Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mother and Me a podcast Mama
Speaker 1: Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that
Speaker 1: this podcast is recorded on for MoMA me, Or you're
Speaker 1: listening to no filter. My name's Mia Friedman and my
Speaker 1: voice was a little bit croky, but bear with me
Speaker 1: because this is a really interesting episode. I always knew
Speaker 1: I was going to have kids.
Speaker 2: But if you were a girl or a woman who
Speaker 2: doesn't think she wants to have kids, where are your
Speaker 2: role models for what your life could look like? Because
Speaker 2: portrayals of happy mums and just actually mums are everywhere,
Speaker 2: but rarely do we see women who choose not to
Speaker 2: have children shown in a positive light. Even in this
Speaker 2: year of Our Lord twenty twenty four, a woman over
Speaker 2: thirty five who doesn't have kids is viewed with what
Speaker 2: is it like?
Speaker 3: Pity?
Speaker 2: Suspicion, confusion, apprehension maybe, And if that's you, if you're
Speaker 2: one of those women who for whatever reason doesn't have kids,
Speaker 2: you're forced to deal with some pretty nosy and frankly
Speaker 2: rude questions. Why don't you have them? Do you want kids?
Speaker 2: Don't you like kids? Have you chosen ambition over motherhood?
Speaker 2: Have you put your work and your career before family.
Speaker 2: We'll look after you when you're old. Aren't you worried
Speaker 2: about dying alone? Have you thought about adopting? What about
Speaker 2: ec donation? It's never too late or surrogate. Be sure
Speaker 2: you won't change your mind, and I bet you'll change
Speaker 2: your mind. It's pretty brutal the questions that you get
Speaker 2: asked if you don't have kids. And I am going
Speaker 2: to admit I'm guilty of asking some of those questions
Speaker 2: and saying some of those things myself. Now I'm careful
Speaker 2: who I say them to. Because the thing is, the
Speaker 2: thing that I've learned is because we all know women
Speaker 2: who don't have children, even though they really wanted them,
Speaker 2: because maybe they had fertility issues, or maybe they just
Speaker 2: didn't meet the right person at the right time, and
Speaker 2: now that window and that choice is not available to them.
Speaker 2: And for those people, those women, it's an incredibly fraught
Speaker 2: topic and a really distressing one at times, because they
Speaker 2: really wanted to be a mother, or maybe they thought
Speaker 2: they would be a mother and it just wasn't their
Speaker 2: choice not to be one. But there are more and
Speaker 2: more women who aren't child free by circumstance. They're child
Speaker 2: free by choice. And this seems to bring up a
Speaker 2: whole lot of weird feelings in people who feel like
Speaker 2: it's their job to convince everyone to procreate. And I
Speaker 2: don't even know why this is, But when I was
Speaker 2: thinking about this episode, I started making a list in
Speaker 2: my head of all the famous women I could think
Speaker 2: of who didn't have kids. And I thought of Glorious
Speaker 2: Steinem and Julie Bishop and Elizabeth Gilbert and Julia Gillard,
Speaker 2: all of whom I've interviewed on this show. Actually, Jennifer
Speaker 2: Aniston and Renees Elwigger, Angela Merkele, Kylie Minogue, Tracy Ellis Ross,
Speaker 2: Chelsea Handler, Kamala Harris, the Vice President. These are women
Speaker 2: who've accomplished and are still accomplishing so much. They're living
Speaker 2: very fulfilling lives without children, and so many women are,
Speaker 2: and yet as a society we still don't really know
Speaker 2: not just how to accept that some women don't want children,
Speaker 2: but that some women celebrate it. And if the women
Speaker 2: are listed, we don't know how many of those women
Speaker 2: are child free or childless, because there's kind of a difference,
Speaker 2: is in't there? We don't know how many of them
Speaker 2: actually chose not to have kids. But instead of pichying
Speaker 2: those women or viewing their lives as somehow less than
Speaker 2: the lives of women who are mothers, today you're going
Speaker 2: to hear a different story. Farrest Daw celebrates her life
Speaker 2: and she's proud of her choice to be a non parent,
Speaker 2: which makes it sound like she wears some kind of
Speaker 2: badge going I don't have kids, I'm so proud, or
Speaker 2: that she organizes parades. That's not true. But she prefers
Speaker 2: the term non parent because she says child less makes
Speaker 2: it sound like her life is lacking, which she says
Speaker 2: it's not. And she says child free makes it seem
Speaker 2: like she doesn't like kids, and she does. You're going
Speaker 2: to hear more about all of that in a minute now.
Speaker 2: Throughout her career, Fara has worn many hats. She was
Speaker 2: a journalist before she became the founding editor of Women's
Speaker 2: Health magazine in the UK, she was the editor of
Speaker 2: Cosmo and Elle, and today she works for Substak, which
Speaker 2: is a newsletter platform, and she also writes her own
Speaker 2: essays on Substak called Things Worth Knowing. I'm excited about
Speaker 2: bringing you this conversation today because now at forty five,
Speaker 2: ten years after she and her husband officially decided to
Speaker 2: stop trying to have kids. Fara is offering us a
Speaker 2: much fuller, more optimistic, and positive picture of what choosing
Speaker 2: a life as a non parent can look like. Is
Speaker 2: now one of those role models. Here's my conversation with Firestorm.
Speaker 2: How long had you been trying to get pregnant and
Speaker 2: how old were you at the time.
Speaker 3: So I was thirty six at the time, and we
Speaker 3: had been trying maybe for about three years, I think
Speaker 3: three or four years. But you know, when I say trying,
Speaker 3: I also think that the signs were there. You know,
Speaker 3: my husband had brought me all these fertility monitors, and
Speaker 3: I remember he found it one time and he went, far,
Speaker 3: it's got dust on it, And so all the sort
Speaker 3: of signs were there. Really that even though we were
Speaker 3: sort of doing everything right, you know, we were having
Speaker 3: sex when we knew we had to have sex, and
Speaker 3: I was occasionally using the fertility monitor. You know, I
Speaker 3: was looking after my body. I was making sure I
Speaker 3: was in the best shape of my life. But really
Speaker 3: the sort of dedication I think it needed when I
Speaker 3: look back now, it probably wasn't quite there to the
Speaker 3: degree that I see other women dedicated to the pursuit
Speaker 3: of motherhood and having a child.
Speaker 2: Well, you were actually doing a lot though exactly phoning
Speaker 2: it in, right, I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Did so much. I went on these crazy fasts. I
Speaker 3: went to see this woman who was like, you know,
Speaker 3: she was like the European expert on fertility, you aren't.
Speaker 2: Finding it in No.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm pretty good at when I set my
Speaker 3: mind on something, I go after it. So I was
Speaker 3: doing all the things that I thought you should do,
Speaker 3: but yet behind the scenes, when it was sort of
Speaker 3: left to my own devices, you know, dusty fertility monitor,
Speaker 3: I think there was this sort of ray ambivalence behind
Speaker 3: it all, but the big sort of show of I'm
Speaker 3: really trying really hard to get pregnant everyone. I definitely
Speaker 3: do all that to the signs and signals that I
Speaker 3: wanted to have a family. Suit that with some gusto.
