Childfree Me
A gathering place for people who have chosen the road less traveled by. Listen in as I speak with friends, family and strangers about what it’s like to choose not to have children in a child-obsessed world.
Childfree Me
16. Jared Page on intentionally designing your life
Join us as Jared and I sit down (literally...on my couch) to chat about what led him to choosing childfree, how he's designed a life deeply aligned with his values, and the reasons he doesn't actually want a vasectomy (nor did he really want to talk about it). Together with Amber (see episode 4), he forms the other half of my most favorite childfree couple - and I couldn't be more excited to have him on! This one has many twists and turns, so make sure to hold on tight.
Email me questions at childfree.me.podcast@gmail.com - I'd love to hear from you!
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If I pose the question to myself like, do you think you're gonna regret this? I really don't. I just really I'm trying to imagine the situation of me regretting it and I just can't. It's just not part of the equation.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everyone to another episode of Child Free Me, a show where we examine the choice to be child free and what it's like to navigate that decision in today's world. I'm your host, laura Allen, and today's guest is my former coworker, turned very good friend, jared Page. I met Jared during my former days as a consultant and he and his lovely girlfriend, amber, are one of the very few potentially only now that I'm thinking about it child free couples that we have in our friend group. I honestly think they might be the only child free couple we know. So obviously they have a very important role in our lives and we are so grateful and lucky to have them as friends and they've been so supportive with this podcast.
Speaker 2:I actually interviewed Amber very early on. We were talking the other night about how I reached out to her and recorded our episode and I hadn't even dropped any episodes yet, so she came on flying blind but was an absolute trooper and we had so much fun. Jared and I talk about that episode quite a bit. So just a pro tip that she is episode number four and I highly recommend that you go back and listen to that one if you haven't already, because a lot of what Jared and I talk about is how his experience with this decision is pretty different than what her experience has been like, in particular, when it comes to family. So it's interesting to hear really the two sides of the coin of this relationship, of how her family approaches the decision versus his family.
Speaker 2:It actually took a little bit of time for Jared to come on the show and discuss this topic. Obviously, we've been talking about having him on ever since I interviewed Amber, and for a while he was really hesitant because, as you'll hear, it's a really personal and it's a vulnerable story for him. As he says during our conversation, he's not an oversharer, and so this is definitely pushing him outside of his comfort zone, which just makes it even that more amazing that he was willing to come on and speak to me about it. We for sure get pretty personal, particularly at the end when I throw a vasectomy curveball at him. But as with all things in his life, jared approached the conversation with calmness and humor, which are his trademarks. I know I say this about all my episodes, but this is a really fantastic conversation and I am just so glad that he came on to share his story. So with that, let's jump in, jared. That came out good, jared. Welcome to child free me and my couch, my recording studio. I feel like this has been a long time coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah you said you wouldn't come on until season 2 but, spoiler alert, it is not season 2. We're still in season 1 and you've built up the courage to come on, so I am. So for those of you listening, jared is Amber's boyfriend, so if you go back to Episode 4, I had his lovely girlfriend on the show. You guys have been together for how long, oh man, I'm about to get about to get in trouble.
Speaker 2:Starting with some hard dating questions. My bad, sorry, amber. Okay, so eight years, obviously you're both child-free. I had Amber on. She was willing to come on and be a very early Participant yeah interviewee and I was very grateful for that and now I'm so excited to have her other half and very grateful. We're gonna start out how I always like to start out with just walk us through how and when you first knew that you didn't want to have children. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:I don't have a single moment and I had remembered your episode Listening to that around Thanksgiving. You know, the vignettes that you told kind of add up to where you are today and your beliefs and feelings. So I was thinking about what would mine be? A lot of my vignettes start with my mom. Love my mom.
Speaker 1:She was unbelievable, like the most giving caretaker, took care of everybody I'm not just me and my brother. In some ways she had. She didn't have the easiest life you know, at times even worked two jobs full-time job and a part-time job Just have extra cash so that we could do all the stuff we wanted to do. We really wanted for nothing. Grew up solid, midwest middle-class life.
Speaker 1:But she died young, tragically young, when I was 19 and in that time, though Subsequently learning, she had really started to love life. Right around then and thinking back on, like my story and and her arc and how I got there, I was thinking I wonder if she had known her script, how having children would have played into it, if she could do something differently. Right, knowing that she Probably didn't maximize life, and so a big part of my life, especially going forward from that, was being able to maximize flexibility to be able to do everything I ever wanted to do, have all the experiences, cram as much into life as possible. So there would be no question that I was loving life. I think I think that was a big part of it and I, your brother, have children.
