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I am delighted to announce that the 'Are Kids For Me podcast has arrived! This has grown from my work with clients where so many people feel isolated and unsupported. I want to show you that you are not the only one asking yourself these questions and searching for answers.
I will be speaking to a wide range of people including people who have chosen to be childfree, people who have chosen to be parents and people who are still unsure. Each episode, you will meet someone with personal and/or professional experience and expertise in this area. I hope by hearing a wide range of perspectives, that it will help you to answer some of your own questions.
I would love to hear your feedback on episodes and any ideas for future guests. Please share with others who might be interested.
Here is the trailer introduction!
The transcript for each episode will be available underneath.
Trailer Transcript:
Hi and welcome to the ‘Are Kids For Me’ podcast. I just want to give you a quick introduction to how the podcast came about and what to expect from it. My name is Margaret O'Connor and I run a counselling service called Are Kids For Me in Limerick, Ireland. This is aimed at people who are unsure if they want to become parents or not, and also for people who have decided that they don't, so that they want to be child-free, and want some support with that decision. I decided to make this podcast because I can see that people feel isolated and unsupported in this decision. They feel they are the only ones with questions, doubts or anxieties. They also feel like it's not always acceptable to talk about this, so I want to show that you are certainly not alone and that support from like minded people is available. I also want to address the lack of resources in Ireland.
There is a societal belief that everybody will, should, and wants to have children. We see this in advertising, religion, political and economic policies. However, this isn't accurate or helpful to anyone, including parents, for lots of reasons. You may not want to have a child, you may not be able to have a child, there may be factors that make it challenging to have a child like physical and mental health issues, requirements of your job or sporting career and a global pandemic just to mention a few. I want to try to address some of the concerns you might have and show that you're not the only one having them.
As there is so much information on parenting already available, I will be approaching this through the lens of thinking about, or being child-free, i.e. positively choosing not to have biological children. I have no agenda to convert people to being child-free but I do want to show what a child-free life can look like as clients struggle with this and it can make the decision process harder. I do think that if you feel unsure it can be useful to hear different perspectives and experiences to see what sits with you and what resonates with you. I will be speaking to a very broad range of people, including child-free people, undecided people, and parents with personal and professional experience in this area.
I would love to hear your feedback on the episodes and I would also love to hear your ideas for what you'd like to see covered in future episodes. I would also like for people to be able to connect on social media. So if you are interested in this topic please follow the ‘Are Kids For Me’ pages on Facebook and Instagram. As you'll see from the interviews, finding like-minded people is really helpful to feel supported in this topic.
I'm also going to say that this is my first time doing anything like this so I'm sure it won't be perfect all the time, but hopefully it's good enough and interesting to listen to. I'm really looking forward to the episodes and I hope you find them useful.