Speaker 2: For those who haven't experienced the very specific misery of
Speaker 2: conception sex when you're trying to get pregnant, what are
Speaker 2: your memories of that type of sex without you know,
Speaker 2: wanting to pry too much?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's very mechanical, isn't it. It's like
Speaker 3: there's a goal at the end of it. So of
Speaker 3: course it takes all the emotion away, it takes the
Speaker 3: enjoyment away.
Speaker 2: Lake. I say, speaking from experience, it's very very blak.
Speaker 2: It's like doing your taxes. But also if you are
Speaker 2: desperate to get pregnant, as I was when it wasn't working,
Speaker 2: you're also just incredibly emotional, and yeah, it's deeply unpleasant.
Speaker 2: Was it that for you?
Speaker 3: It wasn't deeply unpleasant because I think the emotions weren't there,
Speaker 3: and I think it was a mechanical thing. It was
Speaker 3: something we knew we had to do, and we had
Speaker 3: to do it on this date and we had to
Speaker 3: quickly make sure that we never missed it. But for me,
Speaker 3: there was never the emotional side to it. And then
Speaker 3: every month when my period came, I didn't have that
Speaker 3: crushing sort of devastation. So every time I went to
Speaker 3: the toilet and it was like, oh, you know, you
Speaker 3: see the spot of blood, it was like fine. And
Speaker 3: I wonder also whether there was a bit of relief
Speaker 3: in it as well. Yeah, you can deceive yourself very well.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes you write a piece a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago saying farewell to motherhood. You started it by writing,
Speaker 2: I always thought I would be a mother, right up
Speaker 2: until the afternoon I walked into my husband's home office
Speaker 2: and told him I no longer wanted to be one.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what you actually said to him.
Speaker 3: I think it was very simple. I think it was
Speaker 3: just I'm not sure I want to be a mother,
Speaker 3: and I remember his response was good, because I'm not
Speaker 3: sure I want to be a father either, So it
Speaker 3: was very simple exchange.
Speaker 2: Well, given you're about to start IVF, this is a
Speaker 2: fairly unexpected time, it would seem from the outside to
Speaker 2: be having that conversation. The decision that you didn't want
Speaker 2: to do it, you wrote it came during an appointment
Speaker 2: with your doctor. Do you remember what happened in that
Speaker 2: appointment and sort of why it became clear to you
Speaker 2: in that moment after so many years of trying.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the moment of clarity was probably in
Speaker 3: that doctor's office, But actually I think there were so
Speaker 3: many things that had led to it. But actually I
Speaker 3: think what it was was she was explaining to me
Speaker 3: the chances of us getting pregnant pretty good, and I
Speaker 3: think she said it was something like forty.
Speaker 2: Forty two percent, she said, and.
Speaker 3: Actually that's really good. But all I was thinking was was, God,
Speaker 3: that's terrible, and actually everything that we will have to
Speaker 3: sacrifice in order to have this relatively in my head
Speaker 3: low probability of getting pregnant. I wasn't sure if I
Speaker 3: was ready for it. Because the other thing about IVF,
Speaker 3: and I'm always very grateful to the women who had
Speaker 3: gone through it, who had told me about this in
Speaker 3: the lead up to it, was they said, you know,
Speaker 3: things will change, your hormones will go crazy, your relationship
Speaker 3: may be a little bit ravaged. And I wasn't sure
Speaker 3: that I was up for the job of doing it.
Speaker 3: And the other point, of course, was that we had
Speaker 3: discussed earlier on that who was going to do the
Speaker 3: chief childcare giving. And actually my husband had said, because
Speaker 3: at that time I was an editor, I was earning
Speaker 3: more than him. He was just sort of making it
Speaker 3: as a writer. He was on the cusp of about
Speaker 3: to make it, and he said, look, I will say
Speaker 3: my career, I'll be the caregiver. And that was another
Speaker 3: thing that I just wasn't sure about that, you know,
Speaker 3: he was sort of going to give up on this
Speaker 3: thing that he was about to break into for something
Speaker 3: that I wasn't sure that I particularly wanted, and I
Speaker 3: was actually not a high probability. Of course, it's actually
Speaker 3: pretty high forty two percent. But at the time I
Speaker 3: thought all of this that we have to give up
Speaker 3: and actually there will not be a child at the
Speaker 3: end of it, and I wasn't really ready to do it.
Speaker 2: Did you have a blueprint for what of life without
Speaker 2: kids in it might look like? Did you have friends
Speaker 2: or anyone in your world who didn't have kids, who
Speaker 2: were around your age, or who didn't want kids.
Speaker 3: Not that I knew intimately. The only blueprints that I
Speaker 3: had actually growing up were there were two men that
Speaker 3: we used to live next to, called Roy and reg
Speaker 3: and they were a married, same sex couple, and obviously
Speaker 3: they didn't have children, and I think, I mean, this
Speaker 3: is in the eighties. I'm not even sure they had
Speaker 3: come out. They lived next door to us, and obviously
Speaker 3: children were not a part of their life, although they
Speaker 3: were lovely to us children and they were really wonderful,
Speaker 3: and I remember they had this wonderful home and this
Speaker 3: perfect garden, and they seemed to have this incredible relationship.
Speaker 3: Obviously we knew that, you know that they were together,
Speaker 3: and then up the road. Further up the road where
Speaker 3: we lived, there was a lady called missus Jenkins who
Speaker 3: was in her eighties, and I think she didn't have children,
Speaker 3: But when I remember her, she was alone. She was
Speaker 3: by herself. She was a spinster. I think perhaps she'd
Speaker 3: lost her husband. I can't remember, but the point was
Speaker 3: she was a single woman. She was eighty and she
Speaker 3: would come to our house sort of every couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: and she would tell us about these she'd been traveling
Speaker 3: around the world. She still had her gusto for life,
Speaker 3: and she was probably without her realizing it was sort
Speaker 3: of a real role model of what, you know, a
Speaker 3: rich life to down the line could look like. And
Speaker 3: it's interesting that there never seemed to be children as
Speaker 3: part of that equation. She went by herself, she traveled alone,
Speaker 3: but she still loved children. You know, she was a
Speaker 3: wonderful woman to be around, and she really enriched our
Speaker 3: imagination of what the world could look like.
Speaker 2: You wrote that after you and your husband made the
Speaker 2: decision not to have kids, and thankfully you were both
Speaker 2: on the same page. We didn't really talk about it again.
Speaker 2: It was a closed chapter. We moved on but I
Speaker 2: did think about it. I still think about it, and
Speaker 2: I suspect he does too. Did you really not talk
Speaker 2: about it much after that initial conversation.
Speaker 3: Not really, I mean the only times and it's still
Speaker 3: we barely talk about it apart from very occasionally. I
Speaker 3: remember one time Will came home and he'd been on
Speaker 3: the train as well as my husband. Of course, he said, oh,
Speaker 3: I saw a man today and this little girl went
Speaker 3: running towards him and wrapped her arms around him, and
Speaker 3: he said, I felt a real moment of sadness. I
Speaker 3: did have moments, but I actually didn't communicate into Will
Speaker 3: where I would see children on the tube with their
Speaker 3: parents and I would get very teary about it, and
Speaker 3: then it would go. It was sort of like this
Speaker 3: weird and emotion would then come. And I think that
Speaker 3: was actually as I got into my later thirties, when
Speaker 3: I knew that time was passing by and actually, door,
Speaker 3: I say, the door is closing. Of course, people have
Speaker 3: children right up into their fifties now, but for me,
Speaker 3: if we're being honest here, I felt that the door
Speaker 3: was closing. It was a firm decision we made together.
