Anita Rao
It's the only decision I can think of that we ask people to justify over and over again: choosing to not have children. One of my all time favorite writers, Ann Patchett, has been vocally child-free for decades, and she's written about some of the most common responses she's gotten to this choice — sometimes from total strangers, including assurance that she'll change her mind or concern that she'll regret missing out on this life-transforming experience. She describes the intensity of inquiry around this topic as a prime example of how uncomfortable it makes us when people don't want the same things we do.
So what is it that makes us so sure that parenting a child is the default, and anyone choosing to stray from this path should be treated with skepticism?
This is Embodied, our show about sex, relationships and your health. I'm Anita Rao.
Anonymous Listener 3
I am 24. I have never wanted to have kids. My main reason is that I just, like, I just don't want any, which I think is a totally valid reason on its own.
Anonymous Listener 2
As an immigrant and someone from a large family, I have had a lot of child-rearing responsibilities throughout my life and still have quite a bit of caretaking responsibilities in my family. And I've always wanted to hold the financial responsibility of that, the mental responsibility of that, with care and with honesty about my bandwidth.
Anonymous Listener 3
I sometimes feel that with, like, the mental illness that I experienced, I have to focus on taking care of myself so much that being responsible for the life of another human is almost — would just be too much.
Anonymous Listener 2
The one that I think the most about right now is my financial independence and career are really important to me. And I think we don't talk enough about the tax that women carry to be mothers, and that, for me, has always felt significant.
Anonymous Listener 1
I think I was influenced to be child-free early on. In my own childhood, some family dynamics diverted my parents' attention and affection away from me — or so it seemed. Couple that with a mother who worked long hours, a father who didn't communicate well and a strict military style of parenting that didn't allow for crying or emotional expression, and it became a recipe for hurt and anger. And I didn't learn those tools to perform as a mother. And of course, the possibility exists that I fall victim to a life-altering experience that changes my way of thinking, but in the meantime, I continue to live a fulfilled, happy, exciting, wonderful, child-free life.
Anita Rao
Thanks so much to those three listeners for sharing their stories. Choosing to live without children is not a new phenomenon, but owning that choice very publicly and building community around it is a more recent trend. Back in December 2020, if your brain will allow you to revisit that moment in the pandemic, you might remember that there were lots of conversations about the state of fertility rates in this country and whether or not COVID-19 would lead to an even bigger baby bust — or a baby boom. Well, the results are in, and it was a mix of both. Things trended downward at first, then up, and now are back on their longer down trend.
In that moment of peak fertility anxiety two and a half years ago, we were curious about why more people were making the decision to be child-free. I sat down with three women to talk about their decisions: Uriah Rex, Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Sarah Deavitt. Let's eavesdrop on that conversation. You're gonna hear first from Sarah.
Sarah Deavitt
I think it was something that I felt all along throughout my 20s, and then more deeply in my 30s. I don't hate kids. I love kids, but there always seemed to be something else that I was pursuing. You know, first it was going to college, and then, kind of, establishing, like, who I am as an adult in the world, and figuring out what I want to do, and where I want to live. And the — the idea of finding a husband and starting a family wasn't something that was on that list of things to do. And as time went on, I realized less and less, as I watched my friends and peers start to have kids, that while I was happy for them, it wasn't something that I really wanted. And I'm blessed that I attracted a partner who felt similarly, so it was never this, kind of, big conversation or big decision that we had to make. And then, the final, kind of, nail in the coffin — if you will — was that, in 2018, my partner and I made the decision to have my grandfather come live with us, so we could full-time take care of him. He has Alzheimer's disease, and so we're his primary caregivers. And I fully, fully believe that I could not do that with children.
Anita Rao
I mean, there's so much that we're gonna get to in this show about the idea of caregiving and how caregiving extends beyond caring just for children, which I think, you know, is reflected in a lot of y'all's stories about choosing to be child-free. Samhita, I'd love to hear — hear from you. You wrote this great piece in The Atlantic about your reflections on choosing a child-free lifestyle, in this particular moment, in the middle of a global pandemic and — and what it caused you to reflect on. So tell us a bit about your thinking and how it has evolved over the course of the past year.
