The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Know If You Should Have Kid(s) + Debunking Myths About Parenthood With Merle Bombardieri, MSW, LICSW

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Social worker and psychotherapist Merle Bombardieri shares her judgement-free tips for parenthood decision-making, even when you’re up against an unaligned partner, economic roadblocks, and infertility challenges. the number one question to ask yourself when deciding whether to have kids how to decide if you should have another kid, plus all of the myths about siblings versus only children  the best age to become a parent the 3 biggest lies society tells us about having kids what to do if you don’t want kids now but you’re worried about infertility  how to combat the high cost of having children (+ what to do if you don’t think you can afford them) how to factor worries like climate change, our political climate, & illness into your decision  how much your relationship ACTUALLY suffers after becoming parents how much meaning and purpose childfree people vs parents experience exactly what to do if you disagree with your partner on having children (or how many to have) if not liking babies means you shouldn’t have one and so much more! For more from Merle, check out her website thebabydecision.com and her book The Baby Decision: How to Make The Most Important Choice of Your Life. Check out the Reddit Fencesitter page here.  Check out our other Pros & Cons of Having Kids episodes: The Pros & Cons of Having Kids, and The 2nd Pros & Cons of Having Kids Episode: Pooping During Labor, The REAL Cost + Sex & Body Image After Birth To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by: AG1 by Athletic Greens: visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  GreenPan: visit GreenPan.us and use code HEALTHIER30 to get 30% off your entire order plus free shipping on orders over $99.  LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/Liz a to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order.   ZocDoc: go to ZocDoc.com/Liz and download the Zocdoc app for FREE and book a top-rated doctor today.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning exactly how to create metabolically healthy meals, healing, burnout, or getting expert tips for starting and growing a business. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, we are talking about a highly requested topic, the decision to have children or not.

This is the third podcast in my pros and cons of having kids series. So if you want to listen to the other two, I will link them in the show notes. But you absolutely do not have to listen to them to start with this one. It very much stands on its own. This series came from a very personal struggle that I have shared with all of you about deciding whether or not Zach and I should have kids. And I have absolutely loved diving deep into a topic that is still considered far too taboo. I am so excited to welcome Merle Bombardiery to the podcast.

We were searching for an expert guest for literally years to address this topic, and I do not think anyone fits the bill better than Merle. Merle has been a private practice clinical social worker and psychotherapist for over 30 years. She specializes in parenthood decision-making, infertility, adoption, and giving people the tools to make the most of a child-free life if they choose it. Her book, The Baby Decision, is so amazingly helpful. Zach and I have loved going through it together. In this episode, we explored the decision to have kids, the decision to have kids, the decision

to have more kids and how kids impact our life generally. We get into the number one question to ask yourself when deciding whether to have kids, how to decide if you should have another kid, plus all of the myths about siblings versus only children. The best age to become a parent, this one absolutely shocked me, and I cannot stop talking about it. The three biggest lies society tells us about having kids, what to do if you don't want kids now but you're worried about infertility, how to combat the high cost of having children,

plus what to do if you don't think that you can afford them. How to factor worries like climate change are political climate and illness into your decision. How much your relationship actually suffers after becoming parents? How much meaning and purpose child free people versus parents experience? Exactly what to do if you disagree with your partner on having children or how many children to have. If not liking babies means that you shouldn't have one and so much more. I would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode. So definitely screenshot and tag me.

I am at Liz Moody and Merle. She is at The Baby Decision on Instagram. There is so much food for thought in this episode. I love how Merle debunk so many of our widely held societal beliefs. But she's also not on team kids or team no kids. She's on team figure out what's right for you. I cannot stop talking about this interview and I hope you'll feel the same. So please share it with anyone in your life who is either.

working through the decision to have a child, the decision to have another child if they already have one, or just who would be interesting to talk about this stuff with. Sharing the podcast is always the best way to support it, and it is so, so appreciated. Okay, let's get right into it with Merle Bombardiery. Merle, you were just telling me about your own transition from being child-free to having two children. I would love to start with that. That's so interesting.

When I met my husband and we began to fall in love and we had didn't. together for about a year and a half he proposed to me. And I actually said no, even though I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, because at that point, I knew that he wanted to have kids, and I thought that I didn't. I had just spent the summer working at a summer camp in Michigan with extremely spoiled 12-year-old girls. And my favorite time of the day at camp was at night when the kids were sleeping. I also was planning a career to be a PhD literary scholar, and I didn't see how I could work that in with motherhood. This was back in the 70s, and at my college, the only woman literature professor was not married and had no children, so I had no role models.

What switched you over? How did you end up making the decision both to marry your husband, but also to have two children? Well, I said no, because I don't want. to disappoint you, but he assumed that I would change my mind because all women eventually want to have children, and because I loved him, it would be an extension of our love. So he was sure I would change my mind, but I wasn't sure at all. And I didn't want to wind up divorced because I didn't give him a child or because I was unhappy as a mother. So we spent over a year talking about it and not making the decision. And in the process of that, in talking to many of their parents. I found role models of women who were very, very serious and accomplished in their careers,

who said, yes, it's hard to do both, but it's so worth it. What I needed was role models of women who were happy as mothers, but also very serious high gear advancing in their careers. In the 70s, there were not very many role models yet for that. So the combination of enjoying children and spending more time with children and finding role models of women who were really enjoyed. their lives enabled me to be able to say yes. And I had two kids. One of them is child free by choice. The other one has one child. And I really want to talk about that because people always talk about are you going to have kids plural? How can you decide that you're going to have kids plural if you don't even know if you're going to like the first experience of parenthood and if you're going to like

the kid? It makes it too scary. It's too much pressure. And a lot of people think it has to be kids. because they think that only children would be miserable or it wouldn't be fair to the child. And only children are actually a little bit more mentally healthy and a little more accomplished than the rest of us. And they are voted most popular in their class. There's a psychological test called a sociogram in which you ask a child, draw a circle with yourself. And of all the people in this class, who's the person you most want to spend time with? and then branch out to other circles of other people that you like the best,

and then people who are just sort of okay or that you don't like. And only children are in the center of the sociograms more than any kids that have Sibs. They do great. That's so interesting. And one child is the best solution for so many couples who love to travel and really into their work. They're not nine to five jobs. They're 70-hour, 80-hour-a-week jobs. It's a way to have the best of both worlds, a lot of the people tell me, because they have the pleasure of a child, but they have the pleasure of more freedom.

