One of the hardest conversations we’ve ever had to have

29:12But honestly, I'm sweating right now talking about it. I have no doubt that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people sitting, thinking the exact same thing as you and who feel far less alone hearing someone so succinctly talk through very logical realities. Not everything is a fantasy. Not everything will work itself out. It is important to consider the logical elements that are attached to the decision and eventuation of having children. You are so within your right to feel and think all of those things. Yeah. Thanks Mads. Yeah. I really, really respect everything you've just said. Thank you.

29:51Thank you. Mads, do you want to run us through your personal experience with this topic? And the tissues back. The tissues might need to come back. Look, some of our listeners might already have context of this. I touched on it a little bit in my episode of Inherited. I'm going to try and avoid eye contact with the both of you because I do fear I actually will cry. When I was 23, I was diagnosed with early onset menopause or otherwise known as premature ovarian reserve failure, essentially. I haven't been through menopause, but my AMH and fertility specialists indicate that I will go through it at a much earlier time than most.

30:29It's taken a lot of hours and a lot of years with quite intense therapy to be able to sit here and say that I would love nothing more than to be a mum. But I also really love the idea of my life without children. And I have had to work really hard to be able to say both of those things and for them to coexist. Because biologically for me, that is the reality I sit with. and that's a very personal one and that is one that I think about every day for very different reasons and I think on different levels. I think Ray always says two things can be true and I really believe that for me. And I also look at that journey of freezing what I could and I feel like I was like alive asleep, like I just – don't remember a lot of that time in my life.

31:28I felt so alone and I was such a baby and I was forced to be such a grown up at such young age and I would love to be a mum but I have to really challenge myself on what that looks like for me. I did that with a partner at the time. I look at that journey now and that doesn't define it for me so I come at the lens of do I want to go back through that because it will look like that for me and the cost of my peace and my mental health was a very significant one for me and there's a lot of PTSD attached in that I look at motherhood as such a beautiful thing and I love my friends kids I love my niece and nephew so much and I would love to experience that myself but I won't do it with the wrong person and I will happily do it by myself.

32:19And that comes with all of the same considerations you have, Jo. It's me. There's no sugar daddy. This is the sugar daddy. This is the sugar mama. And so, you know, for me, it will mean a lot of things to be a mum, to be a biological mum. It would mean going through the emotional and physical rollercoaster of all of that. And, And, you know, hope is the most beautiful thing in the whole world. And in that journey, it can also be a really dangerous one. So it's balancing hope and expectation. And I would say that that is how I summarise where I'm at in it all is that I continually balance beautiful beaming hope and really, really honest expectation.

33:06And now I'm equipped with really great knowledge of what options would look like for me too. My parents aren't together. They haven't been since I was very young. And my stepdad loves me so much and treats me like his own. And so I think that is a testament that a child does not always need to be your biological child to showcase love. And I was on the phone with my mum this morning, transparently, because I was so nervous to talk about this. And I said, I just feel like I have a village that's better than most men. And mum said, oh, God, yeah, we'd raise a kid way better than a man. Good. So, yeah, I sit here very single but very much would love to be a mum.

33:48Yeah. But balance that I'd be a really fucking cool drunk aunt too. Honestly, you are first up for babysitting, Judy, whenever you want, drunk aunt or not. Never around children, just to really clarify. Okay, we're going to discuss what you guys all had to say about your decisions, but we're going to do that after we hear from today's sponsor.

34:18Okay, so we've dried our eyes and we're baffed. So we're going to get into our audience now because they very kindly contributed to this episode in quite a lot of detail. So our first question that we put out to our audience was, do you have children and do you want to have children? So starting out with the basics, 70 % of our listeners who responded to the survey don't currently have children and 21 % do. That's over 50 % that don't have children. We also asked whether our listeners wanted to have kids and 68.8 % told us they do want to have kids. 22 % said they were unsure, while 9.1 % told us they don't want to have children.

35:01Does this statistic surprise us? Not at all. No. Yeah, I was pretty like, oh yeah, that makes sense. I was kind of expecting like between five to 10 % to say absolutely not. But I maybe didn't expect 22 % to be unsure. Maybe I thought more people would be sure. Kind of made me feel a little bit less alone that so many were unsure. Same. Like, oh, God, it does feel nice being honest in a survey behind your computer in the quiet of your night. That's so millennial of me to say I did it on my computer. I did do this survey and I did do it on my laptop. Something about making big girl purchases and answering surveys I like doing on a laptop.

