The Liz Moody Podcast - What It’s REALLY Like To Be Childfree By Choice With Ruby Warrington & Vanessa and Xander Marin

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

A conversation with child-free adults, including their personal decisions to not have kids, how it has impacted their lives and relationships, and their tips for navigating society as a child-free person.  the historical context for how we view mothers how they all knew they didn’t want kids tips for discussing being childfree with a partner what parents in their lives told them (confidentially) that influenced their decision how to deal with the grief of lives unlived, whether you have kids or are childfree how to handle the opinions (and disappointment!) of parents, friends, & others  how being childfree impacts friendships how to find purpose in life outside of procreation  what the motherhood spectrum is & how to know where you fall on it the best and worst parts of being childfree by choice and so much more!  For more from Ruby, head to her website rubywarrington.com, follow her on social media at @rubywarrington, and grab her book Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood.  For more from Vanessa and Xander, head to their website vmtherapy.com, follow them on social media at @vanessaandxander, and grab their book Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Pre-order my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  This episode is sponsored by: Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. AG1: visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Paleovalley: go to paleovalley.com/lizmoody for 15% off your order. Cozy Earth: visit cozyearth.com and use code HEALTHIER35 for up to 35% sitewide.  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 bestselling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're uncovering the best tips for being happier at work, learning the roots of and dismantling the patriarchy together, or identifying the hidden epigenetic benefits of the foods that we eat. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, I am so excited to welcome three guests for an episode all about the decision to be child-free by choice.

I have talked openly about my personal struggles with deciding whether or not to have kids on my own, and I love to share all different perspectives on the topic. If you haven't heard our previous pros and cons of having kids episodes, definitely check those out too. The one from this past March is called How to Know If You Should Have Kids and Debunking Myths about parenthood, and I get messages literally daily about how it's changed your life and helped so many of you make a decision about having kids or not that you feel really good about. The therapist featured in that episode, Merle, also shares the ideal age to have kids, what to do if you and your partner aren't on the same page and more.

Today is all about being child free by choice and we have a whole slew of excellent guests lined up. First step, we have Ruby Warrington, who, fun fact, literally invented the term sober curious and then popularized it with her hugely successful book, also called Sober Curious. So she comes on and she shares some historical and sociological context for how we view and treat mothers and women who don't have kids in society. The shame and pressure people feel on both sides is rooted in our past and understanding that is so key to overcoming it. Ruby has an amazing book out called Women Without Kids, the Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood that I highly recommend. She also has the loveliest British accent, so we can all enjoy that. Then I chat with repeat guests, Vanessa and Zander Marin, the host of the amazing Pillow Talks podcast,

and authors of the New York Times bestselling book, Sex Talks, The Five Conversations that Will Transform Your Love Life, about the decision that they came to together to not have children and all of the ways that that's impacted their life. Vanessa is a licensed therapist, and Zander is so wise, and they're both incredibly open about subjects that are often considered taboo, and I always love talking to them so much. We get into so many topics in this episode, including the historical context for how we view mothers, how they all knew that they didn't want kids, tips for discussing being child-free with a partner, what parents in their lives told them confidentially that influenced their decision, how to deal with the grief of lives unlived, whether you have kids or are child-free, how to handle the opinions and disappointment

of parents, friends, and others. How being child-free impacts friendships. How to find purpose in life outside of procreation. What the motherhood spectrum is and how to know where you fall on it? The best and worst parts of being child-free by choice and so much more. We would all 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.

Vanessa and Zander. They are at Vanessa and Zander. And Zander is with an ex. and Ruby is at Ruby Warrington on Instagram. This is obviously such a hot topic. Having kids or not is one of the only decisions that you have to make with no ability to actually see what it's like before you do it and also no ability to go back once you do decide.

If there's anyone in your life that you think these perspectives could help, please, please share a link with them. It is truly the best way to support the podcast and I appreciate it so much. And I also just feel better knowing that more people are getting to see that. that these questions are okay to ask and these conversations are okay to have. Before we get into the episode, I want to give you a quick reminder that my brand new book, A Hundred Ways to Change Your Life, is still on sale for pre-order and pre-ordering is hands down the best way to support the book.

I know that anyone who loves this podcast is going to love, love this book. On every page, you're going to get not only a science-backed explanation for how to have more energy, how to be happier, how to restore and reset, how to make and keep friends, and so much more, but also an action tip, what you can do when you put the book down using the science to actually change your life today. Pre-ordering essentially tells publishing houses how excited they should be about the book. So as an extra incentive and thank you, we have a giveaway for a thousand dollar credit to an airline of your choice to travel anywhere you want to go. Just go to 100 Ways to Change Your Life.com. That is 100Ways to Change Your Life.com, and you can order and enter and get all of the details.

And if you haven't heard, we are officially changing the name of the podcast to the Liz Moody podcast. I am equally nervous and very excited about the change, but this podcast is honestly just outgrown the name healthier together. The content is not going to change at all. I just want the podcast name to really reflect the scope of everything that we talk about on here. It is so much more than what a lot of people would consider a health podcast, like today's episode, very much included. So it's not happening quite yet, but I wanted to give you a heads up so that when you see the Liz Moody podcast in your feed, you know it is nothing new, just these same amazing conversations each week with a new name and a little cover refresh. The new cover is so cute. And I feel like the vibe of it reflects the vibe of the pod more, if that makes sense.

Anyway, look out for that. Okay, let's get into it. We're going to start with Ruby. and then we will dive in with Vanessa and Zander. Ruby, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I was just telling you how impressed I am about the depth and the anthropological nature of your book. So thank you for writing it and thank you for coming on to discuss it. Thanks for having me, Liz.

I'm really excited to get into it with you. I would love for you to start by sharing some historical context for how we view women's roles and mothery now. You wrote in the book that with the industrialization of the world, that women's child-rearing labor began to appear as a natural resource available to all, no less than the air we breathe or the water that we drink. So I would love for you to share some key historical events that shaped how we came to view mothering the way that we do societally today. Yeah, I love that quote. It's from a book called Caliban and the Witch by the feminist scholar Sylvia Federici, who was actually, little side note, one of the kind of founding

members, I suppose, of the Wages for Housework Movement, which was part of the second and wave feminism, which was really sort of saying that women's child-rearing and homemaking labor is actually a vital component of the economy. And it's just not recognized as such. And that quote that you drew on there shines a light on that specific piece. This is labor, which is performed and seen as a labor of love. This is just something that women are naturally designed and predisposed to do because of our nurturing maternal instincts. This messaging really started to be inculcated with the transition from feudalism to capitalism. When we saw a transition from groups of people living off the earth where there was access to land where people could grow their own food and create their own material stability into the system which we have now, where you have an owning class who essentially did a great big land grab, sort of grabbed up all the natural resources.

now employs laborers to earn a living working for them. It was within that transition that we really saw, or the way that Federici paints it, we really saw a transition where women's role, whereas we used to have whole families sort of working the land together in a much more egalitarian way when it came to the gender divisions. We saw women's role very much become this nurturing homemaker, which was an unpaid role, whereas the men went out to earn the money to bring home to feed and support the family. So within that division, men also got put into the provider role, which in many instances can also be very oppressive, the idea that just because I'm the man, I must bear the financial responsibilities of raising a family. So of course, that's

incredibly binary sort of gendered thinking and absolutely so much progress has been made, particularly over the last century. We see the depth of that conditioning in our psyches in terms of who we believe does what when it comes to contributing in the home, contributing in the economy. Women without kids sort of live in defiance of that. We see the remnants of it even in something like the gender pay gap, right, which is actually a motherhood pay gap because it's working moms who really bear the brunt of that inequality, women without kids often earn on a par, if not more than their male counterparts, not least because we're seeing women really kind of outperform men in universities, get much better results in higher education,

and actually achieve better than their male counterparts a lot of the time in terms of the marketplace now. It's ancient conditioning, which goes back to 15th, 16th century, so it's centuries worth of conditioning. It's been examined, but not really en masse, and particularly not through the lens of, well, how do we view women who don't fulfill and perform that role in society, which is one of the things I wanted to do with my book. Well, I think it's such an important conversation to have because if you don't examine the historical context of things, we can just accept that things have sort of always been the way that they are. And that's not true. I think we're asking women who are raising kids to do more than we have ever asked people to do historically.

