Dawn Taylor and guest Katie Dooley of Paper Lime Creative talk about children in today’s episode. More specifically, they talk about being child-free adults, either by choice or through infertility, and the various judgements they face from society at large over being child-free.
Katie is child-free by choice and she describes her feelings towards children as “mostly ambivalence”. She didn’t realize it was truly an option not to have kids when she was younger, though, and she addresses this as something everyone should know. That not having kids is a choice you can make.
While Dawn is child-free due to infertility - and she shares how she and her husband actively grieved their inability to have children - she and Katie discuss the many ways society chooses to judge or talk down to child-free adults, how medical professionals defer to one day wanting children in regards to medical decisions, and they share some of Katie’s curated list of 200 reasons not to have a baby. Tune in to find out why people might prefer not to have children and what not to say to friends who are on a path of infertility.
About Katie Dooley:
Katie Dooley is the Founder of Paper Lime Creative, a branding and design agency in Edmonton, AB. Her love of design and art took shape at a young age, and since then, she’s been soaking in as much knowledge about art, business, and design as she can.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
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Dawn Taylor - The Taylor Way: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin
Katie Dooley - Founder/Brand Strategist at Paper Lime Creative: website | linkedin | instagram | facebook
Transcript:
Dawn Taylor 00:09
Hey, hey hey, welcome to Taylor Talks. Today on the show, we are diving deep into the idea of are we allowed to hate children? But also the decision around not having kids, can't have kids, the judgments that come with it, and all of that other fun stuff. So our guest today is Miss Katie Dooley. She is the owner of Paper Lime Creative, a graphic design agency in Edmonton, Alberta. And we met through business but have created a really cool relationship, I'd say, around the fact that neither of us have children. So welcome Katie to the show, and stick around after for your free giveaway.
Dawn Taylor 00:52
So excited you're here!
Katie Dooley 00:54
Thanks for having me.
Dawn Taylor 00:55
So when I first started talking to you about starting this podcast, one of the conversations we had was, like, all the things that we wish we had known, right? Because you and I were kind of hashing this out. And I said, you know, like, we should have known that, like, you don't have to own a house. Or I wish I had known that you could not choose these specific jobs in life or, you know, all these different things. And one of the things you had said was you wish you had known it was an option to not have kids.
Katie Dooley 01:23
Totally.
Dawn Taylor 01:23
Tell me a bit about that.
Katie Dooley 01:25
Yeah, when we were brainstorming this and the hard conversations that people don't have was, yeah, nobody talks about that not having kids is an option. So even as, like, a little kid, who never played with baby dolls, who found them creepy, and continues to find them creepy, like I knew how many kids I wanted - I'm doing air quotes - and, like, I knew what I would name them. But I never really wanted them and I still don't.
Dawn Taylor 01:53
Right. So how did your parents deal with that? Because it's such a society thing, right? Like you grow old, you have your kids, you have grandkids, you die. There's this whole cycle of life that we have been, like, taught in our growing up years.
Katie Dooley 02:09
Totally. It's... different sets of parents have handled it differently. So my parents have been okay with it, as far as I know. Like, they just they know we don't want kids. And they've kind of, they haven't said anything otherwise. Just like, okay, we know you don't want kids. My husband's parents are divorced, his mom seems pretty cool with it. His dad keeps, like, hinting at it or pushing for it or like, little things like 'We'll pass this on to you when you have kids'. He said that once. And when we bought our house, he was like, 'How many bedrooms are there' and all our extra bedrooms are offices. So things like, little comments like that is mostly what we get from family.
Dawn Taylor 02:53
Right? So in our situation, we actually wanted kids desperately but couldn't have them. And for anyone listening who's like, anyone can have kids, you can adopt, you can have surrogates or whatever, you can't. It's not actually as easy as it sounds. Between my husband coming--
Katie Dooley 03:09
I was gonna say if you're sickly, like Dawn's husband...