Speaker 3: It was a strong decision. I think The strength of
Speaker 3: the decision is shown by the fact that we didn't
Speaker 3: really ever talk about it again. Will occasionally we'll wake
Speaker 3: up and go, I'm really glad we didn't have children,
Speaker 3: and I turned to, yeah, I'm glad to and it's
Speaker 3: quite a statement to make. But I think the only sadness,
Speaker 3: which of course is a very selfish sadness, is that
Speaker 3: you don't get that sort of genetic combination of the
Speaker 3: two of us. You know, it would have been nice
Speaker 3: to know combination of me and my husband would have
Speaker 3: looked like nothing more. The vision that I always had
Speaker 3: of motherhood, which again is wholly selfish, was having a child,
Speaker 3: maybe when they were eighteen and they were grown up
Speaker 3: and we would spend time together. I used to have
Speaker 3: an image of I would have a child and there
Speaker 3: would be eighteen. I'd go and visit them at university
Speaker 3: and we talked about life. But that was an adult
Speaker 3: really that I was envisiging. There were no other daydreams
Speaker 3: about being a mother apart from that, And of course
Speaker 3: there's no guarantee that I was ever going to get that,
Speaker 3: to have that sort of airship with an eighteen year old,
Speaker 3: So we never really spoke about it.
Speaker 2: Ever again, it's funny when you stop and think about
Speaker 2: the parts of other people's lives that we feel entitled
Speaker 2: to ask about or to weigh in on. You know,
Speaker 2: we ask people what they do for work or if
Speaker 2: they're in a relationship, and we're curious about where someone
Speaker 2: lives or what political party they support, or maybe what
Speaker 2: school they went to. And most of the time these
Speaker 2: are just harmless curiosities and sort of part of being
Speaker 2: human right out in the world and small talk, trying
Speaker 2: to relate or connect to other human beings and kind
Speaker 2: of place them in the filing system of our brains
Speaker 2: and our sort of ideas about who people are. It's
Speaker 2: sort of how we're hardwired to try and understand each other.
Speaker 2: But asking a woman whether she has kids or not,
Speaker 2: or whether she wants kids, that can often be far
Speaker 2: more complicated and just very personal to sort of casually
Speaker 2: wander into as far as territory goes. And you know what,
Speaker 2: as I said before, I've done it, You've done it,
Speaker 2: We've all done it, and I've done it so many
Speaker 2: times and then really regretted it. And as you're about
Speaker 2: to hear from Farah, it's time that we learned to
Speaker 2: tread a little more gently around this topic. I was
Speaker 2: taking notes when she said this part. You two were
Speaker 2: very much on the same page, and fast didn't need
Speaker 2: to talk about it much more, but other people did.
Speaker 2: And reading the two pieces that you wrote on your
Speaker 2: substack a couple of years apart, one about farewelling motherhood
Speaker 2: and the other about how not to be a mother,
Speaker 2: which was towards the end of last year, about what
Speaker 2: life is like on the other side, I was really
Speaker 2: struck about the fact that you must have to come
Speaker 2: out almost in a way, again and again and again
Speaker 2: and talk about this decision that you'd made. You write
Speaker 2: about the dinner party question because you were thirty seven
Speaker 2: when you decided to have kids, which meant you say,
Speaker 2: at dinner parties with strangers, the question of children would
Speaker 2: always come up. What would people say? And was it
Speaker 2: something that you had to sort of steal yourself to
Speaker 2: answer again and again.
Speaker 3: Well, what usually would happen is, obviously I look like
Speaker 3: a woman of a certain age, so people very benignly
Speaker 3: would just say do you have children? In the beginning,
Speaker 3: I used to bristle a little bit because, of course,
Speaker 3: admitting that I didn't have children that I didn't have
Speaker 3: children by choice. What I thought the world would perceive
Speaker 3: that to be was I didn't like children, which is
Speaker 3: very different not wanting children. It's not that I didn't
Speaker 3: want children in my life, which is why that child
Speaker 3: free thing really sort of irks me, because actually I
Speaker 3: really like kids. I spent a lot of my life
Speaker 3: with them. I was a mentor when I was twenty
Speaker 3: six to a young child. I mean, I like kids,
Speaker 3: but I didn't want to be a mother, and I
Speaker 3: think that was the difference. But yeah, when people would say, look,
Speaker 3: do you have children, and then I would say no,
Speaker 3: I think they didn't quite know how to do a
Speaker 3: follow up. So what would happen is I would always
Speaker 3: just volunteer the whole story, and then of course people
Speaker 3: look slightly ill at ease because it was like, well,
Speaker 3: what's this person trying to justify their decision not to
Speaker 3: have children. So in the early days, when people would
Speaker 3: ask me that question, do you have children? I would
Speaker 3: then go no, and then I would explain to them why.
Speaker 3: But as I got older, I didn't feel that I
Speaker 3: needed to anymore. So I think I was lucky in that,
Speaker 3: you know, my parents and my in laws have been
Speaker 3: very cool about the whole thing. Obviously they would like
Speaker 3: it if we'd have had children, they'd be grandparents, of course,
Speaker 3: But you know, we're a generation that we're told you
Speaker 3: have choices to how you live your life, and of
Speaker 3: course both sets of parents have been very true to that.
Speaker 3: Their respect to the decision.
Speaker 2: Not that they had a lot of choice.
Speaker 3: No, they had any choice. No, they were very good.
Speaker 3: They didn't really prod and my father is Asian. For him,
Speaker 3: it's a really big thing for you not to have children.
Speaker 2: Do they have any other grandchildren on each side?
Speaker 3: Just one? I mean there's four of us, but there's
Speaker 3: just one, and actually one coming on the way, so
Speaker 3: actually there'll be two grandchildren.
Speaker 2: And what about a near it with your in laws?
Speaker 2: Do they have any grandchildren?
Speaker 3: They all have children? Yeah, so everybody again will is
Speaker 3: one of four and everybody okay, who will Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've just become a grandmother. I think I would find
Speaker 2: it a lot easier to be magnanimous if I had
Speaker 2: at least one, which is can be entirely selfish, do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like completely selfish. But I'm
Speaker 2: happy for them that they didn't have to project all
Speaker 2: of that onto you and Will.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: They got that satisfied elsewhere. If in fact they even
Speaker 2: wanted to become grandparents, maybe they did not want to
Speaker 2: speak for them.
Speaker 3: I think that's right, and I think both me and
Speaker 3: Will are middle children, so I think you're right. The pressure,
Speaker 3: it's the beauty of being a middle child. The pressure
Speaker 3: taken off us completely.
Speaker 2: Finally, there's a good thing about being a middle The
Speaker 2: most pressure.
