20. Shweta Ramkumar on breaking free from conformity

Join me as I sit down with Shweta Ramkumar, a proud anti-natalist and passionate childfree woman who advocates for the childfree choice around the globe. We discuss her upbringing in a culture where a woman's value is often tied to her role as a wife and mother, and Shweta offers insights into her experiences, the support she has received from her family, and her relentless advocacy work. She also sheds light on the harsh realities faced by many Southern Asian women who dare to deviate from the prescribed path, and how her early childhood experience in India has shaped her pro-natalist views. 

Use the links below to explore more of Shweta's work in the childfree space:
Instagram :
https://www.instagram.com/childfreesrbuddysmum?igsh=MTMzeGQ1eTB0YTVyaA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

TikTok :
https://www.tiktok.com/@shwetaramkumar?_t=8kZdITDhTmS&_r=1

YouTube Playlist :
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrKJQMlU-aAmDEG6RQ34g4h_06B85CLEN&si=y2a9_r1lo5mE5KiS

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/shweta-ramkumar-b4906515/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The world that we live in right now. Even in a country like Australia, people are struggling to make ends meet, even when they don't have children, and some days I feel like that. Housing costs are astronomical, childcare costs are astronomical. Everything is so much more expensive. It got me thinking. This is the direction in which the world is heading. It's just not ethical to bring any more lives into this world, because there's no future for them. And this is not me being grim, it's the reality.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Child Free Me, a show where we examine the choice to be child free and what it's like to navigate that decision in today's world. I'm your host, laura Allen, and today's guest is Shweta Ramkumar, a child-free advocate and proud anti-natalist, who spent the first 16 years of her life in India and then moved to Australia with her parents when she was a teenager. So having moved from such an extremely pro-natalist and collectivist culture in India to Australia's much more accepting and tolerant culture has obviously given her a unique perspective on what it's like to exist in both environments as a child-free individual, and she has since become very vocal in the child-free space and community. She does a ton of writing and a lot of speaking on the topic. She is also, as I mentioned, an anti-natalist, which means that she believes it is morally wrong to have children, since they are brought into the world against their will and will inevitably encounter suffering during their lifetime. This is obviously a very controversial and not widely accepted viewpoint, but what I found so impressive about her is just how firmly and gracefully she stands in her beliefs and continues to offer her voice and viewpoint to others, especially women, who might feel alone or stigmatized about their choice not to have children.

Speaker 2: 1:57

I obviously interview a lot of people who are similar to me, who have the same beliefs, who come from the same background and live in the same culture. So I think it is always important to speak with and listen to people who present an alternative to all of those things, all of those beliefs and backgrounds that I grew up with, because they obviously provide a different view of the world. So I encourage you to listen to her with an open mind. I am so grateful that she was willing to come on. We had a fantastic conversation and I am excited for you to hear her story. So with that, let's jump in Shweta. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Child Free Me.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Thank you very much for having me, Laura. It's a real privilege and honor. Happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Yes, I was so excited when you reached out to me. I know how much of an advocate and public figure you are in the child-free community, so it is, of course, an honor to have you on and I think you bring a really unique perspective which I'm excited to talk about With that. Could you start with just an overview of who you are, where you're calling in from in the world and what you do, and then we can go from there.

Speaker 1: 3:09

So I was born in India, lived there for the first 16 years of my life, moved to Australia in 2002, been here ever since. For the most part, yeah, and I work in healthcare. That's my day job. I'm moving slowly into the coaching space of communication. In the healthcare space I sort of bring with me the life experience, upbringing and the diversity in, with the advantage of growing up in two cultures, both cultures that are quite polarized. What I experienced in one culture was probably the complete opposite of the other one. So that sort of shapes you know my child-free viewpoint in many ways and also draws in my experience of how I navigate the space.

Speaker 2: 3:48

You've talked a lot just in your interviews and from the blog posts. You have talked about how the South Asian culture really conditions women to think that their only place is to be a mother and a wife and to run a household. At what age were you when you really realized that you did not want to follow that path, and what was it like to come to that realization?

Speaker 1: 4:12

So this was actually very early in my life I would have been about five or six years old and one thing that I really take quite a bit of pride in is my sense of observation, something that that has also really got me a long way in where I am in life at the moment. My observation really taught me, from what I was seeing around me growing up in that culture, around family members and especially the women, that there was this conditioning, like you mentioned, that your worth and value is only there or present if you are a wife or mother.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Without that you really don't have any value, you don't have any place in society. Because of that, I saw all the women minus my mom, all the women in my family, really pouring themselves into marriage and motherhood and that was really the central focus. That's what was the center of the world. They had no other identity. They had no independence. They could not even like. They were completely dependent on their spouses for even to survive financially. And my mom was the only one who was different. She was a working woman. She's very career driven. That sort of instilled in me from a very young age that I wanted to be like her in that sense that I wanted to be able to stand on my own two feet, earn a living, have my own independence, have my own freedom.

