17. Why are you being so selfish?

Today I sit down for a quick solo episode (a minisode?) to discuss the topic of selfishness. What does it mean? Where does it come from? Why are people who choose not to have children condemned with it? And (perhaps most importantly)...is it actually a bad thing to be?

Also discussed:

• My favorite Steve Jobs quote on the Secrets of Life
• The Art of Accomplishment Podcast: What is selfishness?

Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Choice and Change
• 4:04 Grasping the Concept of Selfishness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The thing I would say is, when you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside that world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money, but that's a very limited life. Life can be so much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. In the minute that you understand that you can poke life and something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is just there and you're just going to live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that's very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better, because it's kind of messed up in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again For anyone who might not recognize that it is actually one of my favorite quotes by Steve Jobs. It's from a video interview he did back in 1994. And I picked it for this episode because I think it does a good job of speaking to the essence, or, I guess, the underlying spirit, of this podcast, which is not to do things simply because others or society has told you that's what you need to do. And just to be clear, steve Jobs was by no means child-free. He and his wife had, I think, four children. He certainly was not an advocate for the child-free community, but what I think he is advocating for is for people to not just sit back and let life happen to them, like buying a house, having children, moving to the suburbs. These are all things that you can certainly do if they make you excited and happy, but you also don't have to do them and they are certainly not the only path to happiness. So with that, welcome back 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.

Speaker 1: 2:40

I am your host, laura Allen, and if you haven't already guessed, this is a solo episode. I don't have any guests on today, it's just me, hopefully not rambling too much into the microphone. Obviously, my primary format of this podcast is bringing others on, hearing about their perspective and having a conversation around it, which is great. But as I've continued to have these conversations in these interviews over the past few months, there have been a couple consistent themes that bubble up over and over and over again and I thought it would be interesting to you know. Every few weeks do almost like a deep dive just on that specific topic. I don't really have a plan for exactly how these will be formatted, but it'll likely be some sort of combination of just my own reflection however, it relates to my experience being child-free potentially some research and thought leadership from others in the space who have likely written or spoken about these topics much more eloquently than I have, and then always a call to action for anyone listening if they want to weigh in, please send in your thoughts. I would love to hear your opinion or ideas or conclusions that you've reached, not just through this podcast but through other leaders and advocates in the space.

Speaker 1: 4:04

So the first theme I wanted to talk about, which you have probably guessed already from the title of this episode is the concept of selfishness and what it means to grapple with that stigma when you're someone who is child-free. I actually went back and counted and the word selfish has come up 26 times over the past. I think I've 16 episodes out, so 26 times and it's clearly something that is just a deep part of the decision not to have children and it's an integral part of this conversation. I think it's worth spending a little bit of time talking about it. I'm first going to talk about really my own perception and relationship to that word and how it's played into my experience, and then I want to zoom out a bit and really talk about the overall high level definition of selfishness and how we use it and why is it so bad. And then I also want to talk about it as it relates to parents, so generally the flow of how this is going to go for me.

Speaker 1: 5:11

I have never once been explicitly accused of being selfish. I mean, I'm sure I've been accused of being selfish in the past, but specifically as it relates to choosing not to have children, there's not a single person I can think of my parents, my grandparents, anyone really who has explicitly told me that I am being selfish for choosing not to have children. However, I've somehow inherited or internalized this notion where I tell myself that I am being selfish. There is something in our society that is clearly indicating to me that it is a selfish thing not to have children. You know, when I think about it, my parents truly sacrificed everything for me and my sisters. When I just think about the sheer amount of time and money and angst and thought they put towards us, it's truly mind boggling sometimes. And it is certainly something that I look at when I think about not having children, because it's not something I want or I'm willing to do. I would really prefer to be able to put myself first when it comes to my decisions and what I want to do with life and where my money goes. So I fully recognize that when I think about my parents and the choices they made and myself and the choices I'm making. So when thrown in juxtaposition against that, I am very easily able to come to the conclusion that I am being selfish.

Speaker 1: 6:43

I would say guilt is closely tied up to this theme of selfishness and could also be its own episode, but for now I'll just say that with this concept of selfishness comes a feeling of guilt and again, my parents have never once said this. They've never verbalized it out loud. It's something that I tell myself, but I have a lot of guilt around not making them happy or, I guess, denying them happiness in some way by not giving them children. I feel the same way about Zach's parents. This is a theme that bubbles up in other places of my life. But really feeling this ownership and responsibility for other people's happiness when it is really not my job or my responsibility to make others happy it's everyone's own responsibility to make themselves happy that's still something that you know. When I sit and grapple with it, I understand that it's not my responsibility, nor should my parents' happiness or Zach's parents' happiness be based on me and my decisions. But it is something that, for whatever reason, I've inherited and I feel moments of pretty deep guilt that I will not be providing children. I would say in general, I feel a lot of guilt, just from society as well, that I am not having children. That's my relationship to selfishness and, I guess, guilt Now that I've wrapped both of those concepts up together, but that's really how I think about it and again, in particular, it's the comparison between my parents and how selfless they were when raising us and how much I am not willing or ready, or will ever be ready, to sacrifice that much for someone else.