And it's so much easier to travel with one child. One child, when they turn three, you can take them to a fine restaurant. You can take them to a museum. If you have to take two children to a museum or a fine restaurant, either they're going to fight with each other and that's going to destroy the evening, or at least one of them is going to need a nap. it doesn't work nearly as well. There's just a lot more freedom. There's just a shame that people don't know that that's an option because it makes a decision a lot less scary. I love the reframe of not should I have kids, but should I have kid? I think that's such an interesting reframe. And then once you have kid, you can decide whether you want to have another kid. That's so,

so intelligent. I was going to talk about multiples later and that whole decision, but let's just get right into that now. How do we deal with that pressure? There's a lot of societal pressure. Once you have one, it feels like the questions immediately start. When are you having another? From family, from strangers, from friends. How would you suggest that we begin to not feel bad that we're making our child lonely or worse off or we're not giving our child this incredible gift of a sibling? We'd have to look at how pro-natalist our society is. And it makes zero sense. When you look at population and climate change, it makes zero sense for anyone to have one more child than they want. And it's the same people who tell everybody they have to have a child

or they're selfish and immature also tell people who have one child that they need to have another. It's like an obsession. And I wonder if it goes back to evolution that in the old days, we needed to have lots and lots of children because so many of them died. I view it as people. people looking to reinforce their own worldview in a way. I've chosen this choice and I want other people to tell me it was the right choice because it's a scary choice and it's a hard choice. That's brilliant. That's a really good insight. If people have had two or three kids and maybe some of them weren't planned, they can envy people who have all the freedom of being child free or are enjoying their one child because they're not overwhelmed with a sibling rivalry and the difficulty of managing so many.

Are there benefits to having two or more children, statistically speaking, or does the research show any benefits? I know that people who really want larger families feel that only one child doesn't feel like enough, that they like the idea of a group, that they like the idea of seeing siblings interact with each other, and they enjoy the complexity of the relationships among all of the family members. So if that's what they want, that's what makes sense. because I've done a lot of infertility work with couples that have one child and want more than one.

I've heard a lot of people talk about those longings to expand their family and to feel like there's a missing member that they want to bring in their lives. And they're willing to go through a lot of infertility or the long path to adoption to bring that second child into their lives or that third child. Would you say that's a quote unquote good reason to have a second or third kid wanting that big family dynamic, really thinking that through versus, I don't know if there's good or bad reasons. I'm using air quotes for all of this. A worse reason would just be, I don't want my first child to be lonely or I feel like there's societal pressure making me make this decision. I don't want my child to be lonely is a myth. It's really unfortunate to make a decision that is so expensive of time, money, anguish and disappointment if the child is sick or difficult because of misinformation. That's one thing that a podcast like yours can really help people think about. But for people who have this idea of a larger family, maybe they really enjoyed being a sibling.

That's a positive reason. If everything else is bad, if the relationship is terrible, if there's not enough money, if you're living in a one-bedroom apartment where there's barely room for the first child, and you want to expand your family, you need to work on some of those other problems. You can't just say, we're going to do this because we have this dream and we have a lot of love to give. It has to be in the context of, are there other things that need to change between now and we actually bring another child in? It's so interesting to hear you even frame it in that logical perspective because I do think

there is this overall notion that I've at least internalized that real life factors shouldn't matter for having a child. Real life factors should affect every other part of your life, but we all have this right to have as many children as we want, regardless of our income, regardless of our life situation, et cetera, et cetera. That's a message that I've really internalized that I'm reflecting on as you're saying, well, consider this logical thing. Consider this logical thing. Hollywood gives us the idea that love is enough. We see all these wonderful heartwarming stories of people who are struggling and they love their child and they have family or community you pitch in and it all works out. But so many people are miles and miles away from family and don't have community because they've

just moved to a place where they don't know anybody. One thing that I want to mention is the Reddit Fence Sitter sub. I really, really want to recommend it. There are four groups of people there. There are people who are leaning towards being child-free but aren't sure. People are leaning towards parenthood and aren't sure. and what is so generous and loving about this community and why I love it, and I participate in it at least a few times a week, is the other two groups are people who are three, five, seven years

into parenthood, maybe they have one or two kids, people who are five, seven years into making the child free choice, and they're still there because what they say, Merle, we love your book, maybe we saw a therapist who was great, but what really helped us more than anything else to make this decision was hearing from people who just made it a few years ago. They remember what it was like to be on the fence. They remembered being terrified of regret. And they can hear what we're bringing up about our dilemmas, and they can comment with so much love and wisdom.

One of the ways that Fence Sitter relates to that is that there are many people saying, I'm 25 years old or I'm 35 years old, and I want to have a child, but we just moved and we've had these financial difficulties, and I haven't finished graduate school, we have no money saved. And over and over and over again, people tell the story. We wanted to have a child sooner, but we waited. We saved our money. We moved to a place we were more comfortable with,

and it was really worth it. We would have been miserable. And obviously, if people are 38 or 39 or 40, and they know that fertility is an issue, actually because they've done some fertility testing. Age doesn't necessarily mean it will be difficult. And people are sure they want to have kids and they want a biological child as opposed to adoption

or a child through donor egg or whatever. They do have to rush to make a decision and they might do it in less than ideal circumstances and hope they'll catch up with improving their finances, improving their relationships, finding community, and so on. But there are a lot of role models of people who said, yes, we long to do it, but we waited and we're so glad we did.

That's so interesting. One final thing on the sibling point, and then I do want to address that because I think that's really interesting is that I think it's so interesting when people are like, oh, I want to birth a best friend for my kid. And I'm like, I know so many siblings who are literally not talking who hate each other. And I know so many siblings who are best friends, but it feels kind of like, well, I have best friends in real life and I have people I don't particularly like to spend time with. And it's kind of a crap shoot. So I think it's such an interesting thing that you assume your siblings are going to be best friends. And if you're doing it for them solely versus doing it for you, and then they end up hating each other. Oh my gosh, that must feel horrible. It's making assumptions. Fantasies are great, but there's no guarantee that the child you're going to get is going to be the one that you think will be good for your child. Do you have any thoughts on being a younger versus an older parent? It's something that Zach and I get all the time because we are in our mid-30s now. So, it's impossible for us to have a child earlier than our mid-30s at this point. And people always say,

well, you don't want to be older parents, right? Like, that's going to be so much worse for your kid. What is your experience with that? I have really strong feelings about that. I mean, I have to acknowledge, and because I've worked in the infertility field for many, many years, that there is a danger of waiting that fertility might be harder that you might need fertility treatment or maybe even fertility treatment won't work. But I think the ideal age to be, you know, that you might be harder. And I think the ideal age to become a parent is in the 38, 39 range. And the reason I believe that really strongly, by the way, I'm 74 years old. I've been doing this work since I was 30. The first edition of the baby decision came out when I was 30. So I've had decades to observe and form opinions. I had my