Speaker 1:He does not so he is also Child-free, which is interesting. We can unpack that later. I think that that flexibility was super important from a relatively young age for me. So she died when I was 19. So like I'm really you know, I'm great I was in college, so I graduate college. I'm like really coming into life as an adult, like that flexibility, be able to do any experience, like go to any event, go to any Michigan party, any vacation.
Speaker 1:Championship exactly anything like that. That was never gonna be a barrier and perceived a real like. That was important to me. I think that the other, like big part of this equation was okay. So my mother passes away extremely traumatic. I had a lot of healing to do, yeah, I had a lot of work to do and so I really had to like lock it down and figure myself out. It took maybe a decade for me to really start to feel comfortable in my own skin and in some ways, like the easiest words to think of are selfish or self-centered, but when you look, you know, at a dictionary definition those words are. They have negative connotations because it's focused on self at the expense of Dot-dot-dot but, I, had to do it.
Speaker 1:You know, the metaphor I always think of, too, is how you can't fill someone else's cup if your cup is empty. I do think somehow my mom managed to do that for her whole life I don't know how. Or or else her cup was just bigger and more full than everybody's, because she was always feeling everyone else's. I never felt that way, so I always, you know, have this idea like I gotta make sure that cup is full, like I came first for a Long time because I was in survival mode, but that has become the arc of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you and your brother ever talked about not having children?
Speaker 1:Barely conversation and passing. To be honest, it just wasn't a I don't know big deal or huge topic for either of us to discuss. One of the things that was so interesting especially listening to Amber's version of the podcast, I learned more about her family's perspective, which maybe I didn't think was so cool. Interesting to think about that.
Speaker 2:That's a plug to go back and listen, if you haven't listened to that episode yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was interesting to listen to her episode and then go to Christmas holidays with many of these people and their children.
Speaker 2:So did something come up in particular when you're listening to her perspective and story?
Speaker 1:I mean just the idea that she would be under so much pressure from family. I have the opposite situation. So when my mother passed away, we also like reset the equation. I didn't have the closest relationship with my dad at that point. In the years since we've we've got a totally different and great relationship. But part of that time Like the reset basically for me in the survival mode were some things like no one was going to tell me what to do anymore, right like the one person who could really tell me what to do was gone and in some ways that was really really sad. In other ways Incredibly liberating. So I've never felt that kind of obligation. You know I've listened to so many of these episodes. I don't feel the same societal Obligations that was gonna be my next question.
Speaker 1:I don't have those pressures as it relates to children.
Speaker 2:I would say from an outsider looking in, you have followed for the most part the standard life plan. You went to a great undergrad, you went and got your business school. You've had a really successful career done Consulting. You've done, in my mind, a lot of the standard life path, same as myself. Do you think any of that was in reaction to societal pressure or like are there things that you do feel pressure for if not to have children?
Speaker 1:So that's that's interesting, because when I think about standard life plan another plug for a different episode I would still be renting if I wasn't with amber. So that's a big deviation from the standard life plan. Amber and I are not married. We've been together eight years. I think we eventually will get married. It's just not top priority for either of us right now.
Speaker 2:So that's it here first. That's a deviation.
Speaker 1:So like not having children, for me it just kind of falls in line. I did go to business school later. I was 30 same. So that's like the older quartile, probably, right so?
Speaker 2:I don't know. So we've meandered on and off the standard life plan.
Speaker 1:I think so. So, yeah, there wasn't big moments from other women I've dated or like all my friends are having kids, like wouldn't it be cool if all our kids were friends or something. It's just never really crossed my mind, to be honest, and the flexibility idea that I talked about was so important. Like that was priority number one by far flexibility and good and bad ways. Like if something bad happens again, like something traumatic, I want to have the ability, the flexibility, to be able to react in whatever way is necessary. And that's how I kind of crafted my life for a really long time and still kind of do. And I think the other one of the Cool realizations when you get older and you get more comfortable in your own skin, like no one no one really cares what I do.
Speaker 2:They don't maybe amber right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there's this super small population of people in my life who have a stake in things or like really care about me as a human. Okay, sure, I don't consider that like an obligation, though. Yeah because those relationships are so two-way. Just other people, they just, they don't care, no one really cares.
Speaker 2:Has your friend group? Have any of them ever asked or questioned or pushed you one way or the other?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't really push, I think. I mean, I found amber in my mid 30s and that was that was much more of a priority. Like once I felt like I got myself squared away. It was like, okay, I want to find the person that I can share my life with, spend my life with, and that's like the pinnacle for me.
