TRAILER: Two roads diverged (a.k.a. meet your host)

Ever felt like a lone ship sailing against the societal current, yearning for companionship and understanding? That's where I found myself as I veered off the 'normal' path to embrace a child-free life, prompting the creation of this podcast, Childfree Me. I'm Laura Allen, inviting you to join me on this exciting exploration of individual narratives, shared experiences, and collective celebration of choosing a childfree life.

In our inaugural episode, I open up about my journey, from choosing the traditional route of education and career to diverging from the norm to embrace this liberating, yet often isolating, decision. Each week, we'll delve into intimate conversations with others who've also chosen this unconventional path. Whether you're already walking this road, pondering over it or simply intrigued by the idea, I hope you'll find resonance, inspiration, and possibly, camaraderie in our stories. Remember to subscribe to Childfree Me on your preferred podcast platform. The first episode drops in two days, with new ones coming your way every Tuesday. Can't wait to have you alongside on this journey!

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Child Free Me. I am your host, laura Allen, and I am absolutely thrilled to actually have this thing up and running. I've never made a podcast before and so this is all of a bit of a learning curve and I appreciate you joining me on this fun journey. To kick things off, I wanted to give just a quick overview of who I am and why I chose to start this podcast. I am a woman in my late 30s, grew up in Boston and now live in downtown Chicago and have pretty much for my whole life taken the road most traveled by, and by that I mean I went to high school, then to college, got a job, lived in New York City, went back to school, got my MBA, went back to the corporate world. I now live with my fiancee and I've really always followed the normal, accepted path my whole life. But now I'm at this critical juncture where I've chosen to be child free, and this is really where my path veers off to the left and everyone else seems to just be continuing on down the road without me.

Speaker 0: 1:14

I think for anyone who's made the choice to be child free, you recognize it can be really lonely. You have to feel isolated and sometimes even ostracized. For the choice and the pressure to conform to societal norms, even in today's modern world, is really all encompassing and also incredibly subtle. It's really hard to distinguish between what your voice and your heart is saying and what society is telling you. I really looked around one day and realized I was the only one in my immediate circle of friends and family who had put this stake in the ground around being child free. So that's where this podcast comes in. It was born out of a deep desire to hear others' experiences in this space, to understand their different perspectives and, most importantly, to celebrate the decision together. I wanted to give individuals who have chosen to be child free, or even those who are on the fence and struggling to understand what's best for them, the opportunity to listen to these stories from others who have made the choice and the decision and understand what that's like. So my hope is that, whether you've already chosen to be child free, or you're thinking about it, or you're simply curious to hear what it's like, that this podcast is for you.

Speaker 0: 2:36

Each episode, I'll sit down with someone who has chosen to be child free and talk about what their experience has been like navigating this decision in today's world, and I invite you to join me on this journey. You can subscribe to Child Free Me on your favorite podcast platform. You can follow us on Instagram. I will link everything in the show notes, so please reach out. I would love to hear from you as you listen. We'll love feedback. People you think I should reach out to and speak to. I want to hear all of it. So thank you so much for joining. I am so excited. The first episode will drop this Thursday, so the day after tomorrow, and then, moving forward, it'll drop every Tuesday. I can't wait to see you there.