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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to step Mom Never Told You?

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Speaker 1: From House top Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen Kristen. Today

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Speaker 1: we're gonna finally tackle one of our most requested topics,

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Speaker 1: the decision not to have children a k A child

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Speaker 1: free by choice right. And this should be distinguished from

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Speaker 1: being child less, because if you're child free, as people

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Speaker 1: of this movement often explain, it's it's a choice. It's

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Speaker 1: an active, empowering lifestyle choice that they make to not procreate,

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Speaker 1: whereas someone who's childless, they say, may want to have

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Speaker 1: children and for reasons of infertility not be able to.

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Speaker 1: And according to some pure research, about one in five

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Speaker 1: American women ends her child in years without having a child,

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Speaker 1: compared to one in ten women who did the same

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Speaker 1: thing in the nineteen seventies. Now they can't separate out

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Speaker 1: all the women in that statistic who are child freed

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Speaker 1: by choice versus those who may want to have a

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Speaker 1: child and couldn't. But because those numbers are going up,

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Speaker 1: they think that more and more women and men who

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Speaker 1: are who are with them or women who are with

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Speaker 1: them are electing to not have children. And in terms

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Speaker 1: of demographics, who's making this child for each choice? Pew

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Speaker 1: found that the most educated women are the ones who

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Speaker 1: are more likely to not have a child, and also

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Speaker 1: white women are the most likely racial or ethnic group

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Speaker 1: do you never have a child as well? But that

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Speaker 1: gap is closing, especially in the last few years, where

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Speaker 1: they're finding more and more racist and ethnicities are choosing

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Speaker 1: not to have children. And this is not just an

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Speaker 1: American phenomenon. It's happening in many countries all over the world.

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Speaker 1: And again, to pull from Pew, more and more couples

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Speaker 1: are saying they don't need to have children to make

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Speaker 1: a successful marriage. You know, if you think about this

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Speaker 1: checklist of things you do in your lifetime, let's say

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Speaker 1: it's go to college, get married, have children. More and

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Speaker 1: more people are too doing the first two and just saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to check that last box. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of advances in worth control options, and we

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Speaker 1: don't want to bring children into the world. Now, let's

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Speaker 1: go into some of the reasons that people might elect

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Speaker 1: to do this. By far, the biggest reason that's given

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Speaker 1: across the whole host of studies and surveys is that

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Speaker 1: people you know, like their lifestyles without children. They like

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Speaker 1: their job and want to have more energies to donate

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Speaker 1: to that, they like traveling, they like time alone with

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Speaker 1: their partner, and uh. And that's sort of the main

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Speaker 1: reason for men specifically. There are four major reasons that

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Speaker 1: they generally don't want to have children as well, such

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Speaker 1: as freedom change jobs without financial obligations to children, time

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Speaker 1: and space for personal development. Much like you're saying, Molly, Uh,

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Speaker 1: they never have felt a need to have children, which

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Speaker 1: is kind of different from women. You don't hear that

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Speaker 1: as much from women, simply because there's more of a

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Speaker 1: societal expectation for us to want to have that maternal

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Speaker 1: instinct and want to have children. Um. And then finally

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Speaker 1: they're just happy and don't really want the responsibility of

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Speaker 1: raising a child. But in today's society is progressive as

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Speaker 1: we might be, this idea of just not wanting to

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Speaker 1: have that responsibility, not really wanting to pass along your

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Speaker 1: genes to another being, it's pretty controversial. It's pretty controversial

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Speaker 1: because you know, some will say that desire to pass

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Speaker 1: on your genes it's an evolutionary imperative. We've got to

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Speaker 1: make more people. But you know what, we're reading one

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Speaker 1: interesting study called child Free by Choice or review in

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Speaker 1: the Journal of Cultural Geography, and it talked about that

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Speaker 1: evolutionary desire, you know, because a lot of times on

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Speaker 1: this podcast we talked about how all these behaviors are

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Speaker 1: subconsciously driven by, you know, the desire to pass along

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Speaker 1: genes and to find the best genes and pass them on.