Speaker 1:That's enough family for me and I did it, so that was good. In the meantime I didn't really get that kind of pressure for my friends. In some ways I liked it because I could go visit all them easily. I could always stay in the guest room. It didn't matter what was going on in their life. They had little kids. If they didn't have kids, if they were trying for kids, like whatever, it didn't matter. I could go visit them and I could also leave.
Speaker 1:So I feel like it was good for all my friendships. To be honest, I remember one in particular Conversation with some really, really close friends of mine. I mean, my friends are my family in my mind and arguably my closest friends. You know they would talk about oh, you'll be such a good dad though. Like think about it and things like that. That's as far as it ever went and that's not bad, that's not pressure.
Speaker 2:So what would your response be when they say that?
Speaker 1:I'd smile, I don't know, kind of laugh, if you know me, the typical Jared just grin and that he's making right now. Change the subject or something, grin and deflect, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you think so? You're. You worked on yourself, then focused on finding the person for you. If you had met someone who wanted children, would that have been a deal breaker?
Speaker 1:I don't know, to be honest. I mean, I think I dated other women before amber. I know at least one of them has a family now. It might have been a deal breaker, but who knows, I might have made different decisions. I don't know, given the circumstances pretty dang happy how it's ended up Turned out.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, for sure, you hit the jackpot.
Speaker 1:When I was thinking about the vignettes, I remembered a moment. I was finishing undergrad grad program and the woman that I was seeing at the time. It was a fairly casual relationship.
Speaker 1:She had graduated, she had moved away, but I remember at one point we had a serious sit-down conversation and she told me that she'd gotten an abortion, and it was totally shocking to me right While you guys were dating, yeah, and it was real heavy and mostly because, on the one hand, I felt so bad I hadn't been there for her to go through that experience and part of that she went through it the whole thing herself and basically when she was comfortable enough, she told me but on the other hand, I remember feeling so kind of grateful, thinking, yeah, you made the right decision, that was smart, and I will think about that every once in a while.
Speaker 1:I mean that was 21 years ago and how different my life would have been different choices. I mean who knows how things could have turned out, Because I would have to put energy into that person Instead of me. It's an interesting vignette, but that was definitely a powerful moment in life where I was happy to be child-free.
Speaker 2:That is definitely a moment.
Speaker 1:I don't believe in abortion as birth control. I'm not proud of that situation at all. I do think it turned out best for me and for her. And she's gone on, by all accounts, to have a lovely life. She has a beautiful family. Everything seems to have worked out, but it was just a powerful moment in life.
Speaker 2:I tend to ask people when is the moment you knew? And very oftentimes there isn't a moment, myself included, so maybe I need to move away from that question. It's a series of moments that add up and either you do know all along and you have moments that validate it, or it's moments of realization. But I think that, in aggregate, is oftentimes the answer.
Speaker 1:And it was so powerful reaction and there was certainly part of me that was like, well, it's your time of your life and I mean I'm literally living in a house with four of my buddies it's pretty heavy to wrap your brain around it. And there was part of me that was like, well, down the road, like that'll change.
Speaker 2:It never really changed to be honest, yeah, which is another important data point I want to go back to. So when you were talking about your mom before we started recording, you mentioned caretaker spirit. Can you define for us what that means?
Speaker 1:for you. Yeah, for me it's like this willingness to serve others in the best of ways, in ways that may even come at your own expense in your time, your money, your energy, your focus, especially consistently over time. And my mom was just like the most unbelievable example of this. She was the kind of person where everybody would say she's my best friend and I would think in my head I don't know if she would say that about that person. So that's interesting and I always thought that was so cool about how she served others. But given her life was so relatively short, she passed away when she was 51. Part of me like wishes for her in retrospect she could have spent more time and energy on herself.
Speaker 1:I just didn't want to be in that equation, to be honest, or I didn't want to be on the wrong side of that equation.
Speaker 2:Do you consider yourself to have a caregiver spirit?
Speaker 1:I do now. I wasn't sure for a long time because I knew I was focusing so much on myself For survival mode and then kind of like, how do I make this? Better for myself, but Amber and I have a dog. I didn't want to get a dog, partly because I didn't know if I had this caretaker spirit and having a dog, you sacrifice some of that flexibility that I talked about, but I've loved every minute of it. I love the dog.
Speaker 2:I literally have the record state that mod is the center of their lives. But I also made a little list, because you mentioned caretaker spirit and when I first met Jared and really started spending time with him in Amber, he had a fruit tree.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What kind of tree was it?
Speaker 1:A finger lime tree.
Speaker 2:A finger lime tree and he was very dedicated to this tree. Yeah, to the point where I was like man, this guy is obsessed with this tree and out there watering, like really cared about this tree. There are also the bees. Do you want to talk about the bees?