35:39All right. So our second question was, when you think about the prospect of having children, what's the dominant feeling? And deciding whether or not to have children, as Jo has so perfectly just articulated, can bring up a real cocktail. of emotions for our listeners when you're thinking about the prospect of having children. 42.8 % of you feel overwhelmed, 38.4 % of you feel excited and 18.8 % feel fear. Do you feel in anecdotally in your friendship groups, this reflects kind of the percentage numbers in your friendship group as well? It's tricky because a lot of my friends already have kids.

36:18Yeah. So I'm like one of the very few left to not have them. But can I just say these statistics made me feel way less alone. Yeah. And I felt comfort that I'm not the only one freaking the fuck out. A lot of you also are. Yeah. I mean, I look at my girlfriends who even are pregnant and they're overwhelmed. They're like, oh my God, what am I going to do? And I don't know when I'm going to be right to go back to work. Yeah. It's not necessarily the thought of having children doesn't overwhelm you. You can want children and still feel overwhelmed at the thought of it. But, you know, again, two things can be true.

36:49Almost 20 % feeling fear was quite high, I would say. I think that's what made me, because I feel fear. Yeah. So that's what made me feel like I was not going crazy. It's so fear. Like, it's bloody daunting. And I honestly, I don't think that fear is ever going to go away. Like, once you do into parenthood, you're just going to be scared for your life that that little baby is, like, breathing and okay. And then they grow up to be 18. And if you're like me, you're jumping out your bedroom window. There's just a whole lot of things that happen. Like, that fear never goes away. but yeah I definitely think my husband and I used to actually always debate about the right time to have kids yeah he's a pragmatic thinker he's so logical quite like you Jo and he wanted to make sure we had the financial stability there were all those kind of checkpoints in place whereas I'm a figure it out as I go kind of gal and I was like we will we'll make it happen it will all be okay so I totally resonate with the overwhelm because even some of my friends now who do have children are constantly overwhelmed.

37:44Yes. And it's just, it's kind of part of it, right? Well, on that note, our third question that we asked was what's the most stressful factor when it comes to becoming a mother? And obviously there's a lot to consider when you're making this choice, as I've touched on in my spiral. And whether, you know, you decide whether or not, and, you know, deciding whether or not you want to be a mother from the health of your relationship, whether you can financially afford it, whether you're willing to accept all of the changes that come with that. But our listeners told us that above anything, they find lifestyle the most stressful factor.

38:18So 39.2 % of them were changed to their lifestyle, I assume, followed by money and finances, which came in at 29.4%, career progression at 16.1%, relationship stability at 9.1 % and body changes at 6.1 % as well. So for each of us, I guess, what's the most stressful factor for you now that you're actually pregnant, Annika? What's the thing that you're thinking about most? I actually think for me, I just want to make sure that I can be like a really hands-on mum. I want to be there at every event. I want to be, you know, the best possible mum. And I think that means I need to be present, which also means, you know, I own my own business and my career, which I have worked so hard to get to this point, will have to take a back seat.

39:06And so I think for me, it's that adjustment of giving up. I don't want to say my career defines me or it's my identity, but in a way it really is. And it's half of me. It's who I am. Sage is me. It's an extension of me. So I think that is going to be the hardest challenge that I will have to let go. But at the same time, this day is something that I've been planning for for quite a long time. So at the same time, I do kind of feel that reassurance to things can be true, that I put the right foundations in place to set myself up. How about you, Mads? I'm probably tied. It's funny because I guess career progression and finances could kind of be intertwined.

39:43Yeah. Because a lot of the time women feel that their careers are kind of, you know, there's a glass ceiling that appears. I mean, it kind of exists anyway, just by agenda, but kind of it's almost like that ceiling drops as you become a mother and I think we've all seen it or heard about it in terms of our friends or family. For me, career is a really big one. I've worked really hard. I really doubled down the minute I kind of had fertility challenges because I was like if I'm not going to have kids, I'm going to have one hell of a career. It's that and for me another one is picking the wrong partner to do it with because never thought I'd sit here and say it was a blessing not to fall pregnant when I worked as hard as I did to get there.

