“Having kids was a mistake”
4/24/202626 min
They thought they would learn to love parenthood. They were wrong.
This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images.
Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSean Rameswaram· Host0:00
Today Explained is the program. I'm Sean Rameswaram, and I recently became the father of a daughter, but I didn't always know if I wanted kids. [pensive music] In fact, I distinctly remember being at a bar with some of my oldest friends one night in my 20s, and my buddy Jeff said he wanted to have kids, and I was shocked. We were 25. We never talked about kids, but he knew he wanted them. How did he know?
Jeff· Soundbite0:23
It sounds like something I would say.
Sean Rameswaram· Host0:25
I asked him this week, 15 or so years later.
Jeff· Soundbite0:28
I wanted to pursue something bigger than myself, and that was something I could relate to at the time.
Sean Rameswaram· Host0:35
It all worked out for Jeff, who now has two daughters and is super into them, but it doesn't go so well for everyone. More and more people in the United States are deciding not to have kids. Birth rates just hit yet another record low, and some people out there are having kids and regretting the decision. We're gonna hear from a few of them on Today Explained from Vox. Support for Today Explained comes from Attio, the AI CRM for modern teams. Attio connects to your email, calendar, calls, product data, billing data, and more so your CRM is always complete, always enriched, and always in sync. Bye, bye, bye. If you want a CRM built for how you want to work, you can check out Attio. You can go to attio.com/todayexplained and you get 15% off your first year. That's A-T-T-I-O.com/todayexplained.