In this episode of 'Unapologetically Childfree', Maggie Dickens (hey! That's me!), a licensed therapist, addresses the persistent myth that people who choose not to have children will die miserable and alone. Drawing from research and expert quotes, she empowers the child-free community by debunking these misconceptions, asserting that there is evidence of child-free individuals living joyful and fulfilled lives with strong social networks. The episode also hints at the anticipation of an upcoming part two discussion that delves deeper into the first part's concept.
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Debunking the Loneliness, Misery, and Regret Myths about Child-Free Living
In this episode of 'Unapologetically Childfree', Maggie Dickens (hey! That's me!), a licensed therapist, addresses the persistent myth that people who choose not to have children will die miserable and alone. Drawing from research and expert quotes, she empowers the child-free community by debunking these misconceptions, asserting that there is evidence of child-free individuals living joyful and fulfilled lives with strong social networks. The episode also hints at the anticipation of an upcoming part two discussion that delves deeper into the first part's concept.
00:00 Introduction and Debunking Childfree Myths
00:37 Welcome to Unapologetically Childfree
01:16 The Impact of Social Media on the Childfree Community
02:29 Personal Experiences and Misconceptions about Childfree Life
03:17 The Joy of Living a Childfree Life
05:29 Finding Your People in the Childfree Community
08:27 Expert Opinions on Childfree Happiness
10:43 The Benefits of Being Single and Childfree
15:08 Dealing with Negative Feedback as a Childfree Individual
16:19 Research Supporting Childfree Happiness
19:10 Conclusion and Preview of Part Two
📍 I honestly can't believe that I have to have this conversation and yet here we are talking about how absolutely asinine it is that people to this day still believe that the child free will die alone, miserable, and regretful.
And as you can probably guess from the name of this podcast, I, and research shows that that is completely false. So I'm ready to talk with you about what the articles say, what. Experts say, as well as the experiences that I have seen and my peers have seen in the childfree community.
Hey, welcome to unapologetically child free, the everything that you need in one place podcast for life without kids. I'm Maggie Dickens, a licensed therapist and your child free hype woman here with candid conversations about friendships, lifestyle, and everything that defines our child free life. So join me on this journey where we get to live life unapologetically.
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Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the podcast where we talk about all things living as an adult without kids. And one of those things that we have to deal with is other people's opinions. As an elder millennial, I was around when social media. Was in its infancy and it has slowly taken over our lives. And in that I have seen the world go from not knowing how to use social media and now using it in a way to just be verbally abusive to people that they've never met.
This is Not unique to the childfree community. This happens across all communities. And that's what makes it so sad because there is this indiscriminate bullying and keyboard worry, worry, worry, or rank. My Southern accents coming through right there, isn't it? Um, those keyboard warriors are coming and it can make it really difficult when you were in that space of joining a community like the childfree and saying, I've made this choice.
I've gone through all the options. I'm feeling confident in my decision. And then someone comes at you or you're reading comments or hearing other people have conversations and you're like, Oh man Do they hate me so much? Or why are they so doubting of my life?
And so here we are. Having this conversation because even though I don't give two flips when someone tells me that I'm going to be lonely or regret my life, or that I'm going to be unhappy or that I must be unhappy now, because I know all of those things are false.
I know for me, someone who has been very loud and very proud about my childfree choice since I was, I don't know, forever ago, and realizing that as the rise of social media has come up there are more and more instances where I find myself either filtering something or wanting to tone it down or even wanting to defend myself.
And as someone who likes to think of, of. the life that I lead as unapologetic, that doesn't mean that that's a universal experience. And so when I hear over and over and over someone telling me or other people in my community that we're going to be miserable or that we are living a miserable life right now, or that we're going to die alone and be regretful, I get this, like this visceral reaction because I have not been happier for as long as I can remember, I am living an amazing life that I've created for myself.
And I have done this by breaking away from tradition by breaking away from what was expected of me, to be quite honest, if I had followed the, the steps and the path that the world would have expected for somebody born into the life that I was born into, I would still be living in Georgia or North Carolina, and I would probably have several children.
Perhaps married, or maybe married again, having custody concerns. I would have a life where I was very insulated and I didn't really leave that tiny little country town where nothing ever happens and new information doesn't seem to permeate through the borders of that town and I would be miserable.
That is when I would be miserable. And so for someone to tell me that
following their path is how I would find joy makes me want to laugh out loud. Because I followed my path and that brought me joy. Do we, do we not see the irony here? Or maybe that's just Alanis Morissette irony where it's not really ironic, but we're going to call it that way. I think it's more about recognizing that there are multiple paths to joy and there are multiple paths to finding our, our people, if you will.
That's what I always talk about in the child free community. There are millions of child free people and you're not going to be friends with everyone. You're not even going to meet everyone. Right? And every person that you meet that doesn't have kids is not going to be your people. Instead, what I help people with and what this whole unapologetically child free space is about is saying, let's find our people.
