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SMNTY Classics: Childless by Choice · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie, and welcome to stuff will never
0:07
Speaker 1: told you production by hearty you, and yes I am
0:20
Speaker 1: by myself today. Samantha's got some stuff going on, but
0:24
Speaker 1: I did want to bring back this one because it
0:27
Speaker 1: has become such a huge topic of conversation lately, and
0:31
Speaker 1: it is a Monday. Many we did around being childless
0:35
Speaker 1: by choice. So we are in a very very intense
0:42
Speaker 1: contentious election season right now in the US. I'm trying
0:47
Speaker 1: to stay calm about it, but one of the huge
0:52
Speaker 1: talking points has been an old quote that was circulated
0:58
Speaker 1: from JD Vance, vice president nominee for the Republican Party,
1:02
Speaker 1: JdE Vance, around childless cat ladies. Essentially, I guess ruling
1:09
Speaker 1: the US somehow. And it of course has spurned all
1:13
Speaker 1: of these shirts that are very like proudly declaring childless
1:18
Speaker 1: cat lady or what have you, even if you don't
1:20
Speaker 1: have cats. Have a friend who has one. She doesn't
1:23
Speaker 1: have children, but she does have cats, and she's wearing
1:26
Speaker 1: it around her very conservative parents. But it has really
1:31
Speaker 1: started this conversation of some people breaking down what he
1:35
Speaker 1: actually meant and what that would look like, which, by
1:38
Speaker 1: the way, would not work out how he thinks it.
1:40
Speaker 1: Would work out. Of course, I guess that's probably obvious,
1:44
Speaker 1: but also just a lot of the assumptions assertions that
1:48
Speaker 1: he made about happiness, which we have talked about before.
1:52
Speaker 1: And yes, that the birth rate continues to decline even
1:55
Speaker 1: since we did this in the United States, not just
1:59
Speaker 1: the United States, but in this particular case the United States,
2:02
Speaker 1: and why that is, and there are so many reasons
2:05
Speaker 1: why that is. We should honestly come back and do
2:09
Speaker 1: a whole revisit on this one. But in the meantime,
2:12
Speaker 1: please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Adie and Samantha,
2:21
Speaker 1: and welcome to Steffan never told your production of iHeartRadio.
2:33
Speaker 2: All right, any let's get personal.
2:34
Speaker 3: You ready always always at what point, because you and
2:38
Speaker 3: I have talked about this quite a bit, Yes, did
2:41
Speaker 3: you decide that you probably don't want kids.
2:45
Speaker 1: I was someone who was really into the idea of
2:50
Speaker 1: kids for a while, and I had like names picked out,
2:53
Speaker 1: which was very selfish of me for any future partner,
2:55
Speaker 1: but I was like, these are the names for.
2:57
Speaker 2: My three children that I'm going to have.
3:00
Speaker 1: And then I think when I got to college, I
3:01
Speaker 1: started being like, probably delay it because I thought I
3:05
Speaker 1: was gonna this was all gonna happen like right after
3:08
Speaker 1: college or something. I was like, no, I want to
3:09
Speaker 1: travel and whatever. And then as I got older and
3:14
Speaker 1: I did travel and I did start looking inwards. I
3:20
Speaker 1: won't say that it was a necessarily a healthy decision,
3:22
Speaker 1: because at first it was very fear based, where I
3:24
Speaker 1: was like, I can't I don't think i'd be good
3:26
Speaker 1: at raising children, and so it was more of a
3:30
Speaker 1: I absorbed all that messaging about being the perfect mom,
3:32
Speaker 1: I think, and like, you're going to screw up these
3:35
Speaker 1: children forever, but no matter what you do. So I
3:38
Speaker 1: had that on my brain. I'm like, okay, so I
3:41
Speaker 1: don't want to do that to a child. And then
3:44
Speaker 1: when I started dating and I was in one of
3:48
Speaker 1: my first long term relationships, that's when I realized. I
3:51
Speaker 1: guess it was also kind of fear based, but I
3:54
Speaker 1: was afraid that if I had children. While I would
3:58
Speaker 1: be someone you would really push for like equal spreading responsibilities,
4:05
Speaker 1: I think I would also cave. And that's just like
4:07
Speaker 1: an acknowledgment of who I am and how I've been raised.
