On to this week’s recap!
I’m having a fangirl moment.
No really. Two years ago, I went to see “Oh God, A Show About Abortion” by the brilliant comedian
Alison Leiby (I saw it the day before Anna Wintour did). And now she is on my SHOW!
I invited her to the
podcast not only because of her performance–which The New York Times described as “humane and deeply funny”—but also because I wanted to talk to her about being childfree.
Alison always felt like she probably wouldn’t have kids. She explains, “I was actively building a life that would make it impossible for something like that to ‘just happen.” Between the late nights, traveling, and performing, the life she chose (and loves) wasn’t super accommodating to dating and relationships.
Alison is an only child, so her decision to be child-free also affects her parents. While it took them a couple of years to wrap their heads around it, they enjoy spending quality time with her on vacation every year.
In this episode, we talk about regret, the challenges that motherhood brings, the rise in child-free content popping up online, her abortion, and why choosing to have kids or not have kids doesn’t need to be an us vs. them thing.
One of my favorite insights from Alison was about the way women are socialized:
“As women, we get these very rigid categories of what we get to be. There are these archetypes of different kinds of women that we have to navigate our whole lives…It’s like, are you a maternal loving mother or a power bitch CEO? Or if you’re a child-free woman, you’re either a sad spinster, a party girl who won’t grow up, or you’re career-driven. And it’s like, I’m a little bit of all those, AND I’m also a lot of other things.”
I really think you’re going to like this one. Watch the full episode on
YouTube,
Spotify, and
Apple. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and tell us what you learned.
For more of Alison, you can check out the podcast she co-hosts,
Ruined, and follow her on
Instagram!
Post of the WeekFrom smoking to vaccines to women’s healthcare–here’s how people’s deal breakers have changed over the years.
Let’s work together