Dawn Taylor 03:14
If you've had a brain aneurysm, if you have Crohn's disease, some of these things that actually stop you from a lot of those options that you'd think, but also because we knew that a lot of our health issues were hereditary, we made the choice not to have kids for that reason. So I know that's something that you and I had, like, bonded over and connected over. But I want to dive into from both of our sides how that plays out with, like, siblings, how that plays out with friends, friend groups, this like weird perceived judgment that we get from people for not having kids.
Katie Dooley 03:53
Oh, totally the things that have been said to me, and I'm sure said to you as well, of, like, who's gonna look after you when you get older?
Dawn Taylor 04:04
Okay. My favorite response to that, by the way, is 'your kids because they're gonna like me more'.
Katie Dooley 04:08
Oh, I like that.
Dawn Taylor 04:09
That is my personal favorite response to that one, but keep going.
Katie Dooley 04:12
The extra million dollars that childless people retire with. That's what's gonna look after me when I'm older. You'll like your own kids, that's the big one I've heard before.
Dawn Taylor 04:15
All the time.
Katie Dooley 04:16
That seems like a really big gamble when you're someone who doesn't like kids.
Dawn Taylor 04:30
Gamble and hopefully I like this one.
Katie Dooley 04:32
Hopefully I like them. I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't. Yeah, those are kind of the two big ones off the top of my head that I get from, like, a why don't you want kids perspective?
Dawn Taylor 04:44
Well, you know what's weird is not being able to have kids, we get the same comments. There's this weird, like, because we couldn't have kids, we don't like kids. Like people attach those two together. And it's so strange because I'm, like, what I wanted kids We couldn't have them. Oh, that was another one - when I had someone go, 'Do you just not know how?' when I said we couldn't have kids. And I was like, actually, we'd love it if you would teach us Are you and your husband available tonight? We'd like to watch.
Katie Dooley 05:17
That's, when you told me that I use that as an excuse when people say when are you going to have kids, and I say 'When we learn how to'. I also, I have some other inappropriate, I have some other inappropriate ones, too. I don't know if you, what your podcast rating is but I have some... Okay. The other one I like is 'When we stop doing anal'. More like family appropriate one is 'When you stop asking.' That's a good one.
Dawn Taylor 05:44
I actually, in a fit of anger - and I mean, keep in mind there are some other emotions attached - it was the first Mother's Day after my mom had passed away so there was like a lot of grief going on. It was like she died in January, this is now May, Mother's Day already sucks. I can't be a mom. I can't have kids. And then I'm at a wedding, I'm at my cousin's wedding, with my mom's four sisters there. And you've seen them, they all look like clones of each other, right? So it was already like super emotionally hard. And people kept coming up and asking me which kids were mine. Because there were so many kids running around. And I finally snapped and I, like, I got really angry at this one poor lady. And I was like, 'None, I hate kids, I think they should all be murdered and tarred and feathered'. And she just kind of stared at me. It was like, okay, and turned around and walked away. And it spread fairly quick not to ask me. Gossip circles ran pretty strong that night. But it is, it's a whole thing. And I know being 10 years older than you, I remember talking to somebody when I was in my 20s, and I'm saying your 20s are fine because not everyone's having kids. But when you hit your 30s everybody's having babies, like they are popping them out like puppies, like they're just like, all of the kids. It's okay at first because they still try to integrate you into it, and they try to bring you into those relationships, they try to remember you. But then as the kids start to get older, you get very forgotten because you don't have kids to play with their kids, you don't get invited on playdates to the park, and all of those things.
Katie Dooley 07:21
They're going to soccer practice and family vacations and, right? Their lives become far more chaotic than our lives ever will be. Which is fine by me. But yeah, absolutely. All of a sudden, there's no time for that social aspect.