Let's find our people and enjoy the heck out of our lives so that we are not in this place of having to defend our joy and defend our happiness, because it's going to be so asinine because it's going to be someone saying. Hey, don't forget your umbrella when there's not a cloud in, you know, a 500 mile radius, right?
it's like, why are you mentioning this? This has nothing to do with reality. your fears of rain have nothing to do with the reality that I'm living in, which is full of sunshine. And so your fears of dying alone or your fears of living a miserable life have nothing to do with me. That's why I think it's funny when people, not funny ha ha, sometimes funny ha ha, mostly funny irritating, when people want to throw that out to the childfree community.
It also pisses me off because people who are, especially on the fence, and this is not my specialty. That's Keltie McGuire, who you're going to hear from in a future episode, sometime this month, she works with fence sitters and it hurts me to see this information for someone who is attempting to make a purposeful decision about the life that they want to lead and you have somebody from, you know, the periphery who has nothing to do with this situation. And Coming in and saying, you're going to be, miserable and alone and regretful.
I'm just wanting to say, shush it. No one asked you.
And so I know that they're going to be people. Who are going to ask me, okay, Maggie, you're happy, but that doesn't mean that you're going to stay happy. You're in your late thirties. You're not in your fifties yet. You're not in your sixties, seventies yet. That's true. I will be one day and I will be happy to come back and report to you how ecstatic I am with my life.
I'm really looking forward to having the freedom. As I get older, the more freedom that I have that some of my peers don't, it just continues to fuel me every day. And. I know that some people will say, well, you're happy because Maggie, you had the privilege to leave the country and live in a different country than you were born and you get to have this grand adventure.
Yes. Those things are true. However, I was happy in Houston. I was happy in many iterations of my life living in the United States. And most of my unhappiness have come from difficulties within my adult relationships. I have never experienced unhappiness because I didn't have a child and people don't believe me.
People don't believe the child free when we say that. So let's, let's see what some of the other experts have to say.
So the first article that I want to talk about, and all of these will be linked in the show notes, is by Shahida Arabi. And this was in, it was updated in June of 2023. So it's a very recent article. And the title says child free single women are among the happiest. Therapists, psychiatrists, and childfree millennials explain why.
It is an amazing article. I'm not going to go through the whole thing. It's, it's quite lengthy. However, it begins with saying, according to Harvard trained psychologist, Dr. Bella DePaulo. So when I am sitting here and I'm saying the research backs me up on, I'm not miserable, and I'm not going to be miserable because of my choice to be childfree.
This is what I'm talking about, right?
A little caveat here, this specific article, and there was also one that I'm not going to talk about. Talks very similarly about the difference between single slash unmarried women who are childfree versus married or partnered persons who are child free and as someone who is kind of in the middle or who has always felt like they were in the middle of that, I've never been married and yet I've been in long term relationships.
The bulk of my adulthood. I relate to both of these camps so you'll, you'll hear that the more that you and I get to know each other, I will speak from that point of view of being a single woman who, kind of lives that independent lifestyle.
And then the having a loving, committed, amazing, fun partner that I get to share my life with. And both of those things are true for me. And so if you're finding yourself kind of in that middle ground as well, as well,
man, that's the second time I Southern accent has come through and I haven't even made it back home to the States yet. What is going to happen when I hang out with my mother anyway? Um, so if you find yourself in that middle space, because you have rejected marriage or you have simply not gotten married yet and it's a plan for you not married for another reason, I totally get you.
I totally get you. I'm right here with you. Okay. So when we're thinking about these articles, it is important to remember that this one specifically is talking about single childfree women
so kind of getting back to the core of it, according to Dr. Bella DePaulo, she said that the main reasons that the childfree and single life was seen as fulfilling was because of personal and financial freedom. Stronger social networks, less stress, and more professional success.
Things that you've heard me say before. Things that feel almost like, duh, in the childfree community. However, when we are faced with all of those naysayers, sometimes it's hard to remember, wait a second. I am happy not only because I can sleep in on Saturday mornings or Tuesday mornings or Thursday mornings.
I'm not only happy because I can stay out and hang out with my friends. I'm going to dinner at nine 30 tonight. I'm not only happy because of those things. I'm happy because of the broader personal freedom that the sleeping in and the staying out late, bring me there's that financial freedom in my previous podcast, and I was talking about, does it pay to be childfree. There's this financial freedom that says, what do I get to do with my money? Right? Some of us have a plethora of extra money because we have great paying jobs and we're not spending a lot of money on kids. Some of us have less debt because we don't have kids and we're able to take our lower paying jobs or our underemployment and make it work for us.
There's a lot more financial freedom. We get to choose what do we want to do with our money? Do we want to take a little bit of extra money and squirrel it away for retirement? Because we know that things like pensions really aren't a thing for millennials anymore. She talks about stronger social networks and we're going to, we're going to really dive into that in the second half of this podcast.
And, you know, as a licensed therapist and as someone who specializes in relationships and helping the childfree, find those true connections, you know, transcending the comments and moving those relationships from online to in real life, you know, that I am here to talk about making those really, really strong social networks and what do they look like and, and, and why are they different than the relationships that perhaps parents have.
