Anna was always childfree (by choice) until her husband came back from vacation and changed his mind. She reached out on the Reddit community r/childfree for help - watch as she talks to Paul & Ryan about the difficult compromises she made. Transcript: ----more---- 0:00:01.760,0:00:06.720 Hi, welcome to the show. As part of this series on the decision about whether to have children, 0:00:06.720,0:00:11.520 we're joined by Anna who's here to give us her insight. We're not here to make any particular 0:00:11.520,0:00:16.480 judgment, simply to chat about the factors which real people, just like you, take into 0:00:16.480,0:00:22.480 consideration. Hi Anna, how are you today? hi i'm doing okay i'm just i'm enjoying my 0:00:23.120,0:00:30.240 my day off with my husband good yeah anna tell us a bit about yourself 0:00:32.000,0:00:39.440 well uh i'm recently married as of last year made it just in time before the virus made it 0:00:39.440,0:00:53.520 uh um and i am currently working from home full time so i don't see outside very much but uh 0:00:53.520,0:01:03.920 i usually am i usually don't i'm not the type of person that enjoys the type the crowds uh um i 0:01:03.920,0:01:13.680 i've always i i don't really hang out too much uh a lot like i i don't go to parties i never really 0:01:14.800,0:01:21.600 had a similar lifestyle to folks that were in their 20s. i was different from my peers 0:01:22.640,0:01:27.520 uh i can relate to that i've said that the virus hasn't really changed my life much i just everyone 0:01:27.520,0:01:34.080 else is doing what i normally do so absolutely it's funny as soon as you said that anna i thought 0:01:34.080,0:01:38.560 oh that describes me really well as well so me too i've always been disciplined i'm not sure anna if 0:01:38.560,0:01:43.680 you're familiar with this expression uh on your side of the pond but here i've often been called 0:01:43.680,0:01:49.920 old before my time does that mean anything to you yeah it does yes apparently what's me too 0:01:49.920,0:01:55.920 we found each other perfectly here i don't think i fit the stereotype of folks in my 0:01:55.920,0:02:03.360 generation sure what age are you anna i'm 29 yeah you're just a little bit older than me i'm 28 0:02:04.560,0:02:08.080 and and somewhat younger than i am yeah well maybe not going to specifics 0:02:10.320,0:02:13.600 and we can tell from your accent you're not clearly not from scotland as we are where 0:02:13.600,0:02:18.000 are you from in particular i'm from the united states 0:02:18.000,0:02:24.640 on the east coast um in the state of pennsylvania um in the city of steel pittsburgh 0:02:27.360,0:02:35.200 yeah i live in one of the uh more in the rest they call this area the rust belt so there's a lot of 0:02:35.200,0:02:46.160 aging buildings um a lot of uh how do i describe it uh there's a a lot of abandoned steel mills but 0:02:46.720,0:02:54.400 a lot of things were revitalized and a lot of our economy turned into health care and education so 0:02:54.400,0:02:58.800 we had a similar thing in in britain where it went from kind of manufacturing and things like that 0:02:58.800,0:03:03.840 to more service-based things and it's very similar it'll be a similar thing for that area i think 0:03:04.480,0:03:10.480 yeah so anna you said you're 29 and you recently married just before Covid 0:03:11.600,0:03:20.960 yeah we made it just in time i had no idea Covid was uh i don't think anyone knew Covid was going 0:03:20.960,0:03:29.760 to come around that time i i we i thought getting married in 2019 was a bit of an off number but 0:03:31.120,0:03:39.600 uh me and my husband at the time were having a slight disagreement and a comment came up in the 0:03:39.600,0:03:47.680 beginning of 2019 and it was like we're not even married yet and we had been together uh i think uh 0:03:47.680,0:03:56.720 that time almost seven years um so i said you know what by the end of this year we're gonna be 0:03:56.720,0:03:59.840 married 0:04:04.320,0:04:11.440 that was well done yeah it was well done under the wire yeah so anna you don't have any kids at 0:04:11.440,0:04:19.040 present is that right correct okay and we'll talk more about that and what kind of factors there are 0:04:19.040,0:04:23.120 in that as well but i wonder if we could start off maybe we're talking about about your upbringing 0:04:23.120,0:04:28.160 you mentioned yourself being um i'm not sure if introverts may be the right word but certainly 0:04:28.160,0:04:34.800 not feeling as if you did the same sort of things as your peers what was your life like growing up 0:04:36.320,0:04:45.120 oh growing up uh i i had trouble making friends uh i didn't really get into fights per se 0:04:46.000,0:04:52.240 but i had trouble getting close to people that were outside of my family my brothers 0:04:52.240,0:05:01.120 and sisters and my cousins were my best friends uh those were ...
