{"id":20083,"date":"2023-04-13T10:16:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T16:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=20083"},"modified":"2023-04-19T14:37:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T20:37:09","slug":"women-without-kids","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/women-without-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Without Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Hello, friends. My name\u2019s Tami Simon and I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True, and I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast: <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True\u2019s new membership community and digital platform, it\u2019s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium transformational docuseries; community events; classes to start your day and relax in the evening; and special weekly live shows, including a video version of <\/span>Insights at the Edge <\/span><\/i>with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you\u2019ll come join us. Explore, come have fun with us and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at soundstruefoundation.org. And in advance, thank you for your support.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. Today, my guest is Ruby Warrington. Ruby is a British-born author, editor, and publishing consultant recognized as a true thought leader in the wellness space. Ruby has the unique ability to identify issues that are destined to become part of the cultural narrative. Her previous books include <\/span>Material Girl, Mystical World<\/span><\/i>, a book called <\/span>Sober Curious<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>The Sober Curious Reset<\/span><\/i>. With Sounds True, Ruby Warrington has written a new book. It\u2019s called <\/span>Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood<\/span><\/i>, a book that asks us to deeply question our societal judgments about women without children, and instead to see the evolutionary potential of what Ruby calls this unsung sisterhood. Here\u2019s my conversation with Ruby Warrington.<\/span><\/p>\n

To begin, Ruby, can you share with our listeners what brought you to the point where you felt confident\u2014I want to write the book, <\/span>Women Without Kids<\/span><\/i>? What were the factors that converged?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ruby Warrington:<\/b> These factors had been converging over the course of my life, but there was a very specific moment when this book entered my consciousness as the next project that I wanted to give myself to. And it does feel that way, very much, when I have an idea for a book. It\u2019s an invitation, as Elizabeth Gilbert writes about in <\/span>Big Magic<\/span><\/i>. It feels like something is knocking on the doorway of my soul saying, are you ready? What do you think? And I, in that moment, was sitting on a beach in Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico, and I had just devoured a copy of a book called <\/span>The Silent Passage<\/span><\/i> by the journalist Gail Sheehy. She wrote passages people might be familiar with\u2014that very popular work of hers. <\/span>The Silent Passage<\/span><\/i> was her book about menopause, and it was, in the words from the back cover of the book, \u201ca radical reframing of menopause.\u201d And it was written, I think, in the early \u201890s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I was 43 at the time and had, I suppose, just started contemplating what this transition might mean for me, and her book was incredibly galvanizing. She described menopause as the gateway to a woman\u2019s second adulthood, rather than the end of anything, it was actually the beginning of a whole new chapter in a woman\u2019s life. And as somebody who had never had a desire to be a mother, but who had been led to believe that there was something missing or that I had somehow missed the point and that I would very likely live to regret not becoming a mother, I realized reading this book, I\u2019m feeling quite excited about the end of my reproductive years. I had no regrets whatsoever. The path I had taken with my life had been absolutely right for me. And the heaping piles of shame and stigma and self-doubt that I had experienced around this very central decision in my life had actually not come from inside me, had been very largely a result of other people\u2019s projections, societal conditioning, about my purpose as a woman, honestly.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it was really in that moment that I realized we need to talk about this. I\u2019ve been a voracious reader from age five and I had found so few books on this subject that really few books that really got under the skin of this subject in a deep and meaningful way, that gave the subject the weight and the consideration that it deserves. And when I say that this is a subject that deserves weight and consideration, I mean whether or not to become a parent is central to our lives, it\u2019s central to our humanity. And I hadn\u2019t found anything that really dove into it with the level of depth that I felt ready to consider my own feelings about motherhood, my own procreate potential at this pivotal sort of time in my life. So that was the moment. It was very specific and I described that moment in the book, in the last chapter. So yes, it came from a very personal place.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I noticed when you said, as someone who never had a desire to be a mother, I heard this collective gasp like, \u201cOh my, you never\u2026?\u201d And I think that\u2019s very interesting that it still feels to me, when I sort of just was listening to you talk, that there\u2019s a taboo, like, \u201cYou never had a desire to be a mother, really?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Not enough of a desire to go through the steps and seriously contemplate what it would mean and what it would look like in my life to take on the role of parenthood.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were times, particularly in my 30s, whilst the volume had really been dialed up on sort of other people\u2019s opinions about my child-free status. There were times when I could almost 99 percent talk myself into wanting that for my life. But there was always a part of me that held back and there was always a part of me that felt more true, which was just\u2014that\u2019s not my path. It\u2019s not the role for me. And yes, it\u2019s stunning to me that in 2023, this is still seen as so \u201cother\u201d and it\u2019s so difficult for people to contemplate or countenance the idea that somebody who is assigned female at birth and born with the reproductive parts to birth a child would not want to do this with their life.