Speaker 3: I used to find that older people when we used
Speaker 3: to live we used to live in this very small
Speaker 3: village in England and it was mainly populated by people
Speaker 3: who are much older, and they would often pry a
Speaker 3: little bit more, why children, life is long? You know,
Speaker 3: you need to think about that, you need to think
Speaker 3: about purpose. They would do it in a very nice way.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I have to say, I don't
Speaker 3: think from my recollection there's anybody who has really insulted
Speaker 3: me about it, but there was always and I always
Speaker 3: felt it was well meaning. But most of the people
Speaker 3: who were in their sort of dotage would often say,
Speaker 3: you know, life is long, and think about it carefully.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of condescending or passive aggressive in a way,
Speaker 2: like you're very gracious to say, giving them the benefit
Speaker 2: of the doubt they were well meaning, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: they were. But it's interesting, and I know I've done
Speaker 2: this myself. When someone says they don't want to have kids,
Speaker 2: I can sometimes go into almost campaign mode, as if
Speaker 2: I want you to vote for team having children, and
Speaker 2: I somehow need to persuade you to vote for my
Speaker 2: team because you've also had that experience right where people
Speaker 2: somehow take it as either a challenge or an implied
Speaker 2: judgment that their life isn't great with kids.
Speaker 3: They can be an implied judgment that's right, is that
Speaker 3: you will have an emptier life essentially, and I definitely have.
Speaker 3: I mean, I try to always sort of see the best.
Speaker 3: But yes, that is the implication, which is you need
Speaker 3: to think carefully because what's going to happen when you're older.
Speaker 3: But I suppose I had so thoroughly dissected the decision.
Speaker 3: One of the things that really stood with me was somebody,
Speaker 3: and I can't remember it was, but they said to
Speaker 3: me quite rightly, there is no guarantee, neither should there be,
Speaker 3: that your children are going to be there for you
Speaker 3: and your dotage, and you should never expect that that
Speaker 3: was the feedback I would give to people, which is,
Speaker 3: there are so many people I know who barely speak
Speaker 3: to their parents or they've phoned their parents farely and
Speaker 3: actually old age without a child in it. You can
Speaker 3: have a family and you might still not have your
Speaker 3: children in your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or they could move over the other side of
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right. So yes, I think that's right, and
Speaker 3: I think it will make some people feel uncomfortable because
Speaker 3: if you're choosing not to have children, they see it
Speaker 3: as a judgment somehow on the life that they've chosen
Speaker 3: to live.
Speaker 2: Of course, on social media, you've got some lovely feedback
Speaker 2: whenever you write about it, including the question that you
Speaker 2: said you mainly got on social media, which is, aren't
Speaker 2: you worried about being lonely later in life? Or as
Speaker 2: it was put on Twitter, good luck dying alone?
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's the same. I sort of think if
Speaker 3: that was the best, it's not so bad actually dying
Speaker 3: alone or being alone. I'm very good alone, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm very good alone. I choose not to have a
Speaker 3: huge circle of friends, so actually, yeahs that could be
Speaker 3: levied against me. It was like, I'm okay with that,
Speaker 3: and also there's no guarantee you're not going to die
Speaker 3: alone either.
Speaker 2: You're right that deciding not to have children in your
Speaker 2: mid to late thirties, which is how old you were
Speaker 2: when you made the decision, and even into your early forties,
Speaker 2: always feels like a sort of a cheat. What did
Speaker 2: you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Well, I think what I meant was that you have
Speaker 3: the possibility to change your mind still at thirty six
Speaker 3: thirty seven saying I'm child free, Well, of course I
Speaker 3: still had sort of, you know, a window, possibly even
Speaker 3: ten years. I'd probably say less than that, but I
Speaker 3: could still change my mind. It's not sort of so
Speaker 3: wild a statement because actually, and people did say that,
Speaker 3: they go, oh, you've still got time to change your mind.
Speaker 2: Did that annoy you when people said that, because it's
Speaker 2: very like implying that I know better than you about
Speaker 2: your own decisions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it is annoyed.
Speaker 2: It's very smart.
Speaker 3: I think it is. Yeah, And it's like, exactly, we
Speaker 3: know better and trust you, with the wisdom of age,
Speaker 3: you will change your mind. So that whole of you've
Speaker 3: still got time to change your mind. Really, in the
Speaker 3: beginning I perceived as you will change your mind, And
Speaker 3: actually there was a part of me that was like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe I will. I just don't know, but this is
Speaker 3: the best decision that I can make at this point
Speaker 3: in my life. And remember, I'd taken on a very
Speaker 3: big job at that point. I was editor of Cosmo,
Speaker 3: which of course was all about women's choice and underlying
Speaker 3: the decision, which of course you don't go into with strangers,
Speaker 3: but I think if strangers had pressed me more on it.
Speaker 3: One of the other reasons was that whole premise, which
Speaker 3: of course Cosmos star or certainly contributed to the narrative
Speaker 3: of having it all. I never believed it was true
Speaker 3: for me. That's a really important thing to look at,
Speaker 3: which is, of course some people could have it all.
Speaker 3: But I'm a worker. I struggle with things. I have
Speaker 3: to work really really hard to get the success that
Speaker 3: I've had, like really hard, I think, a lot harder
Speaker 3: than other people behind the scenes. It's real grind stuff
Speaker 3: for me. So being the sort of mother I would
Speaker 3: want to be, and I know what I'm like, I'm obsessive,
Speaker 3: it would have been all encompassing. But also just taken
Speaker 3: on this job, which is a job that I'd always wanted.
Speaker 3: I didn't think that I could do both of them
Speaker 3: sufficiently well. And that was a sort of I said.
Speaker 3: There were a myriad number of reasons why I made
Speaker 3: the decision, but that was certainly one that played into
Speaker 3: it for sure.
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting? Because I got pregnant and expectedly just
Speaker 2: a few months after starting as editor of Cosmo in Australia,
Speaker 2: and it never occurred to me that I couldn't like it.
Speaker 2: Never for one second occurred to me that I couldn't
Speaker 2: both of those things interesting. It's true what you say
Speaker 2: about when a woman tells you that she does or
Speaker 2: doesn't want to become a mother, believe her.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right. I mean, that's why I have
Speaker 3: to really know yourself incredibly well and work on yourself
Speaker 3: to understand what success and the path to success looks
Speaker 3: like for you. I am not one of these people
Speaker 3: who sort of goes along on the ease through life.
Speaker 3: It takes a lot for me to sort of get
Speaker 3: to where I guess I've got to. I think that
Speaker 3: there's something very important about that. And I always say
Speaker 3: to younger women, it's like, you should really interrogate that
Speaker 3: whole concept of having it all and maybe me that
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of women will be like you
Speaker 3: and they don't question because is like, of course I
Speaker 3: can do it. There will be others who go, yeah,
Speaker 3: I need to stop and have a think about this.
Speaker 3: The other thing I think is because we didn't, Because
Speaker 3: me and Will it took years. We were trying for
Speaker 3: a long time. What also happened is that introspection or
Speaker 3: the interrogation of who I was and what I could do,
Speaker 3: what I was capable of. I had years to think
Speaker 3: about that. Had I got pregnant very quickly, I'm not
Speaker 3: sure I would have reached the same conclusion. Actually, I
Speaker 3: think if we'd have got pregnant at you know, sort
Speaker 3: of thirty four, I don't think i'd be here today.
