foreign
It is the perfect day for a cup of hot tea and a child free video ah stop
see I have a bit of a confession to make I don't want to have kids zero
none zilch ever no kids for me at all and how many of us can relate to that statement
this is a really personal subject for me because for as long as I can remember I never wanted to
have kids and for as long as I can remember all my life people have tried to convince me that I
don't know what I'm talking about when I say that I don't want to have kids do people ever
tell other people that they shouldn't have kids because I don't think I've ever heard an adult
say to a kid or to maybe a young adult that they shouldn't have kids the aha moment came to me when
I was a teenager when I realized that okay while I may at some point in my life get married and have
a house and all those things I just didn't want to become a mother that is the most relatable thing
ever but of course back then everybody told me that I would change my mind and honestly the fact
that everybody was trying to convince me otherwise made me feel like I was the only person in the
world the only woman in the world who didn't want to have kids I keep seeing this comment that pops
up underneath my videos and it's something to the effect that I'm following an agenda by not
having kids or that the agenda got me and that's why I'm not having kids and I'm always like what
agenda are people talking about we're just making a different lifestyle Choice I'm not following any
kind of agenda when I choose not to have kids I'm just not having kids because I don't want
to be a mom so life went on I turned 20 and 25 and 30 and while I still knew that I definitely
didn't want to have kids of my own accord I was kind of half expecting for this magical motherly
instinct to kick in and tell me that in fact I should be having kids right now yeah the motherly
Instinct thing I'm just not sold on it because I kind of felt the same way like you're waiting
for something to happen because everyone tells you that it's going to happen so for all of you
out there they're kind of waiting for that like feeling to hit you that maternal thing to hit you
you know what it just may not happen some of us just don't get that and that doesn't mean there's
something wrong with you I've never heard anybody say that to my husband they're not like will you
you're eventually just going to feel maternal and you're going to want to be a dad why do they only
say that to women is it because the woman's the one who's pregnant or are women just expected to
be the more maternal one because I can guarantee you my husband is better with children than I am
chocolate chai yeah that's not my favorite but something else happened so the older I get the
more people take me seriously and the more they realize that when I say I don't want to have kids
I may actually mean it instead of saying that I will change my mind they now say who's gonna take
care of you when you're old what if you regret it oh that's so selfish when you're younger people
just assume you don't know what you want and that's kind of how they talk to you when you're
older they can't say that to you anymore because you actually have some life experience so now that
we're adults it's almost like they're trying to put the fear in us like if you don't have kids
these bad things will happen or if you don't have kids these will be these massive regrets that you
have isn't that really unnatural so where are you gonna find the meaning of life so what's the point
of you being here well if you keep talking like that you're gonna lead to the extinction of the
human race people say this all the time I'm like how many billions of people are there on the earth
I'm pretty sure we have a long way to go before the human race is extinct and you know I totally
agree that there's a lot of people out there maybe including yourselves who find there to
be so much meaning in having and raising children and that's totally cool good for you I'm happy for
you it's just not where I find my meaning and that should also be fine I've never watched any of her
videos before so I don't know anything about her but I wonder if she's doing like a minimalist or
a cabin thing I think I'm gonna just go check out her Channel after I'm done this because she looks
like she has a really interesting lifestyle I find my meaning and my work and the relationships that
I have with people other than my potential kids and the same applies to my legacy assuming that
I even want to Legacy because you know when I die it's kind of irrelevant when I leave behind
I can't imagine that once we die we're really going to be concerned about what's happening
in the world anymore but assuming that I wanted to leave a legacy I would hope for that to be
through the work that I leave behind some of the thoughts the trips the videos the writings
that I leave behind let's just for the sake of this conversation say you want to leave a legacy
the best Legacy that you could leave is one that you're truly invested in something you actually
really really want to do parenting and having kids is just not going to be that thing that speaks to
us it's not going to be in our hearts to do that but before we dive deep into debunking some of
the common myths around choosing not to have children let's take it back I'm talking right
back to the 1500s as early as the 1500s women in Northwestern Europe began to postpone marriage in
their mid-20s as opposed to getting hitched in their early teens the dresses these ladies are
wearing are like next level I wish I had a dress like that I mean where would I wear it to I don't
know but I just like them this meant that women could work and have greater Financial Independence
as opposed to you know devoting themselves to the usual life of home making duties in fact prior to
the French Revolution it is estimated that at least 15 to 22 percent of the adult population
station remains single and without children the world's been through this before we're
just going through it again well what if your husband or partner wants to have kids well then
we wouldn't be together I really wish that people would direct that question to my husband I think
he'd have a pretty clever answer for it I would never have a kid just to please my partner that
that is such a such an alien abstract thought to me the comment that gets me the most like oh my
goodness like I'm loling at this is when people are like your husband's gonna take a second wife
okay in some places in the world that happens I live in Canada that