children earlier because I was expecting infertility problems. I had medical reasons to expect. But what's perfect about 38 and 39 is you turn 18 to become an adult. You become a mother at 38. You've had 20 years to enjoy all the freedom of being a young adult to establish your career, to have friendships, to travel. I know we're talking middle class and upper middle class, so not everybody can afford that. But so many of the people who are listening and thinking about their lives and planning their lives are in a situation where if they give themselves that time to establish a relationship,

to get really close with their partner, to be really established in their field, they're in a perfect position to enjoy two adulthoods. From 18 to 38, they have all the freedom of personal development, couple development, which makes it so much easier to add a child. And then they have the wisdom and the perspective. and typically better finances so that they can hire babysitters, they can travel, and so on. I've been in private practice for zillions and zillions of years. When my husband started a new business, for six years I worked as a director of social work in a hospice,

and I worked with so many people who died in the range of 97 to 105, and up until three, six, nine months of the time that they died, they were walking with a cane, driving, busy and active. So when people say, I can't have a child at 40 because I may not make it until my child graduates from high school, well, unless you have a terminal illness, that's extremely unlikely in this day and age, especially people who follow your advice of eating well

and exercising and taking good care. care of themselves. So a 40-year-old couple who exercise, eat well, take care of their health, have healthy attitudes and spirituality, they're going to have more energy with their kids than a 20-year-old who eats potato chips and Coke and is a couch potato. We have very stereotypical ideas. It's honestly so validating to hear you say that. I literally feel like it's in the last few years that I've had financial security to even begin to live a life that looks like the way I want it to live. And Zach and I have talked about so much, it's so crappy that we can finally afford to take the vacations that we want to take. And we're immediately like, okay, well, should we have

kids now? I just got to my dream life. How am I already being forced to throw a wrench in that? At the same time, I do want to speak to a question I certainly get all the time, which is, aren't you worried that you're going to run into fertility issues if you wait too long? And I've done fertility testing. Do you have any recommendations for somebody who wants to wait, but they're scared that their fertility is just waning every single year? And they know they absolutely do want to have a child and they don't want to miss that opportunity.

They should definitely talk to their doctor. And we usually talk about women and gynecologists, but men may have sperm issues as well. So couples who want to delay really should just do something. some basic testing. If you haven't been trying and you haven't gone through six months of infertility, your insurance is not going to cover a full fertility workup, but you can do some basic hormonal testing. I don't know if you've done the MAH test to see about your ovarian supply, for instance, but if you've got some basic information that makes it look like your fertility is in good shape, you can be pretty safe that you can wait a few years. It's so interesting to hear you

say that, and I probably need to reflect on this in therapy, how many things we just worry about and then we don't actually take the actions? It's like, well, if you're worried about fertility, test your fertility and you're like, hmm, that makes sense. But our mind doesn't go there. Our mind goes to, well, maybe I should have a kid now just to be safe. It's true that the only proof of fertility is to actually get pregnant, but medical testing gives a lot of useful information. It's a really good first step that I feel like a lot of people who are spending quite a bit of time worrying about that exact issue have not yet taken. I think that's really brilliant. A lot of people are thinking the only solution for that worry is to start trying before they even know if they want to have a child and before they have the money and the secure life and the quality relationship that they need first. What if you definitely want to have a child? You know that for sure.

We're not talking about multiples here. We're just talking about your first kid, but you don't have the financial means. You don't have the life situation. And maybe you work a job where you don't feel like you're ever necessarily going to have the incredible amount of money that it seems like it takes to raise a child in comfort. What would you recommend a person in that situation do? Fence sitters had some great discussions about that where people have said, oh, I'm a dead end job and I can't do this or that. And people will jump in and say, I was in a situation. like that, and I figured out a way to get a raise or to get some training. We planned over a two or three year period to be in a better position. We found some ways to save money. Also, if they do need fertility treatment, some fertility programs have special grants where they're able to work with people who can't afford to pay for the fertility treatment. And some people live in states that cover fertility treatments, so that can help too. But looking for role models, people who aren't earning huge amounts of money and how they manage to do it can be very useful.

Every time a magazine, Money Magazine, whether it's a women's magazine, talks about what it takes to raise a child, you know, $150,000, $200,000, those calculations are based on the idea that you are going to go to the most expensive store in your city and buy luxury items, every jumpsuit, every pair of shoes, every hair ribbon. And that's just not the way that most people do it. There are hand-me-downs. Because babies only wear this stuff for like a month, right? I know. There are exchanges. There are so many ways to do it for less money. And it's also fun because you meet other parents and you're part of a group of people who are sharing, whether it's secondhand stores or community exchanges. You bring your young child stuff and then you pick up something for an older child. There are many, many ways to get help.

Some people through church or temple, through community groups, women's groups, family service agencies. There are a lot of different resources. I need to find somebody with a very stylish baby to be friends with so I can get all the baby cowboy boots and the baby Doc Martins. I like baby shoes if you can't tell. I do want to speak to a notion I have about finances and children, which is outside of baby shoes, having money gets you freedom with having children.

So it's not just the stuff you have to purchase. It's the fact that if you have help, you can maintain a lot more independence. And that's where I think it gets tricky if you don't feel like you have a lot of money. And also maybe you live in a place where you don't have family nearby. You don't have those types of support. should that be a huge factor where we're like, well, maybe even if I really want a kid, I shouldn't if I am not going to be able to have this freedom. Are there other ways to get that freedom? It certainly does help if you can hire child care, if you can hire doulas to get some sleep

a few nights a week when your baby's a newborn and crying all the time. And some people hire duels or nurses when they're trying to establish their baby's sleep patterns when the babies are a little older. certainly there are so many things that are easier if you have more money. Whether people can make things work, if they have less money, depends on how they are. If they can't stand asking for help, if they don't have very many friends, and they're not willing to learn how to do that, they can really paint themselves into a corner. But there are so many situations in poor communities and working class communities, where everybody helps everybody out.