Speaker 3: I don't think we would have had more than one perhaps,
Speaker 3: but we would have had children. But it was an
Speaker 3: aunting game. That's when the question started to form and
Speaker 3: I had to come up with some answers.
Speaker 2: Fara did come up with the answers that she needed
Speaker 2: for her life and in her self exploration and kind
Speaker 2: of process of self discovery. Those answers became real pearls
Speaker 2: of wisdom about the richness and purpose that can be
Speaker 2: found in life as a non parent as she has.
Speaker 2: And Farah may have set out to understand her own
Speaker 2: feelings about motherhood, but what she learned along the way
Speaker 2: about friendship and about creating our own rituals and defining
Speaker 2: what family really means, it relates to all of us.
Speaker 2: I promise you after the next part of this interview,
Speaker 2: you're going to want to make some calls or actually
Speaker 2: some texts. Let's be honest to the people that you love.
Speaker 2: You wrote basically a fantastic piece for your substat called
Speaker 2: how Not to Be a Mother, and you sort of said,
Speaker 2: so many people write about the choice, but I want
Speaker 2: to talk about what life is like on the other
Speaker 2: side of that choice, down the track where the gates
Speaker 2: kind of closed. It's not still up for debate as
Speaker 2: far as you're concerned. It's done. You say, it's a
Speaker 2: list of things from the other side, things we don't
Speaker 2: really talk about but probably should. Why did you make
Speaker 2: that list?
Speaker 3: I've had sort of almost ten years now of occasionally
Speaker 3: writing about being child free. I don't always write about it.
Speaker 3: I get asked a lot, but I don't always write
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Is that because you don't want to be defined by it,
Speaker 2: or because you're bored of it, why do you say
Speaker 2: no to a lot of invitations to talk about it.
Speaker 3: I think a little bit of both. I think it's
Speaker 3: the two things. I think you know, in the same
Speaker 3: way that if I was a mother, I would not
Speaker 3: expect anyone to define me just as a mother. In
Speaker 3: the same way I didn't expect people just to define
Speaker 3: me as there's the child free woman. And as you know,
Speaker 3: in journalism, it's very easy to get in that root
Speaker 3: of people go child free. Let's get fired to write
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Let's get fire and write about it. And look here,
Speaker 2: I am Farah, come and talk to me on no filter.
Speaker 2: Thank you for saying yes to me, even though you
Speaker 2: said notice so many other people.
Speaker 3: Very welcome. And also I thought I had written everything
Speaker 3: that there was to say. I didn't, as a woman
Speaker 3: in her late thirties early forties, have anything else to
Speaker 3: say about it. But of course what had happened is
Speaker 3: in the sort of maybe you know, two or three
Speaker 3: pieces I had written, whether I liked it or not.
Speaker 3: There were a number of young women who reached out
Speaker 3: to me all the time, constantly through social media. They'd
Speaker 3: picked up on something and What it made me think
Speaker 3: is these women are obviously looking for answers, and they'd
Speaker 3: probably found an old thing that I'd written years ago,
Speaker 3: and then they walked out to me and they would
Speaker 3: say thank you. I started to notice a pattern, of course,
Speaker 3: which was they didn't seem to be many people who
Speaker 3: were the different or the alternative narrative. And so when
Speaker 3: I reach forty five, you're right, the choice has pretty
Speaker 3: much been taken away from you pretty much. I mean,
Speaker 3: I cannot imagine a world where I would now fell
Speaker 3: pregnant naturally. And actually, I think when the choice has gone,
Speaker 3: you then start to look at the life that you've
Speaker 3: built without children, because if I'd have had a child
Speaker 3: at thirty, where it would have been like ten or
Speaker 3: twelve now, and so it's like, okay, well what did
Speaker 3: I do in those twelve years? I'd actually done an
Speaker 3: awful lot, and the shape of my life actually looked
Speaker 3: pretty good, and I thought that was probably something worth
Speaker 3: sharing with people, particularly these young women who were thanking
Speaker 3: me for talking about the choice to be child free.
Speaker 3: But actually after that they had nowhere else to go.
Speaker 3: And so actually what I wanted to say to them was, well, look,
Speaker 3: this is what once the choice has gone, because that's
Speaker 3: coming for you. Next, this is what an alternative life
Speaker 3: might look like for you.
Speaker 2: I want to go through some of the points on
Speaker 2: your list because they're so full of wisdom. The first
Speaker 2: one is about relief. What kind of relief did you experience?
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's any relief, isn't it when choice
Speaker 3: is taken away from you? If you're a worrier like me,
Speaker 3: if you're sort of high neuroses, choice is a difficult thing.
Speaker 3: There's always of did I do the right thing? Once
Speaker 3: that choice is gone, it's incredible. It's a whole part
Speaker 3: of your brain that doesn't have to deal with this
Speaker 3: subject anymore. And by the way, it probably occupied more
Speaker 3: of my thoughts than I probably let on. You know,
Speaker 3: had we made the right decision, even though me and
Speaker 3: Will didn't talk about it, I'm almost certain it would
Speaker 3: have taken up a huge amount of energy. And so
Speaker 3: now that's gone, it's sort of like this space in
Speaker 3: my mind which is much freer. Children or the whole
Speaker 3: topic of children, my children or my theoretical children. It's
Speaker 3: just gone. So it's sort of a brain space that
Speaker 3: I have, and that's a relief. The other relief, of course,
Speaker 3: is people don't want to talk to you anymore about
Speaker 3: your choices.
Speaker 2: Except me, except me today.
Speaker 3: The assument, of course, you can't change your mind because
Speaker 3: it's too late for you. So people occasionally will still
Speaker 3: ask me do you have children? And I'll say no,
Speaker 3: and then they'll move on to something else. And of
Speaker 3: course that's a two way thing, because I don't feel
Speaker 3: I have to justify to them anymore how as a
Speaker 3: forty five or a woman I don't have children. But
Speaker 3: also I think people just realize, you know, they look
Speaker 3: at me and they go, well, she's a woman of
Speaker 3: a certain age. She probably can't have children anymore. She's
Speaker 3: obviously made some decisions in her life, and it doesn't
Speaker 3: really go any further.
Speaker 2: When we were talking about that earlier, about that question
Speaker 2: do you have kids, I think we've also learned. I'm
Speaker 2: now very careful not to ask that. Occasionally I will,
Speaker 2: and every time I'll regret it. You're right, it's okay
Speaker 2: asking someone our age, or you're younger than me, but
Speaker 2: someone who's kind of mid forties or above. But when
Speaker 2: you ask someone who's perhaps in their late thirties or
Speaker 2: very early forties, you can accidentally trip over a landmine.
Speaker 2: And there can be some very difficult, devastating answers to
Speaker 2: that question. It can be around child loss, it can
Speaker 2: be around not everybody chooses not to become a mother.
Speaker 2: You know, some people are child less, some people are
Speaker 2: child free. You don't like either of those terms. For
Speaker 2: the reasons that you've spoken about. You prefer non parent
Speaker 2: and I think we've understood as a society. I hope
Speaker 2: to be a little more discreet and to just be
Speaker 2: careful about rummaging in people's pockets of maybe things that
Speaker 2: are very close to their heart.