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I think the fact that it is still, despite all of the advances of the feminist movement, all of the advances around reproductive justice and queer rights even, that we still consider this the be all and end all of a woman\u2019s expression specifically. So yes, I think the fact that it still produces such a collective gossip just shows so much how much work there still is to be done in really understanding why a person might feel that way.<\/span><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what I attempt to do in this book, to really get very deep under the skin of all the different factors that impact how we feel about becoming mothers, how we feel about being mothers if we have had a child, and the impact our sort of societal expectations when it comes to motherhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Can you explain more where you think the stigma comes from?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>I think that women without kids are very, very disruptive to the gendered status quo as enforced by patriarchy. Coming to this book, I really didn\u2019t want to use the word patriarchy, and it was impossible not to within this context, when considering this subject. Patriarchy dictates that family looks like this: it is a heterosexual couple, a man and a woman. The man is the provider, the woman is the nurturing caretaker. And as much as we, in so many ways, have progressed way, way beyond that and we can recognize that this does not reflect who we are as human beings, our needs, desires, capabilities, etcetera, etcetera, there\u2019s still so much conditioning around that being the \u201cideal normal.\u201d So for anyone who exists outside of that very rigid cultural norm, there is going to be a degree of stigma. And I think the fact there is so much stigma shows again how far there is to go in dismantling that as the ideal normal and showing that there are many different ways to make family. There are many different ways to engage with our sexuality. There are many different ways to engage with our procreative potential. And that as a human race, we are evolving beyond that very rigid winery and often oppressively enforced setup when it comes to family life and our social structures even.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now you said it can be a very disruptive choice\u2014it is disruptive to choose to be a woman without kids. And your book appeals to women who have made what you call the affirmative no, and I\u2019m in that group. Proudly, no, I don\u2019t want to have kids. It\u2019s not my truth. It\u2019s not what I want for my life. But there are many people who, not by choice, but by health constraints or for medical reasons or for other reasons, wish they could have kids. Many women who painfully grieve and terribly wish they could have children but are unable. Help me understand how you were able to write to both groups, because you talk about uniting these groups in what you\u2019re describing as an \u201cunsung sisterhood.\u201d But I could imagine these camps feeling very separate from each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Yes. So I come to the book from the position of the affirmative \u201cno\u201d that we share, just an inner knowing that this is just not my role. This is not my role, it\u2019s not my truth, it\u2019s not what I desire for my life. But I also was aware that what I call the mommy binary, which <\/span>is this falsified honestly<\/span> that exists between mothers and non-mothers. But then within the camp of non-mothers, between the ones who can\u2019t have kids and the ones who don\u2019t want kids, I just really felt that I wanted to address that binary and where that comes from too, where those divides come from, and to focus more on our shared experiences as women without kids than perhaps the different\u2014 I do talk about all of the different reasons that somebody might be a woman without kids, and I felt that actually to speak to all women without kids, anybody who identifies as a woman without kids as I set it up in the book, could be very healing, could create solidarity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because regardless of our reasons for being women without kids, we will have experienced much of the same othering, much of the same pity, much of the same misunderstanding, much of the same lack of empathy, much of the same stigma and may have internalized lots of the same feelings of shame. \u201cI\u2019m a failure. There\u2019s something wrong with me.\u201d The root of those feelings might be different depending on our circumstances, but the net results is these feelings of shame and otherness. So first and foremost, I wanted to focus on what unites us over these divisive sort of tropes around like, \u201cWell, if you are a woman who would love to have kids but can\u2019t, then you are deserving of our sympathy. And if you\u2019re a woman who doesn\u2019t want to have kids, then you are a cold, heartless\u2014we don\u2019t know what you are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But then I also wanted to, as I got deeper into my research and deeper into the writing and deeper into the excavation and the uncovering of where so much of this stigma comes from, I realized that actually, a lot of people who are making the affirmative choice not to become a parent, that is sometimes from a place of pain. I identify by sharing my own story, that my own experiences of family life were not really something I wanted to replicate. I didn\u2019t have a relationship with my mother that I necessarily wanted to replicate. I\u2019ve been incredibly self-sufficient from a very early age, and that, in its own way, has caused me pain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes, I really wanted to try to unite this, like I said, as you\u2019ve touched on this sort of unsung sisterhood. And if anything, just encourage conversation amongst individuals about our reasons for being women without kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also identify in the first chapter a concept that I present called the motherhood spectrum, where again, we\u2019ve had this very binary idea, you\u2019re either an affirmative yes and you are a natural real woman who is fulfilling her duty and will find fulfillment in her children and her role as a mother, or you are an unnatural deviant woman without kids who is somehow sort of going against the natural order of things. And what I identify with this concept of the motherhood spectrum is that beyond our biological capacity to birth children, there are so many factors which will influence and have a huge impact on both our desire and our capacity to parent. Everything from our personality to the family we were raised in, to the culture we\u2019re a part of, to social structures that we\u2019re sort of ruled by, to our economics status, to our relationships status, to our talents, to our desires for our life. All of these things are going to factor into our ultimate decision or ability to have a child. And I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve had a really in-depth conversation about that. So I wanted to just kind of put that on the table.