Maybe you can't afford to hire a babysitter, but you bring your child over to someone else's house and you take care of your child and their child while they go out to the movie or go away for the weekend. Because people who are earning more tend to move out of state in order to have the perfect opportunities for their job, they tend to be farther away from family. So some of the people with more financial struggles

actually have more family and family. community support. It's not that necessarily every family member is supportive. It may have been a bad relationship. But people who may have moved less for their careers may have more local resources that they've built on with people that they've known for years, church, temple, community groups, social service organizations, volunteer organizations where they work together and so on. And we just have to say it's totally unfair. It's not fair that it's so much easier for some people. to become parents than it is for others. I actually really appreciate you acknowledging that, because when I think about the whole question of, do I want to have a child or not, I think the whole

thing is rife with unfairness. It's so unfair that there are countries that support the pregnancy process, the birth process, the infancy process, the child rearing process, so much more than the country in which I live. It's so unfair that some people can very easily have children and other people struggle with infertility. It is so unfair that some people have the means to have a night nanny and a day nanny and other people feel like they have to keep their job just to afford daycare and end up with $200 a month after they've paid for the daycare and things like that. I do think even just acknowledging it is unfair and that's the situation that we're dealing with rather than this propensity that I sometimes have, which is just to get angry about it and sit a little bit

admired in that unfairness. A couple of years ago, my book was translated into German, and the translators were doing a fine job, and all of a sudden, they wrote me and said, Merle, we don't know what to do. We have a chapter here that is all about advocating for yourself, fighting at work for the right for paid leave, for time off, fighting with the government, advocating to have leave and to have child care paid for. And we already, I have these things. So I actually had to take an entire chapter out of the English version of the baby decision for the European version. I think that there's sometimes even a lack of awareness that other countries have figured out some of these issues and that people having children perhaps don't

feel quite so alone or abandoned in the process in other places. Yes. Our society says we value children, but we do not put the money there and we do not put the attention there. Look, I'm never going to make everything that I wear organic. But your sheets, your pillows, your comforter are literally touching your skin for eight hours every single night. That is a third of your life right there with one simple swap. And if your bedding is worn out, it's trapping heat or it's made with questionable materials, your sleep is going to suffer.

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definite yes, it's a no. Do you agree with that statement? I totally disagree with that. I would say that 90% of the people I know who are really happy parents went through years of assuming they'd be child-free and then changed their mind, or even if they knew they wanted to have kids, they went into parenthood with fear and doubt and uncertainty. And the idea that if it's It's not hell, yes, it's a hell no. That is a kind of obsession with people who are leaning towards child-free and are afraid of their own attraction to children, so they want to make it so black and white. But human beings are ambivalent about everything. One of my favorite lines in my book, The Baby Decision, is the word decide comes from a Latin root, meaning to cut away from.

De-sedere. The prefix is from and the suffix is cut. When you are entertaining both possibilities, even though you may not like being uncertain, you have the freedom and the fantasy of enjoying everything great you're already enjoying about child-free and everything great about parenthood. But when you start to think maybe I'll have a child, then you're looking at the terror, what if I hate pregnancy? What if I don't like the child? What if I'm sorry? I can't send the child back. That's human. On the other hand, if you're leaning towards child free, what if when I'm 50, I wake up and say, I blew it. I should have had a child. In order to go forward with a decision, you have to cut that decision away from the other decision. And that means that you grieve everything

you're giving up from the other choice. And I have this trick, which is to steal something from the other choice. So if you decide to have a child, what are the things you think you're going to miss most? Is it meditation? Is it being able to run every morning? How can you, even if you can't spend 20 hours a week preparing for a marathon, could you set it up that you are going to run for an hour every day? If you can acknowledge what you're losing and what you'd be grieving, you can think about adding something in. And for someone who's going to be child-free, they can say, well, I really want the freedom and control of dedication to my career. but I'm sorry that I'm not going to see a young child develop into an adult. Well, if you have a niece or a

nephew or a child of the best friend or you do volunteer work, you can have a blast doing nurturing without being a parent. So rather than the idea that if you're not 100% sure it's the wrong decision, I say 60-40 is a decision. When 60% you want something and 40% you don't, that's the beginning of a decision. And it's like a blurred picture that comes a little more in focus every few days or every few weeks. So 60-40, you're probably not ready to declare it a decision. But with exercises in my book, thinking, talking, giving it more time to gel, it will become 70-30 or 80-20. And I tell everybody, don't ever expect your choice to be better than 80-20. Human beings are ambivalent. You go to a new ice cream store. You order a flavor. You think it's going to be great. You see someone besides you

who looks like they're having an orgasm over a different color and different flavor ice cream, and you regret your choice. If we're that way about food, how can we not be that way about life? So I say it's not a question that will you regret your decision. You will regret your decision on a bad day. The question is, which decision will I, will we regret least? And that gives you the freedom and the space to make the choice. That is incredibly powerful. I really, really like that. I do think a lot of the discussion around whether or not you should have a kid is based on this vision of the future. People are always like, you don't want to be lonely when you're old? Or don't you want somebody to take care of you when

you're old, which I really hate as a sentiment because I'm just like, I don't want to birth a caretaker. I'll figure out another way. Our ideas, our fantasies about old age are just so unrealistic. Just as we have a lot of prejudices like everybody should have kids, we also assume that everybody's going to be alone in their old age if they don't have a child or that everybody who's old is going to be decrepit. There's a fabulous book by a Yale professor called The Aging Code. She's a Yale professor, and she's done studies in two or three different countries. And she's found that elderly people are capable of so much more than we think, physically and mentally. and that a lot of the difficulties that they have have to do with the prejudice against them rather than what they are capable of.

Are you talking about Becca Levy's book? Yes, Becca Levy. I had her on the podcast. You did? Oh my God, I have to go listen to it. She said you can literally add 7.5 years to your life. Like literally add the years by changing your beliefs around aging. And now that I've done that episode, I see negative beliefs about aging everywhere.