Speaker 3: You're one hundred percent right. And actually I think Mia
Speaker 3: when people used to ask me, and I used to
Speaker 3: bring out this monologue that was me working my way
Speaker 3: through something, it was probably my own sort of themy here.
Speaker 3: So I think you're right. I think if it's a
Speaker 3: woman of a certain age, I agree. I don't go
Speaker 3: near it unless they prompt and ask me about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the number two thing on your list, the
Speaker 2: second thing that you've discovered and you want people to know,
Speaker 2: is that other relationships will blossom. Can you explain that
Speaker 2: you wrote about your mother and your relationship with her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, once the sort of mother child dynamic
Speaker 3: is out of the equation for you, then you have
Speaker 3: this time to think about, well, what are the other
Speaker 3: relationships which are open to me now? And the other
Speaker 3: relationships are I'm lucky that my parents are still alive.
Speaker 3: My mother is still alive, She's in good health, and
Speaker 3: we have become much closer. And I think one of
Speaker 3: the wonderful things about me not being a mother is
Speaker 3: getting to know my mother as a person as opposed to.
Speaker 2: A mother, yeah, or a grandmother exactly.
Speaker 3: There's no conversation which friends have told me, will you
Speaker 3: talk about the kids. That's what you do when you
Speaker 3: start to understand your mother as a mother, while she
Speaker 3: wants you're a mother, you have that incredible link with
Speaker 3: each other because you empathize with her and what she
Speaker 3: went through. I don't have that, But what I can
Speaker 3: have with my mother is an understanding of her and
Speaker 3: what she was like as a middle aged woman like me.
Speaker 3: And so we have a you know, I was just
Speaker 3: away with her at the weekend in Cambridge. We have
Speaker 3: a really wonderful relationship now where I think I probably
Speaker 3: get to find out much more about her Linda as
Speaker 3: a woman, as opposed to her as a mother. You
Speaker 3: know the other thing. Throughout my whole career, I never
Speaker 3: had a lot of friends. I just didn't have time.
Speaker 3: And now I'm a point in my life where I
Speaker 3: can lean into friendship much more now. Of course, women
Speaker 3: my age, most of them do have families. So actually
Speaker 3: the women that I have friendships with just turned out
Speaker 3: that way. They are mothers, but they're in their fifties.
Speaker 3: And that's not to say just aren't difficult, but they've
Speaker 3: got a bit more freedom in their life. And so
Speaker 3: those relationships with older women is something that is incredible,
Speaker 3: and I feel really lucky that as a forty something women,
Speaker 3: I get to have a lot of women in their
Speaker 3: fifties and sixties in my life who I think are
Speaker 3: at that point in their lives where they have an
Speaker 3: enormous amount of wisdom and space in their life to
Speaker 3: give to friendship. So there's that as well. So there's
Speaker 3: all these different relationships.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad you said that, because unexpected friendships was
Speaker 2: another thing on this list, and because I had kids,
Speaker 2: I was a lot younger than any of my friends.
Speaker 2: I was completely out of step. So when a lot
Speaker 2: of my friends had really young kids. I was in
Speaker 2: a very different life stage because my kids were older.
Speaker 2: And I remember saying to someone or observing that I
Speaker 2: had more in common with my friends who didn't have
Speaker 2: kids than with my friends who had little kids. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it was like a coming together again with my
Speaker 2: friends after our paths had diverged for a while, when
Speaker 2: I was in the thick of it. Suddenly I had
Speaker 2: the same kinds of freedoms that they had when all
Speaker 2: my friends with little kids were kind of locked down
Speaker 2: for years and years.
Speaker 3: I think that's right, isn't it. And I think there
Speaker 3: is a lockdown, and I sort of understand that. So
Speaker 3: I don't particularly pursue relationships with mothers who have young
Speaker 3: kids because I know there's only so much they're going
Speaker 3: to be able to give. And that's quite the paint.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely yeah, And I'll probably see them on the
Speaker 3: other side and if the friendship's worth anything, it will
Speaker 3: be absolutely fine in ten to fifteen years time. So
Speaker 3: I've sort of gone looking in different areas for friendships, really,
Speaker 3: and who is available to give the friendship at any
Speaker 3: point in life.
Speaker 2: I'm available. The unknown is another thing on your list.
Speaker 2: I really love this. You talked about making your own
Speaker 2: rituals and defining family. Can you talk a bit about that.
Speaker 3: All the rituals that sort of families have, so Christmas
Speaker 3: and opening the presents together and someone dressing up as Sansa,
Speaker 3: and we don't have that, and so you have to
Speaker 3: sort of make your own patchwork quilt of what your
Speaker 3: own family's rituals look like. So you knows the presence
Speaker 3: in the evening or for Christmas, actually we go away
Speaker 3: to like a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3: We don't really see anybody. It's just us and the dogs,
Speaker 3: and that's a ritual for us. We escape from the world.
Speaker 3: We miss out on a whole load of these things.
Speaker 3: So Halloween comes and goes. Of course you see these
Speaker 3: parents with these kids going out in the streets, and
Speaker 3: that's sort of not available tools, which is absolutely fine.
Speaker 3: But around that time we always go away and minigrate
Speaker 3: with the dogs. But it's not the same. But you
Speaker 3: have to start making different patterns because the ones are
Speaker 3: not available. But actually just because they're not available doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that you can't find a replacement.
Speaker 2: Find meaning in other places. You say that another thing
Speaker 2: on your list is that your worries will differ. What
Speaker 2: do you worry about? It's perhaps different to a parent
Speaker 2: that you've noticed.
Speaker 3: I think the one thing where those people were right
Speaker 3: when they go life is long, except of course now
Speaker 3: I think life is very short. When people say life
Speaker 3: is long and you really need to think about it,
Speaker 3: I think actually it was a very good sort of
Speaker 3: jumping off point to start thinking about, well, what is
Speaker 3: the purpose or what is the point? I mean, purpose
Speaker 3: is now such a bloody cichepe. And of course people's
Speaker 3: children are not always their purpose. But I worry now
Speaker 3: about sort of what, which is very arrogant to say
Speaker 3: what I'm going to leave behind. I worry probably a
Speaker 3: lot more about health, old age. I worry probably more
Speaker 3: about social problems because I have the space to start
Speaker 3: thinking about things outside of rabits. But I don't have
Speaker 3: to worry about raising a human being. So my worries are, well,
Speaker 3: will I ever leave an imprint on the world. I
Speaker 3: might not leave an imprint on the world, but you
Speaker 3: sort of have to try. I think. So my worry
Speaker 3: are what good can I do? Or what can I do?
Speaker 3: Or what I think? Actually it's what can I build?
Speaker 3: I think that's a big thing. I think when you're
Speaker 3: building a human being is a huge amount of energy
Speaker 3: and people will probably take this the wrong way, but
Speaker 3: a huge amount of creativity into building a good human
Speaker 3: being for the world, I imagine. I mean you're a mother,
Speaker 3: you'll know much better than it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, also money, of course, money time you know side,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of emotional energy. And they also say
Speaker 2: you're only as happy as your least happy child.
