#27 - Childfree, Not Carefree

In this episode, we speak openly about being childfree in your late 30s, the grief that can sit beside freedom, and the strange ache of realising life didn’t unfold the way you thought it would.

This is not an episode about regret, and it is not an episode about motherhood being the only meaningful path.

It is a conversation about altered timelines, grief, womanhood, aunties, emotional survival, being taken seriously, and the quiet pain of living outside the story society still expects women to follow.

For anyone who has ever looked at their life and thought, “this isn’t quite how I thought it would go,” this one is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

G'day folks and welcome to That Makeup Gal. I'm Stevie and I'm that makeup gal. So I've been thinking about something a lot lately that I genuinely don't think people know how to talk about properly. Specifically women, specifically in their 30s. And that is being child-free. I think the conversation about being child-free right at this moment, anyway, has become quite shallow and performative. And everything online feels kind of black and white now, like you're either supposed to regret not having children and outwardly mourn the fact that you never became a mother, or you're supposed to be loudly celebrating your freedom. Like you never wanted kids in the first place. And I just don't think real human beings work like that. Because I think two things, multiple things actually, can exist at once. And this is one of those things. So being child-free in your 30s. Yet another topic that um is either misunderstood or misrepresented. And yeah, I guess I just want to have a conversation, an open conversation about what that looks like for a lot of people, and obviously, I can only speak from my experience and the lessons that I've learned within that. Um, as always, that's the entire theme of every episode within my podcast. Learned experience and sharing that because what are we if we're not doing that? So I guess the the whole child-free uh theme has been coming up for me a lot. I feel like I'm on uh I'm not gonna say the other side of grief right now, but I'm I'm at a different pivotal point of it. And I feel like I'm sort of like a mere cat looking out, being like, hmm, okay, uh, life, huh? How do we re-enter this? And what the fuck happened to all the time that just passed? Um, and yeah, I guess the main theme that has come up for me and a lot of people at the moment that I speak to, regardless of the surrounding circumstances, are like what the fuck happened to time? And because of that, life hasn't unfolded for a lot of people the way that they thought it would, whether that's childhood, whether childhood, um having kids, whether that's buying a home, whether that's getting married, whether that's being whatever. It feels like we're collectively in this time where everybody's standing in their reality and going, huh. Well, that isn't quite how I thought it would go. And for me, it has been, as I just mentioned, because grief kind of stole a couple of years of my life and not stole, um, required a couple of years of my life, because I got really thrown off my own path, I guess. The path of life, the path of reality, the path of where I was going, the path of future planning. Every single part of life became questioned. There was a question mark after everything because I was going, well, I don't know if that's how I want it to look. And right now, for me, at anyway, in that moment, I was like, no, no, no. Grief does this weird thing where it kind of shocks you for a bit, and it feels like I don't know if you've ever seen any of those 90s, late 90s film clips where I think there's a Spice Girls one actually, where she's standing in the middle of the um the road or the city, and she's in focus, or they're in focus, and the whole city's kind of moving around them in this blur. That's what grief feels like. It feels like you want so badly to step into that blur and be like, I need to join you again. I don't want to be in this fucking insular, independent, alone moment, but also I'm not ready to join that blur because I can't, I don't think I'll survive it if I stepped into it right now. So essentially you just end up letting time and life blur around you for a bit, and then somehow, sometimes, that's years, and I think grief, heartbreak, timing, and survival, and all of those things, they they shave years off your life emotionally because they require so much attention and intention because in order to move into the next chapters of your life, all of those things grief, heartbreak, timing, survival, whatever, they need to be healed. Otherwise, you just end up suppressing those things and carrying them into the next chapters and maybe not making the right aligned decisions. And for me, that was something that I thought long and hard about because I was really consumed by the loss of dad, and everything that had happened kind of in the couple of years before that came up as well in my complete collapse with grief. And so I guess essentially it's almost like you just let it swallow you, and I did because I I remember being in it and thinking we need to just surrender to this and let it be what it is, and that is completely out of my hands. So, you know, I got on with things and