kind of thing is frowned upon here in fact I'm pretty sure it's illegal
of course in reality I have had relationships break down
because I didn't want to have kids and they did that's common people change their minds and that's
also fine if you haven't found anyone right now and you're kind of like feeling down in the dumps
about it don't compromise and marry someone that wants kids the child free community is growing
and hopefully in the future it will be easier to find a partner that doesn't want kids with the
rise of industrialization women and especially women living in larger cities who had access to
education and improved standards of living became more aware of various forms of birth control by
the 1900s at least one in five American women born between 1885 and 1915 never had children oh so
our stats are like kind of the same right now as child free people we've always been representing
I just had to get some chapstick my lips are super dry okay moving on childlessness raids also
continued to rise across Western Europe Canada and Australia throughout the first world war and Great
Depression however this all changed after World War II following the war the Western World saw a
massive spike in childbirths giving rise to the generation that we affectionately known as the
Baby Boomers when the baby boomer thing happened there was maybe like a bit of a shift in the way
that people thought that you just have to have kids that's just the thing that you do and so now
being Child free is kind of like a foreign thing again and something that people have to get used
to a lot of this change can be attributed back to a series of government incentives and projects
encouraging people to have kids hey that reminds me we bought a hammock maybe like three or four
years ago we've never used it I wonder where that is if you're from the United States you might be
familiar with the GI bill which aims to support returning veterans from World War II and their
families with affordable and available mortgages and stipends covering tuition and expenses for
Education oh yes governments definitely want you to have babies because it's great for their GDP
here in Canada there's pretty generous maternity and paternity leave and you do get child benefit
efforts the benefits in Canada kind of look like this if this is your household income this is what
you would get per kid and if your household income is this you would be getting this but this trend
was relatively short-lived by the 1970s attitudes started changing all over again and birth rates
started to slow down once again returning to pre-World War II levels women suddenly had more
access to birth control and were starting to get full-time jobs and I think women started taking
back their autonomy to make decisions and not just do the thing that they were told that they
had to do and then there's the question of well who's going to take care of you when you're old
and I'm just going to die alone then the thing that always drives me crazy when people say this
is that I personally know multiple elderly people who have children and their children live nowhere
near them these elderly people are going through health challenges you know where the health is
coming from it is coming from a community of people that is not biological what I'll do is
I'll get to live out my old days with with friends and animals and non-blood Thai family you know
basically in a commune with friends that is my big dream is to set up a place like that where
a bunch of us can live together and just have fun and in that community of people that we're
building we're all going to be able to help each other out in different ways when people need it
and that's kind of the whole point is to be able to help others out when they need it and they help
you out when you need it so when people ask me what about a family will you never have a family
I just think that that question comes from a lack of a broad enough understanding of what a family
unit can be there's so many communities and groups that we can be involved in and build friendships
outside of our actual families obviously it's fantastic if you're friends with your family
and now we come to my favorite takeaway from this video a notion that most people find so
shocking that they instantly go into denial so don't go into Denial on me the idea that people
women have a maternal instinct is a hoax yeah I checked it out there's a lot of people that
are like yeah that's not even a thing but yet somehow it's been passed down year after year
after year and people are still telling us that our maternal and single kick in I guess maybe it's
like a tradition thing I don't know those can be hard to break science says that it doesn't exist
you can Google this by the way there's lots of academic papers on the stuff the belief in the
maternal Instinct has real power because it's a reinforced shared belief that we have across
many different communities all around the world we just can't all be expected to be doing the
same thing and be happy with it yeah we're opting out of some stuff that we don't want to deal with
and we don't want to go through but that's a good thing when you don't want to experience it okay so
here's some of my predictions for the future holds for the child free community prediction number one
don't worry Humanity will not go extinct I mean there's eight billion of us on the planet today
and the vast majority of that 8 billion number are choosing to have kids in fact in the next
30 Years the world population is set to Skyrocket to 10 billion people okay hang on the cat will not
stop crying he's scratching at the door you have to be very quiet because I'm trying to
film something okay my main prediction is that with time more and more people will feel more
comfortable and validated in their choice not to have kids and I have seen this play out in
my own lifetime the more the individuals are going to start seeing that child free is an option and
seeing people openly living Child free lives and not being scared to talk about it is really going
to encourage them to think about whether or not they actually want kids and I think that's what
it comes down to isn't that right cats are a lot easier than kids oh and on that nope
stop asking people what are you gonna have kids it just makes people uncomfortable it
is not a good question it's always going to be just a little strange to me that it is
socially acceptable to ask people when they're having kids maybe instead of talking about that
topic we could focus the attention on things that are acceptable to talk about like this