Speaker 1:I have a honeybee hive on the premises.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of caretaking that goes on there, A granite. I've only known you for like five years, but in my experience there's just been a series of things that you are caretaking for. So I would argue strongly that you exhibit this caretaker spirit just in a different way.
Speaker 1:I think that's cool.
Speaker 1:I mean you've pointed that out, Amber's pointed that out for me too, and just being in the relationship I always wanted to have with Amber has let that part of me flourish, to be honest, which I really liked. When we were little I remember my mother would take care of all kinds of elderly people in our community. We were up in a town of like 8,000 people. Everybody knew her. She knew all. I remember going house to house and place to place and just being with elderly people. I didn't have that. After she was gone, especially, I don't interact with a lot of elderly people. I also don't interact with a lot of children, which is maybe partially by design.
Speaker 1:We do live in downtown Chicago, yeah, I mean I have friends with children and I interact with those children, with my friends, that's it.
Speaker 2:Is having children something you ever talked to your mom about?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I mean you were 19. It was pretty early days.
Speaker 1:No, never, I don't think my brother did either.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I cannot imagine getting any pressure from her though ever. From what I've learned, she didn't have the most idyllic childhood either, and she never really pressured us to do anything, like me working really hard in school. That was more about me, I mean. I think she was proud of it and she was glad to see I was focused on things that I think she liked and was happy about. But there was never any sort of pressure from her other than to do your best and have fun, be respectful, some pretty basic golden rule type stuff.
Speaker 2:I would say you followed those rules pretty well. I tried, I tried.
Speaker 1:I mean honestly, I try I'm joking right now. I tried really hard because I knew, especially in high school, my mom was stressed and I never wanted to be a source of stress. But I was still a kid, like I still did dumb stuff. I just worked really hard to not get caught.
Speaker 2:And as you've rebuilt your relationship with your father, has that ever come up between you and him about having children?
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say it's come up explicitly, but he's had some health issues recently. He's in his 70s and I had a discussion with him and his wife and it was much more around there, just proud of me and my brother and like I literally think she said something like we're proud of the men you've become and the people that you've found to spend your life with. Period, and that was it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it was really, really cool and a really powerful moment and I always felt that way. It was super cool to hear the words, but the fact that the sentence ends there like there's no asterisk about children or anything like that, we always just kind of knew it yeah, it's, it's, it's fine, no pressure. You know, I heard some of your guests talk about, you know, whatever bloodline or legacy, it's never come up.
Speaker 2:Which is so interesting, because I feel like that is. I don't know where I get this from, but I do feel like that is the thing that a lot of men seem to get. I think everyone can almost unanimously agree that women experience more pressure and questioning than men, but when men do get questioned or pressured, it's around like leaving a legacy, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the reasons I really appreciate this podcast. It's so eye opening to hear other people's story. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that I've had it pretty good.
Speaker 2:Wait, let's go back to you listening to Amber's. What exactly was your reaction to hearing her family's perspective?
Speaker 1:I mean, I've known her family now for a while. It's not shocking, I think. After that podcast I asked some more questions about moments or conversations and I was a little stunned to hear how forceful they can be, how negative those kinds of conversations can be. I mean, again, I spent so much of my time working really hard not to be a burden to my mom or really anyone in my family. I never wanted to be a burden. So then it's weird when I hear other people talk about how their family members are treating them in a like non golden rule kind of way. It's still a little shocking to me, especially because I've never seen Amber treat them any other way. But amazing so that disconnect was.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's something I still kind of think about wrestle with. I don't want to judge them. I don't know their full stories, their story arcs or anything like that, but it doesn't seem to match up. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how that story evolves as time goes on, because some of them are going to get older. You know, some of the other family members will have their own kids. Is that going to fill a void? We're only getting older. I mean, hopefully I'm sticking around people.
Speaker 2:I'm not getting older. Yeah, so we talked a little bit about, or you had mentioned, some of the various myths and assumptions people make about individuals or couples who have chosen to be child free. Are there any in particular you want to discuss?
Speaker 1:Yeah, my, my favorite one that comes up. It's come up in several of the episodes. It's almost when some of your guests have to apologize and say something like well, it's not like, I don't like kids and I don't hate kids but I don't like kids.
Speaker 1:I like my friends kids. I like to visit my friends with their kids and sometimes I like to do things with my friends and their kids, but not everything. And things like a kid's birthday party sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. I cannot stand it. Things like going to dinner with kids and their pick in their nose or wiping snot all over the place and sticking their hand in the bread basket just makes my skin crawl. I cannot handle it. Kids that are loud like, to the point of being obnoxious, just sends me into orbit.
