Alex | Reimagining Life Without Children
Alex grew up immersed in the pronatalism of suburban family life, and she assumed marriage and motherhood were in her future. Now married, a recent health diagnosis has complicated her plans to conceive. Alex's strong environmental values, minimalist approach to consumption, and desire for 'slow travel' have kept her and her husband open to the possibilities of a fulfilling childfree life.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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Alex (00:01):
I think I am the classic case of someone who wants kids and always wanted kids. And I had such a nice childhood. I think I had the idea I want to give this to someone else, but we've been trying to conceive. And so I did get checked about six months after we started trying and basically got diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called Graves' disease. That was definitely a setback. At this point, I'm not sure how much effort I want to put in to trying to have a kid between IVF and other fertility treatments. So I've kind of had a pause in thinking I have to have a kid. And in the last year, I've really just learned so much listening to your podcast, what it means to bring a kid into the world. And maybe not having kids would be a good opportunity for us. And I don't think I'd be devastated. I think I'd actually have a really great life.
Nandita Bajaj (01:09):
That was today's guest, Alex. Hi everyone, and thank you for joining me. My name is Nandita Bajaj and I'm the host of Beyond Pronatalism: Finding Fulfillment With or Without Kids, an interview series in which through intimate conversations with people from diverse backgrounds, I explore how they are courageously and creatively navigating pronatalism, the often unspoken pressures to have children, whether from family, friends, or the culture at large. Each episode features a personal story born out of liberated and informed choice about redefining what family means, including being childfree or childless, having biological kids, adopting or fostering children or animals, or creating close-knit communities of friends and loved ones. Hi, Alex. Welcome to Beyond Pronatalism. Lovely to have you.
Alex (02:03):
Hi, Nandita. Thank you so much. So great to meet you and I'm so happy to be here.
Nandita Bajaj (02:08):
Yes. Alex, why don't we start with a brief introduction about yourself?
Alex (02:13):
Sure. So my name is Alex and I'm 38 years old and I live outside of Washington DC. And I grew up in this area actually, so I've always been native to Virginia. And I grew up with two siblings, a brother and a sister and both parents. And we lived in a nice suburban neighborhood and grew up on the end of a cul-de-sac. So I do remember having just so much fun as a kid, playing outside as much as possible and just having a lot of freedom to roam around the neighborhood. I think you could say I had free range parents and they let us go because we didn't have a backyard with a fence or anything. So they kind of let us go into this parkland behind our house and would call us home with a bell. So it was very idyllic and I have, again, just so many good memories from growing up and having siblings.
(03:07):
So it kind of brought me to pronatalism so naturally because I think I just grew up swimming in pro-natalist ideas even though I didn't really realize that they were there until I got a lot older.
Nandita Bajaj (03:20):
Yeah. So the swimming in pronatalism was more a product of being around other families in this suburban house. What were the kind of messages you were receiving from home life and neighborhood cultural life?
Alex (03:36):
Yeah, so I mean I obviously got outside of my neighborhood some as a kid for field trips and travel and things like that. But on a day-to-day basis, I lived on a street where every family on the street also had kids. And then I also lived right near the community pool. So in the summer we would do the swim team, we would do tennis team. And basically I was just surrounded by families with one to four children. And I also became a swim coach when I was 14. So I was then teaching the little four and five year olds how to swim. They just were so funny. And yeah, I just grew up thinking I'm going to have a couple kids one day because who wouldn't want this? I had such a nice childhood. I think I had the idea I want to give this to someone else.
(04:26):
And I really didn't have many examples, whether family or friends growing up of, oh, that person doesn't really have kids or really making a connection because I feel like I just grew up in a very stable middle class environment where everyone was doing pretty well. All my friends in school were good students and I just didn't have many influences in my life of people that were doing anything else besides having kids. And then I was also thinking before this interview, even though my family, I can't remember them saying, oh, you'll have kids one day. You grow up as a kid and you have these stories. I don't remember the song, but it was like first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in the baby carriage. And we would just be singing these things and playing our little game. So I mean, I think it was definitely ingrained from a young age, but it was just in the cultural fabric, like you said.