I did the bare, bare, bare minimum in order to get through each day. And then suddenly you look up one day and realize you're standing in a completely different chapter than what you thought you'd be in, because time essentially keeps moving forward, and you do too, because you're working and you're doing the bare minimum, but you're still moving forward, because I mean, at the end of the day, we can't do anything but move forward, we can't stop time and we can't rewind it, so it's always going to move forward. But what happens when you get stuck in a moment is it feels like it's not, because you feel like you're reliving the same day and the same pain and the same heartbreak over and over and over again, and then suddenly you kind of get to a different phase in that and go, fuck. Another 12 months passed, or another six months passed, or another however long passed, because sometimes things just require a lot of time, and yeah, I guess one of the big things for me that has been coming up pretty much ever since my last relationship ended, which was a really big one I've spoken about a couple of times in the podcast, but pretty much I spent from when I was about 23 until I think 32 when we broke up with a man, and it ended really pretty horrifically for me. I mean, you know, I say horrifically, but in terms of deceit and trust and all the things that I had to then rebuild and repair in order to trust someone else, and lo and behold, I haven't ever again. But amidst that, what happened was my dad died. So another man that I trusted and another life that I trusted would be there to support me through my mistakes and lives got taken from the world, and essentially, I think in breaking that trust, it kind of created another wound that I didn't expect would take so much from me, and it has. And it's okay because I know that within that there's been huge, huge pivotal lessons, and ones that I know that will be beneficial for a lot of people, including myself. At the end of the day, that's pretty much that's the only thing that should matter. Are you learning the lessons in order to make the future of your life better or more aligned or more um uh aware of you know your emotional baggage? Because sometimes things happen out of our control. Death is one of them at times, most actually all the time. That's never in anyone's control. And when life throws you curveballs, it requires a stable ground for you to fall on and dust yourself off and get back up again. And when that grounding doesn't feel stable in the first place, andor maybe it did, but then grief happened and you realize that the grounding that you'd convinced yourself was stable actually wasn't, it brings up everything. Grief is all-consuming, grief is all enlightening because it shines that light on everything and makes you see the entire picture through a whole new lens. And the whole topic of this conversation is being child-free, and the fact that for me, what happened was life altered the terms, and that meant that I got to a place like I'm 38 now, I'm approaching my 39th birthday, and I have no fucking clue how that happened. And the overwhelming thought of the fact that my trust has been so severed that I don't like, even if I did meet somebody, it would take me a lot of time to be able to trust that moving into another chapter of my life that is essentially forever, i.e., being a mum, that's gonna take a lot. So I guess essentially what happened was I got I got confronted with this decision where it was like, well, we need to accept that that future may never happen. And I mean, I don't necessarily think motherhood was fully my path. But I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't grief attached to confronting how life unfolded for me, obviously, and accepting that that wasn't my path. But when you get to the point where you need to actually work through the fact that you don't have that, it's really different because life is really different, and it looks different to everybody around you, and the way that the world around you relates to you is different. People see you differently, and everything in your life becomes like, Rado, what do we do here? Do we continue treading water and supporting the forward growth and the beautiful new chapters of everybody creating the life that you maybe thought that you would have, but don't? Or do you stop and let everybody do that and feel beautifully happy for the fact that they can and pour all of your energy into figuring out what your path looks like? Because it's easy to keep walking the path of familiarity and what everybody else has done, but it is real hard work to carve your own path out, and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what that looks like, which is kind of what this episode is for, I guess. So the version of child free that we're sold is infinitely different to the reality. Everybody talks about the freedom and the travel and the sleep-ins and the autonomy and the you know, no well, that is no responsibility, isn't it? But nobody talks about the grief that sits behind all of that beside even. Um and I think people struggle with emotional nuance now. It's like you can love aspects of your life and still mourn parts of it, and you can be entirely grateful for the fact that you don't have a child to be caring for right now, and it