they are so pervasive in our society from the funny greeting card that says you're over the hill when you're 30. It's crazy. It's like that glass-shattering moment when you start to notice it because it is absolutely everywhere. And there's so much dread of old age that I hear people saying, well, if I'm going to be child-free, when I get to the age where I can't take care of myself, I'm just going to take a pill and die. They have no idea how much pleasure is still available in life, even if you have some disabilities or even if you have illness. how much pleasure and beauty there is. Also, so many child-free people have plenty of love around them. Friends, extended family, maybe they were a teacher, maybe they were a coach. What people need to do if they're going to be child-free is save their money so that they can choose whether they want to age in place or whether they want to age in a community where there's all kinds of

help and more socializing than if they just live at home and cultivate relationships with people shared interests of all ages. There are so many ways to be connected. There's also this fabulous field, which I know more about because I'm a social worker, called geriatric social work, which is all about helping people make the best decisions based on their personalities and their lives and their resources to have a great life as an elderly person, whether they have children or not. And of course, there's also the reality that not all children help their elderly parents. That's what I was going to say. You were like, if your child free, you should be doing this. I'm kind of like, I feel like you should be doing it anyway because I have friends who work

with elderly people for their jobs or they work in sort of care home environments. And there are so many elderly people. And it's awful to say, but that have been sort of abandoned by their families. They have living families that are not taking care of them. Yes, that is true. I do think that a lot of this conversation comes down to this vision of the future, this which thing will future me not have regrets about? do you think that the conversation of which will I regret less still applies, or do you think that

we're just so bad at predicting what our future selves will want, that that's not even a valuable line of thinking? Well, one thing that has happened is in our culture of set your goals and go after your dreams, the idea that you can have everything. I think the fact that we have to make choices and that we can't have everything that we would like in our lives, and we are finite, and we will die someday, gives us the idea that we should find a way to make everything work. Sometimes it can be helpful to think, how will I look at this 10 years from now? Will I be glad that I chose to be child-free? Will I be glad that I had a child? So sometimes nearer future can be better, helpful. But I think one of the most profound things is I can't guarantee anything. I can only make my best

guess. And I will not hate myself and I will not let anybody else tell me that I made a mistake or that I was bad or wrong if I don't like every aspect of what I choose. And there's always, the grass is always greener. So it's easy to assume if sometimes people in their 40s just get to a point where the things that they've loved, they're successful, they're in a good relationship, but things just feel a little boring or stale. It's very easy to think that if they made another decision, everything would be perfect without realizing that maybe there's something going on in terms of approaching aging, being more aware of eventual death, asking themselves, is there anything I haven't done yet that needs to happen or can assume that, oh, if only I had

done this other thing, everything would be great. And part of happiness is really accepting that we will have some disappointments, we will have some regrets, and that we make our choices based on what we think best expresses us, our personality. If we're in a relationship, our personalities a couple, my partner's personality, and needs. A really good question to ask is, what hasn't happened yet that I want to happen happen between now and when I die? And this is really why I love this topic so much, because it's never just about baby or no baby. It's what is important to me that hasn't happened yet and how will I fit this in? So even people who choose to have a child often discover, well, I haven't even admitted this, but I want to write a novel,

or I'd like to start an NGO. And they'll think, well, I can't even think about this if I'm going to be a parent. And that's not true. You're not going to be doing 100% of that in the next 20 years if you're a parent. You can take one course online. You can be in a group of people who have that same passion. You can be learning. You want to write a novel. You can take one writing class and write 10 hours a week. Knowing what matters besides child or no child makes life richer. It gives people a chance to say, this matters. How do I bring this together? And of course, for people who are choosing to be child-free, being able to name those things really helps too. Because it's, okay, if I have this extra time and money, what am I going to do with it? Not just ruling out parented because it doesn't

appeal to you, but what are you going to do with your life? And I would say maybe 50% of people who choose to be child-free don't have to answer that question because they've already decided to be child-free because they are so involved in their art or their architecture or saving the environment or whatever that they know that if they had a child at home, they wouldn't be able to really enjoy and be committed to that child because they have something else that is bigger than them already. But there are many people who rule out having a child because they don't have the passion

or their partner would hate being a parent. And they have to answer that question, well, what next? What if you want to have kids or you're really on the fence but you're nervous about the future at large, like climate change or the idea that it's irresponsible to bring a child into the world in which we live. How much should that impact our decision making? I'm laughing because my new book is going to be addressing climate change. And one of the reasons that I'm writing it is because of the 50,000 fence sitters that I've been answering questions with over the last few years are bringing it up.

And I realize I've only touched on climate change. What I can offer is food for thought. And I can tell you about climate change experts and other leaders who say, you're not going to save the climate by not having a child. We're going to save the climate by taking the right actions. Because we've never been faced with what we're facing now. And it's not just climate. It's also another pandemic. There's just so many things that are out of our control.

The racism, the violence, prejudice, the ugliness, the people who don't want to. be responsible for other citizens, other families. It is a really hard time to bring a child into the world. What I say to people is think about what this means to you. Some experts are saying, if you love the climate and you want to have a child, be committed not only to having a child, but to being a steward for the planet. What volunteer work are you going to be doing before you get pregnant or while you're pregnant, what activities are you going to do with your child to have them be part of saving the world? That can be an active way of doing it. Another thing that some experts say is when we get lost in terror about climate change, we can just get so depressed that we can't

think clearly and we can't do anything about the problem. But if we could actually spend time outdoors and love the earth and be connected to nature, we can feel more calm and more centered and think about ways of dealing with it. And certainly for people who just feel there's no way I can do this, I will not do this. They are also contributing to society. There's more than one way of looking at it. But I talked to a friend of mine who is a climate expert, Nina Vekentaraman, who wrote the book, The Optimus Telescope. And when I said to her, Bina, what am I going to put in this chapter? She says the world needs new people. And we need landscape planners.

We need urban planners. We need climate scientists. We need the children of the future to make the world better again. So there's more than one way of looking at it. And certainly it makes sense if you cannot see any way that you can feel comfortable doing it, then that's your own answer. I will also say that outside of the responsibility perspective, there's also the fear conversation. And I always like to tell people that my parents were afraid to have me because they were thinking about having a child in the 80s and they thought we were all going to die from nuclear war. If you look back in history, there's right before the nuclear war conversation, we're at World War II, we're at the Great Depression, we're at World War I, we're at the flu of 1918 and go back and back and back and back.

And there's always been these really big, scary issues that have been dominating our consciousness. And people have still chosen to have children and to participate in that active hope for the future. And those children, by and large, have not regretted that their parents made that decision. I'm not regretful that my parents forewent their fears of nuclear war and decided to have me. And so I do think that the world has always been scary and that having children, despite your fear, has always been a hopeful and brave thing to do. I think that makes sense. It doesn't make sense for everyone, but it does make sense for a lot of people.

Let's talk about statistics for a second. What do you think about all of the statistics that basically say your relationship with your partner is going to get worse until your kids move out or your happiness is going to take a big drop until your kids move out when they're 18. Do you think that those statistics are missing something? Do you think they hold weight? How should we be viewing those? I do believe the statistics make sense that there is more stress in marriages and more stress in life when children are young.