Nandita Bajaj (05:20):
Yeah, that makes sense. And it sounds from your upbringing that the families that you were surrounded by and the experiences that you had around them were mostly positive. So they were kind of positive aspects of family life that you may not grow up questioning if you don't need to. And so did you start questioning some of these assumptions around family or did that narrative kind of stay with you throughout?
Alex (05:48):
Yeah, as I grew older, I think I definitely saw a lot more examples of different types of families. And then in college, I remember taking a class that also was questioning the family structure and adoption policies and things like that and learning about how adoption was handled in other cultures and basically showing me that there's a lot of different ways of doing family. And I just grew up in the most boring, blood-related, two parents, three kids sort of family. So I think I became a lot more open to options for adopting. I would be open to that. And yeah, seeing that there's a lot of ways to create connection and you don't have to have partner and kids to have a good life.
Nandita Bajaj (06:34):
Yeah, sure. And then in your writeup, you talk about a book that you read in your 20s where you bookmarked the idea that you have to follow a certain path by a certain age. Can you talk about the book and the ideas that you were internalizing?
Alex (06:50):
Yeah, the book was called The Defining Decade, and it's about how people in their 20s should approach their life in terms of career and networking. And I think I read it when I was about 25, and I had recently gotten out of my longest relationship to date. So I was single and I remember all my other friends were kind of getting into serious relationships at that time. So I felt like I had done the inverse. I had been in a serious relationship in college and a couple years after, and then now I was single. But I did bookmark the last chapter. The author said, Kids, if you want them, it's biologically best to have them between 25 and 30, but if you're working on yourself during those years, it's okay to have them between 30 and 35 because things plateau and then 35 and older, things start getting worse. And so the author herself had her kids in her 30s, like 37 and 39.
(07:49):
So she was kind of like, Don't use me as an example. I wish I had had kids earlier. So then I did bookmark in my head, Okay, let's give myself five years to find a partner and hopefully I'll be settled by 30 so that we can have kids before 35. Right. I mean, that did not happen. I don't have any regrets. I had one serious relationship after that right around the time I was like 28, 29. And I do remember feeling hopeful like this is going to be the person that I settled down with because I did still have that in the back of my mind, but it just ended up not being the right person for me. I think we both were incompatible in different ways. And I got to a point where I'm like, I'm not going to force this. I don't want to sacrifice this decision for just the sake of wanting kids.
(08:39):
I want to make a decision that's right for me and the right person. So I did not settle down at 30 and then in fact, just kind of went on with life and I kept dating and dating apps will have like, Do you want kids? Maybe no. And I would always try to look for people that said open to children or wants kids because I couldn't imagine myself settling down with someone that was overtly, I don't want children. So yeah, I just kept kind of living life and five years passed before I actually met my partner when I was 35.
Nandita Bajaj (09:17):
Wow. I appreciate that you didn't want to rush into this just to meet that life goal of having a kid, because I personally know so many people who've rushed into a relationship or sustained a bad relationship just because they are afraid their timing's running out and they have to satisfy this expectation of having a child by a certain age. And then those things tend to never go well because the foundation was not strong to begin with. And so when you did meet your partner at 35, what kind of discussions were you having around this question of having or not having kids?
Alex (09:58):
Yeah, I think it was something that was brought up pretty early because we did get serious pretty quickly and I was very, I guess, open to saying I would like children. And then he was open to having kids, but actually it was never top of his list. So he was kind of like, okay if we do, okay if we don't, but very supportive of the idea of having kids if that's the way that our life went.
Nandita Bajaj (10:25):
And what were the reactions from your parents and siblings around your life path? Were they supportive of your decision to kind of wait till the right person came along?