is only you and your struggles and you know your responsibilities, but you can also ache for what's missing and for what you thought your life would once look like. Grief doesn't need permission from things that make sense. That's not how it works, that's not how life works. You can be equally damaged by something that you know wasn't meant to work out because that's how we heal. That's how we figure out why it hurts so much or why it does hurt so much still, and then forge the path forward. You can know motherhood wasn't fully your path, and you can still ache for the fact that that path is different to how you thought it would look, or different to how the world around you tells you it should look. And I also think there's a conversation here that women don't really know how to have honestly, and that's what has been coming up for me a lot over the past couple of weeks, and why I'm here talking about it now. Because I think there's a there's a shift in how women are perceived once they become mothers, and that also means that there is, you know, a difference in the way that women are perceived when they aren't. And I live that every day. I live it at work, I live it fucking walking down the street, I live it in random conversations with people who ask, you know, are you a mum? Do you have a partner? And you're met with disappointment and oh, it'll happen one day. It's like, can we all fuck up? Like, actually fuck up because maybe it won't. And that's what I'm mourning standing here right now, looking in your face as you tell me it'll happen one day. Did you take a minute to think about asking, is it something that you'd like? Is that a path that you want your life to go down? Like it's a beautiful thing to be on your own, but you know, are you okay? Have a conversation like that instead of oh, it'll happen, it'll happen when you least expect it. Like, shut the fuck up, basically. I don't and I don't say any of that with resentment, it's just socially true. And because I live in that every single day, and I I in my profession, that's my business. I am representing my business when I have those conversations. So it can't actually be, you know, I'm bound by a little bit more of how I thought the conversation would expand because I need to be professional in those settings. And I'm usually at weddings as well, so I can't go into the nitty-gritty of why it didn't fucking happen, can I? Because that's borderline, not anything to do with weddings. Yeah, my partner cheated on me, and I didn't think that'd ever happen, and then my dad died. So your first look with your dad's gonna be beautiful, and I hope your marriage works out. Like it's just not a conversation you can have in every scenario. So, on the flip side of that, if I'm being careful with what I say, obviously, it's crazy to me that other people aren't. And this is where I find it interesting because the women who do have those conversations and do make those statements to me are mothers. The ones who aren't, or the ones who have experienced horrible things within their motherhood journey, are the ones to say, it's okay if you don't. It's a fucking hard path. But are you okay with your path not having ch children? Do you want to talk about it? They hold a totally different space. Sometimes it feels like womanhood only becomes legitimate once motherhood enters the picture. And if you're outside of that, it can feel so fucking isolating. Because I mean, in my experience, I've had people tell me, you know, if you if you don't have children, I don't want to hear from you. As a broad statement, but I was in the room and it's like, fuck, I'm the only one in the room right now that doesn't have a kid, so I guess that's pointed at me. I'll just shut the fuck up. Actually, I'll just leave, you know. I didn't. But those sorts of statements actually get said by women with no ill intention, or maybe they do, but let's not go there. Because usually, if you say, Well, fuck, where where do I stand in this? They go, Oh my god, of course I want to hear from you, babe. Of course I want to hear what you've got to say. It's like, well, you just said that like anyone who doesn't have kids can shut the fuck up because we've got no idea what your life is like. It's like, do you know what? Any child-free woman or person doesn't ever think they understand what it's like to have a kid. I know what it's like to be an auntie and I know what it's like to witness motherhood, but I still don't know what it's like to live that every day and to have your routine completely upheaved, and and there's so much to it. No child-free person thinks that they understand. But that doesn't mean that their input is invalid immediately, and that complete you know, dismissing of somebody's life just based on one thing is fucking crazy. And I hope that there's at least one person that hears people say things like that and goes, Yeah, maybe I should consider that. Because life is really big, and you learn really big lessons through different chapters of your life, whether motherhood, grief, um promotions, new business ventures, loss, I don't know, anything. You learn big, big, big life lessons, and those things can be weaved into every element of life. It doesn't just have to be a complete mirror of what one has experienced in order for them to give some input into