Nevertheless, I think that a lot of how it goes depends on whether or not the couple wanted and planned for a child and consider that being a parent is really a wonderful part of their life. If they have a really close, high-quality relationship before they had the child, they have a much better ability to enjoy each other and to enjoy life. If they plan the child as opposed to a child that was an accident, they have a different look at things. I'm actually going to mention two books in answer to this question. The book called To Have and to Hold, she's a marital and also a singer-songwriter in Vermont. And she wrote a fabulous book about what determines how well couples do when they have a child

is how close they are to each other, their level of attachment. If they feel loved by their partner and they have a sense of closeness to their partner, they're able to endure some of the feelings of being abandoned by each other, disagreeing with each other, being deprived of each other because of the child, because of that quality of that relationship. And that makes a really, really big difference. And the other book that I have to mention is Jennifer Seniors, All Joy and No Fun, in which she reports the studies in which parents, especially while they're raising their kids,

express terrible distress and unhappiness. But once their kids are grown, they rave about being parents. And when they look back on their younger years, they say the best years of their lives when they were raising their young children. So people are talking about the difference between joy and freedom that you might have in being child-free and the meaning, the level of connection and sense of being dedicated to someone else and the shared family experience. It's kind of crazy because, yes, raising children means a lot of sacrifice. a lot of bad days and bad nights, but it also means a deep level of meaning and satisfaction. Now, anybody who's pro-nales will say, well, that means everybody should have kids.

I say no. I say everybody needs a sense of meaning and satisfaction. But for people who don't want to be parents, either because it doesn't appeal to them, or they've had a terrible childhood or their partner doesn't want one, there are a million ways of finding meaning and satisfaction. action that have nothing to do with having kids. There are many ways of looking at this. I want to get into some of the listener questions, but that was actually one of the ones we got, which is if you don't find a lot of meaning or purpose in your career, you're not obsessed with that. Do you need a kid to feel fulfilled? Are there other ways to find meaning in your life? Or is that just like a low-hanging fulfillment fruit?

What a lovely way to say. It loves low-hanging fulfillment fruit. I'm going to quote that. People may rule out having a child before they know what they're going to do to give life meaning. It's okay. People think, well, I can't really make that decision if I don't know what I'm going to do instead. But it takes a lot of energy to make that decision not to have a child. And for a lot of people, they just need to do that first. And once they've done that, there's a certain relief in knowing that that question's answered. And then they have energy and concentration to say what is going to give me meaning? Is it changing my job, my career? Is it doing the work that I'm doing, but finding things that I do nights and weekends or taking a sabbatical,

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It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing. It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now, and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare.

You want to always like see a real difference. And you're kind of like, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother.

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at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode, like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk for. free. Right now our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. I want to ask this in no uncertain terms though, because you hear so often that there is no sense of love or meaning or purpose like that that a parent has for their child. In your professional experience,

can you find equal levels of meaning in other facets of your life, or is the level of meaning you find in parenthood noticeably better in some way? I think that's a terrible myth, and I think it destroys many lives, and I think it makes many people have children who would have been much happier without children. It is pure pronatalism. We're talking about social beliefs and social pressures. It is not true. It is true that for many happy parents, they feel that being parents has been one of the best, if not the best thing about their life.

But there is no universal truth. No one should have a child because they think they need to do it in order to be happy. There are a million other ways to be happy without children. That can be volunteer work. It can be being involved in the arts. It can be being a coach or a teacher, some kind of volunteer work. It can be you've spent the last 15 years in the computer field and you decide you want to study philosophy. And you can study philosophy because you're not saving for somebody else's college.

You can go be in a PhD program at 40 years old and play around with ideas. And you can even teach those ideas to children if you want to or younger people or whatever. there are a million ways to live a life. There are million ways to find meaning. And there are so many child-free people who are doing great and wonderful things. And there's a lot of good child-free stuff on the internet where people can learn about different child-free lives. One of the most common listener questions that we got was, what do I do if I'm not on the same page as my partner? There's so many scenarios this happens in. Either they didn't have the conversation, and now we're down the line. And somebody has decided one way,

somebody has decided the other. We had one that was, if your partner, lead no and then agreed, how do you trust that they're really into it and they're not just giving in? Can you talk to us about how to navigate that tricky conversation and what we should do if we're not on the same page as our partner? The first thing to do is not to panic. And it's very easy to panic when you discover this, especially if you've been in a relationship for a long time and you love your partner and you know you don't want to get a divorce or breakup, it is really terrifying. But so many people who start at this point wind up with a decision that they both can live with. And there's a lot that can happen between, oh, no, we disagree and making a choice that you can both live with. And it may take a few months.

It may even take a year or more, but a lot of people can work it through. I do want to say as background that people do break up over this issue. And even though that's very sad, if they love each other and they do it well, they can love and respect each other, continue to be friends in most cases, and really enjoy finding a new partner who wants what they want so that nobody gets stuck with a life they don't want. That's not ideal, but it's also good to know that you can have happy endings that way too. So where do we start if we want to get from, oh, no, we don't agree on this to a solution that both parties are happy with?

I have a lot of suggestions for how to communicate about this. The thing to start with is to realize your partner is not your enemy, particularly when you got involved, you agreed that you were or you weren't going to have a child. And then your partner says five years or ten years into the relationship, oh, guess what, honey, I've decided I don't want a child, or guess what, all this time we've been saving money and getting ready for you to get pregnant. Well, now I don't want you to. It can feel like, but you promised, we need to understand that our partner is a different person, and we love them and chose them because they are different from us. And so a part of that package might be that in their

growth and their change, they have come to want something different. And it's the hardest thing in the world, even for couples that have great relationships, and usually listen to each other perfectly, to listen and find out what is it about your choice that is really calling to you and not try to jump in and persuade them of the opposite. If you really listen and understand and they feel understood, then you can tell them why you want your choice and they will listen to you. And with that kind of attitude, it's a lot easier to think about what to do next. Another piece that's really important is to ask your partner, what could I do to make my choice more acceptable to you? Maybe there's a couple where the woman wants three or four children, and the man had originally said, yeah,

kids are okay, and it's come to feel, I just can't see a house full of kids. What if we had just one child? And not only what if we had just one child, but what could I do to make you feel that you're not giving up everything that matters to you? And that can also work for child-free. So what could I do to make child-free more acceptable to you than it is right now? And people can come up with a lot of creative solutions that can help them think about things. It's also really important to be willing to learn more about your partner's choice, because if your partner is going to agree to your choice and devote the next 20 years to either having a child or not having a child, you are going to want to know that they made their best effort to say yes, even if they couldn't. It makes you feel really loved and

cared about that they made their best effort. And the other thing that is really interesting is, as you discover the myths about parenthood and the myths about being child-free, it's quite possible that you will come to feel that you actually would enjoy your partner's choice much more than you thought you would. And if those kinds of communications don't get them anywhere, it's time to see a psychotherapist or a parent or decision-making coach who is a third party who can help them listen to each other and look at solutions that they may not have thought about yet. The ironic thing about all of this is that so many people tell me that they got to know their partner better than they ever had before because they had to work this through. And it gives

them such a sense of being in it together and love and respecting each other that even though it was a terrible experience in some ways, it has made them stronger. And even the couples who break up, if they do it with love, it can be a really quality experience. And breaking up lovingly enables them to have that finished business and have room in their hearts for the next partner. So even that can be quite an intimate and profound experience. I also think it's worth mentioning, and you talk about this in your book, that if you disagree, and we did the thing I wanted to do, that doesn't mean that I should take on more of the parenting roles as like pennant or because I wanted it more.