We're saying, oh, you need to go and kick ass at work and have a full-time job and be this wonderful mother and just perform essentially like all of these different full-time jobs. And then like you said, it makes it hard for us to contextualize women who are child-free because there's not really historical precedent for women even being able to make that decision with their bodies. So how does looking at the historical arc of things help you contextualize the place of the child-free woman in society today? The historical context that we have for women who defied that very gendered sort of status quo, I suppose, was the witch hunts, the genocide of women who were perceived as witches. These were often women who lived alone. These were women who knew how to

work with the cycles, knew how to work with herbs to control their reproduction, women who were are queer perhaps. Anybody who didn't kind of conform to this heteropatriarchal sort of gender binary was deemed a witch and burn at the stake. So that conditioning lives in our bodies too. And so the reason I'm interested in looking at the historical context, I think something I've really, I've always been interested in. It was something that was really a big part of my previous work with Sober Curious. Anywhere we have something that's a taboo or where there are expectations and assumptions and prejudices, I'm very curious about where that conditioning comes from. Often it's stuff that lives in our subconscious, which means it's been passed on down the generations

unexamined, these old stories that are playing on repeat. And it's when we're able to bring those stories into our consciousness, which we can do by sort of cross-examining. Why do I feel this way? Or why am I expected to feel this way? why am I not allowed to feel that way? When we start really questioning that, as I began to do in earnest with my work with Sobe Curious,

why do we consume alcohol in the way we do without question? Why am I expected to feel like this about drinking? And I'm not allowed to feel like this about drinking. Sort of applying that thinking to this area as well is what led to me really kind of doing this deep dive into weather conditioning that says, women are built to be mothers. and any woman who either opts out or is unable to become a mother is defective, deviant. There's something wrong with her, which is, I think, for anybody who embodies that orientation,

will have felt that, whether it's been expressed to them in so many words or not. For me, those feeling rules as the sociologist, On a Donut in her book, Regretting Motherhood calls them, always have a historical route. You asked the question in the book, is the meaning of life to create more life? And you said that you don't have the answer to that. But I think it goes along with some of the questions that you're asking. Like, are you going against your purpose on this planet to not procreate? And I'm curious if you, since writing the book or having conversations around the book,

have any clarity onto what the meaning of life is. I love it. Before we started the conversation, you were like, we're going to start deep. You are not disappointing me, Liz. I mean, that's about as deep as it gets, right? is the meaning of life only to create more life. And sometimes I feel like conversations that boil humanity down to our biological reproductive function sort of imply that that is the reason that we're here. So if you don't do that thing, then your life has no value in a way. You know,

what is the point of being alive if you're not going to reproduce? And it's very interesting, a couple of things. So I've just come off leading my first in-person Women Without Kids Retreat. It was an incredible experience. It was at a retreat center called Kropaloo in Massachusetts, where I've taught many programs over the years. But in the grounds there, they have a tree, they call it the grandmother tree. It's a very special tree. It has its own signpost and everything. And it's incredibly beautiful. I've never seen a tree that has more leaves or such intricate kind of branch shapes. And it's very beautiful. Anyway, I found myself reading the sign and it's called a camper down elm. And it just said, the camperdown elm species cannot self-replicate.

Every one of these trees around the world has been grafted from one of the original sort of trees that live in the Camperdown forest in Scotland. And I'm bringing it up because it was just really striking to me that here is a tree that has no sort of human consciousness, no sort of, what's the word, free will, I suppose, over how it lives out its existence, that cannot self-replicate. And I was like, oh, here's an example of a species whose purpose is also maybe not just to self-propagate. So that was a kind of an interesting little thing. But I've been thinking a lot, and this kind of gets a bit more philosophical, I suppose, about how our species is evolving.

I mean, there's the whole argument of like, does the earth need human beings? And would the more than human world, be in a much healthier, better state, had human beings never kind of come along and taken domination over all of the other species, right, which we ultimately have to devastating effect in many circumstances. And I think that as we've evolved as a species and as our consciousness has raised and we've gained more awareness about who we are and why we're here and we continue to gain more awareness, I just sort of feel like the value of a human life is shifting. It's a really interesting question to ponder in general. Why are human beings even here? There has been an attitude and it's been very much related to the fact that human life has been

much more precarious. It's really only in the past two centuries since the advent of modern medicine that a human life has been guaranteed. I mean, even 100 years ago at the turn of the 19th century, human life expectancy was around 49 years old. Human life expectancy has almost doubled over that time span. And I think we're really being asked a question, well, what does it mean to live a full, long and healthy life? Where we don't necessarily need so many people to replenish the people who are dying out. This is a bit of a long and a meandering answer, but it's definitely still something I'm kind of thinking about, feeling into. It's a really interesting thing to be pondering at this point in our sort of human evolution in general.

At this moment for you personally, what does a meaningful, well-lived, purpose-driven life look like? I had such a hit of that this weekend. So I have been very invested for the past 10, 12 years in my own sort of healing journey. And by that, I mean, really getting very serious, I suppose, and really doing the work of looking at all of the patterns, a lot of them unconscious patterns, dysfunctional. patterns that have been handed down to me through my lineage and noticing how they have played out in dysfunctional ways in my actions and behaviours and choices. And doing the work to get conscious of those, arrest them to make new actions, choices, etc. And in doing so, become, I suppose, less self-absorbed and obsessed with accumulating things and ticking off boxes and competing and proving myself and more concerned with what am I here to offer?

Like, what am I here to potentially help others with? How can I be of service? It sort of sounds a bit cheesy in a way, but this has been very much a theme for me for the past 12 years. And I had a real hit on this retreat, actually, just being in a room with the 26 women who had showed up and just immediately feeling how much they were getting from being there, from having these conversations, from being in community with one other and another,

and having a real strong sense of the ripple effect of the work that I'm able to do, which is very much a result of the healing work that I've been able to do on myself. So it's a long-winded way, I suppose, of saying I definitely feel at this life stage, I'm 47 now, thinking about the second half of my life being very much more oriented towards service in whatever ways that might look like. To me, that feels meaningful. purpose-driven. And it's less about success for myself and achieving the things I want for myself and much more about how can I pay this forward and be of service. It's so funny. I think one of the things that child-free people say they get a lot and your book opens with a little bit of a

discussion about this, Megan Dowman's book opens with a little bit of a discussion about this, but like that you're selfish for not wanting to procreate. But every time I talk to a child-free person, First of all, they've really thought about how hard parenting is. And so they always have incredible empathy for parents. More empathy sometimes I think than other parents sometimes have for parents. And they also seem to be really interested in figuring out other ways they can be of service outside of procreation. And so it's interesting how much it flies in the face of what I assume is a stereotype that you get tagged with a lot. Absolutely.