40:27But I would have been doing it with absolutely the wrong person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So mic drop there, I guess. Yeah, my answer is all of the above. So as we know. So our next one is, do you feel unwanted pressure to become a mother? I think so many of our listeners are going to resonate with this because there's a huge amount of pressure on women to become mothers from society, our own families and friends, you know, sometimes even from our partners. Yes, it has become less expected for women to have children over the last decades, particularly as women have been exposed to positive depictions of child-free lives and have gained more independence financially.

41:11Shout out to, you know, Samantha from Sex and the City. But I think that pressure and expectation has never fully gone away. And I think we'd be naive to think so. So 49.1 % of our listeners told us that they sometimes feel pressure to become mothers. 24.6 % say they rarely feel it. And 14.5 % said they feel it all the time. And 11.8 % said they never feel it. Right. Jo, you alluded to feeling the questions about becoming a mother, have you felt the pressure within those questions or that it's just an exploratory question? I think the pressure is more on myself. I don't necessarily feel like there's other people that are like, oh, you have to have kids.

41:57Like I haven't experienced that really, but in conversations with people that do have kids, sometimes I kind of feel like there's a little bit of pressure there when I'm like, oh, I'm really not sure. There's kind of more of like a insinuation like oh you know maybe you should like that kind of like you know sentiment which is fine I know that there's no like ill meaning with that but I think it's more pressure on myself and also an assumption from a lot of people that I would be the one wanting to have the kids and that it wouldn't be Adrian like he had someone that knows him very well but not me say to him recently like oh you know is Joe gonna be itching to have kids as soon as you guys are married and he was like, quite the opposite, actually.

42:36That would be me. I'm ready. Yeah. So I think there's just this assumption that the woman in the relationship must be the one that wants to have the children and that it can't possibly be the man. When in some instances it is them that wants that more. So. Absolutely. Yeah. I definitely felt so much pressure. And I also think I felt it really early in my relationship with James because God, we'll be together. I want to say 12 years in January but we've been together for a long time and we met when I was 21 and he was god 26 maybe and very early on in our relationship I remember him hitting his 30s and people were like okay well when are you dropping the knee when a baby's coming and there was so much pressure around us because I am one of the youngest in our friendship group and so I am one of the only girls that hasn't actually had a baby yet and I just remember the second we got married it was like boom people thought that that was going to happen and it happened in a really unfortunate way yeah I'm scared for the questions to come rolling in post-wedding it's bizarre it's literally like a textbook where it kind of just happened for us straight away and even after my miscarriage and people knew that what we had gone through still sometimes they got awkward in like conversations it was kind of like parents friends and like you know uncles and aunties that didn't really know how to address the topic yeah but we're like so when a kid's coming and I'll be like check yourself Yeah.

43:57Yeah. I have some really, I guess, tangible advice for anyone who might want to be asking a friend of theirs. Just if they ever want to have a family. I think that's a really lovely question to ever ask someone is would you like to have a family? That's great. That's not saying do you want to have kids because you're assuming someone can. You're not asking when. You're not asking what or how. It's just saying as a generalized hope. I say this from a personal place. I would never say this to someone I didn't know well. I would only say this in a quiet comfort that I felt a friend and I could have that honest discussion.

44:32Would you like to have a family? Do you see yourself having a family? There is nothing about a timeline or a question. It opens a really safe space and I think having that kind of honest conversation without any pressure for them or assumption is a really kind way to go about it and a way I've gone given what I've gone through. Amen. I would say that should have been your swap. Well, bonus swap. For all of the fertility challenges and fucking hell of four years of my life that that was, I have to say the silver lining for me is I don't feel that pressure because I feel I've done everything I can.

45:12And I know that. That's not a feeling. That's a fact. Yeah. Like the biological clock is kind of out of your hands at this point. Absolutely. And I feel that it's taken out from dating. I don't feel that pressure. I mean, definitely a lot of other layers that are added to that dating experience because of that certain experience. But I don't feel this pressure to find the one or to do it by a time because I've done what I can. And I look at friends and I was away recently for a friend's wedding and overheard someone ask her when they would start trying. And I'm like, the dress hasn't even left the DHL Depot yet.

45:48Like, I'm like, give them a break. That is none of your business. And that is as simple as that. It's personal. It is not for you to say, when are you going to start trying? Would you like a copy of her flow app too? I just, yeah. Anyway, that's my small rant over on that one. Yeah. The audacity. Well, speaking of fertility, our next question that we asked our audience was, do you worry about the state of your fertility or your ability to conceive and carry a pregnancy. For some people, a decision to have children can be rife with roadblocks, as we've spoken about quite extensively already. We asked our listeners whether they worry about the state of their fertility or their ability to conceive and carry a pregnancy, and 47.3 % said sometimes, 34.8 % said all the time, 10.8 % said rarely, and 7.2 % said never.