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Absolutely. I always think about, like, was it a choice, or was it not a choice? Because, I think similarly, I — it was a really gradual decision that happened over time. I think that I — I always had a bit of an ambivalence about whether I would have children, and then life just happened. And one day, I didn't have them. What I could tell was that my friends who wanted them really pursued that option. And I was like, "Well, if I really wanted children, I would go in that direction. I would go for the fertility treatments. I would try to find a partner where I, you know, I could have a child." And the pandemic — it was seeing what my friends, my mom friends, were going through. And the lack of support that we have, socially and societally — specifically for mothers, not just families, we do not have enough support for families as well. But to see what they were going through, and how they were struggling and trying to juggle their career and their home care, and not having the support they needed, and not having daycare, not having, you know, access to nannies, like, all of that. It became very clear that we do not support families the way that we should. And it is a sacrifice, it is a very challenging decision. And this also happened at the same time that I decided to leave the city and move home and take care of my mother, who was immunocompromised. And so, I was caretaking. And that in and of itself was really challenging, and I honestly can't imagine having a child on top of that.
Anita Rao
Uriah, I'd love to hear a bit about your decision. And maybe you can touch on experiences in childhood that have affected your decision.
Uriah Rex
I grew up with my older sister, she was about three years older than me. My mom was a single mom. My dad was a — not a great dad. He was an alcoholic, drug addict, he was very abusive. And my mom definitely put up with him for 14 years, and then, one day, just, enough was enough. And she pulled my sister and I out of a really bad situation, and she went and started pursuing her degree in social work and changed her life when she was about 32. She moved from the East Coast, in Florida, all the way out to Colorado, and it was just my sister and I. And I was about 7 years old when that huge change came. And I found myself home alone a lot because mom would have to work all day, and then she would be in night school.
And I, kind of, took on a role of practically raising my older sister. And it was, just, a very weird dynamic because, obviously, she could take care of herself — she was about 10 at the time. But when it came down to waking her up for school — she was horrible at waking up — and I, just, found myself in that parent role of making sure she gets up on time, walking to school, and then coming home, making sure all of our chores were done because, you know, we had to do the dishes. We had to cook our own meals, we had to really learn that self-reliance growing up because Mom, just, wasn't there. Not because she didn't want to be, but I also, looking back, I realize the huge sacrifices she made. Not just as a mom trying to make away for all of us, but she sacrificed her life, and her own personality and her goals. But she also sacrificed a lot of experiences of being a, you know, typical, nuclear family mom. She didn't get a lot of that with us.
So, my decision to be child-free, just — it kind of — I think it was always there. I'd never really sat down and thought about it, weighed the pros and cons and made the choice. I just, I never really was pulled or drawn towards kids. I have six nieces and two nephews, and I love them all — they keep me very busy. But even when they were newborn babies, I just — I was so frightened holding them because I was afraid I would do something wrong. And while I loved them and would do anything for them, on that physical level, and that emotional level, it took a while for that to grow for me.
Anita Rao
If you've been listening to this show in the past two and a half years, you know that my thinking around parenting is constantly evolving. Witnessing my friends navigate the shitshow that is childcare in this country has been sobering and furthered my conviction that you truly need a deep bench of backup caregiving options to make parenthood and full-time jobs outside the home possible. And even then, I mean, I don't know, how about mental health? It's all overwhelming — and I only have questions, no answers. One of the biggest questions child-free folks get: who's going to take care of you when you're older? I posed this question to Sarah in particular, since at the time, she was a primary caregiver for her grandfather, who passed away in 2022.
Sarah Deavitt
It's absolutely something that I still do think about. When I was arranging for his benefits, and making his end of life arrangements, and realizing that there wasn't enough money to put him in a facility. We're blessed that he's a veteran, but he never took advantage of those benefits until he got diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And then I started scrambling to figure out how we were going to pay for this. And that really brought to light how important it is to plan for the future. And that definitely did make me think, like, "Oh my God, who's going to do this for me?" And so, there was this panic for about 30 seconds, and then I reminded myself that one of the questions that I always ponder in the choice to have children is, "What is your why? Why?" And the answers are — there's so many. And from my perspective, a lot of them tend to be a bit selfish. And that's a lot of pressure to put on a child. And so in those moments of panic, I remind myself that that is not a reason to bring another life into this world — just so that I can sleep better at night.