Speaker 1: 5:24

When I compared both observations, I was like, yes, my mom. Obviously she had a child for her. At least she had a bit of an escape to go to work and build a career for herself. The other women did. And I just felt very imprisoned. That's what I observed. I felt that these women were just being imprisoned by the patriarchy, by the sexism and the religion that we are all sort of conditioned from from a young age.

Speaker 2: 5:45

It's amazing that you had this mother, who happened to take this different path when it came to her relationship and her role as a woman in this community. What drove that in her, do you think?

Speaker 1: 5:58

I don't know.

Speaker 1: 5:59

I think for me my mom has, as far as I know, she has always been the type of person who's been very responsible.

Speaker 1: 6:05

Because she's the elder daughter, she's always been responsible for everything Taking care of families, finances, taking care of the paperwork and doing all the admin work. And that's why, even till date because I hate any sort of admin work, paperwork, anything to organize, so I just outsource it to her. So that sense of responsibility was very big on in her from a young age and she has a younger sister who she practically brought up and raised and she was always very big on education. So I think that I think her catalyst really was that she wanted to not be like one of these women either. So she wanted to be independent and be able to stand on her two own two feet and even when she was when the age when she had to get married, that was her deal breaker, that she's like I'm not going to give up my career after I get married, I'm not going to give up my education after I get married. She found a suitable partner my father, who was also looking for the same thing, a woman who was working.

Speaker 2: 6:56

So that sort of worked out very well, when you did come to the realization or the conclusion that you didn't want to have children, what was their reaction?

Speaker 1: 7:04

Very supportive, Very, very supportive, and I mentioned this when I was like six or seven years old, so I was at a very young age. I told them no, I'm never getting married, I'm never having children, and they were like. They took it very well. They were like it's your life, it's your choice to do what's best for you. That's something we disagree on a lot of things, but this is one thing that they have always, always supported me on. They're like yeah, you don't, you don't have to live any type of life that you don't want to. And they are very much aware that children are a major responsibility. They are a lifelong responsibility that you cannot. You can't come and go as you please, you know, and that's your. That has to be your primary focus. You have to put them first and some people are just not able to do it, not willing to do it, and that's completely okay. What also helped is that I was not the first child free person in my family, so when even my extended family, when they knew about this, they're like it's fine, and now it's funny. The all the second cousins and cousins were younger than me. They're also going on a very similar path, Like they don't want to get married or have children.

Speaker 1: 7:57

I've been very much the not just the cycle breaker, I would say, but also the trailblazer or the trendsetter in many ways. Very much the black sheep. I know the black sheep are generally interpreted in a negative manner, but I'd like to think that I've brought about a big change in the way that people really view the stuff that we have. We were programmed with in this, in this culture, from a young age, and I'm the first one in my family to go to therapy. So in that way, yeah, I've. I've broken a lot of the generational norms and cultural norms and social norms in many, many ways, and gender norms too.

Speaker 2: 8:28

That's incredible that you had just this extended support system as part of your family. Growing up, my family and I have a line that it was probably around seven that I started saying I didn't want to have children, and something that I've gotten a lot, not necessarily from my family, but from external voices is oh well, you're going to change your mind. You're just saying this now. You know you have your whole life ahead of you. You're going to change your mind. I actually got one of those comments just the other day. Was that something that was a reality for you? How did the larger community outside of your family react to this decision?

Speaker 1: 9:01

I would say it's only ever come up in one of my past relationships. That relationship was a very toxic and abusive one from the get go and that was the only point at which that person was you know, he was again. He was very much brought up in the in that kind of a home environment was exactly the opposite of mine, even though he has lived in Australia all his life, you know, and his parents have been here for 40, 50 years. They were much, much more backward in their thinking. Yeah, that's how they were. They were programmed that, you know, women's places being in my wife and mother. There was a little bit of a clash at that point, but I think, because that relationship was already a toxic and abusive one that was, it would not have made a difference. It would have ended one way or the other.

Speaker 1: 9:42

The broader community, I would say the younger generation, so like millennials, gen Xs, the people of that age, they completely see where I'm coming from. But the older people, who are the boomers, they are the ones who I don't know. I've just kind of got mixed reactions, you know, like some people are again very open, very accepting, and they don't really say anything. On the other hand, I've got the comment from one person, and this was the only one that I distinctly remember my mom's friend. She asked me what if you meet the right person and he wants kids? My reply to that was very simple Then he's not the right person for me. And obviously now I'm in a relationship with somebody who not only is sterile but also doesn't want children. So that's one of the many ways in which we align and that's where you have to be intentional. So when you're dating or anything else like that, you have to know, be very clear about what you want and don't want for you. Pursue and pursue towards whatever you want to achieve.

Speaker 2: 10:36

Do you think the South Asian culture is moving in the right direction? So you just talked about this younger generation who's perhaps more open to different lifestyle choices than the traditional ones. Do you think there is any movement there, or is it largely still staying the same?

Speaker 1: 10:53

So I haven't been back to the country in almost over a decade, so I would not know.