46:41this is obviously a very sensitive and sometimes painful topic and knowing that 34.8 % of our listeners worry about their ability to conceive all the time shows us how all-consuming that can be when you're in that headspace. I think we've spoken quite a bit about you know our experiences with that do you guys have anything else that you would want to touch on with that particular question. I think before I started my journey, like I said before, I never worried. And now in hindsight, which is such a beautiful thing, I think if I could have my time again, I would have, if I was so consumed and so worried, or even maybe not worried, maybe just wanting to know what my options were, I would have looked into it further and I would have gotten the help because I wholeheartedly believe that my outcomes could have been different and my heartbreak could have and different.

47:32I feel like the only other thing that I need to add is that fertility treatments are really expensive and retaining options for yourself is an expensive task. It's like tipping money into your superannuation and not knowing if you're going to use it. I mean, I hope I live to 65 and use my super. But freezing your eggs, especially if you're unsure, is an expensive task and going, am I going to spend all this money and do, am I going to use them? And what if that round is not a successful one and I need to do it again? Like there's no money back guarantee in fertility treatments. And I empathize with people with the fertility anxiety right now.

48:12And I've spoken a lot off mic about this actually with Rhi, but I think there's a lot of like paid sponsorships happening at the moment for egg freezing and proactive fertility decision-making and fantastic businesses coming up where you can send away small blood samples to get your AMH tested, which is one of the contributing, I guess, pieces of science that can help anticipate your ovarian reserve. But seeing those kinds of things and being targeted in those ads can be quite anxiety riddling. And I think, you know, I'm not at all surprised to see that people are at times anxious about this because even if they present no fertility challenges or have no experience with it, just seeing that content can be really hard.

48:55But I think just acknowledging the privilege that comes with even being able to think about it or afford to undergo it is a privilege. Definitely. Yeah. All right. Next one is, if it were to be as easy as picking an age to have a child, what would your ideal age to have a child be? So overall, most of our listeners view their 30s as the ideal time to have children. The most popular answer was age 30, with 20.1 % of listeners choosing this was then followed by 32 which was 15.9 percent 28 was 12.2 percent and 35 was 10.4 percent. Annika in particular as you're pregnant has the age you wanted to have kids ever been a consideration for you?

49:40I think my ideal age if I could have had it my way would have been 30 and mainly because I've always known that I've wanted to have more than one child and this is going to be a sickening fact for everybody but once you hit 35 you're considered you're having a geriatric pregnancy joe and i were laughing about this because in the script i was really struggling to spell geriatric writing notes at the same time and she did so many tries at it i was like literally writing notes to her like oh my god it's spelt this way she's always got you back i know she does that's my girl you don't need chat to me till you've got joke so I think that would probably be like it's kind of like I'm just pulling out a number right but I had a great 20s like my 20s were fantastic but then at the same time I also think what would I have given up if I actually had fallen pregnant at 30 because that was when I started sage and so my life right now would look so different but yeah in an ideal world 30 would have maybe been my golden number yeah what's your golden number Jo I'd probably go between 36 and 38 yeah that's My Jerry.

50:47Yeah. Yep, call me Geriatric. No, I would wait as long as I possibly could. If I went to Disneyland and just everything was perfect and great, I'd pick 34, 35. Reality number, probably more like 37, 38. Yeah. If I'm going to be a solo artist, look out Beyonce. Realistically, to set up my business and what I'm working towards, yeah, it would probably be a little later. I also, to come back to your point, Annika, you know you want multiple children. If I'm to have children, I'm not sold that I would want multiple. So I think that's why I'm okay with that later timeframe because I'm like, okay, well, if I'm 38 and I'm not having any more, that's all right.

51:28Yeah. Cool. Do you want to know my hilarious theory about having children? This is grounded in no fact and this is not to offend anyone who has more than two because I have so many friends that do empower to them. I love being Aunty Mads. I do not wish to be outnumbered. So if I'm a single mother, I will have one child. Okay. If I have a partner, it's two max, baby. Okay. And hell no, do I want to have to feel two at a time? I'm like one each, one each. Well, I'm one of three and I, yeah, I could agree with that. But I also, I don't know, based on my experience with two older brothers, I don't know whether I would have three.