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a term \u201cchildless by circumstance,\u201d which is being used a lot more now. It has, up until now, been very much either you don\u2019t want kids\u2014you\u2019re childless by choice\u2014or you can\u2019t have kids, usually due to fertility issues and you\u2019re childless not by choice. But the largest cohort of women without kids are childless by circumstance. And what I point out in that book is that many of those circumstances are beyond our control, and many of those circumstances are leading us to make choices which result in us not having children. So it\u2019s actually very nuanced and very complex, this idea of childless by circumstance. Where does choice end and circumstance begin? To me, they\u2019re very interwoven. So I hope that by presenting this I can just engender some more empathetic and nuanced conversations around the reasons that we might be women without kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Can you tell me more about this category, childless by circumstance? What circumstances were you able to identify were the key contributors to that category?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Right. Well, the most recent research, which is about ten years old at this point\u2014and I\u2019d love to see a study done that\u2019s a bit more up to date\u2014but the research shows that of all the people who don\u2019t have children, about ten percent are affirmative nos\u2014this is just a no for me. About ten percent have experienced fertility issues, which leaves about 80 percent in this childless-by-circumstance category. By far, the leading reason for people to be childless by circumstance is economic. People are worried about the financial implications of whether or not they can afford to be parents. Whether due to a lack of paid parental leave, lack of free health care, lack of other affordable childcare solutions, perhaps they don\u2019t have a supportive network of family or community who could help out with the child-rearing. I think that alone just shines a light on how unsupported so many women are in their mothering by the structures we have to live within. And within that, how devalued the work of mothering is overall in society, particularly in a country like the United States, where there are very few support structures, official support structures for women.<\/span><\/p>\n

So economic is one of the main reasons. Then comes a desire to focus or establish oneself in one\u2019s career before having children. To establish and then going back to not least financial security, a retirement plan to actually get a foot in the door so that you can safely take some time out of your career potentially to focus on child-rearing. So those are the two main factors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anecdotally, I hear a lot of people saying that they just haven\u2019t met the right person to co-parent with. I have several friends who\u2019ve sort of been on the brink of going the root of artificial insemination and embarking on the path of motherhood as independent mothers, as solo mothers, but then sort of getting cold feet, very understandably, at the last minute, realizing how extra unsupported they will be in that role. It\u2019s a huge, huge commitment and will be very challenging for anyone who doesn\u2019t have quite a lot of support structures in place.<\/span><\/p>\n

So these would be the sort of three main reasons. And then of course, a person\u2019s sexuality, particularly among transgender people, it can be very difficult to even get considered for things like adoption. So there are just all sorts of factors that influence, that might make somebody childless by circumstance, many of which could be addressed by making policy changes that better support parents, that better understand people\u2019s reproductive needs and desires, and that seek to address economic inequality. I don\u2019t think, when I started writing this book, I realized quite how big of a subject this is and how actually this topic can be a doorway into talking about all kinds of other much bigger structural issues that we are facing as a society. Because of course, the one I didn\u2019t mention, I haven\u2019t seen this term used but I use it in the book, for younger generations being childless by climate change is a very serious consideration as well. People who are in their early 30s and 20s are very, very concerned, understandably, about the damage that has been done to the climate and the lack of willingness on behalf of politicians and corporate interests to actually seriously address carbon emissions and avert what we are told is unstoppable climate catastrophe at this point. So childless by climate change is very, very real for younger generations, especially.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now when you subtitled the book, <\/span>The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood<\/span><\/i>, you\u2019re pointing to some type of emergence that\u2019s happening now, that this large group of women might perhaps have a special role to be playing as we face climate change, as we need women to have their creative power, energy, and resource available to, in addition, perhaps to raising kid or instead of raising kids. Talk about how you see this as an emerging powerful force in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Well, the revolutionary rise speaks to what is a very real reproduction slowdown globally. Over the past 100 years, and particularly in the past 50 years, since the 1970s and the advent of the women\u2019s liberation movement, women have been having fewer children, dramatically fewer children. So in very black-and-white terms, there are more women without kids. So that\u2019s the sort of \u201crise\u201d part.