Dawn Taylor 07:36
Right? And then when there is a social aspect, it has to involve kids. Right? And that makes sense, but have you started to realize that, like, I'm now in my 40s where people are... like, those kids from my 20s and 30s are now graduating. But now people are starting to have grandkids, right? So it's like hitting this, like, weird cycle again. And I don't think I realized how lonely that would be in a weird way. Like there is an odd loneliness to it. I don't know about you, but, like, I don't find that the years my nieces and nephews are here, Christmas is way more fun or things like that. But it's not like you have the regular birthdays or the regular Sunday dinners or the regular like, all those like family things that people have.
Katie Dooley 08:18
Yeah, I don't know if I'm quite there yet. Most of my friends are on, like, maybe their second kid and their first kid would be, you know, two or three. My one friend, she's on her fourth, and she's my age. Imagine. I can't imagine having four kids by 31 years old. But... that's too many. But yeah, absolutely, I can totally see in five years, ten years, it'll be totally different. Especially when the ones with one kid start to have two or three. And then their lives are just far too busy. It's easy now when they're babies, they are happy to put them in a crib and you can still do dinner. So not quite there yet. But I totally see how friend conversations have changed. We talk about kids a lot.
Dawn Taylor 08:19
Yeah. If you could see Katie's face right now, she's gagging. But that's an interesting facet for you too. Because, like, I still actually really like kids. Where you're actually, like, grossed out at kids.
Katie Dooley 09:21
I mean, it's mostly ambivalence.
Dawn Taylor 09:24
Is it though?
Katie Dooley 09:24
It depends on the age.
Dawn Taylor 09:27
I've seen you actually back up and, like, just about knock yourself out on a wall to get away from a child.
Katie Dooley 09:32
Totally. Like, I can't - this is gonna sound so bad - I can't handle, like, two year olds, where they can't form coherent sentences yet. And I distinctly remember, it was the first time I met your sister and your nieces and nephews, and I have no idea whose kid this was, but we were sitting in your sister's house and this little kid comes up to me holding a ball and goes 'ball'. I'm like, I don't, I don't know what you want from me. And he goes 'ball'. I'm like, yes, you're holding a ball. I don't know what you want from me. So yes, those are the children I recoil from. Kids start to get good about, like, 11/12, where you can joke with them and have full conversations and they can express their wants and needs. But yeah, it's mostly ambivalence, right? Like, we've had this conversation where I almost feign excitement for my friends when they tell me they're pregnant.
Dawn Taylor 09:33
I like the guilty look on your face.
Katie Dooley 09:54
I mean, I do, I feel bad because they're so excited. But it's just, like, not something I want for my life. So it's hard to, I don't know, it's hard for me to... maybe I'm a sociopath. You tell me, Coach Dawn.
Dawn Taylor 10:40
Let's dive into your mental health right now.
Katie Dooley 10:42
Right? I don't know, it's like - maybe this is a terrible analogy - but, like, car, people get excited about cars. I can't care less about what kind of car I drive, or what car you drive. And it's kind of the thing for kids and me. Like, I just, I don't have any interest in it.
Dawn Taylor 10:59
Do you get the weird facial expressions? And I think for me it slowed down a little bit now because I'm in my 40s, where the people that I'm talking to and I'm around are older, and so they're not thinking little kids as much. But I remember even, like, going out to like networking groups or doing different things, and that's just like an auto conversation for women, right? It's like, oh, how many kids do you have? It's like asking what color your hair is, like, it's just this auto question. And when I'd be like, 'Oh, I don't have any', the facial expressions on people. Like, this weird, like, oh, what's wrong with you? Or like this weird judgment? It was like, no, we, I always felt like I had to justify it with like, 'No, we can't have kids'. But then everyone goes into like, oh, well, what about adoption and what about fostering and what about a surrogate and what about IVF and what about... It's like, would you like to sit down and hear my entire sexual history and all of the reasons why we can and can't get have kids.
Katie Dooley 12:00
Very forward of you, sir.