4:11
Speaker 1: And I mean, it's a child, and I want to
4:13
Speaker 1: take care of them and I want to make them happy.
4:15
Speaker 1: And I think that I would pick up more and
4:17
Speaker 1: more slack and I would go more and more resentful. Right,
4:20
Speaker 1: So it was almost like an anti patriarchy thing where
4:23
Speaker 1: I'm like, as long as the system is this way
4:25
Speaker 1: and I am this way, then I don't think that
4:28
Speaker 1: I want children. So I was probably about twenty eight
4:32
Speaker 1: when I had that realization.
4:34
Speaker 3: You're fairly young in this process, not according to our eggs,
4:39
Speaker 3: but in our timeline, I guess, and yeah, today for
4:43
Speaker 3: our Monday, MANI this is a question that has been
4:45
Speaker 3: weighing pretty heavily on me, specifically, coming at forty, looking
4:50
Speaker 3: at future prospects, being in one of my longest relationships
4:54
Speaker 3: ever is kind of one of those moments of like, okay,
4:57
Speaker 3: you really have to have you need to make up
5:00
Speaker 3: your mind and think about what all of this looks
5:04
Speaker 3: like for your future and all this in our respect
5:08
Speaker 3: to yeah, the country, ourselves, our families, whatever it may be.
5:11
Speaker 3: And for me it's been a whole internal back and
5:14
Speaker 3: forth conversations about whether or not I wanted to be
5:17
Speaker 3: a parent, and if I were to be a parent,
5:19
Speaker 3: would I be a good parent, and if I actually
5:21
Speaker 3: could be a good parent overall, and whether it would
5:24
Speaker 3: be something that having because is even possible for me?
5:28
Speaker 2: I know, growing up at a younger.
5:30
Speaker 3: Age, I was severely abused and there was a lot
5:33
Speaker 3: of questions for me and I don't have any health
5:36
Speaker 3: issues that I know of. I definitely have had a
5:39
Speaker 3: few assists as well as when I would go back
5:41
Speaker 3: and have to have tests and make sure everything was okay,
5:44
Speaker 3: HPV tests, all of that, you know, and that's not
5:47
Speaker 3: uncommon for a lot of women in general, And so
5:51
Speaker 3: it was kind of like, Okay, I don't even know
5:52
Speaker 3: if this is possible for me.
5:54
Speaker 2: Could I actually appro create for real? For real?
5:57
Speaker 3: And for me even being a part of the dating
6:00
Speaker 3: world forever, I feel like it's been forever. But to
6:02
Speaker 3: be honest, I didn't actually start dating until I was
6:04
Speaker 3: about like twenty one to twenty two. I'd had a
6:06
Speaker 3: few dates right every now and again, but I was
6:09
Speaker 3: just pretty much like, Nope, can't date, can't date. I
6:12
Speaker 3: am not worthy of dating. I've been too traumatized for dating.
6:15
Speaker 3: So I didn't really start dating until mid twenties. And
6:19
Speaker 3: as of the last ten years of dating, I've made
6:21
Speaker 3: sure had to have conversations if anybody comes into any
6:25
Speaker 3: kind of seriousness, and even more so in the last
6:28
Speaker 3: five years when I've had any relationship at all, that's
6:31
Speaker 3: been a key point of be like, hey, I know
6:33
Speaker 3: we're just getting to know each other, but do you
6:35
Speaker 3: want children?
6:36
Speaker 2: Because I don't know if I do.
6:38
Speaker 3: And I think I've seen so many relationships and marriages
6:42
Speaker 3: fall apart because it's not something they have discussed or
6:45
Speaker 3: taken seriously. Like I've seen so many couples who will
6:47
Speaker 3: be like, ah, they'll change their mind, they don't, and
6:51
Speaker 3: then that kind of comes apart when they're like, wait,
6:54
Speaker 3: are you serious, you really don't want to have kids,
6:55
Speaker 3: and they're like, no, I really don't.
6:57
Speaker 2: The conversation of adoption.
