Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 170 | The Child-Free Trend

Transcript

Ep. 170 | The Child-Free Trend · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  that maybe life is really better without kids, that life's about, again, being free. Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned. Stay tuned.
• 0:32
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. So we want to talk about a trend that is happening on Twitter, hashtag childfree. So, Jeff, I was curious what your thoughts are about this. So there was an article written about this that I thought was pretty interesting. This is Megan Dahm, and she said, The next person who says childfree gets a timeout, is her article. Yeah.
• 0:55
  And she wrote headlines like childless and loving every minute and nine things I love about my child free marriage abound. Type hashtag child free into Twitter and you get an avalanche of results that range from poignant statements about reproductive freedom to snarky, even gloating memes about the horrors of children and the joys of adorable fur babies. Another term that should be outlawed, but one thing at a time.
• 1:22
  Now, not only is choosing not to have kids lost its stigma, it's become almost fashionable in the sense that it's cool to be cool with it. And if calling yourself child-free isn't the ultimate example of giving yourself a trophy for something you didn't do, I don't know what is.
• 1:43
  So this is another one of those like kind of cultural conversations that I find interesting. And I think that, you know, we can look at the culture and see this trend and try to understand the reasons for it. Primarily, you guys who are watching this, you're not most likely child free and not celebrating that lifestyle.
• 2:02
  But I think that what's really tough, and one of the things that we want to point out here a lot, is that, man, because this is a trend in the culture, it is really hard on families. Because it can cause you to be overwhelmed with sort of cultural messages that maybe you made a mistake having kids, that maybe life is really better without kids, that life's about, again, being free—
• 2:25
  And that's really the primary lie that undergirds this entire conversation, which is the definition of freedom our culture has embraced, which is uninhibited free choice to give your impulses basically any freedom that they want. That is how we are defining freedom in our culture. It doesn't jive well at all with the kind of commitments that it takes to stay married or raise children. And so this is a really tough cultural moment for a lot of families. So Jeff, what are your thoughts about...
• 2:55
  about that. Yeah, I agree. I think these conversations are really interesting because they kind of show they bubble up the cultural spirit. One caveat I will say too, if you're struggling with infertility or something like that, then I know these conversations can be tough. And we're not talking to you. What we're talking to is more that spirit of almost consumeristic marriages and parenting where you see kids as just this life suck on you.
• 3:16
  that you don't want, that you think is just an added burden. And that's where I think we need a heavier indictment. But that's who we're talking to, not the folks over here. We are with you and in your corner. But to those in this more paradigm, yeah, I think what's interesting, though, is like most people or almost everyone is built to parent. We just do it with our work or we do it with our dog.
• 3:35
  Right. So like, it's only like, while we're doing is transferring kind of, I think the natural parts of how, uh, the stages were supposed to hit in life. Um, and again, that's generalizing at some level, but I just think, um, like you said, like, yeah, we see so many people like millennials are this classic example of like getting like a dog is like their baby. Right. Um, or work gets treated as the child. And so what's interesting is like, you know,
• 3:58
  You don't want to have a child because you don't want it to suck the life out of you, but yet work actually does that 10 times worse, right? Especially if you're in more of the spirit of actually like idolatrous work, not honoring work for what it is in its goodness. And so I would say, man, just see that children are a blessing. You can't open up the scriptures and be saturated in the scriptures and not see that children are a gift. And they're not just a gift to you, but they're a gift for you in the sense of like children and becoming a parent shapes you so quickly
• 4:25
  radically. And I think I would love to see more in society understand that it is a gift of sanctification in the same way that getting married is. And that those not is not for everyone, but for those who do choose that path, um, to honor it as a gift, to see it as a gift and to welcome it actually as a gift, rather than like what you said, like you were so far on the end of the spectrum that once you start actually considering it, not just like something to not do, but actually consider it fashionable, then I think where we really, really, really need to
• 4:57
  Hey guys, can I just ask you a quick favor? If you could just pause real quick. Well, actually after I'm done with this, so it makes sense in about for about 30 seconds and just rate and review this podcast. We can 10 X the number of dads we help through this content. If our podcast can be found by more dads. And one of the weird main things about this podcast game is that how they get ranked and how they get in front of other people essentially is because of how it gets rated and reviewed. So if you can just give a quick, honest rating and review, we would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Thanks guys.