Dawn Taylor 12:02
Right? Like, it always felt very, like, 'whoa'. But, I mean, I also dealt with it with a cousin. I had a cousin who was super, super close to me. And when we found out we couldn't have kids, she actually said to me, 'I don't know how to be your friend, because we don't have anything in common. I'm a mom, and you're not.'
Katie Dooley 12:23
That's so weird to me that people tie it so much into their identity. That, like, you can't even have a conversation about it anymore. You know, like, and when my friends are moms, like, I'm happy to sit and listen to their mom stories, as long as they're equally happy to listen to my not mom stories. And I think that's where the big shift is going to be. And I can kind of, I can, I don't empathize with your cousin where she can't sit down and listen to your non-mom stories. I don't know why someone couldn't. But if for whatever reason that's either uninteresting, or, be polite and ask about your friends and family's lives?
Dawn Taylor 12:58
But are you starting to find - and I mean in your friends, right, so keep in mind like the 10 year age difference, right, so we are in a very different age category in that way - but do you find even now, like, I remember my best friend Maya when she was having kids, we'd go like, months of talking. And all of a sudden, I'd be like, 'Oh, how are the kids?' And she'd start laughing. And she was like, 'Don't. Don't talk to me about my babies.' And I was like, 'What do you mean?' She's like, everybody just talks babies. You're like the one adult I talk to you that's like talking about life and travel and work and business and projects and excitement and everything other than. And I always found that really interesting, but then I also sometimes feel weird guilt because I very seldom ask about people's kids, because it's not even a thing. Like it's not even a forefront thought in my mind.
Katie Dooley 13:51
I would say it depends on the friend. So this friend with four kids, she's a full time mom. So part of me is like, I don't know what else to ask her about. Because I know all day she is looking after four kids, right? Like, you know, they go on family vacations and stuff, and we're we're catching up obviously that comes up, but... when your full time job is being a parent, and sometimes I feel bad I'm, like, I don't know what else to ask her. Other friends who, you know, still work full time or whatever, and have kids, I find that's a little easier. Or if they just have one kid so they still have some hobbies, but...
Dawn Taylor 14:25
They're still pretending they have a life outside of kids.
Katie Dooley 14:28
For now. And they can still pass off the kids to the other partner and get out for a night. Yeah, conversations definitely do change.
Dawn Taylor 14:39
Oh, they totally do. They totally do. So what are, like, the perks for you of not having kids?
Katie Dooley 14:46
Oh, man, I... some of this is also the perks of being a business owner, too. Is like, my schedule is my own. We bumped up this interview by two hours because we wanted to. And I went for a run beforehand. You know, I can disappear at a moment's notice, right? You and I got back from BC a week ago, week and a half ago. I don't have to, you know, run it by anyone, I don't have to find childcare. I said earlier, a financial advisor told me people without kids retire a million dollars richer.
Dawn Taylor 15:18
That is a crazy number.
Katie Dooley 15:20
I'm, like, you know, not anywhere near that yet. I'm almost 32. So I got 30 years, but, like, that's still a nice statistic. I don't know, I like that I can, you know, have all my hobbies and do all the things I like to do. And I'm sure parents would argue that they still can do all the things they like to do, and having kids and raising a family is one of the things they like to do. So, I don't know how different it is, but I like that I can not worry about childcare, packing kids into the car, having to buy a car seat every two years, or...
Dawn Taylor 15:54
However often it is. It's often.
Katie Dooley 15:57
Fun fact, for your audience - you know this - I used to work at Babies R Us.
Dawn Taylor 16:02
Which still kills me.
Katie Dooley 16:04
So I actually, like, know a surprisingly large amount about baby things. So that was a blast.
Dawn Taylor 16:13
Oh I bet. I bet.
Katie Dooley 16:15
I mean, you deal with adults.
Dawn Taylor 16:17
You're not dealing with kids, exactly. Not at Babies R Us. So growing up, thinking, like how many kids did you say you wanted as a kid?
Katie Dooley 16:25
Two. Probably because I grew up in a family with two kids. I have an older brother.