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Speaker 1: And according to these researchers, one, you know, one part

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Speaker 1: of this drive is the fact that you want to

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Speaker 1: leave something of yourself behind, something that will last. That's

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Speaker 1: this monument to I guess not a monument to you,

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Speaker 1: but you know, you're you're you're leaving your mark. And

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Speaker 1: a lot of people have done that through having children

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Speaker 1: who has on the family name, who go on to do,

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Speaker 1: you know, wonderful things. But they're saying that that drive

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Speaker 1: can also be marked by the desire to say, write

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Speaker 1: a book and that's what you leave behind, or um

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Speaker 1: or a podcast or record of podcasts, and that's what

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Speaker 1: you leave behind. And they're saying that in some ways,

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Speaker 1: if if you focus all your desire on writing that

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Speaker 1: book or making these podcasts, it's sort of a purer

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Speaker 1: form of the evolutionary drive and having a child, because

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Speaker 1: the child can go off and make its own decisions

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Speaker 1: and dilute your legacy. Whereas if you've spent all your

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Speaker 1: time that would have been directed towards raising a child,

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Speaker 1: towards podcasting or writing or singing songs or whatever, that's

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Speaker 1: a purer form of your legacy. But that same study

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Speaker 1: that you're talking about also points out that if you

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Speaker 1: do make that choice to say, have you know, have

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Speaker 1: a have a book or a podcast, be your baby

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Speaker 1: in quotes, other people are not necessarily going to understand

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Speaker 1: where you're coming from. For instance, um in surveys that

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Speaker 1: they've done, uh pulling people on how they perceive couples

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Speaker 1: who choose to be childless, they find that a lot

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Speaker 1: of times child free couples are seen as less sensitive,

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Speaker 1: less loving, and not as well adjusted, right, simply based

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Speaker 1: on their desire to not have children. Right. And you know,

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Speaker 1: there are so many articles we read, just a handful

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Speaker 1: of them, but they're there's so many of them where

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Speaker 1: it's these people who are judging the people who don't

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Speaker 1: have children to be selfish and the people who choose

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Speaker 1: not to have children counter that, you know, having children

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Speaker 1: in itself as selfish and that they've probably spent more

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Speaker 1: time thinking about why they didn't want to have children

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Speaker 1: than people who do, and some people who do have children. Um,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it kind of gets into this murky

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Speaker 1: territory of you know, is it is it selfish to

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Speaker 1: want a baby or is it selfish to say I'm

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Speaker 1: not a good parent for this baby, I'm not gonna

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Speaker 1: bring one into the world. And the arguments between both

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Speaker 1: sides can get pretty ugly, as we found in a

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Speaker 1: New York Times article by Lisa Belkan And this was

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Speaker 1: written in two thousands, so it's a little bit dated,

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Speaker 1: but just to give you a little idea of how

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Speaker 1: serious some child free groups are. Um, they sometimes refer

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Speaker 1: to and these are again, these are very certain groups.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that everyone who wants to be child

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Speaker 1: free it feels this way, but um, they refer to

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Speaker 1: couples in which one parents stays home as sitcoms, as

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Speaker 1: in single income to children, oppressive mortgage. And those who

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Speaker 1: don't have children are thinkers as in two healthy incomes,

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Speaker 1: no kids, and only retirement, which does sound pretty good.