Anita Rao
Yeah, the selfishness criticism goes both ways. There are a lot of people — when I put out a call on my Instagram, asking folks about their experiences, people, kind of, came out of the woodwork saying, like, "I think I'm child-free, but I feel really selfish saying that. I really like my life, but, like, it's not because I don't like kids." There's a lot of, kind of, feeling that you have to justify this decision because people will think that you're selfish for choosing not to have kids.
Sarah Deavitt
Right, because we're inherently conditioned as women that that's our main purpose. Because we're biologically able to bear children, that that's a huge reason for what we're here to do — is to carry on the lineage, to, you know, keep the population bountiful. Our identity as women is bound to being a mother. And I think that that selfishness that people feel, or that shame that people feel about the decision to be child-free, is attached to that stigma.
Anita Rao
There's also, maybe, the pressure to bring kids into your life in other ways through foster care or adoption. I want to play a clip from someone we spoke to named Madeline, who talks a bit about adoption and how that fits into her philosophy on living child-free.
Madeline
It's not so much that I'm opposed to the idea of being a mother. I'm opposed to the idea, for myself, of opting to bring more humans into this world the way that it currently exists. Both with the climate crisis and the societal dysfunction we're seeing on so many levels, with the impending economic collapse I feel like we're going to see soon, and racism and white supremacy getting worse rather than better, the horrible gun violence in schools. All of these factors would still be really relevant even if I were to adopt. So at this point, I don't think that I want to have children in any, you know, configuration, or how I, you know, get to that place. But if I were to decide that I wanted a kid or kids in my life, I think adoption would be the route that I would take.
Anita Rao
I'd love to put her reflections to you, Samhita. I know environmentalism isn't, in particular, a reasoning that you have, but you've, kind of, reported on the variety of reasons folks choose to not have kids and have thought, even, about adoption yourself. So I'm wondering whether you've thought about other ways to welcome children into your life.
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Yes, absolutely. And I am always hesitant to judge other people's decision-making and calling somebody selfish or not selfish. I think there are so many reasons why people want to have children, but the clip you just played has a really salient point that — what is our role in ensuring that the children that exist on the planet right now are being fed? And that, you know, we are building a sustainable culture and society? And I think that it is ironic to me that you got all these responses that women feel this tremendous pressure and this guilt when there is a very strong argument to be made for — it may not be the most selfish decision in the world, right? If anything, you know, there is quite a bit of social and cultural sacrifice that women make when they don't have children. And people continually ask them or they disregard them as effective members of society because they didn't mother, and women are judged very deeply for this kind of decision. And so I do think that one of the things we're seeing in the last year is this — a bit of a tipping point. Where people are really starting to question this assumption that, is it selfish, right? Is it the thing that all families should do? And the opportunity to, kind of, really consider how we build communities, and, you know, is the, kind of, two-parent family, like, is that really working? And is that the most effective? And — and I think that that is definitely playing out in my own life as I think about, not just adopting, but also helping my friends who have children. And figuring out ways to, kind of, create those networks so that moms aren't just struggling through this on their own.
Cara Smelter
My name is Cara Smelter.
Philip McDonald
And my name is Philip McDonald. Cara and I have been partners for 16 years.
Cara Smelter
And we are child-free.
Philip McDonald
The majority of our consideration of children occurred in college. We often would daydream about our future life and toss around the idea of how many kids we would have.
Cara Smelter
By late college, early graduate school, Philip and I were taking into consideration climate crises and the continually growing disparities and access to resources. We would often joke with one another, do you really want to bring children into this?
Philip McDonald
Although this was a small joke, it was really a mini affirmation between us that we were living in agreement.