Speaker 3: I really remember that, I mean the constant threat. I
Speaker 3: wasn't sure again that I wanted that in my life.
Speaker 3: That is a selfish thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know if it's selfish, but
Speaker 2: I just think it's more contained. It's not that your
Speaker 2: life will be happy necessarily if you don't have kids,
Speaker 2: but your happiness or your unhappiness will be your own,
Speaker 2: like your heart will not be living outside of your body.
Speaker 2: It will be living inside of your body.
Speaker 3: You can't rely on another person ultimately, whether that's your child,
Speaker 3: to bring your happiness. So I think that was another
Speaker 3: thing which that phrase is bleak in a way, but
Speaker 3: I think it's probably very true. I mean, don't they
Speaker 3: say that every time a child walks out the door,
Speaker 3: they're taking them mother heart with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just walking around out in the.
Speaker 3: World absolutely terrifying. So you know, I suppose I think
Speaker 3: a lot now about well, actually I do want to
Speaker 3: put my heart out into the world. I actually do
Speaker 3: want that, not in the way that we're talking about,
Speaker 3: but you have to talking about how are you going
Speaker 3: to do that, and actually what is the thing you
Speaker 3: are going to build? Because actually I do think most
Speaker 3: people need projects in life. They need personal projects, they
Speaker 3: need meaning, I need the grind, I need to keep
Speaker 3: building something. So you start thinking about that, what's the
Speaker 3: thing that I want to build? If there's not a
Speaker 3: human life here.
Speaker 2: Another thing you want people to know that's on the
Speaker 2: list is that your feelings about not being a mother change.
Speaker 2: And you talk about in your thirties it still felt
Speaker 2: a bit fraught and you perhaps had to justify it
Speaker 2: and because there was, as you say, there's still that
Speaker 2: opportunity to change your mind and questioning have I made
Speaker 2: the right decision? Okay? Do I still not want kids? Okay?
Speaker 2: How about tomorrow? What about next week? Well, I still
Speaker 2: not want kids. Then then in your forties you said
Speaker 2: you felt relieved, and then how do you feel now
Speaker 2: in your mid forties.
Speaker 3: I don't even think about it. It's not anything apart
Speaker 3: from I knew we were having this conversation, and I
Speaker 3: actually had to remind myself, Okay, well what are my
Speaker 3: thoughts about motherhood? Because actually it's just not a thing.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't occupy my mind at all.
Speaker 2: Now. You used a word though that I found really interesting,
Speaker 2: and it's proud. You feel proud? Can you remember what
Speaker 2: that word means in this?
Speaker 3: I think I feel proud in that everything that I
Speaker 3: thought about, which was how am I going to build
Speaker 3: a life, how am I going to have purpose? How
Speaker 3: am I going to have a narrative to other people
Speaker 3: about why I chose not to be a mother? I
Speaker 3: feel like I've wrapped a lot of that up now
Speaker 3: and I feel like, I mean, who knows, things can change,
Speaker 3: but I feel like I've reached a place where I'm
Speaker 3: happy or certainly content. I feel pretty full. I have
Speaker 3: good relationships which are alternative, perhaps relationships to those some
Speaker 3: you know, forty five year old woman would ordinarily have
Speaker 3: at this point in a life. And I suppose I
Speaker 3: feel proud that I made a decision and that has
Speaker 3: helped some other people. And actually I'm able to show
Speaker 3: that actually not being a mother isn't going to define
Speaker 3: your life, because that's the other thing I worried about
Speaker 3: not being a mother would define my life. And of
Speaker 3: course what I'm proud of is it really doesn't. It
Speaker 3: actually becomes after a certain age, very immateial really finds
Speaker 3: your life is what you choose to build around your life.
Speaker 3: So I think I feel proud of all of those things.
Speaker 2: Actually, another thing on the list that you say people
Speaker 2: should know is that people will be less awkward around you,
Speaker 2: And you talk about the difference between thirties and mid forties,
Speaker 2: which we've touched on, that there's less of that oh
Speaker 2: are you okay? Why like that idea that at forty
Speaker 2: five it's probably more likely to be a scar than
Speaker 2: a wound. Whatever, that your reasons for not having children,
Speaker 2: whether they were proactive or they were sort of thrust
Speaker 2: upon you. Is that what you've noticed that there are
Speaker 2: less of those probing questions.
Speaker 3: I don't go to many dinner parties, but the truth
Speaker 3: is it's not up for common Nobody asked me anymore.
Speaker 3: I imagine new people think I'm a woman of a
Speaker 3: certain age, so probably I have older children. They just
Speaker 3: don't ask and those people that do know me and
Speaker 3: know that I chose not to have children, the concept
Speaker 3: of do you ever regret it? Nobody ever over asked me.
Speaker 3: What I do get a lot of is people going
Speaker 3: what do do any time where you're going away? What
Speaker 3: you know? So I get a lot of that.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I get, actually, which is interesting,
Speaker 3: and I wonder if this is because I'm not a mother,
Speaker 3: is I get a lot of women, mothers talking very
Speaker 3: freely to me about being a mother. And I think,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I think it's because there's no
Speaker 3: possibility of judgment because I possibly, however they feel towards
Speaker 3: their child, nothing's going to shock me because I've got
Speaker 3: nothing to compare it to. So that is actually not
Speaker 3: something I don't think was on my list. But actually
Speaker 3: that's a very privileged thing I think I have, which
Speaker 3: is I find a lot of women because I've spoken
Speaker 3: to a lot of women over the years about motherhood,
Speaker 3: and I feel that as a sort of very open
Speaker 3: dialogue which might not I feel it might not be
Speaker 3: available to them with other mothers, because of course, other mothers,
Speaker 3: I imagine, bring so much of their role of being
Speaker 3: a mother, so anything you're going to say. So there
Speaker 3: was a woman I spoke to recently. I interviewed her
Speaker 3: actually for my substack, and she loves a child, and
Speaker 3: I think that goes without question. But she talked about,
Speaker 3: you know, moments of her son was heavily autistic, hearing
Speaker 3: a car one day drive past and he was outside
Speaker 3: in the road, and she thought for one moment he'd
Speaker 3: be run over, and then there was a part of
Speaker 3: that went life would be much easier, and then the
Speaker 3: thought went, but I don't think had I been a mother,
Speaker 3: it might have been as easy for her to talk
Speaker 3: to me about having those momentary dark thoughts.
Speaker 2: That was an incredible piece that you published on your substack.
Speaker 2: I think her name was Jill, and she said, to
Speaker 2: be honest, my son has ruined my life, but he
Speaker 2: has also enriched it in ways beyond measure. And I
Speaker 2: love the level of honesty that she could have. That
Speaker 2: idea of you know, women feeling that they could confess
Speaker 2: to you about regretting motherhood, which is another data point.
Speaker 2: I guess that it's not always happily ever after, It's
Speaker 2: not always a wonderful thing. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: women with children who would be looking at your life
Speaker 2: and feeling incredibly envious of the choice that you made
Speaker 2: and wishing either that they'd made the same choice or
Speaker 2: that they'd had the opportunity to make the same choice
Speaker 2: as you. And that's taboo in our society.