Speaker 1:One of my friends kind of called me out in a gentle way but told me one day he's like you know, you, you just tolerate kids. And I bristled a little bit about that, mostly because I couldn't tell if he was frustrated by that or annoyed. And I don't want, I wouldn't want that kind of attitude to affect our friendship. But the more I thought about it I was like, yeah, that's that's fairly accurate description. Yeah, most of the time I tolerate children.
Speaker 2:I do think it's in your right. Almost everyone I've spoken to has been very quick to proactively be like I love children. Children are great and I think, for the most part because I have somewhat stuck to a certain subset of the child free community, there is certainly a population of the child free community who can be very vocal about actively disliking children. But I do think and I feel like people are rolling their eyes because now I'm like obsessed with this concept of pronatalism but it feels icky to say that you don't like children.
Speaker 1:It's like it's sacred is the word that I use.
Speaker 2:They're very sacred to our community, which I have friends who I know are listening to this, who have beautiful children. I don't think anyone wants to insult anyone's children, but there are moments where I, in particular, I have a strong aversion to like pureed foods and children eating makes me pretty nauseous. I also don't like fruit and I feel like children eat a lot of fruit and it gets all over their face.
Speaker 2:It's hard for me to look directly at them and I'm like I am obviously pure evil if I can't even look at this child with fruit all over their face. But I potentially, as a mother, I could look past that and be like, oh, but I love my child covered in gloppy fruit. I just don't think that would be the case and it would be a tough existence for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally One of my friends. They have some really great friends as well and their children are noticeably quieter than my friends children and I've commented before how much I like these other children and my friend has quickly commented it's because they're quiet.
Speaker 2:And again.
Speaker 1:You're not wrong. It also doesn't mean I don't like your kids.
Speaker 2:Yes, I totally got it. And again, I know I have friends who have beautiful, lovely children and. I will say this if I'm close with them, like I do feel more affectionate towards those children, than random children. Yes, I also like anything that's mini, so like a child's small Nike shoe.
Speaker 1:The best relationships I've had with children. It's mostly when their parents have taught their children how to interact with adults.
Speaker 1:One way or another at like a younger age. I can think of my cousins, kids in particular. They were always at the table with us or always in the conversations. They might not have known what we were saying so they could participate in a I'm doing air quotes adult conversation very young and they were so much fun and we got along really well. I can think of my other friends, kids same way. Like they, they just know how to. It's the communication for me. Yeah, once you know how to communicate, I'm not gonna talk to kid in a baby voice like that's not, that's not me, do you talk to Maude in a baby voice.
Speaker 1:Absolutely totally different. I don't know being able to to have a thoughtful conversation. I had dinner with one of my best friends in the whole world. They have four children and the oldest child, she, is just going into high school and she's great Like we can totally have a conversation now and on down the line they're all old enough that all seven of us are sitting at the table cracking jokes. You know they understand sarcasm now. I can remember times cracking jokes with this kid and her balling and then me getting in trouble with mom in front of everyone at Thanksgiving dinner things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly getting scolded and not being happy about it. So once we got to that part, I was okay. That's another reason, though, why I was like I don't. I don't want to go through this. I like being able to leave my friends children. I think in one of your podcasts you mentioned how you might feel some guilt if you know you go to an event and you go home.
Speaker 1:I can you could sleep in you can do whatever you want, right? Those folks got to get up. I gotta take care of their kids. Yeah, that's not a sacrifice I'm ever willing to make, but I'm. I know that. I'm honest about it with myself. It goes back like this big arc around having choices, not having obligations and just not ever feeling that pressure, for all of these little vignettes and moments just add up to that feeling.
Speaker 2:This is the best analogy I can do. I lived in San Francisco and we went to Tahoe for a weekend and my friend and I, so we left SF, drove to Tahoe, where it's like SF is, you know, 60 sunny you drive to Tahoe for the weekend.