Alex (10:37):
Yeah, definitely. They've all always been supportive. And I guess I have a unique family because my brother and my sister are both childless and both single right now, and so they aren't planning to have kids. My sister's in her 40s and my brother's mid-thirties, so we may just end up being a childfree family. But given that my siblings were not that interested in having kids, it always was the family joke like, Well, that's okay. Alex will have kids and Alex will make you a grandma. And my mom has always been supportive of all of us and whatever we decide, but she's also said that she would love to be a grandma. And I think she has some FOMO just in the culture she's at. I mean, she's in the stage of her life where a lot of her friends are grandparents and they get the grandkid time and she doesn't have that.
(11:30):
So I think that's something that she's hoping for, but I think she's learning that it might not happen. And I mean, there's always ways you can find connections with young people if that's what she's wanting to do, and I don't think that it's going to change our relationship much either way.
Nandita Bajaj (11:49):
Yeah, sure. So where are you and your partner at with this decision today? What have the discussions looked like? It sounds like it's been a few years since you've been together.
Alex (12:01):
Yeah. So I mean, I wanted to talk to you because I think I am the classic case of someone who wants kids and always wanted kids. But in the last year, I've really not gone a full 180 to the other side, but I've just learned so much. And listening to your podcast, both the Overshoot and this one, have been such good listens to kind of give a full perspective of what it means to bring a kid into the world. And I think I was kind of having some of those undercurrent themes in my life between becoming vegetarian when I was pretty young in my 20s and being an animal lover and loving gardening and being outside and growing up in nature. These are all themes that when I listen to the Overshoot podcast, I'm just like, really, we shouldn't be bringing more people into this world.
(12:54):
I'm at a point in my life where I can really enjoy nature and hopefully carve out more time for things that I love as the years go on. So I've kind of had a pause in thinking I have to have a kid. And I don't think I ever was like, I have to have a kid. It's always just been the idea is I will have kids one day. So anyway, we haven't conceived and we've been together for about three and a little more years now, and we've been trying to conceive, but I mean, I'm 38 at this point, and so it's a little late to be starting. And so I did get checked about six months after we started trying and my thyroid levels were off. And so I had to follow up to see an endocrinologist and basically got diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called Graves' disease.
(13:42):
And you can conceive with Graves' disease, but it should be under control before you conceive just because it can pass antibodies to the embryo and your baby could be born with a hyperthyroid condition. So it's not ideal to conceive when it's not controlled and it's not controlled super easily or super quickly. It can take months to kind of get the right dosage of medicine and figure out what works for your body to get all your levels under control. So that was definitely a setback. I wasn't expecting to have a diagnosis of any kind. I just thought that we were both healthy and that was kind of naive of me. But honestly, I think the Graves' disease diagnosis has been good in some ways because I've changed my diet and tried to be healthier and I wasn't unhealthy to begin with, but it's been no extra sugar.
(14:38):
It's easy to say no to desserts and stuff that you shouldn't really eat anyway. So I've been very healthy the last four or five months in terms of everything I eat and all of that. So yeah, I mean, now I'm at a point where I feel good and things are progressing in the right way in terms of the diagnosis. But at this point, I'm not sure how much effort I want to put in to trying to have a kid between IVF and other fertility treatments. I haven't decided if we're going that route or not, so we'll see. I mean, at this point, I'm kind of leaving it up to fate and also considering the adoption path more and more because I think there's a lot of value in that too.
Nandita Bajaj (15:27):
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that about the Graves' disease diagnosis. I'm glad that the diet and the medication is working. And you said something interesting that it was kind of a blessing, this diagnosis, because it gave you time to think and pause. Can you speak about that space that was created and what kind of ideas were you having?
Alex (15:53):
Yeah, so I mean, whenever I learn new information, for example, the Graves' disease diagnosis, you can have the emotion that's negative first, of course. No one wants to have a new diagnosis, a new thing to deal with in their life, especially when it's health- related. But I think whenever I have an obstacle like that, I also try to think of what opportunities that this is giving to me. So that's when I got into. I mean, I had read the book Childfree by Choice probably when I was 30-ish.
Nandita Bajaj (16:24):
By Amy Blackstone?