Like whatever decision you make, both people are still ultimately making that decision, even if the preferences don't align with both people. Exactly. Other listener questions, I am on the fence about having a child, but the thing that makes me the most nervous is having a child with physical or learning disabilities. How do you get over the fear that they could end up not being healthy or dying or something like that? And then you'll regret having made that decision in the first place. This is a question that terrifies everybody and understandably. There are no guarantees. And deciding to become a parent means giving up a lot of control.

And for some people, that is so scary that they won't have a child. But the way that so many of the people that I've worked with or have listened to come to terms with this is the statistics are on your side. it's not likely that you're going to have a child who is very ill, and it's not likely that your child is going to die at the age of three. Yes, these things can happen. I think what enables people to take that leap is that even though they know it's a possibility, it's not a strong statistical likelihood. And they're guessing that the joys of parenthood will be worth taking that risk. I think that that's one of the reasons it's scary for people who can. can't decide either way because it's harder for people who are on the fence to picture those joys

and to be like, well, I really wanted that. When you're on the fence, you're like, well, if I didn't even want it and then I end up in this decision that has this huge profound effect on my life, that feels much harsher in a way. Well, you could have a child who was totally healthy, but be in a car accident or have some kind of terrible illness that could also make them not be able to have a normal life. So it's not just by birth that these things can happen. But that's scary too. It is like the more people that you're adding to your life that you love so much. It's a scary thing. And people say there's not that many people in my life that I would die for, but every parent I know is like, oh, I would die for my child in a second. And I think that

having that kind of loves is just, it's a scary thing. But maybe that's part of life is being open to the fear that comes with love? I think that's well said. I don't have a great answer for this because it is scary and we really don't know. It's part of the mystery of life. But the point is that we often take risks for the things that matter most for us. But we should not criticize people who choose not to have a child because they don't want that situation. If they need to guarantee that that won't happen, then it's okay to choose to be child-free. Would you say that if somebody unequivocally did not want to raise a child that had a more difficult situation, that that would mean that their answer should be no and they shouldn't

have a child at all? That is such a difficult question. I think that if people have other reasons that they also lean child-free, I think that would be a very strong reason to not go forward. Another thing that some people find helpful is getting genetic testing and getting a lot of information. If there are issues in their families to see if their genetic makeup would suggest that they might have those problems too. The difficulty is that so many problems don't show up genetically. They don't show up in utero. They can show up later. It's like the fertility conversation where there is information that we can get that instead of just sitting kind of paralyzed in our fear.

One thing that's given a lot of people courage is asking their friends, well, you were worried about this too. How did you cross over to the other side? Thinking about it not in the abstract or not by having a therapist or professionals say, well, it's not likely. but people who were just as scared when they made that decision say, what was their thinking that enabled them to make the leap? Could be helpful. Have you worked with parents who have children and have regretted the choice to have children? I don't think so.

I have worked with a client who had a child because her husband wanted one and it was not her first choice. And her husband had committed to doing a lot of the work, more than 50% of the work. And then his job changed and he wasn't able to. She loved her child very much and she was able to make the adjustment. She knew it was going to be hard and they thought they had set it up in a way that it would be a lot less stressful and it turned out to be stressful anyway.

But fortunately, she loves her child and she has enjoyed motherhood despite those difficulties. People see me because they're trying to make conscious decisions. and if they disagree, they are going to decide not to have a child, or they're going to work so carefully on what they need to do to be ready that they're not going to regret their decision. I think that's such a powerful message that I'm taking away from this conversation, which is that it's not just yes or no. It's what are the fears? How can I address them?

What do I want my life to look like? It's a lot more granular than this broad strokes conversation that a lot of of us are having. And that's a really empowering sentiment. I love the way you said that. There are a lot of ways that we have control, even in aspects where we're out of control. A lot of people who were very afraid of pregnancy and the effects of pregnancy on their body, things going wrong, just the toll in general. What would you say to somebody who wants to have a child but is very unethused by the idea of being pregnant? First of all, don't go it alone. There's a lot of lot of information you can get. Talk to a mental health professional about what your fears are.

Talk to your doctor. Look at what are the ways that you might feel less frightened of pregnancy. Not all doctors will do it, but some doctors will do a plan cesarian if you're terrified of giving birth, for instance. Thinking about in the abstract is a lot harder than talking to professionals who can give you some idea of what to expect. I believe that visualization and hypnosis are really, really valuable. I work with clients in which I make them their own recording. I have them imagine that they've already given birth and how good they feel about being a parent and how pleased they were that they got through pregnancy and imagining that there were things that they actually did enjoy about pregnancy and the feeling that it's worth it. But I also want to

talk about the socioeconomic situation as well. Because I said, I'm 74. I've been doing work since I was about 30. And so many people died in childbirth in the past. And everybody is scared of childbirth. I remember when I got my first pregnancy test, even though I wanted to be a mother, I went to a movie with my husband in San Diego, and I sat down on the curb. I just felt like, oh, my God, I'm going to have to give birth. What goes in must come out.

I feel like that would be me the entire nine, ten months of pregnancy, is I would just be thinking every moment when I'm like eating an ice cream cone or brushing my teeth, I'd be like, oh my God, it has to come out somehow. Our minds are very creative. We create monsters and we run from the monsters. And the same imagination that can tell you how terrible it's going to be can also tell you how wonderful it's going to be. So imagine that you've given birth and you and your partner are holding hands and maybe

you're nursing the baby and you say, I'm so happy I did this. And even though it was difficult in some ways, it wasn't nearly as hard as I imagined. And then imagining the joy of moving forward. We can use our minds not only to scare ourselves, but also to soothe and reassure ourselves. I think it's also important to say that you don't need to love pregnancy to be a great parent. Absolutely. We have such this notion of, oh, you have to be so in touch with your body and like this earth mama energy. And I have so many friends who are incredible.

parents and hated literally every single moment of their pregnancy. That is absolutely true. Millennial women are having more trouble with pregnancy than anybody else. And I think the reason for that is millennials have been through two recessions that either meant they didn't get jobs or that they've really suffered. They haven't been able to get apartments or homes that they've wanted. And they've been through the pandemic. There is such a feeling of being out of control. and when finances and other issues have been out of control, it's been a major source of control. So the idea that when I get pregnant, my body is going to change is really, really terrifying. So to let go of that idea and think about what control can I take?