I think one of the biggest stereotypes or prejudices that people hold around people who are intentionally child free, meaning it's a conscious choice versus circumstances have meant they haven't been able to have children. Basically, as a woman without kids, I have the lion's share of my money, time, and energy to direct how I so choose. Whether or not I'm directing that all towards a life of frivolous, decadent sort of overconsumption, I think there are plenty of people across the spectrum of parenting who are living very indulgent lives, if that's what we're going to call selfish.

I mean, it came through very strongly on this retreat as well. There are so many people who are very much involved in activism and community work, lots of people very involved with animal rights, and also lots of people who acknowledged. I have a lot of healing to do. and that takes a lot of time and energy. And I didn't feel confident about my own child rearing abilities or my capacity to raise a child, not having done that work on myself first. And I can relate to some of this, actually.

It's only really now at the age of 47 that I really feel like I've done my work. I'm emotionally mature enough now at age 47 to be able to think about being in a parenting role and to be able to parent in a way that I would want to parent. And by no means does that take away from the fact that I know that motherhood was not right for me. But what I'm trying to say is for a lot of people, investing in ourselves has been about getting to a place where we feel secure and stable enough to even contemplate bringing another life onto the planet that we're then going to be responsible for on every level, actually, for the rest of our lives. So, yeah, it's never a decision that's entered into lightly the decision not to have children, never a decision that's not fraught with questioning, with self-doubt. There are lots of stereotypes, not helped by social media.

There are plenty of child-free accounts that are all about like, hey, my fabulous, stinky, dual-income, no-kids lifestyle and all the trips I can take and all the stuff I can buy. And I never resonated with any of that, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write the book, I suppose, just to show that that's such a surface kind of memeable approach. And it doesn't help our cause as child-free people, I don't think. I think it goes back to the idea of if you believe that the purpose of being a human on this planet is to create more humans on this planet, that's the notion in which you could view choosing not to procreate as selfish. But if you believe that humans have a purpose outside of that, or perhaps that's even contrary to something human

should be doing, then it can't be selfish in that context. I think it really goes back to you analyzing why you think we are here fundamentally as a species. Right. And I think if some people do believe that my purpose and my raison d'etre as a human being is to pass on the gift of life and allow another person to have a life, then absolutely do that. Fantastic. And ensure that you have done your work and you're doing that from emotionally mature place where you actually really want to be in the role of parents, which is a specific vocation that really is about putting your own emotional needs second, more so even than your material needs. If you hold that belief strongly, then absolutely be a parent. And I don't think that needs to apply to everybody.

It's interesting to bring that up because my thinking on that, I guess I got a really strong hit in conversations that I've been having about the book, that actually, yes, that's one reason people who don't have children are described as selfish, because I think there is this sense that we're refusing to give the gift of life to another potential human being. There's a chapter in the book called Origin Stories where I talk about how we do pass on, or we receive the patterning of our family of origin, which often is expressed in forms of family dysfunction, which once we become conscious to them and many of the things that a lot of us are grappling with

in terms of our quote unquote healing work. I talk in that chapter about how one way to frame not having a child is that we have an opportunity to end these cycles of dysfunction here in this life by grappling it, by deciding to take it on ourselves. I'm going to dedicate my life in some way to ending some of these cycles of dysfunction, which are now very clear to me in terms of, particularly the mothers in my lineage, have not had an easy time of it. There's been a lot of mental illness, a lot of oppression, a lot of disrespect.

And I think part of me always knew, no, this is my work in this life, is to end this here, without getting another generation involved, which I know is going a little bit far out. But for me, that's just another interesting way to think about it and to think about what is the purpose of a human life. I think some people have the instinct that having children is a way to break that cycle. Is there a way that you knew that you wanted to break the cycle of generational trauma by not having children versus having children and parenting them differently? That's something that was very instinctive for me. It's only something I've become conscious of more recently.

Honestly, as a result of writing this book and actually allowing myself to ask that question and sort of really look at it. my mother, for example, always knew that she wanted to have children. From age six, she was telling her mother, I want to have six kids. And I think part of her knew that she would do some of that pattern breaking with her children because she has done. And I actually see my ability and my not wanting to have children as almost a part of the legacy of her doing that work with us.

She lost her mother when she was 18. and then she pretty much estranged herself from her family of origin and lived a very unconventional life that was very different from the rest of her family and has been an outsider in her family as a result. But that meant she kind of broke a lot of the dysfunctional patterning in that and passed that along to me. And it hasn't been an easy journey for she and I. We've come a lot closer actually having her read this book and work with me on the original draft of the manuscript to really kind of dig into the truth of our story that a part of the legacy of her healing work has been me not feeling the need to replicate that with a child.

We hear a lot these days about conscious parenting and I definitely hear about people talking about what you're saying. I can always see the dysfunction play. When I'm conscious to it, I can see it playing out in my reactions to my children in the way they trigger me, in the way that I talk to them in ways that don't feel like me or like how I want to be talking to them. So when we bring consciousness to that, really will change it. But I think that it's only relatively recently with wider access to therapeutic tools, wider literature that's become more mainstream around healing generational patterns, these sorts of things, it's only really been available to people in mainstream for the past two, three decades.

And so it's a relatively new thing, this idea of conscious parenting. But my mom was doing it in the 90s. I'm so grateful that she was on her self-healing path then, you know, and that's something that I inherited from her. Can you explain the motherhood spectrum? I've never heard it framed like that, and I loved thinking about it that way. This was a real light bulb moment for me when I started thinking about this childless, child free concept, childless by choice, childless by circumstance, childless, not by choice. it seemed to me like there were these very sort of divisive categories, I suppose, very binary categories. I talk about the mummy binary, which is the biggest one of all, mums versus non-mums, moms who are natural, who have done that, performed their duty, who will no true love,

who will find fulfillment, and then non-mums who are selfish, deviant, defective, sort of missed the point, destined to be lonely and die miserable and regretful. And then within the non-mum camp, the sort of childless people who maybe would have liked to have children, but sadly have not been able to do so. And then the child free people who, as we already touched on, are often seen as selfish and frivolous and immature. And so these binary categorizations just felt very divisive, very toxic and not reflective of our actual experiences as women without kids or as mothers. Not everybody feels like that in her role as mother at all. This idea of there being a motherhood spectrum, which I present it in the book as rather than this be every woman's biological imperative,

which, by the way, is not something we hear about men with regards to fatherhood, even though men are equally biological creatures who we should be able to argue reason for existing is to father children, but we don't really hear that in those terms about men's role as fathers. So rather than thinking about this as our biological imperative. I'm sort of presenting parenting as a vocation, which some people, regardless of their gender or their sexuality, are more suited to and will have a higher capacity for than others. And that actually anyone individuals desire and capacity for parenthood is going to be influenced by a multitude of factors that may change throughout the course of a person's life, everything from our basic.