Speaker 1: 10:57

But what I can say is that my school friends, for example, who have children now, if their children eventually tell them that we don't want to be parents, they would take it very well. So I think the younger generation people of my age and people who are a little bit older, they are pretty open minded, but I think over there the culture is completely different because it's a collectivist culture and everyone is in everyone's business and you have to conform, you have to be like everybody else, otherwise there's a lot of stigma, there's a lot of you know. You are just basically ostracized with the community, you are shamed and things like that. So in many ways you have to really do whatever you're. Pressure to do what everyone else is doing is pretty high, but then again, I can't generalize from family to family. Some families are incredibly supportive, like my family, for example, and some families are not. I think the older generation has the other problem of not only is there a generational gap, but there's also a big cultural gap.

Speaker 1: 11:48

When I see these Instagram pages about feminism in India they talk about a lot of things that where which they cannot really discuss with their parents, for example it's funny all of their accounts will be anonymous. They will never mention their names, like our accounts, for example, on Instagram. We know people know who we are, whereas in those ones it's not just run by one person, it's by many people, so it's registered as a group and people never show their name, their name, to their faces, because you know, the risk is, if someone from your family or from your bigger community finds out, there's a lot of pretty bad consequences. So I really see that you know, and it's built a really good platform for people to be able to come together and discuss the things that they cannot bring up with their parents for of a different generation, not just about being child free, but also the fact that you know, women don't have to get married. Also, things like very recently I saw about menstruation, like that's something that we are never taught from a young age about, when you're how to look after yourself, what it actually entails. I was lucky because my mom's a doctor. I was I knew very much about what it, what it involved, so when my time came, I knew what it was but deep. But generally women are not because and that's also considered sort of like a bad woman, even though it's so natural. So that's one thing LGBTQ rights and many, many different things that people when I was growing up no one really spoke about that. But nowadays there's much more openness through these forums where they are able to embrace your different perspectives.

Speaker 1: 13:09

And one thing I have to mention is that maybe it's only just the women who are doing this. I think men in general can't generalize, but men generally in that culture are much more. What can I say? They are still very much confined to. You know, it's a woman's job to do this, this and that, and they really lead with. That narrative makes sense because a man, as long as he's earning, he's earning a living in my culture he can. There's no accountability, there's no consequences for them, they can do whatever they want. So for it's very easy for a man to sort of oppose that or go against it. But then I'm sure there are some guys who also are supportive and I find that really something very admirable, especially men from my culture, who support women's rights and their autonomy and things like that. Just in time for International Women's Day, which was last week.

Speaker 2: 13:53

So it sounds like your dad was one of those men who was supportive of women's rights, and he wasn't the sole breadwinner, and he was willing to allow your mother to take the path that she wanted 100%, 100%, yes. And when you were 16, you left that culture behind and moved to Australia and you talked about the cultures being very polarizing. Can you talk about what you mean by that?

Speaker 1: 14:14

So obviously, the Western culture is a much more individualistic one, which was very good for me, because I that's the sort of person I have always been, even though I've grown up in India. So I reminded my own business. I never liked it when people would ask me intrusive questions about my life, and I saw over here that women have the many, many more rights they have the freedom to make their own life choices. They're not conditioned with this belief that we were preparing you for marriage and motherhood in the future. Over here, I saw that women were being. They were forging their own path, that they can choose to be whatever they want to be.

Speaker 1: 14:47

There was no such thing that this career is only for women and this career is only. That was the norm back in the when I first came here. But it's not like that anymore. Women over here were, you know, they were unmarried, they were still buying her homes and they were all financially secure. Women definitely had many, many more options over here and they had many, many more rights as well. There was no pressure on them to again follow one particular path, and especially this whole. How will the India in the Southern Asian culture you're drilled into from a young age that you know your destiny, your future, is marriage and motherhood. The career is optional, but marriage and motherhood is the be all and end all. But with the Western culture it was completely different. I think that's one of the many reasons why my parents actually decided to move here, because they felt that I would be a much better fit over here. And they were right.

Speaker 2: 15:34

That was going to be. My next question is did you move on your own? Was it a family move? And then, how did the Western culture of acceptance drive part of that decision? You have mentioned in other interviews that I think you said you've traveled to 46 countries.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Is that the right number? 42 countries. We'll be 42 at the end of this month when I go to Sri Lanka, so wow.

Speaker 2: 15:55

As you've experienced all these different cultures. Are there cultures that you've seen that are more open and embracing of this child-free choice and lifestyle?

Speaker 1: 16:05

Yeah, I mean, I'm heading to Sri Lanka in about three weeks time and it's a trip only for child-free women. Really, I didn't expect a country like Sri Lanka, which is for the most part again, it's one of those cultures that's very family-oriented, women have to get married and have. It's very similar to the Indian culture. They welcome a tour group just for child-free women. So you know there is a bit of progress being made there. Where else can I think of, obviously, when I traveled around to and lived in places in the UK and Europe again, a really good, very open-minded acceptance towards child-free people, women, men, everybody. I think some of the cultures where I was a little bit sort of unsurprised, also, like Vietnam, is one culture where women get married and have children at a very, very young age. I sort of saw that and recently, when I was in Japan last year, there was a mix. There was a mix of women who were against single and unmarried and women who didn't have children.