Alex (16:25):
Yeah, because I was just curious. Obviously, I've been very pro-kids on this podcast, but I was curious, well, what do people without kids, what are their lives like? What are the stigmas that were out there and all that? So that was a really good read, but I kind of hadn't come back to this idea of living a life without kids for me personally. And so just given my age, it was something that I kind of shifted to immediately is like, well, what could it look like if we didn't have kids? I mean, we've talked a lot about wanting to do slow travel and staying at a place for four or eight weeks, whatever amount of time we want to, but traveling to different countries and kind of experiencing different cultures, getting out of the nine to five grind. And so that's a goal that we have in the pretty near future.
(17:16):
So that came to mind and it's like, well, if we have a kid in the next year or two, the slow travel plans are going to be out the door for a little while unless we wanted to bring a kid with us, which probably could work at a certain point, but wouldn't be ideal initially. So yeah, I've been thinking about just how many opportunities exist if you choose the other option, which would be to not have children. And I personally really like time for myself. I love gardening and I have a plot that I go to that I take care of that's about a mile and a half from my house. So I could spend a lot of time there on an almost daily basis when it's seasonally the time that I'm using it and growing things. I think for me in the future, I have envisioned trying to pivot and take some time off and maybe do something slightly more entrepreneurial, something that just really aligns with my values of trying to be less consumeristic, trying to be better on the Earth, and just have environmental ideas kind of at the forefront.
(18:23):
So one of my biggest goals is to take a sabbatical of some kind that's significant, like six to 12 months. And so we're trying to prepare for that financially right now by saving up for that. And so with that time, I'd like to explore specifically flower gardening, vegetable gardening, native plant gardening, learning all the trees. So that's one of the big goals is to have somewhat of a in-city mini-homestead or maybe a property that's within a smaller city that can have more land for somewhat of a mini-farm. So that could be the business that I pivot into. And yeah, I think just giving myself the space to see what's next is probably the biggest thing on my list. And I think that's a real privilege because a lot of people don't have the time or the resources to even get there. But we've specifically stayed in a one bedroom apartment and not sized up because a lot of people, you find your partner, first thing you do is you buy a house or you move to a bigger place or you get a new car, whatever, you upgrade something else in your life.
(19:37):
And we haven't done that. We've always been on the same page with money, which is also something that makes our partnership really strong. So those are the themes that came up when I started thinking maybe not having kids would be a good opportunity for us, and I don't think I'd be devastated. I think I'd actually have a really great life. And so it's great to think about that and kind of imagine both sides.
Nandita Bajaj (20:03):
Yeah, that is so admirable the way you handled all of it, both the news about the condition and then remaining open to the possibility of being childfree by choice or circumstance and imagining what that could look like because you would probably have heard of people who wanted to have kids, found out that they couldn't for a number of reasons, and it can be such a debilitating experience for some people that they stay in that identity for most of their lives in that grief. And it can really close the doors for other opportunities that that circumstance might open for people in the same way as any other thing that we wanted to do that we couldn't do. And I just appreciate the resilience that you've experienced and expressed and practiced. And I wonder how your husband has responded to all of this.
Alex (21:03):
Yeah. I mean, he's been supportive throughout the whole process, and I think once we talked about having kids and he was on board, and I think initially he was a little disappointed about the challenges of conceiving. And he doesn't share his emotions that often, but when he does, I always very much appreciate it. But I think he's been on the ride too. I think we were both excited to try to have a kid. I mean, we just got married about a year ago, so this is all pretty new and we were so newlyweds and thought like, okay, we'll try to have a kid this year. And so when that didn't happen and I didn't get pregnant last year, I think he was a bit disappointed too initially. But now I've said very clearly my focus is on the Graves' disease and just getting my thyroid in order so that it's healthy again.