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Speaker 1: But I mean it's it's some sometimes you get into

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Speaker 1: these groups that have acronyms like that they call kids

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Speaker 1: like spoiled lizards, brogs. They're saying, they're just squirting out

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Speaker 1: little kids, and it's. Um. I think that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the writer picked an extreme of these people who don't

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Speaker 1: want to have children to kind of represent this side,

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Speaker 1: and uh, and they don't come off looking great. And

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say that, Well, I do like I

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Speaker 1: like the fact too that in this New York Times article,

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Speaker 1: the main person they used to illustrate sort of the

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Speaker 1: um the classic child free person is this guy driving

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Speaker 1: around in his Miata shopping for real estate. And the

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Speaker 1: whole reason he needs real estates because in his current house,

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Speaker 1: he's got families on all sides of him and it's

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Speaker 1: driving him insane. He cannot stand the sound of children

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Speaker 1: playing football. You cannot stand the sound of children crying

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. He doesn't, you know.

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Speaker 1: He's trying to like lay in his hammock and the

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Speaker 1: kids coming over and trying to bug him. It's like

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Speaker 1: Mr Wilson from Dennis the Menace, and and he just

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Speaker 1: has decided that if I've made this choice to be

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Speaker 1: child free, then I don't want to have to see

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Speaker 1: anyone else's children. And uh, you know there are people

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Speaker 1: who feel that way. Not everyone who's decided not to

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Speaker 1: have to learn feels that way. I think people who

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Speaker 1: have children don't want to deal with other people's kids sometimes.

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Speaker 1: But you know, adults can be annoying too, sure, and

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Speaker 1: and we are making we're making them. This guy sound

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Speaker 1: really petty and true in this New York Times article.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the things he points out do seem

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Speaker 1: um kind of petty, but there are But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, you know, you can call the police on

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Speaker 1: a guy playing drums the mill of the night, but

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Speaker 1: you can't call a police on a child crying. He's

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Speaker 1: just saying that that's an inconsistency in terms of disturbance, right.

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Speaker 1: And and there are a lot of very important issues

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Speaker 1: that come up, especially in the workplace, because there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of added benefits UM for say, dependent care. UM.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you have on site daycare that allows you to

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Speaker 1: save a lot of money. You might have UM some

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Speaker 1: kind of bonus for adoption. Sometimes you get tuition assistance.

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Speaker 1: All of these different things that are built into employment

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Speaker 1: packages that people who are child free say are unfair, right.

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Speaker 1: You know, insurance for a family of four can be

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Speaker 1: cheaper per person than insurance for a single person. When

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Speaker 1: you're filing your taxes, there are all these deductions for dependence.

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Speaker 1: And so the people who are some of these people

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Speaker 1: who are child for you're saying that, yes, it's disturbing

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Speaker 1: to go out to dinner and have to listen to

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Speaker 1: a baby cry, but it's actually the way that our

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Speaker 1: society has instituted a family life as the ideal that

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Speaker 1: can be unfair the people who have decided not to

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Speaker 1: be child free, that what a workplace should do is

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Speaker 1: offer a menu of options, and you have, let's say

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Speaker 1: X number of dollars to spend on this menu. If

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Speaker 1: you decide to spend all your dollars on childcare options,

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Speaker 1: that's good. Whereas a single person might be able to

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Speaker 1: elect have greater vacation because you know, they can go

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Speaker 1: to Paris on a whim because they have no children

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Speaker 1: holding them back. And that's another big thing. Time off.

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Speaker 1: A lot of child free people say they're picking up

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Speaker 1: the slack for people who have to leave at six

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Speaker 1: to get a kid from daycare. Holidays, holiday weekends that

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Speaker 1: some bosses will just assume that the people who don't

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Speaker 1: have families a k a. Don't have children have more

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Speaker 1: time to devote to their work, Whereas these people may

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Speaker 1: have just as fulfilling lives, it's just they lack that

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Speaker 1: picture on their desk that has two kids. Now. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure though, if you ask almost any working parent, they

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Speaker 1: would laugh at the idea that they somehow have it

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Speaker 1: easier in the workplace just because of these benefits. And

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Speaker 1: they'd probably laugh at the idea too that kids provide

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Speaker 1: some kind of tax shelter for them, even though they do,

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Speaker 1: you know, they get a little bump, but not not

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Speaker 1: so much. It's not enormous. So there seems to be

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Speaker 1: a spectrum for at least from what we've read in

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Speaker 1: a lot of these articles, between the extreme guy driving

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Speaker 1: around his Miata who just clearly really hates children, and

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Speaker 1: then on the other side you have, you know, the

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Speaker 1: extreme parents who you know, maybe do think that something's

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Speaker 1: wrong with you if you don't want to have a kid.