Speaker 1: 16:58

And it's interesting. Now Japan and Korea are really catching up in having this demographic of women in their 30s and 40s who do not want marriage or motherhood. For an Asian culture that is really big. For the most part it is very much like that. You know. It's quite polarizing because some countries which like Japan and Korea, you would not expect that people over there this is becoming slowly becoming the norm. But obviously when I was in the UK and Europe and all that you know, I saw that they had a very open attitude towards this type of life, the child-free life, for sure.

Speaker 2: 17:30

Where does America fall into that spectrum, oh dear.

Speaker 1: 17:34

After the overture, a turn of Roe v Wade. I just think that America is living in a very, very primitive time and now, especially in Alabama, where they're doing this thing with what frozen embryos and things like that, they've really stepped back in time in many ways and I feel for you guys I don't know if you live in one of those states where it's communalized or not and like, for example, france recently, but they've made it a constitutional right to get an abortion, which has been very, very impressive.

Speaker 1: 18:02

And then again, going back to the culture of different countries you know like, especially Eastern Europe, I've got one of my really close friends is from the Slavic region Croatia, bosnia, that part of it. They are very much like us, you know, very family, family, everything like that. And she, like me, a child-free and antenatalist woman. So again, very much the black sheep you know. So she's the only one who doesn't have it or doesn't want children. Yeah, so she had to really work through a lot of pushback from her parents and her extended family to get them to accept her choice. I can think of certain countries such as Greece, italy, anything in the Eastern European region. They're very much like this, you know, very much big on marriage and motherhood. So they have a big, big battle ahead of them in order to live this life.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Yeah, and I appreciate what you said about the US. I am fortunate I live in Illinois, where it is not criminalized, and I've always lived in urban cities.

Speaker 1: 18:52

My whole life.

Speaker 2: 18:53

I grew up in Boston. Massachusetts happens to be a very liberal state.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Obviously, the United States is first world country. I am so privileged, I've had access to education, and yet I still feel like the black sheep. I started this podcast because I felt there are so little people in my immediate community, and it's not that they didn't support me, it's that no one else was making this choice, and so I started this so I could reach out and just hear other people's stories and talk to them, Because I find that to be healing and validating and helps me stand in this decision.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Even though the United States is considered progressive you're right it just doesn't feel very progressive right now. And it is still, I don't know. We have to fight to find these communities of people who don't follow the standard life plan.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2: 19:45

So you moved to Australia, which was just a much more accepting community. What led you to be an advocate in the child free space? You've become very active and you do a lot of speaking and writing on the topic. So what led you to that?

Speaker 1: 19:59

I actually didn't know the word child free existed till about 2015. Even though I've known all my life that I wanted to be child free, I didn't know there was a term for people like me Till 2015, when I saw a documentary on a free to air channel here called Channel 7, which talked about this, which talked about the term. You know how women over 45, now, by the end of this decade, one in four women over 45 will not have children. That's kind of how it got started. I'm like, okay, well, this is a term for me. Now I'm child free and I'm child free by choice.

Speaker 1: 20:28

But I also felt like I was the only one, even though I'm in a country that's very accepting, and so there were people who are just like me, but I personally didn't know anybody. So it started off with doing a very simple search on Facebook. I went there. I was like, okay, it's got to be something, there's got to be someone who thinks exactly like me. And now obviously, it's a lot easier. But when I first knew about it, like in 2016, 17, it was so much harder. So went there, found a couple of groups, and so there were there's groups were much smaller back in the day.

Speaker 1: 20:56

And then I was like well, we need to take this to the next level and organize meetup so that we can actually meet in person. That happened. Then other people started to take over. Then, obviously, covid hit. Then what happened was towards the end of 2021, when we were just getting out of lockdown was when some of us decided to go for brunch and, given we all connected so well, or even better, in person compared to online, we just figured we'll start a community just for women, like you know, who are based in the city where I am, who do not have children and for whatever reason by choice, by circumstance and actually make this not just a support community but also for people to go to events, meet up and really form friendships. And that's how I actually met the friend of mine who was from Slavic background, so from one of these groups. Yeah, that's kind of how it started, and that group is up to about 1200 members now, so it's really gone a long way.

Speaker 1: 21:45

I think why I do what I do is again, when I talk to my mom about this, you know, I tell her I'm getting on a podcast, I'm talking about my charity life, although she fully supports me and she understands why I've made the choice. What she doesn't understand is why I'm so vocal about it. I tell her it's because not all families, or not everyone, has had it as easy as me, and she just assumes that if you are a white person or if you're Caucasian or something, people are generally more accepting. That's not true at all. I know a lot of people who are of Caucasian descent who do not have any family support or their family just does not respect their choice and they are discriminated against by their parents and they feel even more alone than anybody else and they might be second guessing their choice about. Did I do the right thing? You know, why am I getting all this hate? Why am I having this lack of support? And just so that they have a safe space to fall on and so that they also remain clear and be firm about their choice and have that validation and reassurance that you guys have, that I have done the right thing by making this choice and I'm not alone.

