New Podcast Announcement: "Beyond pronatalism | Finding fulfillment, with or without kids"
We’re excited to share that we’ve launched a second podcast, Beyond Pronatalism: Finding Fulfillment, With or Without Kids. Click on the link below below for more information. We hope you will subscribe and share it widely. Episodes drop every two weeks and you can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss the chance to hear stories that could very well resonate with your own experiences—or open your mind to new ways of thinking about family, community, and personal fulfillment. And, if you’d like to be on the show, check out the show notes on how you can get in touch with me.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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Nandita Bajaj 0:00
Hey folks, This is Nandita and I am excited to share that we’ve launched a second podcast - Beyond Pronatalism: Finding Fulfillment, With or Without Kids. As many of you know, confronting pronatalism - the societal and institutional pressures to have kids and large families - is one of the core pillars of our work. And in my role as the executive director of Population Balance, I offer a 14-week discussion based Zoom course on Pronatalism, Overpopulation, and the Planet and I also offer presentations on these topics to schools, universities, and community groups around the world. And I have found that both during the course and after these presentations, so many people open up and are eager to share their own stories about how pronatalism has deeply affected their lives. Inspired by the courage and creativity with which they are responding to pronatalism, I wanted to create this podcast to platform their incredible stories.. I hope that you will subscribe to our new podcast, Beyond Pronatalism, and share it widely. Episodes drop every two weeks and you can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss the chance to hear stories that could very well resonate with your own experiences—or open your mind to new ways of thinking about family, community, and personal fulfillment. And, if you’d like to be on the show, check out the show notes on how you can get in touch with me. Thank you so much for your ongoing support and here’s a short trailer for you to learn more about the podcast!
Trailer
Nandita Bajaj 1:49
To have or not have kids is one of the biggest decisions we make in our lives, and yet how many of us know that we even have a choice about how we define and create our families?
Mary Pat 2:01
I was raised in a large Irish Catholic family. I grew up, never questioning that the best way to live was to have as many children as you could have.
Brittany 2:15
Like if you didn't have a child within one year of your marriage, that's already considered like, what is going on? What's wrong with them, like a lot of hush whispers a lot of praying.
Vincie 2:25
In Chinese culture, the definition of happiness is dictated by whether you're married and whether you have kids, right. [And] after I got married, in my early 30s, my mom asked, whether I wanted to have kids, and I said, No, I remember her saying that without a kid, your family wouldn't be complete. And your life as a woman wouldn't be complete.
Nandita Bajaj 2:34
My name is Nandita Bajaj and I am the host of Beyond Pronatalism: Finding fulfillment, with or without kids, an interview series in which through intimate conversations with women and men from diverse backgrounds, I explore how they are courageously and creatively navigating pronatalism - the often unspoken pressures to have children, whether from family, friends, or the culture at large. In each episode, I dive into personal stories with people who are forging unconventional pathways to fulfillment, including redefining what family means to them - whether that means being childfree or childless, having biological children, adopting or fostering children or animals, or creating close-knit communities of friends and loved ones.
I grew up in a traditional culture in India until I was 17, and I was raised to believe that I must eventually become a mother. I was 28 years old when my partner and I talked about the decision to have or not have kids, and I didn’t know until then that not having kids was even a possibility. The incredible freedom that came from that realization set me on a path over the next 15 years to understand how deeply these cultural pressures influence our trajectories, and what it would mean to move beyond pronatalism and to arrive at more liberated and informed reproductive choices.
Mary Pat 4:02
We looked at that picture. And I fell in love. Like I was looking into the face of a newborn baby, that was our child. Somebody else gave birth to the child, but this was the overwhelming feeling of love and protection. Just like having a baby in a nursery somewhere.
Brittany 4:22
That ability to have this knowledge to make this informed decision is just so valuable, and so freeing
Vincie 4:30
I have never felt so fulfilled in my life than the present moment.
Nandita Bajaj 4:36
Join me, your host Nandita Bajaj, as I explore with incredible guests from around the world how they are challenging pronatalism and creating deeply fulfilled lives on their own terms - with or without kids.