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201crevolutionary\u201d part\u2014there\u2019s a line in the introduction where I say, \u201cIn some ways, women without kids are the canaries in the coal mine. Our very existence points to the fact that current conditions on planet Earth are simply not conducive to child-rearing and family life.\u201d That is child-rearing and family life as we have known them under patriarchy, with this very limited and very non-autonomous role for women and for mothers. I think that the revolutionary part in some ways comes from us boldly saying, I can\u2019t mother in these conditions. And a lot of people, particularly the childless by circumstance, are modeling that with their actions. \u201cI would like to mother, I cannot mother in these conditions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So there\u2019s a birth strike element to that. People might have heard that term. There was an official sort of birth strike movement of women who were sort of publicly stating, we are not having children until serious action is taken on climate change. And they actually disbanded in 2020 because they were concerned that their message had been misconstrued and that they were making some kind of a statement about overpopulation. When in fact, the problem is not that we have too many people, the problem is how we consume energy as a human race and we need to seriously address how we\u2019re organizing things as a people. But yes, I do think there\u2019s an element of people withdrawing from reproductive duties as a way of sort of saying, this just isn\u2019t working.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then I also make the point that the more women without kids, the more women will have the lion\u2019s share of their resources, whether it\u2019s time, energy, finances, creativity, innovation, etcetera, etcetera, put into public life versus the lion\u2019s share being used up in private life, in family life, sort of behind closed doors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now of course, there are amazing mothers who are doing amazing things to have a big influence outside of the home. And it\u2019s not the case that that\u2019s possible for a majority of women in order to be able to have it all, to do both, to really have an impact\u2014meaning to rise to positions of power where you can actually have influence and have your voice be heard and have your creations be seen. To do that in addition to mothering, it requires a lot of resource, a lot of additional resource, a lot of additional support that is not available to the majority of mothers. So I sort of make a case, I suppose, that more women without kids means more of a feminine influence when it comes to positions of power and influence in our society.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Let\u2019s talk personally for a moment, Ruby, if that\u2019s OK. You and I both were a part of this ten percent who said, it\u2019s not for me. It\u2019s not my truth. It\u2019s not what I choose. What\u2019s been the hardest part for you about that, and how have you made peace with your choice?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>The hardest part for me, and this is something, as so often is the case with our more subconscious influences, writing about things, getting it all onto the page will make very black and white, will make very clear things that have perhaps been going onto the radar in our lives and influencing us from behind the scenes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I always very confidently knew I didn\u2019t want to be a mother. It wasn\u2019t until I wrote out the story of my family of origin that it really became crystal clear that, in a large part, I was rejecting so much of the suffering and oppression that had been experienced by women and mothers specifically in my lineage. It wasn\u2019t until I wrote about my relationship with my mother and how that influenced my feelings about becoming a mother that I realized I hadn\u2019t experienced a relationship with her that I wanted to replicate. It wasn\u2019t until I looked at my parents\u2019 relationship with their parents that I realized I had no relationship with my grandparents. I never received a hug from any one of my grandparents. As I touched on earlier, these realizations led to a deeply felt sense of just having lacked any kind of a model for a family that I wanted to replicate. If anything, from a very young age, I learned to look after myself, stay true to myself, and become very self-sufficient. That has served me extremely well in many ways. Our society celebrates self-sufficiency and independence and grit. But it was very painful for me to actually touch in with those sort of family origin stories and realize the extent to which that had formed my feelings about family and my not wanting to reexperience some of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, what\u2019s been really interesting and is helping me make peace with that is that sharing the manuscript with my mother, which is probably one of the hardest things I\u2019ve ever done, for anybody who reads the book and thinks to themselves, wow, you\u2019ve really shown a lot here. It\u2019s very vulnerable and it\u2019s very honest. There\u2019s so much that I removed, having been through the conversations with my mom about what actually happened, and I wanted this to represent her truth as much as it represents my truth. And having had those conversations with my mother as a result over the past year, which is when I first shared the manuscript with her, I\u2019m starting to have a relationship with her now that I can imagine people want to replicate. When they feel a strong desire to birth a child, I could imagine that that desire is sometimes a desire to replicate that loving, accepting relationship that they\u2019ve had with their mother or their primary caregiver. And the fact that I\u2019m beginning to be able to experience that with my mother now at the age of, I\u2019m going to turn 47 in a couple of weeks\u2019 time, is bittersweet, because I\u2019m so grateful that I\u2019m starting to have that with her now and I\u2019m really sad. There\u2019s a little sadness that I didn\u2019t have that.<\/span><\/p>\n