6:59
Speaker 3: For me, I've always said I would most likely adopt
7:02
Speaker 3: over having my own child. Then again, of course I'm
7:06
Speaker 3: seeing these issues of adoptions in general, like kind of
7:10
Speaker 3: the sad you know, implications for that child in general,
7:14
Speaker 3: what is happening, who is being adopted, who's not being adopted,
7:18
Speaker 3: who's being sold, who's being taken from families? Like, that's
7:21
Speaker 3: a whole big other conversation to that. So that's kind
7:23
Speaker 3: of changed my views on that as well. And so
7:27
Speaker 3: that's again that's one of my first things is like,
7:30
Speaker 3: all right, you're sure because I promise you right now
7:33
Speaker 3: definitely not want to have kids. And I don't know
7:36
Speaker 3: if I'll ever change my mind, but you need to
7:38
Speaker 3: know not now I might not, so don't want you
7:41
Speaker 3: to be discouraged again. I still go back and forth
7:45
Speaker 3: on all of it, And, like I said, one of
7:47
Speaker 3: the biggest reasons that I've been really thinking about it
7:50
Speaker 3: and trying to process, like am I going to regret
7:53
Speaker 3: not having children? And since quote high risk and gerry
7:57
Speaker 3: atric pregnancies are considered for women who are over thirty five,
8:02
Speaker 3: I was just like, what what then? Because there is
8:05
Speaker 3: this whole idea of the expiration date for us, for
8:09
Speaker 3: most people with uteruses, and I have to ask why
8:12
Speaker 3: is nature got to be so agis right?
8:14
Speaker 2: I mean why why?
8:15
Speaker 3: Of course, and sexist too because of men like yeah,
8:18
Speaker 3: we cann have babies all the top anytimes. Of course,
8:23
Speaker 3: there are other avenues and I'm not necessarily opposed to
8:26
Speaker 3: any of that, but of course there's also this bit
8:28
Speaker 3: of internal misogyny of seeing my worth and being able
8:31
Speaker 3: to actually birth a baby, a human And according to
8:36
Speaker 3: my high school best friend's grandmother, when I showed up,
8:39
Speaker 3: show off our prom dresses. I have really good berthing hips,
8:42
Speaker 3: so I feel like I'm.
8:44
Speaker 2: Wasting some things. You know what I'm saying. It's and
8:48
Speaker 2: again it's not.
8:49
Speaker 3: Just me and I know this, And there's so many articles.
9:01
Speaker 3: The term voluntary childlessness has been around since the seventies
9:07
Speaker 3: and just in case you were wondering of the term childlessness,
9:11
Speaker 3: and voluntary childlessness is the accomplishing the goal of remaining
9:15
Speaker 3: child free, whether through process of going through surgery to
9:20
Speaker 3: prevent having a child, whether having an IUD, plug.
9:25
Speaker 2: You up, thank you very much, IUDs.
9:27
Speaker 3: And the factors are vast and they could include age, income,
9:32
Speaker 3: marriage or unmarried status, and higher education. And there's a
9:36
Speaker 3: lot of conversations on.
9:39
Speaker 2: Why or who or when.
9:42
Speaker 3: For the lack of like all of the questions of
9:45
Speaker 3: why someone may choose and as in fact, there have been,
9:49
Speaker 3: like I said, a lot of articles giving advice off
9:53
Speaker 3: ads about people deciding and why they decided to not
9:56
Speaker 3: have children. And then, as in fact, one study in
10:00
Speaker 3: conducted in twenty eighteen, some of the reasons that they
10:03
Speaker 3: talked about that we will continue to talk about of
10:06
Speaker 3: nearly two thousand people that were surveyed from ages twenty
10:09
Speaker 3: to forty five. Thirty six percent of survey responders said
10:12
Speaker 3: they didn't want children and we're not sure about becoming
10:15
Speaker 3: parents because they.
10:16
Speaker 2: Wanted more leisure time.
10:17
Speaker 3: And I think the pandemic has been a bright spotlight
10:20
Speaker 3: on and obvious to who has children and who doesn't
10:24
Speaker 3: like it's it's very like, oh, the struggles are here
10:27
Speaker 3: and here and here, and the things that have been
10:29
Speaker 3: elevated to that conversation. Thirty four percent said they haven't
10:33
Speaker 3: found a partner to raise children with, and then thirty
10:36
Speaker 3: one percent talked about the fact that they cannot afford childcare.