Cara Smelter
I was diagnosed with Type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes at the age of 1. Pregnancy for my disabled body means planning a year in advance to ensure my blood sugars and A1C are in tip-top shape. We were reminded at least four times a year by my endocrinologist, and each time we made a very conscious decision to say this is not what we want to do.
Philip McDonald
I remember when we were 29, Cara and I had a big conversation, basically, confirming we did not want to move forward with having children. We were on solid ground together, and in full agreement — we did not want to have children.
Cara Smelter
We are now in our mid 30s, child-free and happy. I'm very open about my experience living in a disabled body, so when the question of children comes up these days for Philip and I, I laugh and say, "This bum bod? No, it can barely stay together as-is."
Philip McDonald
We do not consider our lives childless. Many of our loved ones have chosen to have children, and we're so fortunate and happy to be able to share life with these kids and watch them grow.
Cara Smelter
We haven't fully closed the door on raising children in our lifetime. We have considered adoption, fostering, perhaps later in life. Like we have always done, we check in with one another, and the conversation never really ends.
Anita Rao
That was Cara and Philip. I mean, how cute are they? Being on the same page and working toward alignment and compromise for 16 years — it's amazing. But navigating the decision to become a parent in a partnership can be really tricky. And what if you're not even sure what you want? Last month, I called up someone who has built a career on helping people navigate this question: do I or don't I want to become a parent?
Merle Bombardieri
The reason this decision is so weighty and scary is it's irreversible. You can't not have a child two years later if you're not enjoying parenting.
Anita Rao
Merle Bombardieri is a licensed clinical social worker and author of the book, "The Baby Decision: How to Make the Most Important Choice of Your Life." It first came out in 1981, and she's been watching the conversation around building a child-free life evolve ever since.
Merle Bombardieri
When I started writing the first edition of "The Baby Decision" in 1978, most people were really disapproving of anybody deciding to be child-free, including — I'm ashamed to say — the mental health profession. It was assumed that these people were selfish and immature, and that they needed to grow up. Or it was assumed, "Well, they must have had bad childhoods, and that's why they're choosing not to have kids." There is so much more understanding now. There are podcasts, there are support groups, there are chat groups. But I'm actually very disappointed that 40 years later, there's still so much disapproval of people choosing to be child-free. And there's still so much more need for public education.
Anita Rao
If you're looking to get more of your own education on the topic, Merle's blog has some helpful resources to get started, and we're gonna link that in our show notes. And also, there is Reddit. It's not a corner of the internet where I spend a lot of time, but Merle is an active participant in the subreddit Fencesitter — which is a virtual community 50,000 people deep, filled with questions, answers and stories about being child-free. Merle says a good way to start thinking about this topic is to acknowledge that this decision is about so much more than parenthood.
Merle Bombardieri
The reason that I love this work is it's never just about baby or no baby. It's what hasn't happened yet in your life that you want to make sure happens before you die. And sometimes people think, "Well, that's a scary question. If we're going to have kids, we just have to give up everything else." Not true. Parents actually do a better job of parenting if they know the other things they love and care about — are doing it in pieces when they're raising their kids. And then, when their kids leave home, they know what to do next. But for people who are thinking about being child-free, the question of, what will be in my life? What does matter? What gives life meaning? So it's not just about child or no child, even though that's very big. And for people who are choosing to be child-free, they realize that the biological point will come where it would not be possible to have a pregnancy — even though they can still consider adoption and foster care. So there's a lot of pressure. And especially for women who are 35 and beyond, there is the idea that we have to decide now. Even if it's not the right time, it feels like now or never in terms of the medical situation.
Anita Rao
You're so right. I turn 35 later this year, and I was just having a conversation with my therapist about this. And she's like, "There are so few decisions in life that are irreversible, but this one — this one is one of those." So that makes it especially tricky. I mean, so, people are coming to this decision with a lot of fears because there's so much weighing on this choice. And one of them is that question of regret. How do I know that when I'm 50 years old, I'm not going to regret not having children? Talk to me about how you help people think about regret.