Speaker 1: 8:25

But I also want, like I said, to really take a step back and think about okay, what do we mean by selfishness? What is the definition of selfishness? Why does it have such a negative connotation? So, honestly, thank goodness I stumbled upon this amazing podcast called the Art of Accomplishment. They do an episode titled what is Selfishness. It's a video. I'll also link the Steve Jobs video in the show notes because, for anyone who hasn't watched it, it's really short, it's like a minute 20 seconds. Definitely watch it. I'll link both of those.

Speaker 1: 8:58

But this episode really spoke to me, titled what is Selfishness. For context, this podcast is overall just about achievement and accomplishing what you want in life. A big part of doing that is understanding how to be self-serving. So they devote an entire conversation around what is selfishness and one of the hosts defines selfishness as what your parents told you you were when they wanted you to do something else, which I found really powerful. And actually I'm gonna take parents out of the equation here because, yes, parents were very critical to shaping our views on life and a lot of the narratives that we tell ourselves, but I don't necessarily wanna blame parents for this, because it is a larger societal thing. So taking out parents from that equation.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Another way to say this is the definition of selfishness is what other people tell you you are when they want you to do something else, or selfishness is what society tells you you are when it wants you to do something else. This was big for me. I've never thought of being selfish in that way, but I do think it has a lot of truth to it. Another quote that I really appreciated from this episode on Art of Accomplishment is that all self-interest, if you allow it, leads to a more refined understanding of what makes us happy. So how I am interpreting this is if you're brave enough to accept this selfish title or, I guess, accept that you want to work in your best self-interest, that is actually a path to understanding what makes you happy. Again, I feel like there's a lot of truth in that. I feel like society at large is telling us that having kids and living the standard life plan, that is what you are supposed to do, and anything outside of that is labeled as selfish. And that was really powerful for me because it almost takes some of the power or agency or sting out of that word, because all it really means is you're trying to do something differently and being labeled as such out of fear that you've inspired just because you're choosing not to take the regular path. Again. Highly recommend you listen to this episode, found it Really Powerful the Art of Accomplishment, and it's titled what is Selfishness, and I'll link it.

Speaker 1: 11:26

My last point I want to make about this is there's almost a double standard when it comes to people who have chosen not to have children and people who have children. So I think most people can agree that in general, the decision not to have children has been assigned the adjective selfish, whereas the decision to have children has been assigned as being selfless or beneficial for society and demonstrates almost a strength of character that doesn't exist for people who don't wanna have children. But when you think about it, I don't necessarily agree that choosing to have children is not inherently selfish in and of itself. So when you think about it and To be honest I don't maybe I should get a better understanding of why people choose to have children. So these are assumptions.

Speaker 1: 12:18

I assume that people choose to have children because they think it will make them happy, or they truly know that it will make them happy, and or that it would be fun to have a little version of yourself running around, or having someone to take care of you when you're older. These are all reasons that I am assuming people choose to have children, which, of course, could be considered selfish. I think the act of parenting can be very selfless, but the choice to have children is selfish, and I'm not saying that that is bad, right. I think the general point that I'm trying to work up to here is that both the decision not to have children and the decision to have children are selfish, which doesn't make either of those things bad. So the ultimate conclusion here, while rambling into this microphone, is that being selfish isn't a bad thing. I think our society has told us that it is a bad thing, but it's not. And again, both choices are fine and they are, I am assuming, in most cases what is right for that person. It is just it's not fair to say that the choice not to have children is more selfish than the choice to have children, and it's something I've certainly had to grapple with and work through myself, first acknowledging that, yes, it is a selfish choice, but it doesn't make me a bad person, and nor is it any more selfish than the choice to have children, and that is it. That is the end of my rant.

Speaker 1: 13:48

I'm interested to hear what people think about this topic. I know it's something that's discussed a lot, especially within the child free community, so if you have a thought, I would love to hear from you. Please use the email that is in the show notes and if I get enough response and thoughts, maybe I can do a follow up episode just around other people's ideas, which are, I'm sure, much more eloquent and knowledgeable than mine. Don't worry, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week with another interview. I am so thankful for you joining me. As always, don't forget to subscribe, or please consider leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. Those are really meaningful to me, and I hope you have a great week. I will see you next Tuesday.