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Speaker 1: But I have a feeling, well that a lot of

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Speaker 1: us are a little more towards the middle. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think that even if you are in the middle

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Speaker 1: and you have kids. Uh, it might be hard to

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Speaker 1: imagine that someone who's decided not to have kids isn't

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Speaker 1: going to regret it at some point. You know. I

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Speaker 1: think that there's part of this stigma is the idea

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Speaker 1: that you're gonna get to like sixty and just have

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Speaker 1: all this regret that you did not go through this

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Speaker 1: rite of passage that everyone else did. And the writer

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Speaker 1: Lisa Belkum writes about in this New York Times article

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Speaker 1: love it. I wouldn't trade it. And they're saying that,

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Speaker 1: kid to understand why it's going to be so great, which,

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Speaker 1: you know, I can't think of anything else. We push

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Speaker 1: on people like, oh, try this broccoli. You're gonna love it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna be really good. You know, if someone says

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Speaker 1: But no one can believe that a woman or a

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Speaker 1: man is not going to change their mind once they

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Speaker 1: have that little baby in their arms. But a baby

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Speaker 1: costs a lot more than broccoli. I think the statistic

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Speaker 1: that I've seen is that raising a child to the

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Speaker 1: age of eighteen costs around hundred and sixty I think

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Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, I mean it's it's not too bad.

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Speaker 1: It's you know, it's pushing a pretty expensive try it,

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Speaker 1: you'll like it onto someone, but it's still it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: to me, Molly though, that the idea of being consciously childless,

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Speaker 1: child free, thank you, it's such a radical notion. Well,

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Speaker 1: and you know, let's say that, you know, researchers are

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Speaker 1: not ignorant to the idea like, oh, you know you're

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Speaker 1: gonna be sad when you're sixty. Uh. They've they've looked

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Speaker 1: at these people and said, do these people have higher

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Speaker 1: levels of regret? Are they more depressed than the people

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Speaker 1: who had children? And by and large these studies say no,

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Speaker 1: Like just for example, one two thousand seven study that

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Speaker 1: looked at six thousand women, and they looked at women

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Speaker 1: who had had children very early in their lives, uh,

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Speaker 1: women who had had shot children later on, like in

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Speaker 1: their late thirties, and then women who hadn't had children

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Speaker 1: at all, and it was those last two groups that

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Speaker 1: were the happiest. The women who had had children very

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Speaker 1: young between the ages of the nineteen and twenty four,

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Speaker 1: they were the unhappiest. So they're saying that this choice

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Speaker 1: to either delay child bearing or to uh not go

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Speaker 1: through childbearing at all uh yields the same amount of happiness.

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Speaker 1: These people are not maladjusted in any way, but they

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Speaker 1: do need, according to the researchers, strong relationships in their life.

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Speaker 1: They do need friends, they do need a spouse, a partner,

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Speaker 1: someone that they can share their life with in some way.

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Speaker 1: But let's say that you have a couple, a married couple.

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Speaker 1: They have each other, They think each other is pretty great.

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Speaker 1: One question that researchers have looked a lot at is

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Speaker 1: whether or not the addition of a child will improve

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Speaker 1: that union, because a lot of people will say, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know what, you need to have a kid, because

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Speaker 1: it really just rounds out the marriage. Is the last step.