personality, to our financial status, to our career aspirations, relationship status, cultural background, family background, religious beliefs, etc., etc. All of these factors will influence how we feel about having children and also will influence our experience of being parents once we've had children. That just seemed like a much more humane and realistic way to talk about people, whether a person desires becoming a parent, whether someone's feeling ambivalent about parenthood, whether somebody's on the fence. That also came out of my work with Sober Curious, because we had this binary around drinking too. You're either a problem drinker or a normal drinker. And if you're a problem drinker, then you've got to quit and be in recovery and never drink again

and have a program. And if you're a normal drinker, well, you can just have hangovers and drink too much and get an occasional fight. Your problems aren't drinking problems, if that makes sense, which again just seemed very unreflective of how we actually experience our drinking lives. So it's a similar sort of thinking, this spectrum idea. But I found it as soon as I started thinking about my own decision not to be a mother that way and where that placed me on the spectrum and thinking as well about how even though I always had an inkling that motherhood wasn't in my path, that wasn't to say that I hadn't tried to talk myself into it multiple times throughout my life, hadn't come very close, actually, to

throwing caution to the wind and just sort of going for it and thinking about the different factors that it influenced how I felt about it at different times of my life and inviting my readers and really anybody to reflect on that for themselves. Like, where do I fall on the motherhood spectrum at this point in my life? How has that changed? How might it change in the future? And I think a lot of people have found it very helpful. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our help that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep

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your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, Eurolythine, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support your cells and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochonderegummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. Is there a reason that you think we don't have the same biological imperative for men that we talked about that like women are viewed to have this biological imperative and men aren't? We touched on it at the beginning of the conversation where we

talked about how these gender specific roles of homemaker, caregiver and provider came to be put in place. So there's certainly part of it goes back to that. And then of course, there is the fact that women gestate birth and nurture infants from their physical bodies and that there are all sorts of hormonal changes that accompany that process, which do wire a person towards a more nurturing bond with an infant. However, something I discovered, which didn't make it into the book, because I read about it after I'd finished it. I think around 2 up 2015, when it was first being debated if gay male couples should be allowed to adopt children or have children by surrogate, some experiments were done to see if men could have the same nurturing sort of instinct towards

infants. So that maternal instinct, that fierce protective sort of heightened awareness to an infant's needs is actually the result of brain changes that happen when a woman becomes the primary caregiver to her child. The brain changes are around the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that monitors for threat, growing in size. So there's a heightened awareness to potential threats to one's child, which is part of where that sort of nurturing just second nature or six sense sort of instinct that we hear moms talking about. Like I can tell my child crying three rooms away. Like, I just know when they need me, that sort of thing. And these experiments showed that the same brain changes happened in men who became the primary caregivers for an

infant. So experiments or research like that, I suppose, has started to dismantle the idea that it's only natal women who can fulfill that very nurturing caregiving role, which is ascribed to our biological makeup. That's fascinating. And then you share some tips and questions you can ask yourself in the book to figure out where you fall along the motherhood spectrum. I would love for you to walk us through a few of those. There's sort of six qualities, I suppose, that you could say make us who we are.

Now, I'm going to have to see if I can remember them off the top of my head without the book in front of me. But they are temperament, like your basic personality. what do you know about the things you need to just kind of be you? What do you know about what you need? Then there is circumstances. What was the family you were born into? What are the expectations?

What are the cultural beliefs that you've been imprinted with by the community and the culture that you were born into? Religious beliefs, etc., etc. Financial circumstances, all of that. Then there are desires. What are the things that you want for your life? What are your priorities? Fears?

What are the things that you're afraid of, that you avoid doing, that you are recoil from? Capacities. What are the things that you're naturally good at? What are the things that you find really challenging? And limitations, what are you not good at? What do you not have the capacity for? Really sort of looking at these different aspects and being honest with yourself about mapping how you feel in these different areas or what your circumstances are against what you know about parenting.

I'm really thinking about it. I use the word parenting in that section versus mothering. The word mother and mothering are so emotionally charged. When we think about parenting as a vocation, think about parenting as a job, right? Are you suited to this job? It's a job that requires you to be on pretty much 24-7. It's a job where you're going to be interfacing with lots of other human beings a lot of the time, whether it's your actual physical children or the other human beings in your baby groups or school groups or whatever it is. It's a role where you're going to need a lot of patience. It's a role where you're going to be confronted by a lot of moral conundrums, where you're going to have to be invited into a teaching role. And there are some people who,

yes, yes, I want all of that. My brother, for example, absolutely love. I absolutely love you. I love it. I loves being a father. He always wanted to be a father. And now he is a dad. He excels in the role on every level. He's just born for it. He loves it, which I think is so interesting as well. He's a guy, right? He had a really strong paternal instinct. He was consumed with baby fever in a way that I have never been. And I'm the woman. Even just looking at our circumstances throws that idea that women are built for this. And dad's just do the fun. part of making the baby and then they can just kind of float in and out and be around as much as they feel like, take as much responsibility as they want. I just think that some people are more

naturally suited to that vocation of parenting than others. I love the frame of parenting as a vocation, but for most vocations, only a very small percentage of people do it. So if I see people being an accountant and I'm like, wow, I would not be a good accountant. But there's only some people are good accountants and some people aren't. And I think with parenting, it's so pervasive and such a huge percentage of society does it that admitting to yourself that maybe you're not suited for that vocation could come with feelings of failure and feelings of, well, everybody else is suited to this vocation. So why am I not? So I'm curious your thoughts on that and how you would recommend people deal with those feelings. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Something else that I've heard so often

is whether it's from stories from other people or even in my own life, people becoming parents, mothers especially, and saying no one tells you how hard this is. No one tells you. Like no one told me how hard this was going to be. When I'm like, honestly, that's all I've ever heard. This is really hard. This is really tough. This is like the hardest thing you could ever possibly do.

And I share that because we have. have had many more, particularly mothers, talking about this is a really challenging thing. I don't know if I have the capacity for this and the shame and guilt that comes with that feeling like, I don't know if I can do this. And I think that actually this shines a light on how, for as long as mothering is not presented as a vocation, so long as there's no training given to parents, as long as there's no serious support in terms of, for free healthcare, free universal childcare, really decent paid parental leave, it's going to feel like it's really, really, really hard. I think that a lot of people would be suited to the vocation

of parenting if all of those supports were in place. And of course, those supports when we lived in more tribal structures were there when it was literally raising a child in an actual village. The vocation of parenting probably would come more naturally to a lot of people. You could say the vocation of cooking, catering. Like lots of people love to cook and make beautiful food, right? I'm really not very good at that either. But lots of people love doing that. Lots of people love writing.

There are lots of fantastic writers. And although we might use our writing skills in different ways, there are many people who would relate to, yes, writing is part of my vocation. So there are certain kind of human skills speaking. There are tons of people for whom, speaking is a part of what they do and could be or teaching even, right? There are many different ways to be a teacher, many different kinds of jobs or careers, but that could be part of your vocation, I suppose, as well. So I think parenting is like one of those human skills that a lot of

people do have an aptitude for, especially when the conditions are right. Can you leave us with one message that you would love to share with child-free people and maybe one message that you would love to share with parents? It might feel like you were the only one, but the latest statistics show that almost 50% of women under the age of 45 in the United States don't have kids. And yes, many of those people might go on to have children. But there are lots of us.