52:05As the youngest girl of two older brothers, I don't know that I would do that. And question seven is what lifestyle circumstances have impacted your previous answer? So it kind of flows on from that. We've got a selection of answers here to read out that touch on some of the common ones that people brought up. So answer one, I think 29 to 30 is the perfect age to start having kids. At least it was for me. You're young enough that if you have infertility issues, then you hopefully have enough time to work through them. You've also lived enough of your own life to know what you want your future to look like.

52:36You're more financially stable and you've established yourself career-wise enough to return to it after having kids if you want slash need to return to work. Answer two, I'm married but I also feel like my partner is not emotionally ready to support me through pregnancy and motherhood. He wants kids but I don't think he understands fully what it needs or how it will change me. I'm worried that his lifestyle won't change while mine will and I'll feel resentment. Answer three is having kids is so financially straining and I'm worried about how that will affect me mentally, especially because money is already a stress for me as I'm not making very good money.

53:11The partner answer is a massive one for me. And, you know, I completely empathise with this woman and that position because I think one quote that I was told once by someone was, what you tolerate from your partner, your children will inherit. it. And I have anecdotally heard a lot of women say, oh, you know, he'll cut that out once we have kids or he'll grow out of that. I feel very passionately now through my own lived experiences that assuming that a man will grow out of behaviour or grow into being the man that I'm sure very convincingly they tell you they want to be is not something personally, I'm willing to roll the dice on.

53:57And I have come from divorced parents. And I think that the man that you pick to have children with, do not pick a man because you want to have children. Pick a man you want to have children with. Like that, that is your partner and that is going to be a parent. Say that again, sis. I'm like, that one needs to be heard in the back. so choose wisely because even if that relationship doesn't work for the two of you is that a person who will be someone that you wish to co-parent with yeah I think that is a really important reality like is that someone that is going to respect you and and that relationship enough regardless of your marital or relationship romantic status I think a lot of women based on their age may fall into this, I guess you could say trap of staying with that person because their desire for having a family is so enormous that they are like, oh, okay.

54:58They sit down. I will, yeah, I will stay because I want children. Yeah. And a child doesn't get to choose a parent. Yeah. But a parent chooses a partner. So choose wisely. Okay, so our next one is about the ever-evolving list that might exist of reasons not to have children. Is this the TikTok? Yes. You've seen it? Yes. You've both seen it? So look, some of our listeners have likely seen it as well, but there is a woman with a list on TikTok. An ever-evolving list, might I add, of reasons not to have children. Women's shared worries about the responsibilities and impacts of having children can often be front and centre within these conversations.

55:40What is or would be your biggest worry about having a child? Rapid fire. You're having one. So what's your biggest worry? Oh my God. I hate to say this out loud. They're going to really be a mini me. And that terrifies the living daylights out of me. You're deadlocking that window. Jo? To be very vulnerable and transparent, my biggest fear is that I won't enjoy it. Yeah. Thank you for being that vulnerable. That's, you know, a really honest one and an important one. So we've selected some of the answers from our listeners as well. An eventual separation with the child's father. I don't foresee this happening, but it's a reality many people face.

56:23Another was finances, postnatal depression or feeling lonely once my partner goes back to work, managing kids, not sleeping. Another said the future of civilisation, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. I think AI slash tech are moving in a dark direction and I do fear what my child's future will look like. And another said it changes everything and I love my life at the moment. Overall, a lot of people had concerns relating to finances, how becoming a mother would impact their lifestyle, how their relationship could change and whether their partner would help shed a load, fears about the state of the world and AI and what the future will look like and the loss of identity that can come from motherhood.

57:06I related to that last one the most. Yeah. Like it changes everything and I love my life at the moment and I think that really sums it up for me. Yeah. Because I don't want that to change. Yeah. I don't know if we're allowed to talk about what we're going to talk about on Stylish with girlfriends over a glass of wine before we record it, but I often do talk about it because why not open it up to the flooring? They listen and I like hearing their opinion. They're smart women. We were having a really interesting discussion, ironically, with a platonic male friend of mine who is a straight male who's single.