Dawn Taylor 16:29
What were you gonna name them?
Katie Dooley 16:31
For boys I liked Declan or Damien. And I always liked the name Maeve for a daughter.
Dawn Taylor 16:37
Oh, very cute.
Katie Dooley 16:38
Yeah. I just figure my next dog will get one of those names.
Dawn Taylor 16:43
They're your, they're your little babies. They're your babies. So what point did you realize you didn't have to have kids?
Katie Dooley 16:52
It's funny, my best friend doesn't want kids either. And she was always very vocal, like, even from a young age that she didn't want kids, and that her mom was only ever gonna have grandkittens. And that's when I kind of realized, like, I actually have no interest in having kids either. So that, I mean, that's nice to have someone if you are a child-free person, to have other child-free people in your life so that it isn't so lonely or ostracizing. So yeah, that's when I started to realize that, like, no, I don't actually have any interest in this at all. And it was just sort of reaffirmed as friends got pregnant. Even when it was like totally appropriate, like people are married, I'd be like, 'Oh, you're too young to have a baby.'
Dawn Taylor 17:39
I've heard many a judgement out of your mouth.
Katie Dooley 17:43
Like even still, like, I'm like, 'Oh, you're 23 and pregnant. That's so young.' But it's not, like you would have had kids at 23 if you could have.
Dawn Taylor 17:50
21.
Katie Dooley 17:51
Right?
Dawn Taylor 17:52
Yeah.
Katie Dooley 17:54
Even now, when people are like 32 and they're like, 'We're pregnant', I'm like 'Oh was that an accident?'. So maybe I'm just never going to be ready to have a baby. That's because I'm still like I'm going too young to do that.
Dawn Taylor 18:08
Hey, so on that, that is one of the weirdest parts of growing up with no kids, is aging. It's such a weird - and you'll probably realize this over the next 10 years - is as you watch your friends kids get older, and you're like, how, how are you 16, because I have not aged 16 years. That's been one of the weirdest feelings is like... so for us, like, the majority of the people in our lives have multiple kids, our siblings all have kids, there's like we're the only ones without in our immediate families. And that couldn't, and it's wild, like when my first niece got married, I was like, 'She's five. Like, she cannot get married. She's five.' And it was like, no, no, Dawn, she's in her 20s. But then I had to admit that I had aged that much since. And that's always been a weird thing for my husband and I both, is we don't feel like we're aging because we don't have anything to measure it by. Right, there isn't that, like, little kid measurement where when you see a friend who's now having her fourth child, or those kids all of a sudden like 10, it's like but I remember when you were born. Like, how is that a thing? That has, for me, probably been one of the weirdest, is trying to figure that out.
Katie Dooley 19:25
Yeah, so this friend with four kids, we had coffee just the other day. So this is relevant. And so I was asking how many grandkids are in the family now, like for her parents? And she told me and I said, you know, what's the age gap? Because I remember like little kids running around at your wedding. Well, she was married 13 years ago. And she's like, yeah the oldest is 18 now, and I was like, I mean, I guess yeah, you were married. 13 years ago, she would have been five, but I was like, 'eighteen!'
Dawn Taylor 19:53
Right?
Katie Dooley 19:55
What? How is the oldest grandkid 18?. You're 18, we're 18! People listening to this are like, '32 year olds thinking they're 18', but...
Dawn Taylor 20:05
No but there's something about not aging in the same way. Because you don't have those milestones. It's not like, 'Oh, my kids are in kindergarten now'. And 'Oh, look at my kids are teenagers.'
Katie Dooley 20:15
In junior high, yeah. Learning to drive, there's nothing to--
Dawn Taylor 20:19
-- there's no milestones. You just kind of age.
Katie Dooley 20:22
And it's probably even weirder, partially, being self employed, but even just regular employed, because everything just kind of blends into, there's no, like, July and August summer break, and a new year starts in September, right? All of a sudden, it's like, 'Oh, it's 2022. How did that happen?'