Speaker 1: 22:46

There are people like me all over the world who understand why I've done this and where I'm coming from. Mothers always say it takes a village. It's no different for us. We, every single person, needs a village In particular, a choice that's ours. Even though it's now being normalized, we still have a long way to go in us, the society not coming to us and asking us these intrusive questions about why we've made this choice, or being criticized, being judged and being misunderstood. So really to break the stigma and to bring people who are generally the outcasts or black sheep together to support them and also really empower their choices is why I do what I do and also completely normalize this choice and make them feel like they're not alone in this, that there are people who understand you and see where you're coming from.

Speaker 2: 23:29

So it's interesting that your mom had this perception that people of Caucasian descent doesn't necessarily face the same stigma or pushback. Do you know why that is or where that comes from?

Speaker 1: 23:40

I think for her, she still lives in a little bit of a bubble. Now, obviously, my partner's Caucasian and his family is incredibly open-minded. You can't generalize that every single person is like that. And again, how would you define a Caucasian? And even now, when I tell her that this is the reason why I don't think she really gets it, although I think she says it, just so that I am protected by all the people who on social media, who really send me a lot of hate my way when I tell them that I don't want children, just so that.

Speaker 1: 24:06

and that's why she says that why do you have to keep talking about it and really want people to celebrate this choice with you, I'm like, well, I don't care, they don't have to celebrate it with me. I just want this thing to be normalized. I don't want people to feel like there's something wrong with them for making this choice, and that's why I do what I do. But yeah, that's what she gathered that, you know. I think it's also because of the people she's been around and the people she's worked with.

Speaker 1: 24:28

She just thought that that's why they all people who are like this they have all the support from their families about making this choice. But no, that's that's not true. Actually, I am the one of the very few people of color or of Asians that's how Southern Asian descent. In the group that I am a part of, most people are Caucasians and you know they have all collectively said it's because we do not get the same treatment from our parents as our siblings who have children do. We don't have the same status. We don't have the same rights or the level of respect.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Couldn't agree more with what you said about status, and I think it also applies to being married as well. Being married grants you a different status than being single. Even if you are in a long term committed relationship, there's a status that's granted to people who are married versus people who are single. So you mentioned anti-natalism. I, similar to you, did not really start to use the word child free, honestly, until probably a year ago when I first started thinking about this podcast, so I was even more behind you. Is that the point when you also discovered anti-natalism? Or how did you find your way to that philosophy and what was that like to learn about it and realize that it aligned with your own beliefs?

Speaker 1: 25:39

So even at a young age, when I was growing up in India and you know, as you know, india, there's a lot of poverty, there's a lot of people who cannot afford to take care of their kids, a lot of orphans, a lot of abandoned children because the parents just cannot afford to provide for them and I always thought to myself, not just in my family but in general why are people so hell bent on having biological children when there are so many children, orphans, that need a family and a home?

Speaker 1: 26:05

So, from a young age, I questioned that and that has carried me from an old even as I've gotten older in life, and I always said to myself that is something. Obviously I'm not going to go that direction now, but I was very open to adopting at one point that if I wanted to have a child, I would only do it via adoption. You're part of the solution then, then part of the problem. I know the process is very hard in all Western countries to adopt. I totally understand that, but I see it as a much, much better way forward and you're really making a difference in contributing to society. And then, in 2020, or just before that, when people from India saw all the blog posts and all the videos that you've seen of mine it somehow reached people in India.

Speaker 1: 26:42

And I do remember one of my blog posts where I talk about what it's like being Indian and child-free. And I think that somehow reached people in India and a lot of them reached out to me and they started to talk about why they've made this choice and they're like because of the country that is that India is. It's overpopulated, there's no access to clean water, people don't have any access to food and shelter. So their motive was that you know, if I'm going to, even if I have all the resources to provide for a child, if I'm going to bring another life into the world, it's going to suffer inevitably, even if they're the most privileged, brought into a very privileged situation. And then I got into the work of this gentleman who I still follow on Instagram. He was the one who actually took legal action against his parents for bringing him into this world, so he pretty much sued them.

Speaker 2: 27:34

What's his name? Nihil.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Anand, and if you look at his interviews, it's. He's all over YouTube, he's everywhere.

Speaker 1: 27:39

Yeah he basically and that was what got me started and when I watched his videos I'm like, wow, this was. This is eye opening. It makes so much sense that no one asks to be born. We can't get consent to come into this world from something that doesn't exist. And so, essentially, you're forcing an entity into existence because you feel like your genetics have to be passed down or you feel like that's what you have. You have the selfish, egotistical motive that you are supposed to do that. The world that we live in right now, even in a country like Australia, people are struggling to make ends meet, even when they don't have children, and some days I feel like that. Housing costs are astronomical, childcare costs are astronomical. Everything is so much more expensive. It got me thinking. This is the direction in which the world is heading.