We're everywhere. We just need to find ways to find each other, whether that's by following child-free or childless, Instagram accounts. I know I just kind of like badmouth social media a bit, but what it is great for is at least finding like-minded people is then on us to kind of turn those connections into something more. We're out there. And if I learned anything from being on this retreat, we're dying to connect with each other. We're dying to be in community with one another. We have to kind of make those connections happen. So be the person who makes that happen, however way, shape or form you can.

You're not the only one. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. are so many valid reasons not to be a parent and whatever your reasons are, the more you can get really clear on these are my reasons, and this is why this is my situation, the stronger you'll be in the face of anyone who's got any questions about that. And I think in terms of parents, please, please just notice any prejudices that you hold against people without children. There is so much conditioning around when you're in the in-group, which parents very much, much are in a society that privileges parenthood. When you're in the in-group, it's really hard to have empathy for people who are in the out-group. Your needs that will be in catered to.

You're seen. You're understood. There are spaces for you. Be considerate of people who are in the out-group and what their needs might be. Don't make assumptions about why they're people without children. Don't be afraid to ask and actually get into a conversation with someone about their reasons for being people without kids. And please, please, please don't exclude people who don't have children from your lives once you become a parent. There was one woman who was sharing how she had never been invited to a friend's child's second birthday party. Like the first birthday, she was invited. She was included. Once they got to the second third birthday, she wasn't invited anymore. She knew that friends that she'd been really close to had second children that she'd

never met. And it was just really clear how unconsciously, probably, she had just not been included because people might have assumed through prejudice that maybe she didn't like children or she didn't want to be included. And so never assume, never notice any prejudices that you hold and question those prejudices where they come from. I love that. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your book? Women without kids, the subhead is the revolutionary rise of an unsung sisterhood. And it really does speak to anybody across the motherhood spectrum, anybody who identifies as a woman without kids, regardless of their reasons. One thing that I've noticed, so many of the people who've shared reviews online have said, oh my God, everybody needs to read this book.

This book is not just for women without kids. Mums plead read this book. I think this is a huge conversation that's just been waiting to be had. You know, so many people are either choosing or unable to become parents. Our reasons are very diverse. And this is a demographic shift that's really going to impact and shape society this century. The more conscious we can be about what's happening and how it's impacting people, the more we can work together to create the kind of societies that will really support the future generations, let alone the kind of

planetary conditions that we might want our children to inherit, regardless of whether or not their our biological children. I second that sentiment completely that everybody should read this book. I think it's a phenomenal exploration of motherhood and womanhood and all of these different facets of being a human in the world today. So thank you for writing it. And thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks. This was a great interview. I really loved your questions. Vanessa and Zander. I mean, Vanessa, at least, I think you might be our most frequent guest now. I'm very proud of that. I will take it. I'll come back as often as you'll have me.

Our most repeat guest. I was just saying I've had you on several times to talk about sex, which is obviously your expertise. And this is, I guess, related to sex, a product of sex. But you guys shared two episodes on your podcast that I found absolutely fascinating about your decision to not have kids. So I just wanted to dive into that as part of our pros and cons of having kids series. So welcome back, Vanessa. Welcome back, Zander. I'm so excited to talk to you both today. Yeah, we're very happy to be here. Yeah, love talking about this.

So I know you both entered your marriage thinking kids would be on the table. Can you tell me a little bit about where you both stood at that time? For me, it was never a question that I wouldn't have kids. Like I loved kids growing up. I'm one of three. I loved having siblings. I just always had it in my head that I'm going to have kids. I felt excited about being a mom. I never loved babies. I will say that. People would always tell me, oh, well, once you hold a baby, it'll just click. Or once it's your baby, it'll all make sense. So I entered the relationship thinking this is absolutely part of my path. And we had a lot of conversations about it, too. We met each other pretty young, I think younger than either of us were expecting to meet our life partner. So we didn't have a ton of intensive conversations, like a third date or anything like that. But we checked in with each other multiple times throughout dating and our relationship. Like, yeah, we both want this to happen.

We're going to have kids. Okay, great. We're on the same page. All compatible there. Yeah, I mean, we met when I was 22, I think you were 23. And I just assumed that I wanted to have kids. Like Vanessa said, she did think that she wanted to have kids. I don't know if I ever even got far enough to thinking through that.

It was more of a like, I'm 22. I've never envisioned that at 22 that I'm ready to have kids right now. Before I met Vanessa, I'm not in a relationship. I'm obviously not close to being married. It's a decision that's way further down the line. And so I just assumed when we started dating, okay, well, we're both young enough that we're not even going to need to think about this. for a while. So, you know, I guess I was fortunate or privileged in that sense to be young enough

to be in a place where I wasn't thinking about that. And I didn't really need to think about that. I don't know if it would have been different if, say, we had met five years later or 10 years later. But just the way that the timing worked, it was easy to get into a relationship without needing to really think about that too seriously. Do you know who had the first thought of like, maybe this isn't the path I want to go down and what sparked that thought? That's a good question. We don't because for a while we were both really nervous to talk about it with each other. We got married.

We started inching towards that time when we felt like we were supposed to start having kids. And neither one of us were feeling that active desire to have them. But we both felt very nervous about like, well, we said we were going to. We've had these conversations. We're kind of in that time. what's going to happen if I tell him, I'm not sure that I actually want this anymore. So we both held off for a while and I actually don't even remember who was the first person to say, hey, I'm kind of rethinking this whole thing. We were very lucky to have friends who had kids

before us and were very honest with us about what the experience was like. I do remember leaving a dinner party at some of our friends' houses and both of us just looking at each other and thinking like, whoa, this is way more of an intensive of life decision than we ever really thought. Looking back, at least my experience was that we never approached that age where like everyone was asking yet. Are you going to have kids? When are you going to have kids? But we did have a couple of close friends that did have kids. I'm not going to say early, but just before us, before anybody else in our group of friends. And so we kind of from an earlier stage got to see what that looked like and got to hear what that was like for people.

I do remember my first couple experiences with going to hang out with friends who had been friends of mine before they had kids and going over to their house. And then, of course, the question of like, oh, like, do you want to hold the baby? And I kind of noticed like, oh, I feel really uncomfortable doing this. And then I was getting feedback from people like, oh, you look really uncomfortable holding this baby. And that happened a couple of times. And I think it kind of happened to you as well.

And so we would leave those experiences that maybe the first time it was sort of a joke like, oh yeah, you're really uncomfortable holding that baby. And I probably made a couple of excuses. And then that happened a couple more times. And we both kind of look at each other and be like, yeah, there is something uncomfortable about that. Do you remember the first conversation that you have? had about it? It was like when we were leaving a friend's house with kids, and I think a couple of

friends who had just had kids were there, I had this distinct memory. I know exactly where we were in San Francisco. We walked out of a friend's apartment. I feel like we kind of looked at each other and gave each other a look. Yeah, I was like, I'm not sure that we want that type of thing. And initially, when we just started having those conversations, we were both treading very lightly. So we didn't say, let's not do it. But it was more of like a, I'm not sure this is actually what I want. Or like Zanda was saying, it's kind of like, it's feeling a little bit awkward. There's something about it that's just not quite feeling right. So we kept saying, well, it must just not be the right time. Let's wait a little longer. Let's wait a little longer. We'll keep checking in about it. So we sort of transitioned into this regular like, hey, so how are you feeling about that at that point? But we were being so careful about it at first. Yeah, at that point, we were already saying, yeah, like, not right now. Let's keep checking in. And then there was a distinct moment where we kind of both looked at each other and it was like,

maybe we should consider the possibility that we just don't want this. It went from being a question of, okay, we're not ready now. Let's keep checking in about when we're ready to like, let's maybe add another option to the table, which is, are you ready now? Are you not ready now or maybe not ready ever? And that felt very freeing the moment that we both sort of said that. And it was like, oh, yeah, like actually that characterizes where I'm at so much better. Right now, I'm leaning more towards, yeah, not feeling like I may ever want that.