Merle Bombardieri
Well, I'll tell you my magic phrase that has given so much ease to the hearts of my clients and my readers. And that is: you will regret any decision, it's part of human nature. Imagine you go to a new ice cream place, and you order the butter pecan. And you notice that somebody else is, just, you know, so happy with something that looks yellow and creamy, and maybe that's banana. And you wonder, did you get the wrong thing? We human beings are so ambivalent about everything. So for something that's irreversible and that makes such difference in our lives, of course we are going to be fearful. And of course, we'll have regrets. So my magic phrase is: don't ask if you will regret your decision — there are some days that you will — ask which decision will I, or we, if a couple is talking, regret least. And that gives people the ability to make a choice.
It's also really crucial for many people I work with in making this decision to have the idea that they can steal a little from the other choice. So if you're going to be child-free — as this couple was just speaking — nieces and nephews, other children in your life might be an opportunity to nurture. If you're going to have a child, but you love meditation, walking in nature, you get together every summer for two weeks to backpack with your college friends, or whatever. Thinking about how you can structure your life, even with a young child, to make some of those things happen can be really, really helpful.
And related to that, that I think is really crucial for all of our listeners, is, the word "decide" comes from a Latin root meaning "to cut away from." So when we ask, "Why can't I make a decision, since both have good aspects?" It's because we have to face the loss. Once we make a decision to be child-free, we give up the pleasures that would have come with having a child. So as people are making decisions, it helps to think about how can you steal a little bit from the other choice that you think you're going to miss most? And that is very very helpful, it makes for great conversations.
Anita Rao
So for people who still really feel on the fence, there are some exercises you suggest working through to help get clarity on your thinking, and one of these is the chair technique. You ask someone to literally sit in two different chairs that embody one side of the argument and debate with themselves. What do you notice when people do this exercise?
Merle Bombardieri
It's extremely powerful. People think that they're not going to get anything out of it, but the way that I give advice is, these two voices need to have an argument. Don't let them be polite. Let them each tell the other they're wrong and why their decision is correct. They will discover that in one chair, the voice is louder. They feel more settled into the chair and feel like they're speaking for themselves, and the other voice — not quite as strong. So that can be very helpful. And I suggest that people do this if they're in a partnership — not with their partner present because that will make them too self-conscious. They do it on their own, and then they can report back to their partner. They can each share those experiences.
And the other thing that's fascinating is as people lean towards a decision, they think that they want to shut up the other voice, but they shouldn't. The other voice, the voice that's not going to win — let's say if you're choosing to be child-free — the parent voice has all the secrets about what you need to have a satisfying child-free life. Whatever appealed to you about nurturing, or mentoring, or being connected to a different generation, or leaving your mark on the world, or whatever — that tells you what you need to add to your child-free life to feel satisfied. It's another example of stealing from the other choice.
Anita Rao
You've mentioned encouraging couples to do this exercise on their own. When couples do come to you who are on different sides of the fence and trying to reconcile, what is the process like of working through this decision making with them? Where do you start, and what do you encourage them to start thinking about?
Merle Bombardieri
The first thing is don't panic. Because so many couples — when they first realize that they disagree — are terrified that they're going to get a divorce. And although that does sometimes happen, it's a lot less likely. With time, they can usually find a solution that will work for both of them. The other important thing in the beginning is don't attack. If, when you got married, or you started your relationship, you both agreed you were going to be child-free, or you agreed you were going to be parents, and now someone has changed their mind, they're not doing this to betray you. You know, if you've been together five, seven years, there's a lot of personal growth that can make a difference in how one looks at parenthood and child-free living. So try to be curious and interested in what changed their mind. It's also really important to visualize the joy of resolution, no matter how stuck you feel. I just did this last night with a couple that I'm coaching. We had them imagine themselves two months from now on a beautiful June day, outside having a picnic. And they've made the decision. They don't know in this visualization what they decided, but they know the decision is made. They're so happy, they're getting on with their life. Just imagining the relief can be helpful.
