get involved. Add value!

Listen to the podcast if you want to know how to be an amazing birth control teammate!

I chose my top five reasons for living kidfree:

1. Family has never been the center of my universe.
2. I don't want to live in a state of constant fear and anxiety.
3. I have never been with a man whose children I wanted to have.
4. Parenting is a bad deal in US society these days.
5. The role of parenting simply doesn't interest me.

Listen to the episode as I dive into the dirty details of these fabulous five reasons!

As kid free folks, we have all been called “selfish” at some point, whether it was directly, indirectly or passive-aggressively. We have come to expect it, we have heard it, we have engaged it, we have ignored it, and we have also deeply internalized it. It’s an accusation that is top of mind for critics of our lifestyle who don’t know how to understand or process our lifestyle and choose not to mind their own business. The fact that we focus our time, energy, resources and attention on people and pursuits other than procreating, makes some people’s heads explode.

At the end of the day, someone’s perception of me as selfish is not about what I’m wearing, where I’m going or what I’m buying: it’s about my ability to choose me, to prioritize me, and to have agency over my life in a way that parents may view not only as indulgent, but woefully impossible.

Of all the circumstances in which one can live kid free, now has to be among the most glorious. I have four specific reasons why:

1. Avoiding the parenting shitshow
   I want nothing to do with the cocktail of emotions parents are experiencing right now. Fear, anxiety, guilt, stress and inadequacy come to mind.
2. Nurturing my well-being
   Being able to prioritize my physical, emotional and mental health is an absolute gift. Quarantine feels borderline indulgent sometimes.
3. Being a support system
   Supporting your loved ones through this mess is of an act of service these days. Parents are struggling right now, but so are non-parents: everyone’s struggle is real.
4. Noticing habits and reevaluating priorities
   Social distancing has exposed my tendency for social distracting. Turns out I’ve been investing time in activities and relationships that don’t add a whole lot of value to my life and in some cases, are actually detrimental.

As covid rages and we are all “voluntarily” hibernating, I feel grateful. Apart from my health, paycheck and home, I feel grateful to have made choices in my life that haven’t left me overexposed, emotionally or financially. Covid preys upon individuals who are old, weak and sick. But it also is preying upon our collective stress and anxiety in ways that are ubiquitous and inescapable.

I’m calling this episode “part I” because I don’t think we are anywhere near “the end” of covid and I know this conversation will continue to evolve. So far, I’ve come up with these ten reflections:

1. “Home” is no longer the sanctuary it is romanticized to be; now it’s another battlefield in the war against covid.
2. “Normal” will never mean what it meant to us even 2 months ago.
3. The kid-free community is exempt from an absolute shitshow on the parenting homefront.
4. It’s a GREAT time to be childless, and kid free people feel validated that our lifestyle is being recognized and appreciated in a way it arguably never has before.
5. It takes a global pandemic for many people to see the value in a kid free life.
6. Similar to 9/11, covid is an event that will reverberate around the world, in every society and culture, for years to come.
7. If there is one lesson I hope parents learn from covid, it’s a massive reality check on how many “co-parents” they actually have in the form of a complex web of support systems.
8. Covid is proving that parenting without support systems is overwhelming and miserable.
9. There will be a renaissance for the kidfree community post-covid.
10. Post-covid, I hope there will be more awareness of consciousness around the decision whether to procreate.

Many kid free people are quick to cite freedom as both a reason for and benefit of being kid free. Freedom means totally different things to different people, depending mostly on how we define restriction, confinement or limitation. Whether it means traveling the world, pursuing a hobby, socializing with friends, pursing a career or creative interest, or just living day-to-day on our own terms, I think we can all agree that none of us agree on a freedom formula.

There are five “freedom themes” in the kid free community that define our unique perspective on what freedom means to us:

1. Choice: the ability to do what we want, when we want
2. Unencumbered: not feeling dragged down by an inescapable burden
3. Control: having the agency over our lives to avoid unpredictable derailments
4. Boundless: rejecting the rigid and limiting social construct of parenting culture
5. Fearless: avoiding the all-consuming, fear-mongering shitshow that defines modern parenthood.

This episode explores (and kind of destroys) the concept of legacy and puts it in the context of living kid free.

The topic of legacy is

• Daunting
• Relative
• Egotistical
• Familial

Having kids doesn’t guarantee anyone a meaningful legacy, unless all you care about is perpetuating your genes in the gene pool.

This episode explores how FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) manifests for those of us living kid-free, and what we can choose to aspire towards instead.

The frustrating reality of FOMO is that the fear we feel, which is a legitimate and tangible feeling, is based on our belief that the alternate [better] reality or situation that we imagine is also legitimate and tangible. Which is completely absurd because we literally invent it in our brains. It is a dream. But we give the dream so much power over us, we end up suffering from self-imposed feelings of guilt, shame, isolation, angst and insecurity. We create our own misery.

At the end of the day, FOMO is rooted in three detrimental thought patterns:

• We can and should compare our lives to the lives of others
• “The grass is always greener”
• We are victims of circumstances we can’t control

Choosing to live kid-free is not always cut and dry, and it’s an easier choice for some people than it is for others. I think the spectrum of ease ranges from “I never wanted kids, next” to an agonizing, consuming, multi-dimensional, existential struggle that may temporarily subside, but never really ends. And for others, there is no choice, and they must accept living kid-free regardless of how they may feel about it.

I honestly don’t think we can talk about The Choice without having a conversation about fear, which is probably the most visceral and powerful human emotion. When entertaining the idea of a kid-free life, fear is everywhere, lurking in many forms.

The kid free conversation has evolved substantially over less than five years. Topics that were previously discussed on blogs or closed Facebook groups are now published in TIME, The New York Times and Huffpost. It’s as if there is a sudden imperative to be provocative, to be authentic, and explore deeply human topics that were previously taboo.

This episode dives into how I describe the current kid free narrative:

• Defensive
• Indignant
• Resentful
• Taboo
• Contentious
• Evolving
• Powerful
• Explosive!