Speaker 3: Because of course, not being a mother is not a
Speaker 3: possibility for a lot of women. I mean, when I
Speaker 3: put a call out, I was very lucky to find Jill,
Speaker 3: who I think had done so much work on herself.
Speaker 3: She spoke with such absolute clarity about that that he'd
Speaker 3: ruined a life, but also he changed in enriched in
Speaker 3: a way she could never And that, of course is
Speaker 3: the dichotomy, isn't it. And that's why when I put
Speaker 3: a call out saying, is that anybody who will speak
Speaker 3: to me about regretting motherhood? Every single person started it
Speaker 3: by going, I love my children, but.
Speaker 2: So things can be true. I love you ruining my life, right?
Speaker 3: But I remember I had one woman and I never
Speaker 3: got in touch with that. We sort of never were
Speaker 3: able to cross paths. But she just said I feel
Speaker 3: trapped in my life, and that was it. I think
Speaker 3: sometimes people just need the space to be able to
Speaker 3: say that, and then you know, to let out these
Speaker 3: thoughts and then retract. But I think the interesting thing
Speaker 3: for me is, and actually this is thanks to mothers.
Speaker 3: Is that because mothers like Jill and actually so many
Speaker 3: since you know, I'm very lucky, I'm forty five, so
Speaker 3: I've had sort of twenty years of this conversation around
Speaker 3: motherhood not being easy. I don't think that was probably
Speaker 3: available to say my mother's generation. But with mothers talking
Speaker 3: about that, actually it can be hard, that helps other
Speaker 3: women make the decision about the realities of what motherhood
Speaker 3: looks like. And I think Jill spoke about this. You know,
Speaker 3: Jill was a little bit older than me. I think
Speaker 3: she was in a mid fifties. She had an idea
Speaker 3: that had been sold to her about what motherhood was.
Speaker 3: It was prams and it was you know, getting together
Speaker 3: with other mothers and it was like, yeah, but there's
Speaker 3: got to be a whole other narrative, but that nobody
Speaker 3: was telling it. So I think that's where I feel
Speaker 3: very strongly about that. And that's down to brave mothers
Speaker 3: who are willing, who know that talking about the dark
Speaker 3: side of motherhood does not in any way in the
Speaker 3: gate how they feel about their child. So you know
Speaker 3: really important, I think.
Speaker 2: And just finally on your list, you will get obsessed
Speaker 2: with your dog. It's a cliche. But it's a cliche
Speaker 2: for a reason, right, tell me it's a cliche.
Speaker 3: I mean, of course, the devastating thing is is that
Speaker 3: they're gone too soon.
Speaker 2: It's another kind of empty nest. It's like empty dogbeds.
Speaker 3: Ken of these constant empty dog beds go through our lives. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, I do remember, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: she was half joking. A friend said to me, you know,
Speaker 3: far if I haven't got the dog, she's got a dog. Now,
Speaker 3: if I've got the dog before I had the kids,
Speaker 3: may not have had the kids.
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, when your kids become older, that's when the
Speaker 2: dog has its time to shine in. Or you need
Speaker 2: a new dog because as someone wants, right, if you
Speaker 2: have teenagers and you want someone to be happy to
Speaker 2: see you when you walk in the door.
Speaker 3: Get a dog. That's totally right. You know, the dogs
Speaker 3: don't fill they're different. People go, oh, do they get
Speaker 3: dogs because they didn't have children. It's like, no, it's
Speaker 3: a different hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what you say in the list about you
Speaker 2: get to lean into other relationships in your life, right,
Speaker 2: whether it's with your dogs, whether it's with friends, whether
Speaker 2: it's with your parents, there's a space that perhaps people
Speaker 2: with children don't.
Speaker 3: Think that's right. And I think that's the thing. You're
Speaker 3: constantly looking, as you should be in life, to fill
Speaker 3: the spaces. It's like, what's going to fill the space.
Speaker 3: Because I think that's what when those people would say
Speaker 3: to me, life is long, what you're going to do
Speaker 3: with it. As long as you're filling the spaces, then
Speaker 3: life is going to be good. And I think that's
Speaker 3: the point. I think it's those who maybe decide not
Speaker 3: to have children and then there's nothing, because I do
Speaker 3: think you need to think about, even whether you're a
Speaker 3: mother or not a mother, what's going to fill the
Speaker 3: space of life? And I think that's just an important
Speaker 3: question you need to ask yourself, regardless of whether you're
Speaker 3: a mother or not. And I've definitely spent the last
Speaker 3: five years thinking very keyly about that, which I think
Speaker 3: everybody should anyway. I think I've just come to it
Speaker 3: a lot earlier. And I suspect maybe mothers once the
Speaker 3: teenagers have left the house, they start thinking about it too.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much that was just a mirror. I
Speaker 2: love that conversation, and I think what I liked about
Speaker 2: it most is that I don't know. On the surface,
Speaker 2: it's about the question of whether or not to have kids,
Speaker 2: and about as far as personal journey with that decision,
Speaker 2: But really this conversation is about a woman making the
Speaker 2: very deliberate decision to get to know herself and her
Speaker 2: identity as well as she possibly can, and have that
Speaker 2: identity exist separately from what society expects of us and
Speaker 2: perhaps what we internalize about what it means to be
Speaker 2: a woman, what we expect ourselves because of that. And
Speaker 2: I really love that, because as women, we give a
Speaker 2: lot of ourselves to other people, and that's true for
Speaker 2: women who have kids and for women who don't, and
Speaker 2: so often in history and still today, we define ourselves
Speaker 2: by who we are to other people, like we're a wife,
Speaker 2: we're a mother, where a daughter, We're a friend, we're
Speaker 2: a sister, And I think Fara is so many of
Speaker 2: those things. But she's offering us all this kind of
Speaker 2: imitation to think about our identity apart from what society
Speaker 2: expects of us and apart from what we're told we
Speaker 2: should be as women and all of that really begins
Speaker 2: with honesty and vulnerability, which is how Fara shows to
Speaker 2: approach her life. And she's such a good writer. People
Speaker 2: tell her things like really personal things, And if you
Speaker 2: want to read more of her work, I'm popping a
Speaker 2: link to her substack in the show notes. And what
Speaker 2: I hope you take away, and what I've taken away,
Speaker 2: is that for every woman who doesn't have children, there
Speaker 2: is a very distinct story, and it's often a very
Speaker 2: personal story, and it's often a very complex story and
Speaker 2: a layered story, and it's not necessarily yours to know.
Speaker 2: And here's me saying that, as the nosiest person you'll
Speaker 2: ever meet, don't ever assume, and I'm talking to myself here,
Speaker 2: that someone owes you an explanation for the choice that
Speaker 2: they've made in their life, whether it's having kids. No
Speaker 2: one asks anyone, oh, why did you choose to have kids?
Speaker 2: It's just seen as the default. And maybe we need
Speaker 2: to just start thinking a little bit more, Noah, before
Speaker 2: we ask that question to women who have lives that
Speaker 2: look different to our own. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Naima Brown, the sound production by Leah Paorges. I'm mea
Speaker 2: Friedman thanks for listening to my croaky voice. I'm going
Speaker 2: to go and rest it and speak to you soon.