Welcome, listeners of the Vibrant Happy Women podcast!
The decision to become a mother (or not) is personal. But if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of “Why? You’d make such a great mom!” or “Oh, you’ll change your mind!” you’ve probably noticed that there’s quite a bit of social pressure to have kids. (And the pressure doesn’t go away when you become a mom, either). It’s no wonder that many of us are ambivalent about it.
The idea for this podcast was born the day I realized “I’ll never be somebody’s mother.” I felt sad, guilty, and liberated all at once. I wanted to understand why I felt all those feelings. I wanted to understand what I might be missing by not becoming somebody’s mother.
I started talking to women about what motherhood is like so that I could try to understand (even though I knew that there was no substitute for experience). I talked to women who were trying, and struggling, to have children. I talked to women who were proudly childfree, and women who were ambivalent about becoming mothers. I talked about my own experience becoming a bonus mom to my partner’s kid.
Enjoy this curated list of Maybe Someday episodes that cover the stories my guests and I have told so far about motherhood, ambivalence, infertility, adoption, step-parenting, and being childfree by choice.
To start from the beginning, scroll to the bottom of the list for “I’ll never be somebody’s mother”. Also, continue along each week and be sure to join in on the conversation when you feel inspired to. Until then, happy listening!
Laura Belgray has a very happy life without kids. But she spent a long time on the fence deciding whether to have them—she wanted to want kids, but she just didn’t. Laura noticed that there weren’t a lot of examples of women who were living full, rich, happy lives without kids (except for Helen Mirren), which made imagining a happy childfree life a lot harder.