57:39And I asked him candidly, you know, do you have any friends who don't want children and have verbalized that? And he's like, not that I can think of. And I have multiple friends who openly do not want children and they love their lives and they are so happy to say why they don't want to have children. But interestingly, a girlfriend of mine who is very sure about not having children said, well, you have said to me, are you sure? And I know that came from a loving place because of your experience and going, you don't want to do the insurance policies. There's something you've maybe thought about freezing your eggs.

58:13And she said, and hilariously, I just can't imagine you ever sitting next to a friend trying to have a baby and saying, are you sure? And I thought that was a really honest discussion for us to have and a really reflective moment for me because that came from such a place of love for her that I just wanted to make sure she was really sure. But I'd also never say to a friend trying to have a baby, you sure? And the reason I bring up that conversation with my male friend was that he hasn't had these conversations with his male friends. Either they don't exist or they don't have the conversation.

58:52One of those things could be true. But also I've never heard men asking each other if they're sure. Yeah. I don't think if a man who ran a successful business said he didn't want to have children, he would be questioned on why or if he was sure. Yeah. I resonate with this a lot because I feel like I've seen it firsthand in my friendship group that I wish a lot of my girlfriends actually had those conversations. I think, you know, when you get to your thirties, thirties, mid thirties, people have this ticking time bomb on their head. And some of my girlfriends did have kids really young and often the dad ends up going back to work.

59:28The mom's at home raising the kids and often she can be in the trenches alone and it's such a lonely place. And it doesn't mean that the dad's not a good parent but that's kind of that role that they set out for themselves and I'm having some really real conversations with a few of my girlfriends at the moment who you know might be on to child number two or three now and just feel incredibly alone and they're like fuck I wish I had like more transparency yeah I wish I had that conversation I wish we even put a plan in place it's so important I think to actually be able to have those conversations totally and the permanency of the decision not to have children is the same as the permanency to have them.

1:00:07Yeah. Not a lot of women are saying, did I do it right? Or I regret having children. And probably because there's humans in the world that exist and the guilt that I imagine comes with that is immense. Yeah. I can only imagine that's a deep assumption there. But, you know, there are women that would regret the choices they've made, whether that be the number of children, the age they had them having them at all. This is such a divisive conversation and there's so much opinion and opinion from females, ironically, of each other. And it's like women with children versus without children. And it's like this heated debate against them.

1:00:43Someone not wanting children is not an offence to someone with them and vice versa. Number nine, how deeply does finding the right partner factor into your decision to have children? When deciding whether or not they want to have children for many women finding the right partner is a huge consideration, which I would agree with. For some women finding a partner to have children with is so important that it changes the way that they date. We asked you, our listeners, and for an overwhelming majority, finding the right partner is imperative and they wouldn't consider having a child without that.

1:01:14That was 74.7%. This was followed by, it's pretty important, 20.1%. It's not a consideration because I'd happily be a solo parent at 3 % and it's neutral at 2.2%. Mads, you've mentioned that you would have a child on your own, which I deeply respect. I really, really respect women who maybe want to have a family, have not been in a position where they've met the right person or have gone through a breakup or a divorce or separation, whatever it might be. They're in a circumstance where they want a child and they don't have that partner to have a child with. And I really, really respect the desire for that.

1:01:54Yeah. I think as well, I had a pretty traumatic relationship breakdown and I had my life, you know, my life significantly changed due to decisions that weren't my own. And I don't ever want to rely on a man. I feel really firmly about that after that experience. I don't think I ever did rely on him but I think there were parts of my life that I formed or changed to suit him yeah and for me you know I even that sentence doing it alone I don't feel like I would be doing it alone because I have the most incredible village around me yeah I think I have more love to show people now post that experience than I did when I was with my ex because I feel like so much of me was just pushed down and I like conformed to be something.

1:02:51I've got so much love to give. I'm like, I really feel like I could sit here and I got really emotional. I didn't let my girlfriend see it because I was a big, tough girl. But we were having a wine and my girlfriend, Ella, just turned around and went, you would just be the most incredible mother. Like, oh my God, of course you could do this by yourself. You've done everything else you could need to do by yourself. And I was like, you know, I can, but I won't ever be alone if I choose to do that. Yeah, yeah. Even seeing how you are with George, like I'm just like, I know. You. He is her son. Yeah.