So as much as I know that non-motherhood and this choice has been absolutely right for me in this life, I\u2019m very present to the fact that that has come from a place of loss in many ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Now, Ruby, I think this is part of my internalized view of women realizing themselves through motherhood as you\u2019re talking, and so I want to unpack this a little together. First of all, thank you for sharing so vulnerably, so I want to thank you for that and from your heart. What I notice is, when I reflect on my own journey, where it was just very clear to me as a lesbian and as someone who never identified or wanted to birth a child, it wasn\u2019t so much a reflection of my relationship with my mother, it just was not the right archetype for me, if you will. I never connected to it. But when I hear you share your story and I think of some other women that I know, I noticed this is the internalized part, something comes up in me, it\u2019s like, God, I wish they had a better relationship in their family. I wish Ruby had worked this out with her mom 20 years ago, and then she could have had a kid. And then there\u2019s part of me that thinks, what\u2019s going on, Tami? Why do you think that Ruby having a kid would\u2019ve been something better than the fact that she resolved this in her late 40s? So I\u2019m curious what your thoughts are about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>It\u2019s such an interesting reflection. All my research interviews for the book I recorded it as podcast series, which is airing now. It\u2019s called <\/span>Women Without Kids<\/span><\/i>, and they\u2019re fascinating. There were such good conversations I couldn\u2019t just have a couple of sentences go in the book and that be it. But I interviewed a woman who\u2019s, I think in her early 30s now, and she had had a, I think it\u2019s called a bilateral salpingectomy, which is where they actually remove the fallopian tubes. It\u2019s an irreversible sterilization procedure. And towards end of the interview she described to me or she let it out that if in the future she did want to have a child that she could use IVF to become pregnant, because her body still produces eggs, they\u2019re just sort of absorbed back into her system. They never make it into the womb to be fertilized. And I felt a similar, oh, so if you do change your mind? Oh, so you could have that thing then. And I think this absolutely speaks to this very ancient conditioning that we have, which is that having a child, I think for men and women, but especially for women, is the apex of fulfillment, the ultimate fulfillment. That nothing else that we do or achieve or have or experience in our lives will ever really be able to replicate that or make up for that lack if we haven\u2019t experienced it.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, yes, it\u2019s something I\u2019m still unpacking in myself. I think it is an internalized conditioning. It\u2019s a belief that is part of the sort of hetero, patriarchal, Judeo-Christian ideology. So yes, I\u2019m definitely looking at that in myself still. And that\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been\u2014just even in the past few weeks as I\u2019ve been doing so many podcast interviews about the book and really reflecting on the content, talking to my mom about her feelings about the book coming out and recognizing again that I have a relationship with her now, which is just so much deeper and truer, and just bringing myself back to a place of gratitude to having experienced that with her in this life. I didn\u2019t know that I\u2019d ever had this kind of a relationship with her. And I\u2019m so grateful that through engaging with the work of this book, I have been able to have that and how wonderful that she and I will be able to have that kind of relationship for as long as she has left.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think, yes, I\u2019m just so incredibly grateful as well that I\u2019ve been able to make a career and find a vocation. I do think of writing as a vocation, and I can sense that for you, your work in publishing and everything that you do in this field possibly has a similar sort of tone to it. But I\u2019m so grateful that I\u2019ve been able to make a life where I do feel completely fulfilled by all of the other things that I engage with.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I also just come back to whenever that sentimental conditioning around, oh, wouldn\u2019t it have been wonderful if I\u2019d have reached this point ten years ago when it still might have been possible for me to have a child? I just remind myself of what some of, and it can sound a little surface but I think it\u2019s actually really important, I\u2019m incredibly introverted. I do not deal well with stress. I like my days to be as empty as I can make them. I need a lot of quiet, a lot of space around my interactions with other human beings. These are part of who I am. This is always how I\u2019ve been. And I know that my basic personality is just incompatible with the demands and the lifestyle of parenting. And so I always come back to, what do I know about myself? What do I know to be true about myself and my needs, particularly my emotional needs, and how would that be impacted by becoming a parent? So yes, I\u2019m very, very suited to the vocation of writer, not so suited to the vocation of parent.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>And you mentioned this notion of fulfillment, and you even said complete fulfillment in the life that you do have, and you write about generativity and how it\u2019s possible for us to, I\u2019ll use the language, give birth in many different ways, and I wonder if you can touch some on that. I notice in your vocation you call yourself a book doula, which is of course bringing new life into the world, helping other people bring their books forward. And here you\u2019ve given birth to the sober-curious movement. Maybe briefly just tell people what that is. And here you are holding a torch for a new revolutionary rise of unsung sisterhood. These are big birthing exercises in my view. I\u2019m curious how you see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>So I write about generativity in the last chapter of the book, which is called \u201cAnother Legacy,\u201d and I\u2019m really thinking, when I\u2019m writing about this concept, about the mark we leave on the world. How do we make our lives count? Generativity was identified by the psychologist Erik Erickson in the 1950s. He came up with a series of phases that we experience as human beings as we go through life, and I think generativity is either the sixth or the seventh phase of eight, and it comes\u2026 It must be the sixth. Sorry if I\u2019m getting that wrong. It\u2019s in the book. But generativity is the phase which coincides with midlife, sort of from 40 to 60, a phase when many people are really caught up with the day-to-day of parenting. And it is when we as humans tend to ask ourselves, is this it? How can I make my life count? Midlife is the phase where naturally we sort of reflect and look back, what have I achieved? What has my mark been? What has my life been about and how can I make my life count? In particular, in terms of what will be left behind, what imprint am I leaving for future generations?