Speaker 2:You got amazing skiing, and then you drive back and she was like this is how I like winter. I like winter that you can travel to and then leave when you want, and I feel like that's my approach to children. I like your children that where I can pick and choose the situation and then obviously we can always leave when we want.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna tell one story and I won't share the name. I spent the day on the boat with his family. His youngest was in first grade and his kids were fantastic. I had so much fun with them, the youngest one in particular. She sat next to me, she was asking me these funny questions and I had the best time with her and in my mind I was like, oh man, does this mean I want to have children? I started getting very anxious about it because I was like this seems like the good side of having children when they're fun and they get along and they're not sporadically noisy. And I will never forget. I was very anxious about it. And then that night for context, I have a recurring dream where I'm pregnant and it's very stressful. But that night I had that dream where I realized I was pregnant and then I panicked and that was very upset about it, so that it was almost like my consciousness was like no, this is, that's not the path for you. And it made me feel so much better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's always that oh, look how fun this is or look how cool this is. That wears off for me quickly. To be honest, one of the topics we talked about earlier. I think it's part of that. You know, after my mother passed away trying to figure out myself and how am I gonna live life, basically I got real comfortable being alone. I actively enjoy being alone and I've come to realize not everyone feels that way. I don't know the exact percentage of people. It's fewer people than I realized. I mean, I enjoy it enough that that is something important that I would want to preserve in my life.
Speaker 1:That was another reason why I think having children would upset that and it's always jokingly said all my kids walked in on me in the bathroom or something like that.
Speaker 2:That gives me a very angry reaction because you like to spend six hours in the bathroom by yourself, or just me.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's the. It's a combination of being alone, with the flexibility to do whatever I want whenever I want. I'm also realizing I lied a little bit. I think there is some pressure I think it's mostly internal though where it's like okay, I've made these choices, I've crafted this life where I can have this flexibility, I can be alone. Like you better, make the most of it. Yeah, you know. And so there's days when I just want to go to the brewery, drink some beers and listen to some tunes instead of trying to write the next great American novel or something, and I feel a little guilty until I drink two or three years and then it goes away do you feel that way about your career?
Speaker 2:I?
Speaker 1:used to for sure. Yeah, absolutely. That's worn off a little bit.
Speaker 2:The steepness of my trajectory is starting to round a little bit, but I'm cool with that because that's something Amber talked about, and she and I both agreed that because we're women who aren't gonna have children, we sure as shit better have this rock star career.
Speaker 2:You have to make it worth it not everyone feels that way and it's not the truth, but there is this pressure on top of everything else. Well, if you're not gonna be a mother, you better be a career woman, and I mean, I think in Amber's case, she absolutely is so yeah, good for her, yeah but it's.
Speaker 2:It's definitely something that is worth wrestling with and it's something I didn't think about until I started digging into this child-free community and psyche and all the different ways and narratives that are just I took for granted that I was just consuming without really thinking about that was one that really I never really thought about.
Speaker 1:I guess where my mind was going is when I think about the career.
Speaker 1:It's all about this long series of connections. So you want to have a good career to make enough money. Because I already know I'm not gonna have children, and even though I completely disagree with this idea that children have to take care of their parents when they're older, like could not feel more strongly that that's not true, that's not an obligation, and in fact I think it's so weird when people talk like that is an expectation, making that money so that, no matter what life brings me later in life, like I have the financial means to take care of myself and like I've seen people in my family who were set up that way and they were able to live their later years in the best possible way, and so I said that's, that's a good model for me. But I swear, listening to Dr J and his financial podcast, I'm like, hey, maybe I can change this trajectory. Ambrose career, babe, doing all this stuff, I can go work at the brewery, you're gonna be the Rose while she's the gardener.
Speaker 2:I really like this idea, so that's also a plug to listen to last week's episode with Dr J, and you should reach out to him. He would be more than happy to talk to you.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited about this idea. It is funny I've heard you mentioned before this idea of bingo. Sometimes those can cut both ways. You know, I see some of my friends really climbing the ladder and I'm thinking, yeah, cuz you got like three kids, then you want to go to send them to private school, you want them to go to Michigan and you live in Florida. Like, yeah, you better make some money. Yeah, I don't have that pressure, though.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I. That is a really good point. I think it does cut both ways. It can be very motivating and for some of us who might still be looking for a job that finds purpose, if you are at a job that in and of itself might not be that fulfilling in your ultimate purpose, but if you are doing it to provide for a family, I can imagine that there is a different sense of fulfillment that comes out of that. I also can't imagine the pressure of having to provide for three children.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Props to my father and my mother. They both just worked incredibly hard to give us everything that we could possibly want.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is pretty unfathomable to me to be honest, exactly, it's just not how I work. It's not how I'm wired. I think it's cool for people who, like that, want to do that. It's just not me.
Speaker 2:But you got to keep mod fed you know Having a dog.
Speaker 1:I went from not being sure if I had caretaker spirit to going all the way to the other end. I think about this dog and I think about fulfilling her needs and making sure like every day of her life is a good day and in some ways it's kind of a low bar for dogs. It's like hey, did you get some?
Speaker 2:treats.
Speaker 1:And did we play some, you know, tug of war.
Speaker 2:I was like how deeply does mod think about her existence?