What information can I get about pregnancy to make me less terrified? What things might I find that I might enjoy about pregnancy, like buying gorgeous maternity clothes, or talking to friends who loved being pregnant and asking them what they enjoyed about it. Or I have a girlfriend who said that it was literally the first time in her entire life that she went to the beach and didn't think about how her stomach looked because her stomach was pregnant. And I was like, wow, the immense sense of freedom that that would bring after years of society telling you that your body should or shouldn't look a certain way. Personally, I loved being pregnant.

And maybe that has been because I was told I was going to have infertility problems that I wound up not having. But I just thought it was amazing. I just felt just so alive and full of life and how fascinating that every day my body was changing to make room for the baby and enjoying the fantasies of what it would be like when I finally met the child. And the first moment when each of them kicked was just incredible. I have no idea what my reaction would be if I got pregnant, but I feel like I would enjoy the specialness element of it, the feeling that. that everybody's kind of paying you a little bit more attention. I'm a Leo. So I just feel like the idea that you can say, oh, I'm craving ice cream.

And everybody's like, get our ice cream. Or people are always checking in like, how are you feeling? How are you doing? I think I would like that specialness part. We'll see. Okay. Let's do this as our last listener question. If you have no interest in holding other people's babies or you don't like being around

babies in general, is that a sign that you may not. want them. It is a sign that you may not want them if there are a million other reasons that you're not interested in parenting. If you're not interested in older children, you're not charmed and say, wow, wouldn't it be interesting to have a conversation about existential philosophy with a 13-year-old who just discovered it? Or isn't it fun to talk to a teenager who is just falling in love for the first time? It's possible that you enjoy things about older children and babies leave you cold. And there are many, many mothers who enjoy their children who could not relate to babies. And I personally was like that. I actually worked in an infant daycare unit at Michigan State

University for a year. And it was the first time that I really got to see how interesting babies are. Each one of them has a completely different personality. And they learn and change every single day. There's a wonderful book called The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik that talks about all the different ways that children are analyzing and learning about the world. So there's a lot there that we don't know. But for women and men who have not had younger siblings or been around friends with children, there isn't something inherent in babies that makes people fall in love. That's another myth. The only real way to grow or the only way to have a full life meaning is to have a child. It's a way of meaning for some people and not at all for others.

So if it's not only that baby leaves me cold and I have no desire to hold it, but there's nothing else that appeals to me about parenting. You put that together with the awareness, I don't want to have a baby, and the conclusion should be, I don't want to have a baby. But there are many, many people who are feminists and for many years thought they were going to be child-free, who never wanted to hold anybody else's baby, just thought they were blobs and gooey and drooling and maybe going to pee or poop or, whatever, and they reach a point in their lives and in their relationship and thinking about having a child within the context of sharing that with our partner. And they've been around friends who are having kids and they're having a chance to observe some of the joyful things about that can decide, well, maybe this is something I want to do. I also love what you said about

talking about philosophy with a 13-year-old or your child's first date, because I do think we have this tendency as a society to picture me with a baby or me without a baby, but you're not having a baby. You're having a human being who is going to be part of your life likely for the rest of your life. That's really true. And I always in my workshop say, if children are going to be babies for the rest of their lives, very few people would have kids. A lot of people have babies because that's what you have to do to get a three-year-old and a five-year-old and a seven-year-old. It's so interesting. I feel almost the opposite where I feel like a lot of the people I know want a baby, but they maybe don't want an adolescent or an 18-year-old.

So it's interesting from both sides. It really is. And sometimes I have the fantasy of people doing tradeoffs. Well, I'll have the baby. I'll experience pregnancy. I'll cuddle with a baby and play with a toddler. And then I'll turn it over to you for the rest of the raising. I'm always saying we just need to live in a more communal environment because then you could

have some version of that. Your cute little calm you and you're like, take my baby for the day. I'll take your 13. We'll go hang out at the river and shoot the shit. Well, a lot of child-free people do that. A lot of them do it with nieces and nephews or children of friends. Can you just leave us with one homework assignment, one action step that we can all take as soon as we're done listening to this podcast if we are trying to make the decision

of whether or not we would like to have a child? I like the question of which decision will you regret least. Think about what will you give up if you have a child and what will you give up if you become a parent. Well, I do have the rocking chair exercise where you imagine that you are healthy and you're in your 70s and you're just thinking about your life and looking back on it. And you do it twice. In one you imagine that you had a child and the other one you imagine that you didn't. And you ask yourself, what do you like about your life? What are you pleased about? And what do you think you missed? So that can help you get in touch with and give you permission to look at both choices.

Absolutely love that. This was such a wonderful conversation. Merle, I'm going to talk all about your wonderful book, The Baby Decision, which I have found so informative and useful in my conversations with Zach at the beginning of the episode. But do you want to share anything else that you're working on or anywhere that people can find you online if they would like to hear more from you? People can find me at thebabedicision.com. And at that website, they can join my Facebook group called Decision Cafe, a great thing

about Decision Cafe is even though I'm a parent and people are very happy that I have supported so many people in choosing to be child-free, I have a wonderful co-host, Katie Wilson, who's in her mid-40s and is child-free. So we have different ages and different life choices represented. If people want to contact me, they can contact me through the baby decision.com. And I'll also mention that I do not only psychotherapy on this issue, but coaching on this issue. The great thing about remote work is that I can see anybody anywhere. I just love it. I love that. Well, thank you so much, Merle. I absolutely enjoyed this conversation. And I so appreciate you taking the time. You are so welcome. I love this episode so much. I truly cannot stop talking about it with my friends.

Every time I go to brunch, I'm like, guys, guess what this podcast guest said the best age to have a kid is, and everyone guesses, and then is absolutely shocked. Please, please, share it around so you can have someone to talk about it all with, and also so we can just start to dismantle some of those societal miss and normalize these very important conversations. And if you are new here, make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you listen on. You're just going to go to the main page for the podcast, the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes, and you will see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of the new episodes will show up right in your

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