Dawn Taylor 20:38
Right? Because it's actually 2019. Right? But it does, it just blends and it flows so different. So for you and Bryant, your husband, is there, like, have you guys thought about what are our traditions going to be as we get older for holidays? And those sorts of things? Like, has that become a thing for you guys yet, where you're like, hey wait a sec, we don't really have our parents traditions anymore, but not having kids we don't have kid traditions. Like, we realized we were very traditionalist a couple years ago, and it really bothered me, because in the back of my mind, I'm like 'We need traditions, we have to have traditions'. And a lot of ours that we even had were tied to other people's kids, right? So from the food we'd eat at holidays, or like what we did for activities, that was tied to nieces and nephews. And now that they're getting older, and they're not coming around as often, and all these things are happening, we have felt a little bit rudderless. We're like, we don't have those things so now we're trying to, like, figure that out.
Katie Dooley 21:41
Interesting. I don't, I don't know when we'll get there. But it's going to be a bit because none of our siblings have kids yet. And Bryant's brother won't have kids. So if my brother has kids, I can see that starting to change things. But like now, we're still just the kids that show up at our parents house for Christmas. And we also kind of have that luxury of being super mobile. Like I remember being a kid, and, you know, my mom loved Christmas at home because she didn't have to schlep presents and kids across the province. Right, we were kind of the center that everyone came to, because my parents had two young kids. So we get to be the mobile ones and decide who we are going to visit and when we're going to visit, and drive around the province with no real concerns about anything except how much we're gonna eat. I think as a family, we entertain a lot, and some of the things we've done in the last couple years since getting a house I can see being like friend traditions. You know, we have a St. Patrick's Day party every year. And I usually do a birthday barbecue every year. And so I can see those being kind of our grounding moments as opposed to a big Christmas or Easter, which we will continue to do with our parents.
Dawn Taylor 22:54
Yeah, we're, like, I don't have parents anymore. Right? So on my side it's weird. And then Chad's parents are so far away and don't travel at all. And then I'm definitely allergic to their house because of their pets, so, like, I've never been to their house that they've been in now for I don't even know how many years. Like it's been forever. And so yeah, it's weird for us. Like, we don't have traditions.
Katie Dooley 23:22
You're a sandwich generation without bread.
Dawn Taylor 23:25
We really are.
Katie Dooley 23:27
We're the, we've got an open-faced sandwich so we're good.
Dawn Taylor 23:30
Right? So people that don't have kids. Okay, so a couple different categories here, is the people that are like holy cow, this is me, I don't want to have babies. What recommendations do you have to them? What red flags would you have for them on, like, if these are kind of your thoughts, you probably need to think twice about this. Like, do you have any thoughts on that?
Katie Dooley 23:54
On, like, intentionally choosing being child-free. Is that what you mean? I mean, I'm kind of of the opinion that if you have any doubts about having kids, you shouldn't have them. Because, you know this, nobody screws you up more than your parents.
Dawn Taylor 24:12
It's why I have a successful business.
Katie Dooley 24:14
Right? So, you know, I think if you have any doubts, you shouldn't have kids. Whether, you know, whether you don't think you could handle like a disability, or your kid being bullied, or anything like that. I think some of that's just like par for the course of being a parent. So if you don't think you can handle it, I wouldn't do it. If you like your sleep more than anything.
Dawn Taylor 24:38
See where I'd say yeah, but those are things you learn as a parent.
Katie Dooley 24:41
Totally, totally. But I think if you go into your pregnancy thinking it's all gonna be hunky dory, then you're in for a rough surprise. I think, because does that make more sense? Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. Right, and you would learn how to work with any disabilities. Like, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying, if you don't think you... like if that would be, like, a deal breaker for you, if you're not going to love your kid because of it. Don't do it.