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Speaker 1: You get, you get the ring, you get the house,

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Speaker 1: you get the dog. Now now you need the child,

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Speaker 1: and then you'll be complete. And there have been mixed

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Speaker 1: results because at first, a knee jerk response is that, yes,

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Speaker 1: children do improve marriages because divorce rates go down as

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Speaker 1: the number of children go up in a family. But

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Speaker 1: are those parents just staying together even if they don't

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Speaker 1: love each other because they have children, sticking together for

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Speaker 1: the kids, right, I don't know, Molly. Well, that's what

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Speaker 1: they're saying, is that it's possible that that's the reason

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Speaker 1: why that number goes up. And when they look at

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Speaker 1: the individual happiness of people, which is more subjective, it's

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Speaker 1: harder to say by and large, oh, these marriages are happier,

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Speaker 1: but according to self reported levels of happiness, the childless

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Speaker 1: couples are just as happy. Yeah. Once it was the

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Speaker 1: control shore for demographics and for socio economic status and

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Speaker 1: all of that, it all comes out in the wash. Basically,

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Speaker 1: a happy couple is a happy couple, whether there's a

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Speaker 1: child in the picture or not. Let's talk about one

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Speaker 1: thing I thought was really interesting when we were researching this,

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Speaker 1: and this is from an essay in salont and it's

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Speaker 1: about how the lack of interest in having a child

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Speaker 1: might be a biological thing. And that is because they

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Speaker 1: looked at these mice who have a gene called the

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Speaker 1: mess gene, and when, uh, the when the mice have

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Speaker 1: the gene, they just nurture everything that moves. They just

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Speaker 1: have that mothering instinct to everything. When the mice don't

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Speaker 1: have the mess gene, they just could care less. They

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Speaker 1: you know, they live their own lives. They are nice

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Speaker 1: to the people who came in contact with them, but

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Speaker 1: they don't necessarily feel, uh, that nurturing impulse that the

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Speaker 1: other might seem to. So they're saying it's possible that

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Speaker 1: humans may have that as well, and that you know,

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Speaker 1: when someone says, hey, I don't want to have children,

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Speaker 1: it's not a matter of a well meaning friend or

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Speaker 1: relative saying, oh, you're going to change your mind when

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Speaker 1: you see them, just go ahead and have the baby.

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Speaker 1: It's fine. Well, I think that with all of this,

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Speaker 1: whether it's biology or not, everything that I've taken out

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Speaker 1: of all of these articles that we've read is that

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Speaker 1: there's no there's no right choice with it. You know,

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Speaker 1: if a couple chooses to be child free, why should

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Speaker 1: we judge them? But you know, we just all these

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Speaker 1: articles are about how often they're judge and again, how

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Speaker 1: some child free couples or people can judge, you know,

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Speaker 1: like that guy who drove them out and didn't want

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Speaker 1: to have to ever see a child in his lifetime.

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Speaker 1: And you're right, it really is a matter of eliminating

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Speaker 1: that judgment and believing that you know what's best for

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Speaker 1: any given person. And you know, that's where sometimes these

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Speaker 1: people who have left to be child free run up

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Speaker 1: against trouble when they're trying to maintain their child free lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: And what I'm talking about is people who have decided

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Speaker 1: to undergo like a tubal ligation or a vasectomy to

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Speaker 1: prevent ever having children, and what they what they find

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Speaker 1: is they have trouble getting a doctor to agree to it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: women under thirty who go to elect to have tubal

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Speaker 1: allegation are often turned down right by by doctors because

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Speaker 1: doctors think that they are crazy for wanting to render

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Speaker 1: themselves infertile basically at such a young age, and believe

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Speaker 1: that they'll immediately regret the decision. Right they made. One

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Speaker 1: woman undergo a psychological exam, and you know, she makes

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Speaker 1: the really good point that you don't have to undergo

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Speaker 1: a psychological exam before you bring children into the world.