<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, even in the 1950s, Erickson did not equate or sort of say that generativity was dependent on a person being a biological parent and that there are many ways to enact generativity. And they make the point in the book that it sounds like generous activity and that actually anything which is coming from a place of generosity, which has an element of this is something I\u2019m engaging with for the benefit of myself and others could come under the umbrella of generativity. And I really like thinking about legacy in that way. I know that having published books is sort of an obvious one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our books live on longer than we do. Well, for as long as they stay in print anyway. And as an author, one of the things I love about this vocation is that I will never know the impact my work has, and yet I know that it has a huge impact from the messages and the emails I do get. Imagining that for every message I get\u2014for example, you touched on the sober-curious movement. My last book was called <\/span>Sober Curious<\/span><\/i>, which was inviting a different way to think about changing our relationship to alcohol individually and also collectively, outside of traditional sort of ideas about recovery and addiction. I get messages about that all the time from people telling me, \u201cThis has had a huge impact on my life. This has saved my life. This has completely transformed how I am as a parent.\u201d And I imagine that for each of those messages, there are probably hundreds of people who\u2019ve had a similar experience. And I know from my own experience of being so precarious and removing alcohol from my life, what a profound impact that has had on my relationships with the other people in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, I don\u2019t think I could have gone there with my mom in the way that I have, or with this book, actually, to the depth that I have had I still been using alcohol to numb out or shy away from some of the more painful aspects of my experience of my life, if that makes sense. Removing alcohol has really helped me to, well, helped forced me to sit with and then examine the real root causes of some of the deeper psycho-emotional pain that I experience in my life. I\u2019ve been using alcohol to medicate in many ways. And so yes, these are ways that I think about my legacy, I suppose. But I also realize it\u2019s very specific.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I make the point in the book, <\/span>Women Without Kids<\/span><\/i>, that I don\u2019t think any person needs to validate their existence in other ways if they haven\u2019t had children to make up for the fact that they\u2019re not bringing new humans into the world, they must bring other sort of creative inventions or endeavors or projects into the world. I truly think, and I make this point as well, that anybody who\u2019s very actively engaged in their healing work is having a huge impact purely by the fact that showing up as a more healed and whole and accepting human being is going to dramatically improve your relationships with other human beings, which will have a ripple effect in your family, in your community, your places of work. And even if it\u2019s just these people who are impacted by you making that change in your life, well, that\u2019s a legacy worth leaving.<\/span><\/p>\n

And just quickly to the book doula piece, yes, in my day job I work with authors to concept, gestate, and write and launch their books, and I love being that support for people who are engaged in that process.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I just have to say, Ruby, you\u2019re very brilliant. You took all the threads of my question and wove them into an answer, and you\u2019re very, very good at doing that, taking a lot of disparate threads and weaving them all together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I noticed as you were talking about the kind of fulfillment that can exist in our lives through the creative work we do, I had this thought, once again I\u2019ll call it a cultural interject, about like, oh, great, we get all these consolation prizes, but we missed the real thing, the love of children and their mother. And I know someone who mentioned to me, \u201cYou\u2019ll never know this thing, Tami. You haven\u2019t experienced, you\u2019ll never know the incredible depth.\u201d And as you write about in <\/span>Women Without Kids<\/span><\/i>, it\u2019s this type of existential FOMO that suddenly comes up and I\u2019m like, will I never know this certain kind of love? Am I missing something that is at the heart of a woman\u2019s life that I\u2019ll never know? Even though I\u2019m deep, as you can tell, in the affirmative no category, this still came up for me as this person was sharing with me her experience as a mom. And anyway, I\u2019m just wondering what you think about that, how we address this existential FOMO.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Well, it\u2019s interesting to hear you say you\u2019ve experienced it too, but yes, I think that any woman without kids will have brushed up against this.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll start here, my parents never expressed a huge amount of surprise that I didn\u2019t want to have children. They never tried to pressure me into having children, which I\u2019m very, very grateful for, because a lot of people experience a lot of pressure from their families. But my dad did once say that very thing to me, \u201cI completely understand your life and you\u2019ll never experience real love if you don\u2019t have a child.\u201d And this came up with him recently, we were on a call and in his ironic way, \u201cWho was it who said that to you? Who was that idiot who said that to you?\u201d I was like, \u201cIt was you, Dad.\u201d He said, \u201cYes. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d say that now.\u201d And we had a conversation about love.