(21:57):
And he has been very supportive of that. And I think he's just been kind of learning along the way and just like me. Yeah, like I said, we both share some of these dreams of doing things that honestly would be a lot easier to do without children. So I think he remains very much like me, open to the possibilities of whatever happens next. Some of the things that he relates to with pronatalism would go down to the consumerism aspect and that the more people we have, the more it destroys everything that we like about the world. I mean, he is pretty minimalist person and doesn't like buying things. So he very graciously never asked to have meat. When we started dating and I was cooking for him, he never was like, oh, can I bring over some chicken or something because he was not a vegetarian, but he basically adopted the vegetarian diet with me very quickly.
(22:57):
He would still eat meat if we went to a restaurant or something, but he's a pretty easygoing guy about all this stuff. And I think for him, he loves being outside too. And one of the movies that we watched was Buy Now, which was about just mountains of trash that we're producing in the world. And those kind of documentaries just make me feel so gross. They get to me for sure. And so I feel like I'm constantly kind of back and forth between this life we live, which is a consumerist life, and trying to be much less so and untangle these threads that have been woven into our world.
Nandita Bajaj (23:36):
And as you said, there are so many other ways of connection and finding loving relationships. How do you think a community of belonging, of redefining family could look like for you?
Alex (23:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think finding more people. Some of our best friends don't have children, but we are also at the period of our life where a lot of our friends have children, which we love. We definitely enjoy hanging out with them. But I am starting to see the separation more and more of just how much in advance you need to schedule with these families with kids and then, oh, the day before someone's sick and now that plan is out the door anyway. So I think for me and my husband, it will be finding more people without children if we end up not having children, finding more people that we can connect with. And I think just growing the community. So the thing about never really leaving the area you grew up in is you've never had to start over in your social relationships except when you go out to college or whatever.
(24:41):
And so I am a social person and I think that would be a nice challenge of potentially moving and doing the slow travel is just meeting a lot more people and growing our community and meeting a lot of people that hopefully may or may not have children, but are more compatible with the values that we're living and the life that we have. Yeah, I would just say I think I've never been that uncomfortable sitting with the discomfort of something. So when I wasn't married at 30 and settled down, it's like, well, it's just not the right time for me. And so being able to be a coach for yourself while you're going through life and things might not be going exactly how you planned. So whenever there's been a little diversion, journaling has always been really helpful for me. So just kind of writing my thoughts down, like what am I thinking?
(25:34):
Once you get them on paper, it kind of is like passing the emotion through and you're just like, okay, I've felt that feeling and now I can go on with my day. And I think you can just slowly do these sort of 1% changes that help you be very comfortable with whatever path your life takes. And I think that's just maybe being resilient or having a good way of processing things as they happen. But yeah, I'm also a very future forward person, so I'm just really excited for what will happen next. I think that time is something I've been thinking about more and more that you only get so much time to do with what you can. So that's the point of the pivot and just kind of resetting. So I'm really looking forward to that and I really appreciate this conversation. It's been great talking to you.
(26:22):
The perspectives that you're bringing to light on both of your podcasts are so wonderful for anyone who's not doing a traditional get married and have kids sort of path. And even if they are, I think there's a lot to learn from what you're talking about and some of the issues that you're bringing to light. Yeah, no, I just really appreciate your work, so thank you for having me.
Nandita Bajaj (26:44):
Thank you so much. Thanks for ending with such a nice and important message and being such an inspiring example of how one can take life as it comes and still be okay with it and still be a positive force in life. Thank you very much, Alex. So great to talk to you.
Alex (27:03):
Thanks for having me, Nandita. It's great to talk to you as well.
Nandita Bajaj (27:07):
That's all for this edition of Beyond Pronatalism. To share feedback about the show or a particular episode or to share your own story on the podcast, please get in touch with me using the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform and share it widely. We couldn't do this work without the support of listeners like you and hope that you will consider a one-time or a recurring donation. Thank you so much again for joining me today as we collectively discover and celebrate the many different pathways to fulfillment beyond pronatalism. This podcast is brought to you by Population Balance, the only nonprofit organization advancing the rights and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet by confronting pronatalism and other harmful ideologies. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Nandita Bajaj, with the support of my production team, Josh Wild and Alan Ware.
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