It is proven that there's less stress. That doesn't mean no stress. Talk to my jaws. I've been grinding my teeth lately. It doesn't mean no stress. It means less, right? And then there's also the opportunity for more professional success. Should that be a goal for you?
Dr. Ryan Soltan, who is a professor at Columbia University, has been quoted saying that being single and childfree in this age range between 20 to 40 offers a quote, unparalleled opportunity for self discovery, personal growth, and the pursuit of individual passions. Holy bananas. If you talk to any therapist or wellness professional or healing professional out there, they're going to talk to you about your value set.
What do you value? Are you, honoring those? You have to know who you are. You have to have personal growth. You have to dig in in order to find joy. Another thing that people are always talking about is being able to learn more about ourselves and not staying stuck and stagnant. So all of these things that this professor at Columbia is talking about that they see in these single and childfree women are all keys to genuine joy that we talk about in the helping world for everybody.
And this is the last part of this specific article that I'm going to talk about because Ann Russo, a licensed clinical social worker has been quoted to say this. And I'm just going to read it because it was just like, lovely. Speaking of millennial women, who are single and childfree has remarkable resilience and self assuredness. They demonstrate a unique sense of empowerment, allowing them to design lives that are fulfilling and meaningful. This lifestyle offers flexibility in pursuing career opportunities, personal growth, and meaningful connections.
So when you hear this, I hope as a child free person, you are going, yes, yes. I want to, you know, hopefully you are kind of saying out loud, you're like, yes, these are all my experiences. These are the things that I get by choosing not to have kids. And I think I said, I may not have said that the whole reason that I'm doing this episode is not to talk to the naysayers.
This, this whole podcast is not for the naysayers. It's for you. It's for you, the childfree community to find your foundation and learn how to live a little bit more unapologetically, not just about, yes, I don't want kids, but being able to have the inside confidence of like, and this is why it's because I want to spend more time in self development and self exploration.
I want to be able to take care of my mind and my body more. I don't want to be putting myself second, third, and fourth in line because I want to be able to enjoy my geriatric years. Right. And so what we're seeing with these experts. Is that the keys in finding joy are so much more readily available to the childfree.
Okay, so the second article that we're going to be talking about that is dispelling the myth of are the child free miserable.
Is an article written by Wendy Patrick. She is a JD PhD, and this is written in psychology today.
And this was written in 2021 and the title of it. I love this is why so many single women without children are happy. So again, this is talking about single childfree people, which I find to get some of the meanest comments from people.
This is something that even though I've been in long term relationships, the bulk of my adult life, since I've never been married, I have gotten the statement of, well, when you meet the right person, then you'll want to have kids or, those kinds of things. And one rude because I'm in a long term relationship.
And the other is it is really saying that my decisions aren't mine and that when I meet a man, then I'm going to change everything for him. And that's just ridiculous.
But let's get back on topic. In this article,
The three key points that are highlighted in this article, one single women without children are often happier and healthier than men and married women with children. The second is women tend to have stronger social networks outside of their romantic relationships. This one's key. Remember, we're going to get to those strong relationships.
And then the third one is single women may be more selective than single men when choosing a partner as they may enjoy their freedom. And so we see this a lot in the comments as well of you're just so miserable and that's why nobody wants to be with you and that's why nobody wants to have babies with you and all of these things.
And sometimes it can get in our heads and we can start to feel less confident. We can start to feel a little more apologetic. And as we're shifting into the space of like, I know that not having kids is for me. I've already made that decision and somebody's poking at me. It's remembering that their opinion has no validity on the reality of your life.
So if you're sitting here saying I walked into that holiday party or into that work event, And I was feeling really good about my life. I was so happy. I know some people are coming up on like 20th high school reunions and all of those kinds of things. You know, walking into that group of people and, and feeling very confident about who you are and then getting some of this feedback can feel very demoralizing.
And so I want you to use this information to either parrot it back to them and say, Hey, if you don't believe that I'm happy, look at the research. The other is being able to say to yourself, I'm not making this up. I'm not the exception. I'm not an anomaly. I am part of the larger group of childfree people who are happier, who are happier than those with kids.
📍 📍 All right. We have gotten through about 20 minutes worth of research and articles and personal experiences that say the belief that the child-free community is miserable and unhappy, and that we're going to be regretful. Is just completely debunked. And although I could probably talk another 20 minutes to two years about this. I'm going to end now and wrap this up as a part one
📍 📍 📍 before shifting into the second half of the concept that we started with, which was, are we really going to die alone? where we're talking about having and building stronger social networks. And those social networks are the things that will prevent us from quote unquote, dying alone and especially dying miserable and alone. So I apologize for making this an unintended part one part two. However, I think this is worth some extra time and I didn't want to make it a super long podcast because I want to save those extra long podcasts for when we have guests on the show.
So I will see you in part two, when we talk about. All things not dying alone. Until next time, tchau. Y'all
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