10:39
Speaker 3: So there's definitely a lot of reasons why we might
10:44
Speaker 3: not be wanting.
10:44
Speaker 2: Children right now.
10:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's one of the things that makes me
10:47
Speaker 1: really angry when and this happens in any generation. I
10:51
Speaker 1: am not saying that it's just millennials getting attacked, but
10:54
Speaker 1: when people are like millennials are having children, they're so selfish, ry,
10:58
Speaker 1: and it's like, we can't afford it, right, We're thinking
11:01
Speaker 1: about the child that we're like, well, we can't afford
11:04
Speaker 1: to raise a kid, and there's a lot of reasons
11:07
Speaker 1: why that is.
11:09
Speaker 2: Right. Until we fix those.
11:10
Speaker 1: Things, then yeah, and that was something I definitely took
11:14
Speaker 1: into account too, of like the stress of financially providing
11:18
Speaker 1: for a child. And the CDC has just reported as
11:21
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty that the US birth and fertility rates
11:23
Speaker 1: have made a record breaking low since nineteen seventy nine.
11:27
Speaker 1: It's been declining for the last six years, and as
11:30
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, the decline of the birth rate doubled
11:32
Speaker 1: from the year before. And here are some specific stats
11:36
Speaker 1: according to the survey. Directly from the report, teen birth
11:40
Speaker 1: rates drop considerably, with birth to fifteen to seventeen year
11:43
Speaker 1: olds falling by six percent and to eighteen and nineteen
11:46
Speaker 1: year olds falling by seven percent, both hitting record blows.
11:49
Speaker 1: Birth rates among women ages twenty to twenty four and
11:52
Speaker 1: twenty five to twenty nine by six percent and four percent, respectively,
11:56
Speaker 1: both to record lows. Birth Rates fell by four percent
11:59
Speaker 1: and two percent respectively among women in ages thirty to
12:01
Speaker 1: thirty four and thirty five to thirty nine, but did
12:04
Speaker 1: not reach record lows according to CDC data.
12:07
Speaker 3: Right, And so some of this bigger conversation about why
12:10
Speaker 3: aren't teens having more babies or having less babies? Maybe
12:13
Speaker 3: they have access to birth control now and maybe they
12:16
Speaker 3: have access to abortion, if need be, better sex education,
12:20
Speaker 3: maybe more openness.
12:22
Speaker 2: I don't know.
12:22
Speaker 3: If social media has helped a little bit. I don't know,
12:25
Speaker 3: because now you can find a lot more information online
12:28
Speaker 3: as where when I was a kid, maybe not right,
12:31
Speaker 3: you know, well, and I.
12:32
Speaker 2: Was like fifteen fourteen, fifteen years old.
12:34
Speaker 3: We had the internet, but we didn't go there often
12:37
Speaker 3: and we shared it with our parents and therefore we
12:38
Speaker 3: definitely didn't look at it. Didn't really have any access
12:41
Speaker 3: to cell phones because you know, we had car phones.
12:44
Speaker 3: Then our girlfriend had a car phone. And I'm talking
12:46
Speaker 3: about that giant bag. Yeah, people carried out plugged into
12:50
Speaker 3: the cigarette lighter.
12:51
Speaker 2: That's still my favorite thing.
12:53
Speaker 3: We had those, but it wasn't little computers essentially in
12:57
Speaker 3: our hands. So that says a lot. And I'm really
13:00
Speaker 3: sad that people are trying to go backwards.
13:02
Speaker 2: Hello.
13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:03
Speaker 3: Birth rates from women ages forty to forty four my
13:06
Speaker 3: age range, fell by two percent from twenty nineteen, but
13:10
Speaker 3: birth rates for women forty five and up remain unchanged.
13:13
Speaker 3: And again it maybe partially because it's harder to get pregnted,
13:17
Speaker 3: less po likely to get pregnant at that time.
13:19
Speaker 2: I don't know.
13:20
Speaker 3: And also the number of births declined three percent for
13:23
Speaker 3: Hispanic women and four percent for white and black women
13:26
Speaker 3: from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty. Again, these are directly
13:29
Speaker 3: from the report by the CDC.