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Speaker 1: I think we can all agree. I'm not naming names,

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Speaker 1: but there are some people who do need maybe a

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Speaker 1: psychological exam before they become parents. But you know, it's like,

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Speaker 1: as long as they're making this choice that's been approved

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Speaker 1: by society, you know, and votes, you know, we assume

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Speaker 1: that's fine. You're crazy, but we all have children, So

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Speaker 1: here you go. Whereas the people who have said either

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a good mother, I don't

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Speaker 1: want to bring a kid into this crazy world somehow,

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Speaker 1: they're the people who are troubled. Well, I think now

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Speaker 1: would be a good time. I'll to hand things over

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Speaker 1: to our listeners. I want to know what folks out

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Speaker 1: there think about this child free lifestyle. If you are

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Speaker 1: child free by choice or if your child bless me,

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Speaker 1: do you think it is selfish too not want to

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Speaker 1: have a child. Let us know your thoughts. Mom Stuff

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is the email address,

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Speaker 1: and I have an email here from Kyle and it's

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Speaker 1: about an old podcast about cord blood banking. Kyle rots,

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Speaker 1: I feel you did a great job of going over

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Speaker 1: the pros and concept private versus public cord blood banking.

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Speaker 1: I'm a clinical pathologist with a specialty in transfusion medicine,

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Speaker 1: so I'm familiar with cord blood management. One thing that

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Speaker 1: is little known about the private companies is that many

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Speaker 1: of them do very little quality control testing to make

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Speaker 1: sure the blood you're paying force kept viable. When core

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Speaker 1: blood is donated to a public bank, it is tested

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Speaker 1: for the viability of the cord blood stem cells and

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Speaker 1: also check to make sure an adequate number of these

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Speaker 1: cells are present and the sample to be useful. They

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Speaker 1: will also check for bacterial contamination to make sure the

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Speaker 1: sample would be safe for future use. Many private companies

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Speaker 1: will store whatever they get. They won't tell you if

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Speaker 1: the sample contains enough viable cells, even be useful in

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Speaker 1: the future, or if it has been contaminated. Also, the

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Speaker 1: criteria for safely storing blood over the eighteen or so

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Speaker 1: years of your child's life are independently controlled at these

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Speaker 1: private companies. They are not such the same Fedal regulations

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Speaker 1: that public banking and blood storages, so there's no guarantee

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Speaker 1: that over the years the company will maintain the sample

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Speaker 1: at appropriate temperatures or conditions. You can be paying hundreds

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Speaker 1: of dollars for example, that is completely useless. I have

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Speaker 1: a caution parents who are considering private core blood banking

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Speaker 1: to ask many questions about the storage, maintenance, and testing

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Speaker 1: done on the cord blood. So thank you for those

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Speaker 1: words of wisdom, Kyle. Okay, we'll have that one here.

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Speaker 1: From Claire in response to our podcast on cellulite and

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Speaker 1: clear rights. Ever since I started going through puberty, I

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Speaker 1: started noticing cellulite on my legs. At one point, I

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Speaker 1: was very ill with interactsner vosa, and my way of

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Speaker 1: ridding the cellulite was to slap my legs each night

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Speaker 1: for a certain amount of time. And I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: if this ever worked. Now I'm fully recovered, and I

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Speaker 1: still battle cellulite and look at some women who have none,

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Speaker 1: longing to have beautiful, dimple free legs. I do think

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Speaker 1: diet can help, and also exercise. However, I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: if this reduces the appearance more than actually making you

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Speaker 1: feel more confident and not noticing the cellulite as much.

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Speaker 1: In a way, I hope this reassares women that getting

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Speaker 1: skinny will not rid you of cellulite. I was proof

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Speaker 1: of that, but a good head and a healthy attitude will.

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Speaker 1: So thank you, Claire, and again, if you have any

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Speaker 1: thoughts you'd like to send our way our emails mom

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Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can find

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Speaker 1: us over on Facebook, give us a likely was the comment,

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Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, and then finally,

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Speaker 1: you can head over to our blog It's stuff Mom

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Speaker 1: Never Told You, and it's at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com to learn more about the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Clock on the podcast icon in the upper right corner

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Speaker 1: of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.

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Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the

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Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you