Speaker 1: 28:22

It's just not ethical to bring any more lives into this world because there's no future for them. And this is not me being grim, it's the reality. When I watched his videos and I started talking to these people in India and the concept of suffering, consent, all of these, these keep coming in my head I understood anti-natalism. I'm like that. This completely makes sense to me, and since then I became an anti-antinatalist as well. The difference, however, is that you can be child-free and not be antinatalist. You can support your friends, who you have children, and that's totally fine. For me personally, I find it very hard to do that, so that's why, as a matter, just as a matter of point, I don't attend baby showers, I don't attend gender reveals, I don't attend first bird, not only because that's the environment I can't think of anything worse to do with my time than go to those events but also because it really goes against my principles of anti-natalism and it is a less discussed topic because it's very taboo.

Speaker 1: 29:17

People think that we all have a right to have children. It's not a right, it's a privilege if you can have children, and people just don't understand it and everyone assumes that anti-natalists want to wipe out humanity. They want to commit mass genocide against humanity. No, that's not what we are talking about. Yes, we absolutely advocate for voluntary euthanasia. If people don't have a quality of life, people have the right to exit life by with dignity. We completely support that. But we just do not want to add to more life, which equals more problems and more suffering in the world. That is our philosophy, that is our principle. It's not about killing humanity.

Speaker 2: 29:54

No, I understand. There are many shades, I guess, of anti-natalism, like any philosophy of course. While I myself am not anti-natalist, I understand that philosophy. Looking at the world and seeing where it's going. I understand that. Do anti-natists believe the world has to get to a certain population size or is it just bringing humans into the world at any point creates suffering?

Speaker 1: 30:18

I'm not generalised. I mean some people feel that way. Some people may feel that population has to be sustainable. Some people might say voluntary human extinction. They are there, the misanthropes. It's just a big, big spectrum. It's very hard to tell what everyone's different views are, and some anti-natalists are vegan as well, because they want to now also not make any sentient beings suffer, which obviously includes plants and animals and that's why they're vegans.

Speaker 1: 30:43

Now, I'm not one of them, but also some people think that, because the thing is humans, there's many, many more consequences for humans reproducing and proliferating and taking up resources on the resources on the planet.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Our requirements, our needs and what we need to really survive in this world is completely different from wild animals and plants. They just need the basics, they need food, they need water, whereas for us we have to make money, we have to get an education and things like that. So it's, and we have to get from place to place, we have to drive, so our needs are completely different. So, therefore, we are obviously taking up more space, more resources, more whatever the planet has to offer. So it's much more catastrophic for us as a species which and let's face it we are invasive, we are destructive, we are evil, because we are put in a world where we have to do this just to basically get by and survive. Most people who do procreate they put no thought into it, whereas child-free people do. That's why we have we put more thought into what this entails than just doing it willy-nilly.

Speaker 2: 31:43

I'm always an advocate of. I'm not asking people not to have children. I want them to think about it. And I do think that if people thought more deeply and didn't do things simply because that's expected of them, we'd probably have less children, for sure.

Speaker 1: 31:56

And it's interesting because a lot of people are women who get pregnant. Again, they just do it because that's the next step, especially as a woman, and that synonymity between motherhood and womanhood is so strong in most cultures. They just think that if I'm not a mother, I'm not a woman. Essentially, that's the conclusion that they're taught, and this is everything. Is to do with even the biological clock and what you talk about, this biological urge or need to reproduce. That again, scientifically and factually, that does not exist. There is no such thing as a biological clock. Yes, women have a window of period when they are there at their most peak of fertility. Yes, but as a species, we have the biological urge to perform the act of procreation. So we are programmed to have sex, basically. But when it comes to actually the consequence of that having unprotected sex it doesn't matter which species it is. You bring a life into this world. Women are taught that your biological clock is running out. This is the most natural thing that all women do. Blah, blah, blah. But it's just simply put. It's pronatulus propaganda. There's nothing else to it.

Speaker 1: 33:01

Governments push for it because they obviously want more voters, they want more workers to, even though there's AI is going to take over everything. They still push for it because we need humans to be in the workforce. Religious people push for it because they need more followers. It's all done, laid out in such a way that we are kept in this little matrix and people just don't see through that. Obviously, there's also conditioning from families, from cultures, from media, everywhere. That messaging is very, very strong.

Speaker 1: 33:26

Everywhere no one tells a woman the realities of pregnancy, the truth about what pregnancy is, how risky it is and how much of a damage it does to your health and your body. Again, from a young age, I remember asking my mom's sister because my cousin's sister was just born, when I was five years old and I asked her how our baby is born. She explained it to me in some sort of you know, in a certain fashion, and I was horrified. I was like, no, this, this just sounds horrific. This sounds like straight from a horror movie. I'm not doing this.