13:32
Speaker 2: So, yeah, things are changing. Things have changed, yes, yes,
13:36
Speaker 2: And there are many reasons for the decline.
13:37
Speaker 1: Some speculate that it's due to the pandemic, though not
13:40
Speaker 1: much data has been collected to support that. Other experts
13:44
Speaker 1: say that it's the lack of vital resources like housing
13:47
Speaker 1: and food among those demographics with correlations between their rise
13:50
Speaker 1: and unemployment rates and the decline in birth rates. I
13:52
Speaker 1: will say recently there's been another survey and I haven't
13:55
Speaker 1: looked into it enough to like judge how authentic or
13:59
Speaker 1: scientifically accurate it is, but that millennials are having less sex.
14:04
Speaker 1: And I have a friend who said, until like I
14:07
Speaker 1: can access abortion easily, the gates are closed. Like, So
14:14
Speaker 1: I do think that's a part of it too, is
14:16
Speaker 1: as we're seeing this rolling back or real pushback against abortion,
14:22
Speaker 1: women are thinking, well, then I guess I won't be
14:27
Speaker 1: engaging my sex.
14:31
Speaker 2: That's just my theory. I don't know.
14:32
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it is also calling out
14:34
Speaker 3: the misogyny and see the nastiness of the power play
14:37
Speaker 3: that's been happening when it comes to toxic masculinity, And
14:42
Speaker 3: I think that has something to do.
14:43
Speaker 2: With it as well. We talked a little bit.
14:46
Speaker 3: About the fact that people weren't meeting up during pandemics.
14:49
Speaker 3: They weren't just coming out anymore and hooking up with
14:52
Speaker 3: people which do what you want, but for the sake
14:56
Speaker 3: of not spreading COVID. So that could have some things
14:59
Speaker 3: to do with it. Of course, when people who are
15:02
Speaker 3: able to be pregnant but it's not to we're asked.
15:05
Speaker 3: Some stated that the mere fact society is not demanding
15:09
Speaker 3: or expecting them to have children as much has kind
15:12
Speaker 3: of taken off some of that pressure to have children.
15:15
Speaker 3: And for me, yeah, my mother has finally stopped asking
15:18
Speaker 3: me about having kids or getting married after seeing how
15:21
Speaker 3: bad marriages can ruin families and can cause so much damage.
15:26
Speaker 3: So what I've definitely seen and we've all seen it,
15:29
Speaker 3: and maybe we've been a part of this family, let's
15:31
Speaker 3: be honest, where they're trying to save a marriage by
15:33
Speaker 3: having a child and ooh, that's not as helpful as
15:37
Speaker 3: you think it is. And it doesn't work typically, and
15:40
Speaker 3: I think it's finally gotten to the point that people
15:42
Speaker 3: are like, eh, figured out.
15:44
Speaker 2: We don't want to be together. I'm not going to
15:46
Speaker 2: try to have a baby to save anything, because it's fine.
15:48
Speaker 2: We're fine.
15:49
Speaker 3: And for those who have gone through these messy divorces
15:51
Speaker 3: with children, which is what I'm talking about, they're like, ah,
15:55
Speaker 3: maybe this was not a great idea, not that they
15:57
Speaker 3: regret having children, but of course there are some reports
16:01
Speaker 3: that they are more like people are more likely to
16:02
Speaker 3: regret having children.
16:03
Speaker 2: I don't know.
16:04
Speaker 3: I didn't look too deeply into that. That could be
16:05
Speaker 3: a whole other episode, but having that being a part
16:09
Speaker 3: of that mess, it just is so heartbreaking in general. Yeah,
16:14
Speaker 3: and I'm sure because we have been children of seeing
16:17
Speaker 3: really ugly divorces as it has become a steady incline
16:21
Speaker 3: at one point in time, I think it's kind of
16:23
Speaker 3: even doubt where it's like fifty to fifty chants, but.
16:28
Speaker 2: We have noticed, Yeah, maybe it's not a bad thing
16:31
Speaker 2: to not have children because things seem less messier, not always.