1:03:21I mean, I birthed Misa. What do you think? He's my firstborn. I don't know why they don't look more like us. He looks identical. George does have long locks. There we go. Sorry. I mean, you've mentioned how James has been such a rock for you. Yeah. And, you know, seeing him be your strength and stay during really tough times. How do you feel like knowing that you wanted to have a family and having those family values, how did you feel like picking James and finding James? Like where did that factor in? You found him in the club. Long story, but I don't know what it was about him, but I was so used to dating bad boys that when he came along, he was the complete opposite.

1:04:06So we were friends before lovers and getting to know him, getting to know the man that he is. Even back then when we were so young, he was everything that I hadn't dated before. And it was actually my best friend, Jules, who was like, this is the guy for you. Like, I know you're going to marry this man. And I was like, you're crazy. Like, there needs to be some spice in our relationship or something to like, you know, change it up. You're the spice. Put it in your red chili curry. Like, don't ask for it in the relationship. But honestly, it's just now, like, he is my person. And I know he is my person.

1:04:38We have been on such a ride together and our journey's not over yet. And it's like I just feel immensely grateful that he's stuck by me. We have weathered the storm together because it's been a fucking turbulent storm. And I could not think, honestly, of a better person to be on this journey with. Like he's going to be the best and the hottest baby daddy. Jo, knowing that there's still a question mark for you, whether you do or don't want to have children, has there still been a consideration of what Adrian as a partner would be like as Adrian as a parent? I've never had any questions about that.

1:05:15That's always something I've known like since I first met him. Like he would just be such a good parent. And honestly, I think if we do decide to have children, he will probably be the primary parent because he works four days on, four days off. So he has a lot more downtime than I do. I'm pretty much working seven days. So I think that he will probably default to that. And I think he would really enjoy that maybe more than I would. I think he'd thrive. I think honestly like his best role yet. Yeah. So I've never questioned that, but I do really think that it's incredibly important to pick the right person, as you said before.

1:05:51Totally. That is one of the most important decisions that you make. and not even if you want to have children, it's just to have a partner by your side and someone that genuinely loves you. Because I feel like I see these TikToks all the time and I'm just like, oh my God, that man just like hates you. Like, you know, it's just terrible the way that some men behave in relationships. And yeah, I just hate to see it. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason it's called partner, not parent, right? Yeah. And to be clear, I would like to find a partner to do it with. I feel like I really did the yeah I'm gonna do it on my own I'm like ideally won't have to be a solo artist yes love to not be Destiny's Child what's a duo come back to me on that one I can't think of one on the start Charlie XCX and Troye Sivan I think if you are choosing to have a family with a partner selecting that partner is very important to kind of like include those people that do want to do it solo we're looking at this from the lens of you know you're selecting a partner for that When you go on dates now, ask them, would I want to be in the trenches with you?

1:06:56Yeah. It's hard to know that until you're a little while in. Yeah, I feel like on the first date I can't really catch up. A little deep, a little deep. Yeah. Clearly I'm not going dating anytime soon. You can fill in for me anytime you like. Maybe you can pre-vet. Maybe I should take you two on date one and then we're like, I'll bit them. You go yay or no. Jo, I wouldn't at all be surprised if you've actually been hiding in a tree at any of my dates. She's so invested. God bless her. But lucky last is if you've decided not to have children, please share your reasons why. And much like we have all sat here and been vulnerable, thank you for sitting behind your phones and laptops for sharing these with us.

1:07:32We've picked up a couple of answers from you, our lovely listeners who answered the survey, just to kind of sense a couple of themes that were coming through. And I've got a couple to read out for you here now, so bear with me. The first was, it was something I thought I always wanted when I was younger. and then when I reached 30 that I would be ready for. The closer I came to this age, the more I realised I didn't want them and understood that I had a choice, something I never really considered, which sounds strange in hindsight. I'm 35 now and am more certain every single day. Our second answer was fertility was challenging.

1:08:07I didn't want to spend the money on IVF knowing it's not a sure thing, plus the study of postnatal depression in IVF patients. our third was I don't enjoy the company of children that much I don't like what it seems to do to romantic relationships it completely changes your lifestyle and finances and lastly but importantly I don't believe the world is a good enough place for me to feel comfortable about a child's future some pretty heavy ones in there I don't know about you guys but do you have any friends who are certain they don't want children? No. No. Oh. For those of you who might not be as lucky as me to have a friend who is certain they don't want a child, we actually reached out to Dani Duncan, who's a New Zealand content creator who's child-free by choice.