Speaker 1:You know, did we really give you some attention today, and you know love and affection. Can I honestly say you had a good day. I cannot imagine thinking about that for a child Like how many, how much million percent more effort, thought, care goes into that and it goes back to my mom. I don't know how she did it. It's mind blowing to me.
Speaker 2:And I think part of that is you can do that with a dog. It is pretty cut and dry on giving a dog a good day. No parent is going to give their child a perfect day every day, and that in and of itself is a burden, yeah.
Speaker 1:The other bingo phrase I feel like ties to this. There's something around you'll never feel love like the unconditional love of a child, right, and it's. The word unconditional always makes me tense up because if I stop feeding my dog, the conditions have changed. She will act differently, I'm telling you right now, and so in my mind there's no such thing as unconditional, and so I think that's so weird when people really latch onto that one.
Speaker 1:The other bingo that I've heard in my in my life, but I I feel like I always took it way more seriously. You know, I'm on this journey as a younger man, like trying, like I said, trying to figure out life. You know, after this traumatic event with my mother passing away and people would say things like, well, you know, you never really know, you're never really prepared to have a kid, and I'm thinking, yeah, I know that I'm not now, and that's enough to let me know this isn't a good idea at all. That one was always fine. I'm like, I'm surprised you're kind of like cracking a joke about this, because that sounds like a pretty serious reason not to have a kid.
Speaker 2:Mara Sallow, the woman I interviewed in my first episode. She said people would tell her that she was overthinking things when she expressed hesitation around the finances and people said that she was overthinking it. Where this is the one decision people overthink because it's a big one.
Speaker 1:I mean it's hard because we'll never. We'll never have the complete data set. But in my mind I'm pondering can you overthink it? I think you're just thinking about it and that's good.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're right.
Speaker 1:I wanted to say this had to do. I don't know I've talked about like this journey. I was on right and when you know, after my mom passed away and I really had to figure out myself, I was torn about who I was and who I thought I was supposed to be, and I mean this might sound corny Like I always thought about Willie Lohman and death of a salesman, right, and he was a tragic figure and I didn't want to be a tragic figure, but even Google salesman real quick.
Speaker 2:Arthur Miller me. I am drawing a blank here, but continue like there's.
Speaker 1:There can be a gap, though right, and over time that gap closes and so now I feel so much better. There isn't much difference between the man I want to be and the man that I really am today and that feels good. But along that whole journey I can't think of a time when having kids or not having kids, like, was a major factor ever and so part of that vignette. Looking back, I was like okay, it's never really been a priority.
Speaker 2:Over time, yeah, I mean that goes into the regret thing, which is probably one of the last you know bingos that we get is, oh, you'll regret this, where it kind of feels like if we haven't at this point. I will also say and I've said this before I don't think any decision in the human experience lacks regret either way.
Speaker 1:You can regret.
Speaker 2:There will always be regret as part of these big decisions yeah. But I certainly say it likewise. I haven't looked back and felt regret.
Speaker 1:I mean, I like that, I think, in metaphor, like we used to work together right and metaphors, and you know, visualization was such a important part of our work in our lives.
Speaker 2:Should we make a child free learning map?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, it could be. For a small population, probably unwilling to pay, it would be very powerful.
Speaker 2:Right in and let us know if you want a child free learning map.
Speaker 1:I really am trying to look out the windshield. I'm not trying to look in the rear view Like that's, that's where I'm at. If I pose the question to myself like, do you think you're going to regret this, I really don't. I just really I'm trying to imagine the situation of me regretting it and I just can't. It's just, it's just not part of the equation.
Speaker 2:Well, you guys have built a pretty phenomenal life.
Speaker 1:I will also say, though there is and I'm being 100 percent serious, you've mentioned this before too this idea of like a little community of some oldsters.
Speaker 2:Want to join us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not talking like creepy villages type community, right, I'm talking like Upper Michigan. There we go Cottages, right.
Speaker 2:We know golf has to be involved. Yeah, yeah, like a little, you know kayaking or something here. Upper Michigan in the summer and then Florida in the winter. Oh, yeah, something, phoenix, we're not going to Upper Michigan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know there's lots of possibilities. I guess this isn't like when I was growing up and you were born in Tiny Town, michigan, and that's where you were going to end up too. So plan accordingly and hope that you know somebody like my mom was there and going to step in if your plan A didn't quite work out the way you wanted it to.
Speaker 2:Okay. Curveball, okay, are you willing to talk about vasectomies?
