LIVE kidfree Rachel Jacovino

Being childfree is a choice and lifestyle that can inspire immediate and visceral emotional responses from people, while other lifestyles or pursuits are not particularly scrutinized or triggering. A person who aspires to be a parent is viewed as normal and wholesome, while a person who aspires to live kidfree is often viewed as neither normal nor wholesome.
I view people who react to childfree people with judgement and indignance and disdain as, essentially, basic. In reality, most people lack the intelligence, introspection, curiosity and awareness needed to manage their own thoughts and emotions around the idea of living kidfree: they simply get triggered and react with fear and emotion rather than reason.
In an effort to further normalize our lifestyle, I came up with three analogies that I think may be useful when trying to process your decision to live kidfree or when helping others understand why you might want your life to look different from theirs.

If you think “RIP friendship” when your friends become parents, you aren’t alone. You also aren’t a terrible person. Can we all just admit that it’s sad when our friends become parents?
Yes, we love them. Yes, we are happy for them. But we also grieve the loss of a friendship that, while it may endure, will never be the same. Perhaps this loss is a mutual feeling: I’m sad she is being taken away from me while she may be sad that I won’t be walking the parenting path with her. Regardless, it’s undeniable that a baby causes an inflection point in all of its parents’ relationships, and not all of those relationships survive.
So why do we feel sad? I have bucketed this into three major reasons:
I will become a lower priority for my friend My friend will never be the same My friend will become a Parent I also have a few words of [unsolicited] advice for kidfree folks who are not only feeling sad about losing friendships, but are also feeling guilty or ashamed for feeling sad.
Listen as I dive into the reasons why we’re sad and help you change your perspective so you can preserve precious friendships.

I chose my top five reasons for living kidfree:
Family has never been the center of my universe. I don’t want to live in a state of constant fear and anxiety. I have never been with a man whose children I wanted to have. Parenting is a bad deal in US society these days. The role of parenting simply doesn’t interest me. Listen to the episode as I dive into the dirty details of these fabulous five reasons!