Dawn Taylor 25:16
Right. And what about for advice for the person going like, No, I don't want kids. Now, how do I tell people? How do I date? How do I broach this topic with my parents? I mean, like, we couldn't have kids, our parents and families were very aware of that, they were aware of the health struggles, they were aware of like, I had to have a hysterectomy. Like they were very aware of that. Yet when my mom passed away, we still found bags of clothes in her closet for Dawn's kids that had been bought reasonably, like quite currently, and it was so devastating. Right? To be like, come on mom, like you still just could not grasp the fact that I was not having a baby. So like, what advice would you have for that person from your standpoint, right, of not wanting kids, of how to deal with that?
Katie Dooley 26:07
Whoo, that's a big question. Also, because we've been really lucky that most people have been pretty understanding. I, for dating, I think it should be up front, like, right away. Because some people really, really, really, really want kids.
Dawn Taylor 26:21
Most people, yeah.
Katie Dooley 26:23
And if you really, really, really don't want kids, like, it's just wasting everyone's time. And you're just setting yourself up for heartbreak.
Dawn Taylor 26:31
Oh, and, like, let's be honest, it's kind of an asshole move to do that to the other person.
Katie Dooley 26:36
On either side. Yeah. So, you know, it might be forward of you on your third date to be like, hey, by the way, I don't want kids, but because you're gonna love this, Dawn, because society...
Dawn Taylor 26:50
Oh that's a job I'm going to apply for.
Katie Dooley 26:53
Because the general consensus of people is that people want kids and women want kids, I would absolutely get that out of the way sooner than later. I mean, my strategy for families, just anytime someone asks when we're having kids, we just tell them we don't want kids. And we just kind of let them deal with it.
Dawn Taylor 27:13
Which isn't the worst.
Katie Dooley 27:15
I mean, I, like, we so much don't want kids. Like we've never even been on the fence about kids. There's nothing you could say to me that would convince me otherwise... like, it's just actually annoying. You know, like, it's not hurtful. It's not offensive. It's just annoying. So I guess part of that, I think, would depend on, you know, how I guess confident someone is with their decision to not have kids. But like I said, for us, it's there's no doubt in our minds, we do not want kids. So you can deal with your own emotions around that because I don't have any emotions around it.
Dawn Taylor 27:54
You're like no, I'm actually really okay with it.
Katie Dooley 27:57
I remember I was being a little sassy to a lady at work once. She's like, 'Well, why don't you have kids?' And I said, 'Why don't you have a snake?' And she says, 'Well, I don't like snakes.' And I was like, 'Well, I don't like kids'. She's like, 'Well, you'll learn to like your kids'. I was like, 'You'll learn to like a snake'. She's like, 'Snakes are gross'. Kids are gross! I don't, I don't, I don't know. You're not selling me on this, and I'm not selling you on the snake.
Dawn Taylor 28:22
That's probably not gonna happen either way.
Katie Dooley 28:26
Right? But that's my sort of emotional attachment to it all is, 'You want a cat, Dawn?'
Dawn Taylor 28:33
No, no.
Katie Dooley 28:35
You'll learn to like a cat. They're cute.
Dawn Taylor 28:40
No, no, no. No, it is so true. And from my standpoint, it's decide when and how you're going to tell people, right? Because everybody is gonna give you their medical opinion on how you can have a baby. Like we lost friends because they decided without talking to us that they wanted to be our surrogate, and have a baby for us, and presented that to us at dinner, in tears all excited to be our surrogates. And we were like, 'No, that's not what we want'. And like, they literally walked out of our lives over it because they were so offended we would turn down the offer.
Katie Dooley 29:26
Wow.