16:36
Speaker 3: And I think for my mother, who for so long
16:40
Speaker 3: would get into a streaming match with me every Christmas
16:43
Speaker 3: about why I didn't have children, and that I was
16:45
Speaker 3: going to die alone. Yeah, and no one was going
16:48
Speaker 3: to take care of me. Made sure to tell me
16:50
Speaker 3: that and then gave me an example of my spinster
16:53
Speaker 3: great aunt, who she said died alone, which is not
16:56
Speaker 3: true because her brother lived with her as well as.
16:58
Speaker 2: Other family members. So I'm not really sure what she
16:59
Speaker 2: was talking about.
17:02
Speaker 3: But the fact that that has completely washed away after
17:06
Speaker 3: seeing divorces happen within my family, and so that is
17:11
Speaker 3: one of the things, like I agree because of that,
17:13
Speaker 3: I have not had any pressure from anyone.
17:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like my dad kind of pushed me
17:20
Speaker 1: for it, as I've talked about. But my mom and I,
17:23
Speaker 1: like a couple of weeks ago, out of a conversation
17:25
Speaker 1: where it was very clear to me that she's not
17:27
Speaker 1: expecting anything, and I was like, this is nice.
17:31
Speaker 2: It's like there's no part of her.
17:32
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a judgmental thing or it was just like, Yep,
17:35
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem like the path you're going down, and
17:37
Speaker 1: that's cool, cool, thank you. Okay. Some other reasons for
17:53
Speaker 1: all of this, women are choosing careers in higher education
17:55
Speaker 1: over the high cost of raising children, and though the
17:58
Speaker 1: numbers of women having children in life hasn't changed too
18:01
Speaker 1: much percentage wise, the number of births have decreased by
18:04
Speaker 1: at least five hundred thousand from two thousand and seven
18:06
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen. Monetarily, it is estimated that raising a
18:10
Speaker 1: child costs about two hundred and thirty three thousand, six
18:12
Speaker 1: hundred and ten dollars. And that's not including college tuition,
18:15
Speaker 1: because yeah, I would have guessed way higher. I calculated
18:18
Speaker 1: this out at one point and I was like a
18:20
Speaker 1: million something, and that's I was very young when I
18:23
Speaker 1: was doing this, and I'm like, Okay, I can't for
18:25
Speaker 1: a child.
18:27
Speaker 3: Well, also, you've got to remember this is one child exactly.
18:30
Speaker 3: This is based on a median line because we know
18:33
Speaker 3: that economic status is different for everyone, and therefore those
18:36
Speaker 3: who are doing without are just trying to make do.
18:39
Speaker 3: So who knows if they're getting everything they need to
18:42
Speaker 3: the amount of kids that are in the foster gas
18:44
Speaker 3: system that get very little. In fact, there's a whole
18:47
Speaker 3: lot of things, but that is the average. And again
18:49
Speaker 3: in the US, we know that the income statistics and
18:53
Speaker 3: income variations are huge. The gaps are huge, and I
18:57
Speaker 3: think we need to account for that. So we could
18:59
Speaker 3: have people who are making literally twelve thousand and that's
19:01
Speaker 3: a minimum wage job to people making billions, and so
19:06
Speaker 3: we're putting those in the line. So that's really not
19:08
Speaker 3: fair calculation. And who's spending what on what? Of course,
19:11
Speaker 3: if you're trying to buy kids' education, like buy a
19:14
Speaker 3: kid's acceptance by giving millions of dollars to a specific
19:17
Speaker 3: school because your kids is not smart enough to get
19:19
Speaker 3: accepted whatever, that's not accounting for you either, So.
19:24
Speaker 2: Leave that one alone.
19:26
Speaker 3: But yeah, for me specifically, my adoption costs about ten
19:32
Speaker 3: to twenty thousand. I believe, I can't quite remember. I
19:35
Speaker 3: came in at seven, everything, I bought my own car,
19:39
Speaker 3: started working at fourteen, and I paid for my own school.
19:42
Speaker 3: I paid for everything after school, like all of that.
19:45
Speaker 3: The only thing I didn't pay for was car insurance
19:47
Speaker 3: until I was twenty one, and then after that I
19:50
Speaker 3: was on my own.
19:51
Speaker 2: So definitely allowed to consider and who's giving what.