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that there are many different kinds of love and that there are many different kinds of happiness, and I am accepting, I think, of the fact that as somebody who not having a child means I will not experience a very specific kind of love, that very specific love that a parent feels for their child, which, and this is sort of what came up in the conversation with my dad, is not necessarily the most pleasurable kind of love. I think based on my personal experience, based on other people in my family and whom I\u2019m close to, I think that the love that a parent feels for their child and vice versa can be very fraught and very complicated and quite conditional sometimes as well. I don\u2019t think that parental love is unconditional love, and I think a lot of people don\u2019t experience it that way. I will love you if you marry this person or if you pursue this sort of a career or if you achieve X, Y, Z or if you treat me in a certain way. I think it can be quite a complicated love.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think a part of me is quite happy to experience the uncomplicated love that I experience with my pets, with my friends, the uncomplicated kind of love that I have for reading, the uncomplicated kind of love that I feel when I walk in nature. I sort of feel like there\u2019s part of me that just did a sort of psychological, intuitive, cost-benefit analysis. Are there potential risks or hardships that might be down the path of parenthood for a person like me, knowing myself fully and well? Are they worth it for this kind of complicated, mysterious love that I might experience for my child?<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes, I don\u2019t know. There\u2019s a whole chapter about acceptance and how whatever path we walk in life it will mean not walking other paths. And I think this is something else we realize in midlife. We\u2019ve had enough experiences of not getting the things that we thought we wanted or we thought we deserved or we thought we had earned, and realizing I\u2019m still here, life is still happening. I\u2019m still here. What next? That\u2019s life. Nobody gets everything that we want or everything that we could have. So yes, this is perhaps one of the ultimate experiences of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I think that, along with, \u201cWhat if you regret it one day, you might regret it,\u201d these can be, whether intentionally or not, very coercive sort of statements to get people back with the procreative program for anyone who has deviated, who has dared to say, \u201cThat\u2019s not for me and I\u2019m OK.\u201d It\u2019s revolutionary to walk that alternative path and there are many forces at play to bring us back into the procreative program. And I think that, \u201cYou\u2019ll never experience real love. What if you regret it,\u201d and then the other big one, \u201cBut who will look after you when you are old?\u201d Those big three can really be designed to stoke that existential FOMO and bring us back into line.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>One of the things you write about is people who have chosen to be mothers who regret motherhood, and I thought that\u2019s a really important topic to bring forward, also very taboo. You hear a lot about, will you regret not having kids? But you don\u2019t hear that much about what might be the sources of you regretting having kids. I wonder if you can speak to that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Yes. I found a book early in my research called <\/span>Regretting Motherhood<\/span><\/i>, it\u2019s by an Israeli sociologist called Orna Donath, and she conducted a study of I think about 25 women who would openly admit to regretting having had their children, as in, \u201cIf I could have my time again, I would not do this.\u201d As you touched on, this is one of the ultimate taboos and reading it was just incredibly\u2014it was compelling and shocking and validating. Validating because it answered that question that you just posed. Everybody says, you will regret not having children, but what if you regret having children?<\/span><\/p>\n

As one of my friends in the early stages of the project sort of pointed out to me, \u201cThis is one of the only decisions that we can\u2019t unmake as human beings.\u201d It really is. It\u2019s an irreversible decision that will alter the course of your life forever. What if you regret it? I mean, this is worthy of considering. Again, studies show that between I think it\u2019s between about 7 and 14 percent of parents express some regret about having had their children and having become parents. And again, those numbers are thought to be underreported because it is such a taboo subject and people often might not even be able to admit it to themselves, let alone somebody conducting a research study.<\/span><\/p>\n

But yes, I actually believe, and again, this is particularly for women, when we have experienced a large degree of autonomy and bodily sovereignty in our lives as a result of the hard-won advances of the feminists in the women\u2019s liberation movement, to then have that undone or taken away from us in motherhood because sadly, motherhood has not progressed at the same rate as the feminist movement, I think many women experience becoming mothers as a loss of agency, a loss of identity, and a sort of return to a very traditional idea about what a woman\u2019s place is. And I think that that\u2019s very painful. I think that contributes to a lot of postpartum depression, a lot of feelings of disillusionment with motherhood and potentially even regretting motherhood. Again, hugely undiscussed because so taboo and yet very, very important conversations to be having. If this is the case, then how can we improve conditions for mothers? How can we think differently about mothering and what that role means and what that role requires and what people need in that role to feel like they can still retain their autonomy and their identity and still pursue their other dreams for their lives? What does it really mean?<\/span><\/p>\n