Dawn Taylor 29:27
Right? And we've dealt with so much of that where we actually, I remember my husband, due to medication he was on, the doctors that said we'd have to abort any baby if I got pregnant because it cause really severe birth defects. Like severe severe birth defects, not just a disability, like the baby wouldn't survive. So we made the decision for him to have a vasectomy, because we were like, that just, for us, that just made more sense and we felt more comfortable with that decision than having to go through the like maybe get pregnant thing and have to abort a baby, like that just didn't feel right for us. And it was really funny because I remember going back home to my parents for Christmas that year. And this had happened like seven, eight months earlier. And someone was like, 'Oh, we just want you to have a baby so bad'. It was a family member. And I said, well, like it really won't happen now. And they were like, 'What do you mean?' And I said, no, like, don't worry, like, we're okay. And we can't have kids and like, let's just leave it at that. And she, she put her hand on my arm, and she was like, 'I am praying that God will provide a miracle and you will get pregnant'. And I was like, 'Please don't'. And she was like, what? And I was like, just stop praying. And she's like, what? She was so offended. And I said, well, seeing as Chad had a vasectomy earlier this year, that would be like an absolute miracle, which means I'd end up divorced because there's no way he would not think that I had had an affair. I said, so by you praying for this miracle could land with me divorced. So if you could just stop. And you know what the best part is, not even their reaction to that. What? What do you mean he had a vasectomy, you didn't tell anyone. And it was like, were we supposed to put it in our Christmas letter? Like this weird health update.
Katie Dooley 31:15
And Mr. Taylor had his snipped. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Dawn Taylor 31:24
Little photo smiling on the front, like--
Katie Dooley 31:28
-- he's not smiling in that photo.
Dawn Taylor 31:29
No he wasn't. But it was so wild, the ownership of our medical situation, the ownership of our medical decisions that people felt they had.
Katie Dooley 31:45
I think sort of from a timing perspective, if you don't want kids, there's like key points in your life to be wary of. And that's when you get married and buy a house.
Dawn Taylor 31:55
Oh, because everyone's gonna ask.
Katie Dooley 31:57
But then also, when you're talking about the vasectomy, being 30. And wanting to, like, prevent pregnancy. It's amazing how bad the medical system is. Because I absolutely was like, we want, my husband wants a vasectomy, and my doctor was like, oh, but what if you want kids? I'm like, I don't want kids.
Dawn Taylor 32:15
We actually had a doctor say, but what if your next husband wants kids or your next wife, like, assuming we're gonna end up divorced and we're gonna, one of us will be remarried, and then the other person will? And we were like, no.
Katie Dooley 32:30
But I still don't want kids.
Dawn Taylor 32:33
Well it was like, but I still can't have kids. That was what was so wild, is that I was like, no, no, like, my body physically cannot carry a baby, right? It doesn't matter if I get married 10 more times, I will not be having a baby. And like, people can't grasp that.
Katie Dooley 32:48
And back to the dating conversation, even if - sorry babe - even if we were to get divorced, I wouldn't re-marry someone who wanted kids. I might. Sorry, Bryant, I might re-marry someone who had grown up children, if that was, but like I would never have kids and I would never want to raise kids. Like that would be like the closest to me being a parent that I got. If, like, I ended up with someone like divorce my husband - which isn't gonna happen. He's dying right now. I divorced my husband and married someone with adult children, like that's as close as I would ever get.
Dawn Taylor 33:31
Well we've even found a shift now that we're in our 40s. It used to be very devastating. Like Mother's Day, Father's Day, were super hard for us, because we wanted kids, like we started trying the minute we got married, we were 20. Like, we were like, let's have babies, like we were so excited. But all of our friends had kids early. Like, that was part of our world. Right. And we desperately wanted that. And we have found an interesting shift as we've gotten older, where it's shifted from, like, we weren't able to have kids to like now even if we could magically today, which I mean, I don't have a uterus, and he had a vasectomy, so like, we're really not. But we wouldn't now if we had to decide because of our age, right? So I'm like, no, I don't want kids in my 60s. Like, I don't wanna be starting this at 42, 43, 44, like no no no. And so that's shifted where, and I mean maybe that's just because we've actually grieved. And for anyone listening who's had to go through this, and the infertility and all of that, reach out, seriously, reach out just
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