Speaker 1: 33:53

So we do not tell people the truth about what pregnancy and motherhood is. We just pressure women into thinking oh, this is what you're supposed to do because you're a woman and you have to do this by a certain age, otherwise this will end all and all these fear tactics that you know that media is very good at doing it, but also pronateless advocates. They are very good at doing it because people really don't care about what happens after the life comes into the world. They're like, oh then, then you're on your own, you can figure it out.

Speaker 2: 34:17

I do feel like, and I've come to appreciate at least my friends who have had children or are pregnant. They are very open about how unpleasant it can be. So I feel like we've moved, at least in my immediate circle and my age group we've. We've moved away, and I think the rise of social media has also helped, because there are I do get stories on social media about how difficult it can be and I feel like there's a slight lifting of the veil. Obviously, I will never know what it's truly like, so I can't compare what is being told to me to what it actually is, but there seems to be more openness around that. Okay, so I'm going to actually read a quote that you said in an interview and then I just wanted to get your thoughts on it.

Speaker 2: 35:02

So you said and you were speaking with Dr Angela Harris- you said, until every child has a home, no one should be able to reproduce biologically, which is obviously a very strong statement, and I would just love to hear your thoughts behind that, I mean we do it for our pets all the time.

Speaker 1: 35:18

There's this big motto that you know you should adopt, don't shop. And you know I have a rescue dog who have adopted. I did not get him from a breeder. Why can't the same principle be applied to humans? There's no shortage of children who do not have families or a stable home and they're just rotting away in the foster care system or they're just living in really, really poor conditions, carrying a lot of trauma and a lot of challenges in their life. Why can't we be part of the solution? Why can't we all be part of the solution and just creating more problems in the world?

Speaker 1: 35:47

Why do you think, do people think, that their genetics are so superior that they have to be passed down to the next generation? What is so special about your legacy and your lineage? Your bloodline is nothing special. You know. You're not Beyonce. The world doesn't need more of you and, yes, there's no denial about the fact that the world is overpopulated. We do not need more humans to come into this world. We need to do better for the humans that are already here, that are not living a good life In any capacity that you can, if you have the resources, by all means I would recommend, you know, and there's it's got to be a lot of change that has to happen systematically to make the process easier to adopt.

Speaker 1: 36:22

That should really be the first alternative If you really want to have a child. And if you can't love a child that doesn't have your genetics, don't even talk about unconditional love. So unconditional love has to be. That's an entity in and of itself. It's got nothing to do with genetics. For example, I love my dog unconditionally and vice versa, even though I didn't give birth or I didn't get him from a breeder. So unconditional love has nothing to do with genetics. It's got nothing to do with sharing your own bloodline. I think that still, this world is got into a better place and absolutely every until every child who does not have a home and family with stable parents has that. Until the world becomes even if, if at all, there's any hope for it to get better than what it is currently. In general, as an anti-natalist proud anti-natalist I will say that reproduction is not at all a good idea at this point in time.

Speaker 2: 37:10

One last question or one last topic I would love to discuss is you, many years ago, talked about potentially exploring sterilization? And having that procedure done and I understand your current partner is sterile and that's just no longer something that you're considering, but just wanted to hear your thoughts around as you were considering that. What was it like navigating the healthcare space? Did you find pushback, or what was it like? Or maybe you didn't even get that far.

Speaker 1: 37:37

I didn't even get that far to be honest, I remember at this point I was living in Thailand. Actually, this idea of sterilization just popped into my head because I knew for a fact that if I tried to pursue this in Australia or any other western country I'm going to get pushback. And even recently there was an interview on a TV show that we have here in Australia called SBS Insight, and the most recent episode was about the kind of birth rates and there were two child-free couples that who were in the forum and both the women in the amongst those couples both of them went for, wanted to go down the path of sterilization and they were both denied flat out and they were gaslit. They had a lot of pushback. So their partners, the men, they went and got the vasectomy. So you know that was took the pressure off of them.

Speaker 1: 38:17

When I was in Thailand I did ask what's the procedure for getting sterilized and then I thought to myself it's not going to cost much in Thailand, they're not going to give me any grief about it, and I was very close to actually getting it done. The problem was that I could not take as much time as it required for me to have off to recover, so that's the only reason why I did not go down that path and then after that, obviously there was no, absolutely no reason. I was like nah, let's not pursue that at this point. But a lot of the people I'm friends with who are child-free, a lot of them are sterilized and they have generally gone to about two or three doctors before getting into the one who finally agreed to operate on them, and it is really disheartening and somewhat infuriating, I have to say you know, so a man, for example whether it's my partner or anybody can easily walk into a doctor's office and say that no, I just want to get the snip.