Speaker 1:Oh man. So of the things that I learned in Amber's podcast, one was I want to be on Saturday Night Live. I kind of knew this. I don't know if I'd ever explicitly heard her say it. It totally makes sense, though she loves to be class clown. The family feelings that we talked about before, and then the vasectomy, which is kind of weird for me to talk about on this pot, like that is not a topic for public discussion.
Speaker 2:And yet here I am on a podcast and it's not.
Speaker 1:I will say honestly, I was thinking about this too. It's mostly like my aversion to hospitals, to surgery of any kind, to being in a hospital, like I've heard all the things. It's not a big deal, it's outpatient, blah, blah, blah blah. I just don't want to do it. There are so many other means to address this situation.
Speaker 2:Have you and her talked about it?
Speaker 1:Mostly in joking ways, to be honest. Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's never been like a. This needs to happen.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not. I'm not opposed to it at all, and it would fit my narrative. To be honest, I just don't want to do it. I don't even like to go to urgent care, like it's just not. I will say, though, I also don't want to do it because I don't want to talk about it, and although I am on a podcast right now, I am not a sharer, let alone an oversharer, if it makes you feel better.
Speaker 2:I will talk to Zach about it when he comes on this podcast as well, and I think he feels very similarly. I was just curious if you had talked about it, because there are many women in the child free space who, you know, feel very strongly that their partner should get one, because it's better than pumping your body full of hormones.
Speaker 2:It's you know, it's the right thing to do and I hesitate to ask Zach to do it. And so part of me is like, oh, is that mean I'm doubting my decision to be child free? It just feels like a lot to ask Zach to do and I'm sort of like, okay, like why wouldn't I just keep bearing the brunt of birth control, right? Like that's sort of just like my job, that's what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll say, I mean, this isn't exactly a bombshell, but Amber probably doesn't know that I've looked into this, I've done my research. I just really don't want to. I could see myself doing it. I don't know, maybe I'll wake up and decide like, yeah, okay, today is the day. It's really not. In my mind it's not that big of a deal. It's like I said, I just have this aversion to any sort of surgery.
Speaker 2:I'm honestly surprised. The number of men I know who have had it who are very blasé about it. They treat it as less of a deal that in my mind, it should be. So it's just an interesting observation.
Speaker 1:The only men that I know who have had this procedure are married and have already had children, so that's why they were totally comfortable doing it.
Speaker 2:So maybe at that point their wives are like we've gone through hell.
Speaker 1:X number of times.
Speaker 2:It's your turn to pony up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I don't know the full story.
Speaker 1:I will say though, at least with them, like my friends, the men in my life we do not talk about it, we don't even talk about being child free and it's I don't know if it's too bad, but sometimes I wouldn't mind talking about it because I trust their perspective on just about everything else in life. So why could we talk about this? But this is another vignette for the origin story. When I worked in Washington DC, I worked for a man who was a consultant lobbyist and I loved this guy. He was so great with every human being and his wife was so lovely and they didn't have children and I was kind of curious and one day I asked and I won't give the reasons, but I kind of regretted asking and I've never asked anyone ever again about their situation. It's it's not, it's not worth it to me to ask he's. He's part of the my vignettes because I saw this man and he had a cool life, really cool houses in multiple places, he went on the best vacations, he had the best stories.
Speaker 2:Was this guy a politician?
Speaker 1:He was a lobbyist that I worked with. He was just a cool guy and I was like, oh yeah, like you can have the coolest life without kids. Like that's a deviation from that standard life plan and having that example at this time when I was trying to figure myself out was really nice timing and it sounds like it was, if not transformative.
Speaker 2:It helped to shape your decision.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we have talked about lots of things, from caretaker spirits and finger lime trees to vasectomies and mushy food on kids. It has been an absolute pleasure having you here in my recording studio. I appreciate you coming on and being vulnerable and talking about a lot of different things. I know it took you a little bit to work up to this. Fyi. Jared called me like midweek this week. We're recording on a Friday and I got a call on a Wednesday. I think I won't say panic, but there was definitely some self doubt. But I'm glad that we did this. It means a lot your support, both you and Amber, on this podcast, and I'm so grateful. Go blue.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize this was a topic I needed to talk about and learn about until I heard your podcast. So I do. I hate feeling vulnerable, but I thought it was important to share another part of this story, and so I'm honored and humbled to be part of that.
Speaker 2:So thank you and thanks for encouraging me, because in the end feels good, and by encouraging you mean not letting you wiggle out of this one.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh no, it's still happening. What you feel about rescheduling?
Speaker 2:I was like nope, I'll give you beer, all right, well, thank you. Thank you, we did it and that's it for today. Thank you for joining me. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, or please consider leaving a review wherever you get your podcast, and I will see you next week. Thanks.