1:08:57I love Dani. I've followed her for a long time. Me too. Preach Dani. And she centres a lot of her content around showing women what a child-free life can look like. She told us, I had never considered the choice not to have children until I reached my 30s. I'd always assumed I would at some stage but with the pressure of time I started to consider the realities of actually becoming a mum and realised it wasn't something I'd ever actually wanted to do. Rather it was something I'd been conditioned to believe was inevitable. I'm now incredibly happy with the life I've chosen for myself. The hardest part is the way people perceive child-free people to be.

1:09:33Naturally because I post about my life choice online, I get trolled a lot. Everything from I'm going to be lonely, to my life not being worth anything, to being told I'll be eaten by my cats when I die. But I'm really proud to represent a growing community of women who are making the choice that's right for them. And at the end of the day, that's all I want. For women to know there is a choice and whether you choose to become a mum or you choose not to, each life is beautiful and fulfilling. I see how much hate Dani gets on her posts, which is just bizarre. Like it's insane. I just look at the opposite of that.

1:10:12And it's like a woman saying, I really want to have a family. I want to have seven kids. Like no one would ever hate on a woman for that because she said, I actually don't want that. They're like, boo, boo. Or someone sharing like, I'm so happy. I'm pregnant with my second child. No one would be like, you are ruining our environment. Like You are ruining our world. It's actually mad. Like it's no one's business but our own. Yeah. It's just fascinating to me. I mean, like the amount of times people have said to me, but if you don't have kids, who will look after you? I'm like someone in a nursing home who will also look after you because if you think that your kids are going to be carers, also if you're having children to breed a carer, girl, come on.

1:10:56Yeah, you can't win. I was very open about my fertility journey when I was younger and there was a little bit in the media about it and probably the only time in my life I'll ever read commentary online probably was enough to stop me after that people would be like you're so selfish spending all this money on IVF when there's unwanted children who need to be like you know adopted it's you really can't win you do fertility you're selfish because you're investing in vanity and having you know a biological child when there's you know children who need to be fostered and adopted like you know you have too many kids, it's bad for the environment.

1:11:27You have no kids and you're a witch and you're going to get eaten by your cats. Like who is winning here? No one. And the worst part is most of the commentary comes from either women or sad, lonely men in the corners of the internet. Yeah. I think it's so important that, you know, we have been so conditioned to think that motherhood is the ultimate source of fulfillment, but fulfillment looks different for everyone. Exactly. And it's like that what fills someone's cup might not fill someone else's. And it's just wild to actually put that pressure on people and women in general in this day and age.

1:11:59It honestly doesn't make sense to me. I don't think society is in a place yet where they're ready to accept in general that a woman can decide and wholeheartedly make that decision and not back out of it, that they don't want to have children. They're just not, we're not in that place yet. Maybe eventually we will be, but it's just, yeah, there's still a lot of people hating on it. It's a sad truth, huh? Perfectly articulated though, Dro. I think the fear is that women can make decisions now. Yes. decisions to be financially sound and, you know, dependent only on themselves, that they don't need to date a man or to date down so that they can just have someone.

1:12:34We're capable of being alone. We're capable of being married. We're capable of choosing to have a family. We're capable of choosing not to as well. I think society gets really uncomfortable when women hold that power. And there are very few times we do, but we sure as shit do in this case. Absolutely. On that note, that is all for this week's episode of Stylish. It was a long one. It was a very long one. And I want to say thank you to anyone who listened, who, you know, came and maybe this is something that makes you anxious or is something you've been through and you listened to hesitantly or that maybe there were parts that you had to pause and have a little minute to yourself or if this has stirred up any feelings for you.

1:13:17we just really want to say thank you for joining us for such a personal episode and also personally thank you both Arnica Joshie Smith and Joanna Fleming I always say your full names and you Mads and Sullivan Thorpe Sullivan Thorpe, my new surname thank you just both so much for being so vulnerable I think both really important special conversations for very different reasons and thanks for I was going to say bringing it to table time but we don't really have a table sitting for bringing it to your chairs. And remember, you can drop us an email anytime at style-ish at shamelessmedia.com.au or you can slide into our DMs over at stylishpod.

1:13:56We want to thank as well our Shameless Media team, head of podcast Lucy Hunt and senior podcast producer Kate Emmerberg, who went to all the trouble of doing the survey and helping us put this episode together. We'll be right back to regular programming next Wednesday. See you then. Bye. Bye.

1:14:23This podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.