Speaker 1: 39:08

They're not even asked for a reason or anything like that, they're just given the go ahead, no problem. But every time a woman wants to go down that path they have to jump through all these loops because, again, the medical system is very good at manipulating, gaslighting and giving women a lot of grief about their reproductive choices. And they use all these fear tactics and I've heard of this from people who are not just, and that's why the coaching space I'm doing at the moment, running at the moment, is on healthcare communication and I talk about this all the time about patient autonomy. That you know people, patients, know their health and body the best. So we have to absolutely respect that and support that and work together with them as a team, not really push our biases, our opinions, our judgments and narrow mindedness on them as a fear tactic so that they don't take legal action.

Speaker 1: 39:56

That's the big fear, fear that everybody has. You know, if they change their mind, they're going to sue them. I mean, that's you know, and there are the realities that are put into place, but I'm aware that it's a much more invasive process for a woman to get sterilized. And then there's obviously the recovery time. It's a much more deep process, definitely, and both of them are irreversible. Obviously, a woman's sterilization is much more irreversible than the other one and that's why they want to make sure that we are doing this for the right reasons. And you know, I totally get that.

Speaker 1: 40:23

But the pushback it's very disappointing to hear that. So that's why now, fortunately, there is this subreddit of doctors that's over there, where in the internet, where people have come up with a list of doctors who will, and people have found doctors through that list where, you know, they just go as a woman, they can go in and they'll have their consultation and they'll get approval pretty much straight away. So that's been very much a lifesaver. But this is something that absolutely needs to change, not just in the space of reproductive autonomy, but also things like menopause. I know women in my circle when a lot of the chaffee women and women with children who are now menopausal, they are met with a very similar type of gaslighting and pushback. I mean, at that stage in their life, you know, and they're just not diagnosing them or giving them the correct care and treatment, because, again, there's not a lot of talking.

Speaker 1: 41:09

That was not a lot of talking back in the day about menopause, but now not just menopause, but perimenopause is something that people are really becoming much, much more vocal about, so which is very interesting and positive to see.

Speaker 2: 41:20

I'm just trying to understand what's currently happening in the healthcare space that needs correcting. Is it they're just not getting enough support or there's not enough research? What is it?

Speaker 1: 41:30

I think it's generally they're not getting the right support from healthcare professionals. So they will come in, a patient will come and say to you that I'm having mood swings, I'm having hormonal fluctuations, I'm having hot flushes and things like that, and the healthcare provider will generally just say have you tried losing weight? That becomes like a little weapon all the time and we women have to, unfortunately, bear that all the time for that. But they talk about depression, whether that's because that is, you know, menopausal and perimenopausal depression and anxiety is a huge thing and they're just not diagnosing them correctly. And I don't understand why, because menopause is a very natural thing, just like menstruation and a puzzle is very, very natural for all women. And I did not know that there's such a thing called perimenopause till again I got one of the lady who was actually featured in that documentary, who where the channel seven documentary child free, so she's child free, and now she is big on talking about perimenopause.

Speaker 2: 42:23

I didn't even know it existed. What is perimenopausal?

Speaker 1: 42:26

Perimenopause is, I think, like a precursor. I don't know much, to be honest, but I think it's a precursor to metaphors.

Speaker 1: 42:33

And another thing that healthcare professionals do not do on purpose is when at women who are of our age or younger, when they go there and they'll say that you know, I have abdominal cramps, I have abdominal pain, my periods are irregular, they will just refuse to run any tests on them. And then come, you know, low and behold, you come to find out 20 years later you have endometriosis. At which point it's it's your, almost your menopausal anyway. This could have just been solved, because one of the ways of really healing or getting better from endometriosis is radical hysterectomy. But obviously you can't bring that up with a fertile woman because people will think that you know the healthcare provider is trying to manipulate the woman into trying to get a hysterectomy. That's another thing that they just don't do. And there's you know, there's my content on my LinkedIn really talks about a lot of these things, but people have to actually go there and sort of check it out for themselves.

Speaker 2: 43:21

Well, thank you for joining in. On that note, could you talk a little bit around where people can find the work and the advocacy that you do?

Speaker 1: 43:28

Sure, my childfree presence is most prevalent on Instagram Childfree SR buddies, mum buddies, my dog and I'm his mum, hence that one. I've also started to get into TikTok. That's just literally my name, shweta Ramkumar. So if you want to learn more about me personally and the business I do, linkedin is the best place to find me.

Speaker 1: 43:45

And you can obviously check out my YouTube channel and the playlist of videos where I talk about my, where I do my interviews and things like that, also the work I do in the healthcare communication and advocacy space, so yeah, so there's a lot of places where you can find me and connect with.

Speaker 2: 43:59

Awesome, and I will certainly add all of that to the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on where we started recording at 5 45 am your time in the future in Australia, so I couldn't be more grateful. Good luck surviving the heat wave that you're currently going through.

Speaker 1: 44:14

Yes, I'm looking forward as well, Alright thank you so much for having me, laura. It's been a real joy and privilege and I look forward to doing the recording. So see you, bye, bye.

Speaker 2: 44:21

And that's it for today. Thank you everyone for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, or please consider leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast platform. That will help me reach more listeners, give me feedback and help spread the word about the show and what we're doing. So thank you, I'll see you next week.