That, I think, is sort of part of the unfinished work of the feminist movement, and I think it\u2019s something that particularly, after what people experienced during the COVID childcare crisis, where so many people suddenly had all of their support systems sort of taken out from under them and found themselves back in these sort of 1950s sort of scenarios, really, really crumbling without those support systems in place. Just shows, I think, how fragile some of the advances, particularly in gender equality have been. So I do think who there are multiple reasons that people might regret motherhood, but I think that\u2019s probably a big one.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I would say the gift that <\/span>Women Without Kids<\/span><\/i> gave me was helping me look more deeply at ways that I still hold this cultural notion that being a mother is somehow the epitome of a woman\u2019s choice. It may not be for me, because I am clearly a deviant disruptor, but for most women, especially heterosexual women, it is their ultimate fulfillment. So I realized I still held that. I still held that. And the gift the book gave me was to say, what if I actually removed that bias and said, this is a totally open field. Women, you can choose what feels to be your calling. You are going to not get it all, no matter what you choose. You\u2019re not going to get it all. Nobody gets it all. You don\u2019t. Make your choice live with the consequences and accept your life and be fulfilled in the life you have. So that was a sort of open field with\u2014I\u2019m curious when you think of the impact, the wake the book might have in the world, what your hopes are for readers?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Well, it\u2019s very gratifying to hear that that\u2019s what you came away from reading it with. Because I think actually what you just described, it sounds simple, but it is revolutionary, the idea that actually no individual should be confined in terms of how they find fulfillment, the things that bring them joy, what they have to offer the world, by their biological sex or their gender identity. It\u2019s revolutionary. We are in the midst of a really progressive push in terms of gender equality, and I think this is central to that conversation. So I think yes, I would love for more people to come away with that sort of aha moment, I suppose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marianne Williamson is running for president again in 2024, not to get too political here or anything, but a large part of her focus is on how can we help people have the lives that they want and the families that they want? And I think that that question, which centralizes on economic inequality, is actually really central to this book too. So I hope that it sort of feeds into and sparks more conversations about how central this is to whether people are actually able to enjoy their lives, lead the kind of lives that they want to under current economic conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then similarly with climate change, I think if we can look at\u2014well, let\u2019s go backwards a bit. There are two conversations happening concurrently around population. On the one hand, we have people saying, \u201cThere are too many people, the Earth can\u2019t support the number of people. We need to reduce the size of the population.\u201d And on the other we have people saying, \u201cWe are not having enough people. We\u2019re headed towards population collapse. We have too many old people. We don\u2019t have enough young people to support the aging population.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I think obviously these are two of the most important conversations that are going to be had this century, about how we organize as a society and about how we inhabit the world that we are living in. And women without kids are central to both those conversations. So I want to empower any woman or any person who is either questioning whether they want to become parents and\/or confidently staking out an alternative path and thinking about, what\u2019s my role going to be in the world? To speak up on these issues and to find each other and to start conversations in their families, in their friendship groups, in their communities, in their places of work about what we actually need to change to improve conditions for the new humans who are going to be born on the planet. And for the older humans who are transitioning out of the workforce, who are no longer seen as productive or useful to society, and yet who, thanks to medical advances that have managed to extend our lifespans, double our lifespans in the course of the past century, how do we start to revalue those elder years and not see older people as written out of the story when it comes to their value and productivity?<\/span><\/p>\n

I think these are really big questions that I don\u2019t have answers for, but I think it\u2019s time for us all to talk about. I have been saying from the beginning that this book, <\/span>Women Without Kids<\/span><\/i>, is a conversation starter. So I want people to read it with their friends. I\u2019m saying read it with your other non-mom friends so you can better understand each other\u2019s position. Read it with your mom friends so you can start to heal that false divide between the moms and the non-moms. Read it with your partner as you really consider what it would mean to become parents and why you might not feel suited for that. Read it with your mother. Perhaps some of what I\u2019ve shared has inspired anybody who\u2019s listening, who has conflicted relationship or feelings about their mother. But yes, read it. Read it in groups, have conversations about what comes up. There\u2019s so much in here to be discussed.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019ve been speaking with Ruby Warrington, she\u2019s the author of the new book, <\/span>Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood<\/span><\/i>. And what a nuanced thinker you are, and able to hold a lot of complexity all at once. I would say an integral thinker, where you\u2019re really looking at what\u2019s happening inside of us, what are the social forces, what are the collective historical forces, and where are we going in the future? Very brilliant, Ruby, and wonderful to speak with you. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RW: <\/b>Thank you, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>And if you\u2019d like to watch <\/span>Insights at the Edge <\/span><\/i>on video and participate in after-the-show Q&A conversations with featured presenters and have the chance to ask your questions, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community that features premium shows, live classes, and community events. Let\u2019s learn and grow together. Come join us at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-20083","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen Without Kids - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Women Without Kids. 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