19:53
Speaker 3: But and again I think within the millennials, because I
19:57
Speaker 3: need people to stop using the term geriatric because again annoying,
20:00
Speaker 3: but technically they said I'm geriatric. Millennial whoever said that,
20:05
Speaker 3: I don't like you because in that generation of earning
20:09
Speaker 3: your own income to get yourself into school, things like
20:13
Speaker 3: grants that help people get into school, or if you're
20:17
Speaker 3: in UK, which.
20:18
Speaker 2: Hi, look, post education is free and it should be,
20:22
Speaker 2: but okay.
20:23
Speaker 3: Stuff like that, you start considering the different amounts of
20:26
Speaker 3: money that you have to say for your kid. Other
20:29
Speaker 3: reasons can be as simple slash complicated, such as mental
20:34
Speaker 3: health and past trauma. And you just kind of talked
20:38
Speaker 3: about it, and I've talked about it before, and we've
20:40
Speaker 3: heard from people from our listeners specifically, like when we
20:44
Speaker 3: talked about parentification of not wanting children or fear having children,
20:49
Speaker 3: And honestly, I'm in that category as well. So much
20:52
Speaker 3: past trauma, so much collective trauma, and for me, so
20:56
Speaker 3: much work trauma.
20:57
Speaker 2: So I've seen the makeup of really bad.
20:59
Speaker 3: Families, seeing the hardness of addiction in families, and being
21:04
Speaker 3: enable to actually afford and get help. Not being able
21:08
Speaker 3: to afford childcare has been a reason to remove children,
21:10
Speaker 3: which is absurd and makes me angry. And I didn't,
21:14
Speaker 3: I didn't, But it's a complicated system and the expectations
21:17
Speaker 3: placed on specifically women or those who have uses in
21:21
Speaker 3: general to care for their children without any assistance or
21:24
Speaker 3: barely any assistance is absurd in itself and it already
21:27
Speaker 3: puts them up to fail. And for me, seeing that
21:31
Speaker 3: I know I have the support system, but the overall
21:34
Speaker 3: idea of just no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good,
21:37
Speaker 3: and growing up with my past trauma, the fear of
21:42
Speaker 3: what I will do to my own kids, whether it's
21:44
Speaker 3: I'm overly you know, too needy or too you know,
21:47
Speaker 3: all of these things, which is why I have a
21:48
Speaker 3: dog that I'm too needy with. And honestly, as a nanny,
21:52
Speaker 3: I felt like I was raising my own like I
21:54
Speaker 3: was raising kids already, and I'm sure I got paid
21:56
Speaker 3: for it, but I literally raised kids for for five years.
22:00
Speaker 3: I had one that was two to six when I
22:03
Speaker 3: had taken care of them, and not that the parents
22:06
Speaker 3: weren't present.
22:06
Speaker 2: The mother was absolutely present. She just needs a lot
22:10
Speaker 2: of help.
22:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I ended up being the darterarian, the disciplinaria,
22:14
Speaker 3: or like the schedule keeper. It was interesting, but yeah,
22:18
Speaker 3: I feel like I've already raised it. So I'm like,
22:19
Speaker 3: do I want to do that on my own?
22:22
Speaker 1: Yeah?
22:22
Speaker 2: I uh.
22:24
Speaker 1: I feel like for a period of time I raised
22:28
Speaker 1: my little brother and now it's like interesting going through
22:33
Speaker 1: therapy where now I'm like having guilt resurface of like
22:36
Speaker 1: did I do a good job raising him? It's like
22:41
Speaker 1: where'd you? Should you have been raising him? I don't know,
22:44
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, that's been one of the things I
22:46
Speaker 1: think about too, is I'm not sure I did a
22:49
Speaker 1: good job. So I was a child, but still, so
22:55
Speaker 1: what do we do with this regret? There are so
22:58
Speaker 1: many articles that are there to help and encourage our decisions,
23:02
Speaker 1: meaning allow us to feel that the decision we were
23:04
Speaker 1: making is okay and acceptable for us. So one thing
23:07
Speaker 1: is trust that decision you are making is best for you.
23:10
Speaker 1: Try to separate what you want versus what society tells
23:13
Speaker 1: you what you want.