You say that your friends confide in you about what parenting is really like. I'm curious, keeping their anonymity, of course, but I'm curious what kind of stuff they say. They talked a lot about the impact that it had on their relationship with each other and this feeling that they went from being this really tight-knit unit, this little family of two, to really struggling to adapt to being a family of three. And so they talked about feeling a lot of resentment of each other, feeling like there just wasn't any time for their relationship. Everything was about the baby.

They were starting to feel like roommates rather than romantic partners and just so much more conflict and fighting than ever before. Especially we had friends who had great relationships and were so fun and lighthearted and playful with each other. And they talked about it feeling so serious and heavy now. Like they just missed that spark in their relationship. Definitely talked about sex, like having very little or no sex. And my female friends talked about just how much their relationships with their bodies changed and how that impacted their desire for intimacy. What really hit home for me or what I really picked up on was how many people said it using almost these exact same words.

They're like, I just want you to know how much harder this is than anybody prepared me for. Three, four, five people in totally separate contexts said almost the exact same thing. And then the cherry on top, so to speak, was almost every single one of the ones. them were like, I want you to know that because there is a part of me that like, had I known all of this, my decision may have been different. And then people were really clear. Every single person we've talked to has said it this way. And I totally respect this. But it's like, I'm so happy with kids. I wouldn't change a thing about it. However, there is a difference of I made the decision based on the information that I had, and I feel like had I had different information, had I had the experience

I have now, I could have or would have possibly made another decision. And that's not taking anything away from what you have now or the decision that you did make. But that really resonated with me. And I think that's such an important conversation for people to be having. Regardless of what you end up deciding, I think it's so important for us to be more open and honest about what having kids is really like, the challenges of it. The society that we live in, it really does not help parents. There's so much pressure on them to do it all, to be it all, to have very little support, very little resources. So I completely empathize with how challenging parenting is. But I just think if we are able to talk about it more openly, there's also this pressure on parents where you feel like

you're not really allowed to say what it's really like. You just have to say, oh, but it's all worth it. And I love my kids. Yeah, best decision I ever made. But I think if we give parents that freedom and the space to be more honest, and if we all look at this decision with open eyes and hearts and, you know, really looking at what it's going to be like, I think that's going to be beneficial for every couple, regardless of which decision they end up making. I completely agree.

I think one of the reasons I really struggle with the decision is because whether you decide to have kids or decide not to have kids, you're making a decision. about an experience you're not familiar with. It is an unknown either way and you don't have a sense of what the other life would look like. And you can't like try it on. Like you can babysit for a little bit or something like that, but you can't really experience, well, would I love my own kid way more than I would love my friend's kid or something like that? And I think that that grappling with the unknown is one of the things that I find psychologically the most tricky. And I'm curious how you guys handle that, like not knowing really what you're giving up.

It's an excruciatingly painful decision. I mean, I don't know what it's going to be like. I do know that there would be a lot of incredible aspects of it. I know 100% that I would love my kid with every cell in my body. I know it would be such a beautiful experience to watch Xander be a parent, to see this child that we made together. to watch them grow up and have all these milestones and say all the funny things and have all the ridiculous stories. I know that there is so much that I'm giving up on that I'm not going to be able to experience. And I know there's even more that I can't possibly know. So the grief that I'm already sitting with is big enough, but I know it's even bigger than what I'm even aware of. But for me, the guiding question that I just kept coming back to was, do I actively want children?

I pictured my potential child, and I imagined like looking at in their face, looking into their eyes. And I really felt like I would want to tell that child, I wanted you so badly. I wanted to have you in my life. My life would not have felt complete without you here. And I kept asking myself, like, do I feel that active desire? Could I honestly tell a child that at this point in my life? And the answer just keeps being no for me. So as painful as it is, as many times as I've questioned it, as many times as we've

talked about it, that's been the one question for me that has grounded me and helped me make that decision. And I like to try to just focus on, of course, I can't know what it's going to feel like in five years or 10 years. I can't know for certain what I'm truly missing out on without doing the thing itself. But I just try to focus on more of the present moment. Like, how am I feeling in this moment? Am I, like, am I feeling content with where my life is? Am I feeling happy? Is it feeling full? Or am I feeling an emptiness? Is there something else that I'm missing right now? and where I've continued to land or before kind of making a more final decision about it,

I just kept coming back to, I'm really happy with where things are right now. I'm happy with what our life looks like. I'm happy with what our relationship looks like. I don't feel like I'm lacking for anything or missing anything. And so why make a change? I'm curious if either of you and Vanessa, you're obviously a therapist, but Sandor, you're just a very wise soul. Do either of you have any tips for dealing with that type of grief, whether it's somebody who's experiencing the grief of I'm making this decision and I'll never have a kid? Or on the flip side,

people who have a kid and they're having to experience the grief of losing this other life, like no matter what choice you're making or even some people who aren't presented with that choice, you're sort of losing a version of yourself and a version of your life. We are so afraid of grief. I think we try to do everything we can to avoid it. It's understandable. Grief socks. It's not a pleasant emotion to experience.

Every single large decision that we make in life, there is going to be grief accompanying it. Every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. And so I think rather than trying to avoid that grief or make a decision that could potentially minimize the grief, like all these dances that we try to do around the grief, I've found it really helpful to just embrace and accept the grief. And that's been the most powerful part of this whole process for me is just acknowledging the grief that I feel about not becoming a mom. The grief that I feel about not having a child and just seeing what that experience is like. And it's so important to recognize that just because you feel grief about something does not mean you made the wrong decision.

So because I feel grief about not being a mom, that doesn't mean that I should change my mind and be a mom. That just means I actually had two really beautiful decisions in front of me. And so I also try to look at it from this place of abundance and gratitude. Like, wow, this is a really cool life that I have. Like Zanda was saying, I feel happy. I feel fulfilled. I feel like I have a purpose and I don't have children. And I could also have a kid and I would know that I would love it and would have so many incredible

experiences and would get to just bring new life into this world. Like, I have two really cool, great decisions in front of me. And I'm picking the one that just feels most in alignment with who I am right now. So let me acknowledge and honor that grief of that other amazing decision that I could have made. What about other people's grief? I might get this wrong, but I think you mentioned on one of the podcasts that Xander, your parents are not likely to have grandchildren. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Correct. Has that impacted your relationship with them at all? And how have you kind of managed that? At this point, I don't think it really impacts our relationship anymore. I think that was some time probably in our early 30s where we shared with both of our parents, you know, that initially that it was we're talking about the possibility of not having kids. And then it was like it's becoming more and more likely that that's where we're landing with it.

And my parents did share with me once they started hearing for me that it was more and more likely. They were starting to realize that, oh, this might mean that, you know, we're not going to have X, Y, and Z experiences. And it was interesting because I kind of naively thought that they wouldn't have too much to say about it, perhaps because they never really talked to me about like, oh, it's going to be so nice when we're grandparents. You know, I feel like there's maybe the stereotype of parents talking about that a lot. I never heard that from my parents, but that might have also been because I met Vanessa early. We married somewhat early. So I never really got the like, oh, we're waiting for this or that. It was like we were kind of on track to do it.