someone else's life. It's like me saying, I don't want to hear from you because your dad hasn't died. So I know your mum's passed away, but like shut the fuck up because you wouldn't know. Or you've been through divorce and you've lost a lot of other things in your life and you've lost a home and you went bankrupt, but you wouldn't have a fucking clue what this feels like. It's like, yeah, actually, I think we do collectively. Because humans are really actual basic human, like basic things, basic beings. And lessons are weaved, like I said, throughout every interaction. It's crazy that I've been observing and and absorbing, if I'm honest, this for a really long time. And it's gotten to a point where it actually deeply affects me because nobody asks what it looks like to be living a time that you didn't think you'd be living. Nobody says, like I said earlier, how are you with that? Life sometimes takes things from us, and sometimes that thing is time, and I get that. I didn't have kids myself, so are you okay? Do you want to talk about nobody holds space for the fact that that can be really painful? They just immediately go, Oh god, don't do it. God, enjoy your freedom while you've got it. It's like, come and stay at my house. Because when you're grieving something like the death of a dad on your own, and you've you haven't left your house in four days, and it's been you, yourself, and you on your kitchen floor. Like, I I think I think I think I'd like something other than my freedom, to be honest. Let's not let's not continue to do that. And absolutely, it's not even dismissing, it's absolutely shitting on somebody else's life path. And sometimes that path really stings because it's missing things. And no matter how hard you work to reckon with the things that it's missing, the bottom line is it's still missing things. It's still carved differently to what the greater world around you expects life to look like. And unfortunately, that requires a lot of acceptance and work that you know, most people follow the fucking path of expectation, and they're the ones judging the others that don't. But it's really, it's it's quite a difficult one to undo. And I think sometimes what hurts isn't just the absence of children and you know what they bring to your life, it's the absence of being tethered to life in that way. It's the absence of being dependent on and being realizing that you're going to be entirely independent your whole life. You're not going to have something that's dependent on you, like I said, that requires your essence and your vitality and your wisdom and your lessons in order to form a healthy path for them to form their own life. That's hard because I feel like I do have I do have a yearning to share that and to see a life bloom. And you know, I've been able to do that with my nephews to an extent, but it's still it's still incredible. Different. And yeah, like I said, when when when nobody depends on you like that, you become responsible for repeatedly pulling yourself back towards life. And I don't think enough people talk about how emotionally exhausting that becomes. Autonomy doesn't always feel empowering when you're emotionally exhausted. That's the part that's really confronted me lately. Because people expect that you're going to be so happy and vibrant and carefree because you don't have that autonomy. And in fact, it's quite the opposite. Because it's like you have something to get up for every day. You get to have a little life that depends on you for food and shelter and love. And it's just me. That's not freedom. That's fucking that's a burden when your mental health is suffering because of the way that life makes you feel different to everyone else around you. And it's not just life, actually, it's usually the people around you that make you feel different by saying things like, ugh, I don't want to hear from anyone that doesn't fucking get it. Must be nice to get a full eight hours. It's like, oh my god. Must be nice to have a cuddle in the morning. Must be nice to be met with a beautiful fucking reality that you created life and that you get to do that forever. That must be nice. But I don't say that to you. It's crazy the things that mothers especially, but the greater society thinks that they can say to child-free and single women people because they think that it's just so fucking simple. And your life only becomes complicated when you have extra things like being a mum or a dad. And of course we get that it does. Of course it does. Like of course, motherhood or fatherhood changes you immensely forever. Of course it makes you expand. But you know what else does? Having your dad die on a random Monday and getting a phone call that says, hey, your dad died. Surprise! That changes you fundamentally. So yeah, people in your life do have other things that have happened within their life that make them a relatable source. And maybe it's nice to be able to lean into people that can give you a different perspective that weaves into the same lesson. That whole you have to experience X to talk about X is crazy because yeah, you have you know, maybe you experienced Y and you can still talk about X and give incredible lessons and wisdom from the lessons that you learned from that. I remember once when I was putting a friend's kid in the car and I just