23:15
Speaker 3: And yeah, also it's okay to change your mind and
23:17
Speaker 3: not always be sure. Like I said, I am going
23:21
Speaker 3: back and forth with it, having deep conversations with people,
23:24
Speaker 3: current partner, all of that, just trying to figure out, hey,
23:28
Speaker 3: it's happening. And I went and visited a couple who
23:31
Speaker 3: are friends of mine. I've been friends with them a
23:32
Speaker 3: very long time. They just had their first child not
23:35
Speaker 3: too long ago. She is a little older than myself
23:39
Speaker 3: and I talked about it with her. I was like,
23:40
Speaker 3: how was there any complications? How do you feel about
23:43
Speaker 3: all of this? What did you think?
23:44
Speaker 2: And how do you feel? And the baby is adorable,
23:46
Speaker 2: by the way, And.
23:47
Speaker 3: I did I get had that moment of like, oh,
23:50
Speaker 3: I'm only got a couple of more years.
23:52
Speaker 2: Oh no, what I need to do?
23:54
Speaker 3: And it is it's a hard decision, and I still
23:57
Speaker 3: have it back and forth, and I think, up again,
24:00
Speaker 3: part of that is society slowly backing off and realizing this.
24:03
Speaker 2: Is not this is not up to us.
24:06
Speaker 3: We really don't have any say so on what a
24:10
Speaker 3: family or looks like anymore, and we really shouldn't dictate that.
24:14
Speaker 3: And of course, yeah, we need to have a larger
24:17
Speaker 3: conversation about the language of pregnancy in general. I'm still
24:20
Speaker 3: mad about this geriatric pregnancy thing, by the way. And again,
24:24
Speaker 3: the conversation of choice of those who choose to have children,
24:29
Speaker 3: that's wonderful. Yeah, those who choose not to have children,
24:31
Speaker 3: that's wonderful too. And as one listener reminded us as
24:35
Speaker 3: she talked about her own child and having to go
24:38
Speaker 3: through all the hardships and being able to have a
24:40
Speaker 3: child and then being told that, oh, you just had
24:43
Speaker 3: a pandemic baby, and she's like, that's insulting. That's not
24:46
Speaker 3: what happened. This was something that they've been hoping for
24:50
Speaker 3: wanting and they finally got and are so excited, but
24:54
Speaker 3: to have it dismissed like that is really insulting.
24:57
Speaker 2: And yeah, we need to talk about that.
24:58
Speaker 3: This is a private decision and whatever it might be,
25:01
Speaker 3: and it is something private, and it can be heartbreaking.
25:04
Speaker 3: Yeah either way, whether it's they involuntarily were childless and
25:09
Speaker 3: they really wanted and it just didn't happen, and there's
25:11
Speaker 3: a lot of heartbreak to that, to those who are
25:13
Speaker 3: voluntarily wanting to be childless, and there's a lot of
25:16
Speaker 3: reasons for that, there's a lot of trauma behind that.
25:19
Speaker 3: These are private matters that need to be allowed to
25:22
Speaker 3: be private. And also, let's talk about this as you
25:27
Speaker 3: don't have any questions to ask, don't ask when they're
25:29
Speaker 3: gonna get pregnant, don't guess when you're having a baby.
25:33
Speaker 3: Let's not let's just throw that all out the window.
25:35
Speaker 3: It's not a conversation starter. If we didn't bring it up,
25:38
Speaker 3: as in those who have uteruses, then you have no
25:41
Speaker 3: business in asking.
25:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, period.
25:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, there are so many avenues we could discuss
25:48
Speaker 1: here because definitely I think that whole perfect mother image
25:53
Speaker 1: is at play, and a lot of this because I'm
25:56
Speaker 1: pretty confident in my own decision, but I think at
25:58
Speaker 1: some time I was the fear of living up to
26:02
Speaker 1: that was what was the main decider, and as we've discussed,
26:07
Speaker 1: it's like impossible to live up to that, right, And
26:11
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, there's so much we could untangle here,
26:15
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we will in the future. In the meantime, listeners,
26:20
Speaker 1: if you'd like to contact us, you can or email
26:22
Speaker 1: us Stuffy Da mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
26:25
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or
26:27
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Stuff I Never Told You. Thanks as
26:30
Speaker 1: always to our.
26:30
Speaker 2: Super producer, Christina Bye you.
26:33
Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You,
26:35
Speaker 1: the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or regul listen to your
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.