And then, yeah, once we started saying that, it was sort of like, oh, we're going to miss out on this. And they did mention it a number of times, though it never got into the territory of trying to shame us or convince us to make another decision. I did appreciate that they were able to share that. I think that's an effective part of the grieving process. To be able to hear from other people that that decision does impact other people, impacts your family. And, you know, they get to have feelings about it. And so it was helpful for me to be able to hear that.

I appreciate that I heard more immediately versus if I was hearing that now and it's like, oh, yeah, we never said anything. And then 10 years later, now we have a problem with it. That might be, you know, more challenging to deal with. Well, I think they said it in a really nice way. It was just acknowledging their own feelings, but without any sort of pressure or expectation. And so that made us just be able to sit with like, yeah, you have feelings about it. You have an experience too. But you're not putting any of that on us to change our decision. Yeah. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want

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Masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-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. Is there any advice that you would give somebody whose parents were not so generous with that type of response? That's such a hard situation to be in.

And I think ultimately what I would say is that you just have to make the decisions about your own life. I mean, the alternative is you allow your parents to pressure you and you have a child that you don't want and a lifelong change to every aspect of your life just because. of that. I know it's really painful to experience that kind of pressure from a parent, but you just have to keep coming back to what do I need in my own life. Yeah. And I think ultimately, if it's something like that where, you know, you keep getting what feel like inappropriate or unnecessary comments, it's a probably an exercise in setting clear boundaries where it might be like, hey, I'm open to hearing your feelings about this or hearing about what it's like for you as you come to terms with the fact that you aren't going to have grandchildren. Yeah, it's fine to share your

feelings about what it's like. And I'm going to need to draw a boundary when it comes to any kind of comments that feel like they're trying to convince me to change my mind because this is a decision that we've made together. We've thought a lot about it. We've considered a lot of things and we've told you all the things that we've considered. And I'm going to need to take some space or end a conversation if the conversation gets brought back to that because I feel like we've already discussed this and I've already told you what the answer is. And then you have to actually hold those boundaries. Which hint to anybody listening applies to any way in which you're living your life that

your parents or anybody else is commenting on because it is your life. Do you feel left out with your friends who are having kids? At times, yes. There definitely are moments where we'll see friends. who have kids at the same age and they're hitting the same milestones or they're having parties and stuff like that. So there is sadness that comes along with seeing that. But I think we also have worked hard to create relationships with people where we can bond over lots of other different types of things. So it feels like the relationship hasn't been completely lost. We have other friends who are also

choosing to be child free. So that helps as well. But yeah, that is part of the grief a little bit of like, oh, this seems really cool to have our kids growing up together. I mean, what a cool experience. I definitely feel the same way. You know, I have a number of my close runs from college, all have kids that are probably five and under. And I'm starting to see like, oh, yeah, it would be nice to be a part of that in some way. Had we made a different decision, I can see, oh, it would be cool for my friends, kids to be friends with my kids as well and all the stuff that comes along with that. And when it comes to any kinds of life decisions, like, you grow, and you change throughout your life.

And I think it's easy as an adult to forget about the possibility of making new friends, not to say there's anything wrong with your old friends. It's a constant reminder of I can have friends from the past and we can still be friends and their life may look different from my life now. And I'm able to make new friends now. And I think for us, it's just a journey of continuing to create new relationships with people and expand our network, our community. The other part of that, too, is it's really,

really important to recognize that you can still have relationships with kids, even if you decide to be child free. So being child free doesn't mean you're not allowed to have any contact with children whatsoever. It's great to be able to have kids in our lives that we can hang out with, that we can have experiences with, teach things too. So it's a really important thing for people to remember if they're choosing to be child free. So you can still have kids in your life. What about some of the nuances of those relationship dynamics, though? Like something, that people ask me about on the internet all the time is like, oh, my friends with kids are always dictating the plans and like when and where they happen and all of that. And the choice I've made

so far is just like they have kids, their life is harder. So I'll do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it. But I'm curious how you navigate that or if that's even the right thing and will end up with me like resenting them down the line. There's a lot of tricky nuances to that relationship. In terms of logistics, I usually find myself going more to my friends. with kids or doing stuff like with the kids involved just because it is logistically easier. And for me, I don't have any sort of emotional charge around that. I'm like, oh, sure, I'll come to your house. It doesn't really feel any different than you coming to mine. Where it's gotten a little bit trickier for me sometimes has been the amount of time that a friend can devote to our

friendship. That's a massive change. And I understand it completely. Like, you have a kid that is your priority that takes so much time and energy. And our friendship is just going to have to shift. That's just life. That's just friendship. So there have been times where I've told a friend like, hey, I'm missing you. I'd love for us to be able to connect a little bit more. And I think those kinds of things, like just being able to share in small ways, I'd love to catch up with you on the phone or, you know, I haven't heard from you from a little bit. I'm just wondering how you're doing, that kind of thing. Like for me, when I can address things that feel very small, it doesn't feel like a big deal. versus waiting until you do feel resentment or frustration.

It's interesting as you say that because I'm like, I've definitely prevented myself from talking about my mental health or things that I'm struggling with with my friends that are new parents because I'm like, oh, I'm sure that what I'm dealing with doesn't even begin to compare with this massive change. And like you said, we don't make it easy for parents. So it's interesting. I think I've found myself minimizing my own feelings for fear of bothering them.

You know? That is interesting. I think we should not compare. I mean, everybody has different life circumstances. And if we get into the comparison game, it never gets anywhere good. And honestly, sometimes I've had parent friends tell me, like, it is so great to not talk about my freaking kids for once in a while. Like, tell me about the relationship drama or tell me about the fight that you got in with the other friend. Like, I want to hear the things. So I think that it's find to bring your full self. And I think that is also a huge part of the struggle for parents. Like, you feel like becoming a parent becomes your entire identity. And you've lost the other parts of yourself that you miss so much. So I think a lot of your parent friends would probably

welcome you continuing to bring your full self to the relationship. I also just to go back to the question of feeling like, are my parent friends sort of dictating terms of things? And the way I look at it is one of the benefits of choosing to be child free is that my life is a lot more flexible. My schedule is more free. I have the ability to change my plans easier. And so for me, if it's like, okay, you know, could you come over instead or like, oh, can we shift it back an hour because the babysitter didn't show up or whatever, that for me, that's just an opportunity for me to have some gratitude for my own situation and be like, hey, I can

show up and be of service to this friend because my life is structured in a way where I'm able to do that more easily. So that gets me out of myself and how come they're not thinking about me or whatever? And I can be like, hey, I'm really happy with the way things are because, hey, that means I can sit on the couch and watch this TV show now and then leave an hour from now or whatever it is or or listen to a new podcast in the car because I have time for that while I go over to their house instead of them coming over to mine. I love that. That's such a good perspective. What, in your opinion, is the best and what is the worst part of being child-free? The best part is the freedom.