Anita Rao
I'd love to end on differentiating desires from decisions. I have heard you talking about this, and it really resonated with me because it's something that, I think, a lot of us find really tricky. That when you are trying to make a decision, and you feel these desires in the direction opposite from the direction you think you're gonna go, you feel like, "Oh, my gosh, I must be making the wrong decision. Or I should — I should pause and not make this decision at all." Talk to me about how you help people think about how to be guided by desire in their decision-making, but how to not let it, kind of, overrun the decision-making process?
Merle Bombardieri
Well, there really are two aspects. The first question is, "What would I want to do in an ideal world?" And I hear all the time, "I move to Europe to become a parent." Or, "If I could move to Europe, I would become a parent." So the desire does not necessarily mean it makes sense with your life. So some people would say, "Well, why even acknowledge I want to be a parent if I'm going to conclude — for medical reasons, or because of my partner — I'm not going to do it?" The reason to do it is if you recognize it, and then you decide not to do it for some reason, you grieve with love and compassion from your partner, for your friends, for yourself — possibly in therapy. And you grieve that loss, and then you move on to fully enjoy being child-free. Or for people who leaned child — or their desire was to be child-free, but they didn't totally hate the idea of parenthood and are going to go ahead and have a child with their partner — to recognize that was not their first choice, and for them and their partner to work really hard on, "How can we carve out as much freedom, spontaneity, solitude — the things that I longed for in child-free — how can we build those in even if we have a child?" And one piece of that is to have just one child. And I know you recently did a show on this, but the one-child family is often overlooked and it is, for many people, the very best option.
Anita Rao
A shoutout to our only child show. If you haven't listened already, I highly recommend you cue that episode up after this one. Community and finding your people around these difficult decisions is key. In addition to the subreddit I mentioned earlier, there are also many other spaces online where child-free folks can go for judgment-free advice. The Instagram account Rich Auntie Supreme is a favorite follow of mine, and provides a lot of food for thought about what possibilities open up to people when they actively commit to a child-free life. But there's also immense value in starting these conversations offline. You know that we are always here for you to have these conversations, and we'd love to hear your reflections and stories. And in that vein, I want to leave you with some closing thoughts from two of our listeners.
Anonymous Listener 2
In regards to community, I want to be transparent that I've not always felt supported and found communities where I could be honest about the things that both felt potentially exciting, but also scary, or the questions that I've had. I think in this society, in this context, it's almost — the reality of child-rearing — the hard parts — feel like we have those conversations in private, but that the public line is, "But it's all worth it." I have found that, in my personal life, to be challenging, but I've also found women who have made that choice. I'm in community with elders who have made that choice and women who are trying to figure out, also, what does it mean to be mothers and work? And that has given me comfort, but it has always been complicated for me.
Anonymous Listener 3
A lot of pressure comes from older generations because they are much closer to that, like, nuclear family ideal. And generations around my age — like millennials and younger — I feel, have moved further away from the ideal of the nuclear family and are discovering more possibilities, more joy and more fulfillment in, like, single couple lifestyles, or single lifestyles where they, just, live alone. I feel like there is less peer judgement now. There are so many reasons to not necessarily want children, and I feel like a lot more people view those as valid now than they did in the past.
Anita Rao
Embodied is a production of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, a listener-supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast and WUNC's other shows on demand, consider a contribution at wunc.org now. Incredible storytelling like you hear on Embodied is only possible because of listeners like you.
This episode was produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Paige Perez also produces for our show, Madison Speyer is our intern and Jenni Lawson is our sound engineer. Quilla wrote our theme music.
Check out our show notes for links to the child-free and Fencesitter communities on Reddit, along with a link to Rich Auntie Supreme and more information about Merle's book.
If you enjoyed hearing all the listener voices and stories in this show, please take a minute to share a reflection of your own with us. You can find the link to our virtual mailbox, SpeakPipe, in the show notes of this episode. And of course, you can always send us an email or voice memo to embodied@wunc.org.
Thanks so much for listening to Embodied, and if you like this show, please spread the word in your own networks. Word of mouth recommendations are the best way to support our podcast.
I'm Anita Rao, taking on the taboo with you.