chucked him in, buckled him up, and I always, whoever it is, say to my friends or family, check the check the buckle, because I know that mothers, fathers, whatever want to see that. I get that. I totally get that. Like, yep, I know he's secured, but I want you to know he is as well, or she is. I've only got nephews, sorry. Um, like, of course, I want you to have peace of mind. So check. It's not anything to do with me doubting my abilities. I respect that, I want you to know that I I've done it. And I remember one of my friends saying, Wow, Auntie Stevie knows how to do this. And I'm like, Yeah, yep. I've been an auntie for nine years at that stage. You've been a mum for two weeks, and somehow I'm I'm nothing. Like, it's crazy. What about the aunties? What about the fact that we've seen that and we've been the one to, you know, turn up to your house and say, get in the fucking shower? Like, love you, put your favorite song on, sit in the bath for as long as you fucking need, everything's gonna be fine. I have done that to countless friends and family members. And it is insane how differently it's received because you wouldn't get it. It's like, well, I'm I'm here, aren't I? Let me get it. Let me learn. Show me if I don't, if you truly think I don't and what I'm offering you right now isn't enough, then give me a chance to figure out how to offer more. Instead of dismissing that I'm incapable of everything until I'm on the same page as you. Because maybe I'm five pages ahead. Maybe you're ten pages ahead. But we're here right now in the same room, so let's figure this out. You know, aunties have a way of turning up because we don't have kids and we don't have a schedule and we don't have a baby in bed if you call us in the middle of the night to say, I am devastated. Can you meet me? I need to cry with you in the driveway. Because I can. And I will. I didn't give a shit if you've got a nappy on and you need a you need a hand. I'll be that person. There are so many ways to nurture a life, and there are so many ways to love people dearly. And I think society only celebrates one version of caregiving loudly, and that's motherhood. And I think that's really sad. And personally, it's it's really damaging because why am I not worthwhile until I become that? And what does that mean for my future? Because I might not ever become that. Do I just go fuck myself now? And what what do we do here? Let's not forget about the fact that there are many other things that come into this. There are men who ache to be fathers. It's not just women who are missing out on motherhood. There are many men who never met a partner, or maybe they had a loss late in life, and fatherhood was never theirs. And the same as me, like finding that trust and finding that um space to create something as big as that just isn't an option. There are people who never really got a choice. Like, you know, life happened, trauma happened, things took you away from life, and then like myself, you turn up at 39 and think, well, fuck, I'm not doing it now. Like, or maybe I will, I'm not saying that, but like there are people whose timelines changed because of grief, trauma, relationships, transition, survival, all of the things that come into you know, managing emotions that dictate your timeline for a bit, like I talked about at the beginning of the episode. And you kind of come out of that and go, fuck me, I'm two years has passed, and I feel healed, and I've got a lot more life experience, and I feel expanded, but time passed. This conversation is so much bigger than the neat little narratives that we reduce it to online, being child-free and happy and thriving, and I don't have any responsibility. Woo, go meet. Cool, yeah, I get that. I can daydrink if I want to. I can do whatever the fuck I want to. Doesn't mean that I'm happy and f thriving. Fuck no. And I think most people are carrying emotional realities far more complicated than most people realize. And yet, a lot of the time the realities that are heavy for those people, if they're child-free, if they're single, if they're I don't know, it's not actually considered. Because I don't know, actually, I can't, I can't even finish that sentence. I don't know why it's not considered. That's what this whole conversation is about. I think it needs to be. I think I'm yearning for the day that we go back to actually just validating and valuing women for their place in the world, period. Not based on motherhood, not based on any of the other titles that come with them, but based on the human that they are and the offering that they can they can give. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who's had a really, really hard life? Maybe they don't have kids, maybe they never got married, but they had a really tough life. The lessons that they've learned and the life that they've been faced with, I can guarantee will have carved a path that has more wisdom and lessons of life built within it than becoming a mother gives you. Do you know what I mean? It's not dismissing that being a mother gives you fucking an immense amount of lessons that I can't even begin to imagine. Anyway, I don't think I've landed anywhere definitive with this. Um, I just think there are a lot of people carrying versions of this conversation. And what am I if I'm not using the microphone in front of my face to talk about relatable things that might expand into a broader audience and land in the ears of someone that needs to fucking hear this? You matter more than you probably realize. And the title attached to your name is amazing, but it doesn't dictate you as a person, and it shouldn't dictate the conversations that you're allowed to have. Like, yeah, you're not going to be as informed on certain topics, but you know, like most people in the world, if we're not informed on a topic, we don't usually talk on it. That's usually how it goes. It's rare that a woman would find themselves in a room with a mother and try to imply that they understood what motherhood was like. It's rare. But you might find yourself in the room with a mother and have a really important and interesting perspective on their situation that came from a lesson that you learned from a different thing. Not motherhood, but something else. Like, maybe we'd all feel a little less alone if we stopped forcing every life into the same narrative. Because what, there's eight billion people on the planet, we've sure as shit got different fucking stories and different things to to give to each other in terms of perspective benders and lessons and things that can dictate the path of life, maybe. We're not ever going to fit into the one story. Anyway, like I said, I don't think I've landed anywhere definitive with this, but it feels like an important conversation that needs to start happening out loud. And yeah, I see you as someone who has definitely gotten to a point in her life where I'm like, holy fuck. Um, yeah, this is different. And I don't know what that looks like. I don't know, I don't know what my future looks like, and that fucking terrifies me most of the time. But what I will say is adding to that the people around me not taking me seriously because I haven't expanded into that chapter of my life is probably the most hurtful thing that I I've experienced. Because I'm like, well, what does that mean that my life is reduced to nothing because I didn't become a mum? Because I can tell you from like the bottom of my heart, my nephews are the most important thing in my life. I would happily give my life for them. I don't say that because that's expected as an auntie, it's not. But it is the most important role in my life. And being invalidated because I didn't up that and become a mum is so painful. And I already I already fight myself every day with the meaning of my life and the meaning of my future and all the other things that come with that. I don't need to doubt the meaning of my life because I didn't become a mum. And that comes down to the world around me changing as well. Because I've done a lot of work on acceptance, and a lot of other people in the same situation have done a lot of work on acceptance and going, well, it is what it is, and I just need to form a path that works for me. And is it different? Sure, but can I make it work? Kind of have to. So let's go back to letting that happen and finding interesting points and lessons and wisdom in every single person that is around us. Every single safe person, I should say, that's around us. Yeah. This feels like an important one, and I actually have um I know I've said this in a few episodes in terms of guests and whatnot, but life is so fucking busy and complicated, and like I said, time just keeps slipping through my fucking fingers that I know that I have guests that are willing to come on, but I just haven't lined it up yet. But there is a really important conversation that comes with this with a beautiful person that has an entirely different take on this topic, and I think it's going to be a really eye-opening and important one because there are women out there who have been desperately trying to become mothers, and health or finances or whatever it is has worked against them, and they don't get that. Finding acceptance in something that you desperately wanted is awful. I'm finding acceptance in something that I don't know if I wanted, so it kind of it's a bit of to and frowing. But landing in that acceptance, as I said, when you desperately wanted it is different, and that's what that next topic is gonna be about. And I think that, as I said, will be a even bigger perspective bender. It fucking should be. Anyway, that's just where my head's been at lately, and I felt really called to speak on it. Because honestly, maybe none of us are as alone in our thoughts as we think we are. Maybe we're just not used to hearing people say these things out loud. And like I say in every episode, that's what I want to do. I want to say the things out loud that people live with to normalise the conversations that people don't want to have. Because who the fuck chose what was normal and who what was societ societally? So socially Wow. Socially acceptable. Cause what the fuck? Like, again, eight billion people. I didn't give a fuck what someone said was socially acceptable. 8 billion people are never gonna fit into that. So let's keep having these conversations and expanding the perspective around things that are actually quite normal. Again, what the fuck is normal? So, anyway, thanks for sitting in this one with me, folks. It really feels important, and I'm grateful for the space as much as hopefully someone else is. I will chat to you soon. Bye.