I mean, it's really amazing to just be able to get up and go, do whatever we want, have our own schedule. Probably sleep, I would say, is the second best. I'm a really big baby about sleep. I love sleeping. So just knowing that I get to have that uninterrupted deep sleep is really wonderful. And the worst part of it, I'm going to get hyper-specific because I've already talked about the grief of just missing out on that experience. One of the things that I feel like I'm going to miss the most is the weird shit that kids say

and do. The weird drawings where you're like, that's a penis, that's not a rocket ship. Or like the weird things that they say, the funny questions that they ask. I love how unfiltered kids are. They just don't care. They say whatever. comes to mind. And so, yeah, it's like those little moments of just laughing at your kid. Like, I cannot believe that came out of your mouth. That's what I'm missing us.

Worst thing about being child free, I'll just say is missing out on just those really sweet, loving moments. I have one or two friends that have kids that are starting to get to the age where you can actually have a meaningful relationship with them. And I've had a couple really sweet moments where I'm like, this isn't my kid and I totally love this kid. And it's just really heartwarming. They remember you and you have like a history together and memories together. I think that's really cool. And that's definitely something that I will miss out on. It's also motivation though to like continue my relationships with friends, kids, which I think is a great thing. I think the best thing for me, it's a little more meta.

In deciding to be child free, that has really opened my mind to the possibility of questioning other just baseline assumptions that we make about life and the world. At least choosing initially to maybe we won't have kids and then eventually to we're going to be child free. That was the first time I really questioned like a sort of key societal norm. I kind of realized, oh, I could do something different. The world doesn't end.

I still have my friends and family. Everything is still going fine. And in fact, it's totally open this door to all these other possibilities. And that really opened my mind to be able to make similar types of decisions when it comes to life and work and how we live our lives doing what we do. I would have never considered that any of the things that we do on a day-to-day basis are possible or even the way that I structure. sure my schedule and the amount that I get to prioritize stuff I love, like surfing.

Like, I would have never allowed myself the possibility of a life like this. And it wasn't until I made that first initial decision that it was like, oh, maybe I do get to write the rules of my own life. Actually, you bringing up work makes me think of another tip that I would give to couples who are deciding to be child-free. I think it's also really valuable to think about legacy. So obviously having kids is such a powerful way that you contribute to the world on an ongoing basis, this legacy that you're creating and leaving behind. And because we have decided not to have kids, we have so much energy and time

and attention that we've been able to shift into other things. And for us, our business really feels like the legacy that we get to leave behind. Like, we are helping so many couples have better relationships, experience more intimacy. Maybe even have more kids. We've definitely been responsible for a lot of pregnancies, our sex challenge in particular. We get a lot of DMs from people like, we're pregnant. So, yeah, and also, like, to help parents break the generational shame cycle around sex and have healthier and relationships and, you know, healthier conversations with their kids around sex.

So when I think about that, like that makes me feel like I have purpose. I have legacy. There's something I'm leaving behind. There's this ripple effect that I'm leaving on the world. And I think that's really cool. And it helps take away the pain of what I'm missing out on with a legacy with my family. And I think it's important to remind ourselves that there are so many ways that we can be of service and have purpose.

There are so, so many ways. And having kids is an incredible one, but there are also so many other incredible ones. It also makes me think a lot of the famous sex personalities are child-free. Do you think that's because they're very confident in their legacy? Do you think that's because they're prioritizing pleasure with their partners? Do you think that's because they're questioning all of the ways we're supposed to be living our life or like something else entirely? Like it's not a huge sample size, I will say, but it's interesting that there is a pattern there.

I have never thought about that before, but as soon as you said that, I was like, you're right. Yeah. There's so many people. I guess it's a little combination of all of the above. Maybe it's, yeah, we've heard so much from the people that we work with, our patients, our clients about how children affect the intimacy in their relationship and about how parents just aren't given the resources to deal with that change and to, you know, to recreate that intimacy in new ways that, yeah, maybe there's a way that we sex experts prioritize that

and don't want to lose that. Do you guys have any programs specifically for parents and getting their pleasure back in the bedroom, prioritizing that again? We do. Yeah, we have a course called Rediscovering Intimacy for Parents, and it's all about, yeah, the huge changes that can happen in your life after you've had kids and how to reconnect with each other. And we talk about a lot of the hot button issues that come up with parents that just don't get talked about enough, like women who feel touched out at the end of the day. And like, I do not want any more physical contact or the imbalances and mental load that can really skyrocket once kids come into the picture. So we talk about a lot of those issues. And it's broken down into a very small bite-sized

lessons because we know parents are really struggling with time. That's probably appreciated by the many parents out there. Can you just leave us with a little bit of a advice, what would you say to somebody who was just completely undecided about whether or not they wanted to have kids? Is there any advice that was helpful to you that could help maybe point them in the right direction? I would say first and foremost, just to give themselves the permission to consider not having kids. We are so kid focused in this society that a lot of us don't even consider it an option or a possibility. And even when we were first starting to think about it, there was really the sense of, am I allowed to do that? Like, is that okay? So for me, truly sitting with, like,

it's okay for me to make this decision. I can choose to do this. This is my life. This is an option. That was really beneficial. That was really the first step for me was considering it as a possibility, giving that permission. I would recommend just trying to anchor yourself in the present as much as possible because I think it's so easy with a decision like this. You're thinking 10, 20 years down the line and you're trying to interpolate, well, if I want this, then, do I do this now? And it's just so easy to get paralyzed or kind of paralyzed in the present because you're tripping out about the future and trying to put this puzzle together in the future that you could spend hours and hours trying to put that whole puzzle together. And then tomorrow, something changes and

it all falls apart. And so I think it's so much better to try to, if you're feeling that sort of paralysis, to just think about how are things in the moment? Like, what can I do today to feel happy or to feel more fulfilled? How do I feel right now? Am I wanting to go on that journey of having kids now? Is that something I'm not feeling open to right now? I think it's so easy for us to be influenced by the sort of shoulds and shouldn'ts from the future and forget about how we're actually feeling right now. It's good advice for life, too. Everybody should obviously go listen to the two episodes on the Pillow Talks podcast

that are about your decision to be child-free. But are there any other resources or things of yours on the internet that you would like to shout out? Definitely check out that course for parents that we mentioned. It can be a really great resource. And you can come find us on Instagram. We're at Vanessa and Xander, X. We do stories every day. So come follow us there and let us know you found us through the podcast.

Amazing. Thank you guys so much. I love talking to you always. Thanks for having us, Liz. I truly hope that this episode helped any of you out there questioning these topics or feeling any kind of shame around your decisions. Or honestly, it's just so interesting to hear about how other people live their lives and the choices that they make. Please send a link for this episode to someone you think would benefit. Text them.

send it to them on Slack, bring it up on your next coffee date. It is the best way to support the podcast. And also, it just makes you a helpful person and a fascinating conversationalist. So win, win, win. If you're new here, welcome. I'm so happy that you're here. Make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. Just go to the main podcast page. That's the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes. And you'll 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 feed so you will never miss out on one. And you are definitely going to want to be following along because we have

some amazing episodes coming up, including one all about how to make your fur babies as healthy as possible. I change so many things with what we do with Bella after this interview. So you will want to listen to this. And then we have another one all about the future of health care. So make sure that you're following so you do not miss out on those and many, many more. And remember to pre-order 100 ways to change your life and look out for the Liz Moody podcast, which is coming soon to your feed. Okay, I love you and I'll see you next week on the next episode of Healthy Together, soon to be the Liz Moody podcast. Okay, bye. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years and I'm

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