Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 Hi, and welcome to does this make me local, a podcast about aging as gracefully as possible when you're just not ready for two 40 something year old friends will find themselves kind of straddling that really odd period of time when aging and everything that is associated with is starting to become a much bigger part of our lives. We're definitely curious, but at the same time, rather terrified about aging. I'm Schiff. I'm a health science nerd and pop culture themes, and I'm sin and adult and waiting obsessed with finance and self-help books. We're going to be talking about the stereotypes of aging and how they affect us. And we'll also be doing some deeper dives into some interesting topics, such as what it's like to get old in the society dating when you're older and scientific advancements in anti-aging products and even evolution and scientific thinking around aging and throughout it, all we chat rant laugh about are adulting mishaps of which there are so, so, so many. So join us as we navigate our second quarter-life crisis.
Speaker 1 00:01:10 Hi, and welcome back to this week's episode of does this make me look old? Part two of three of our continuation of last week's episode of biological clocks and other mish-mash topics. A lot of mish-mash with our friend Taz, um, and first let me welcome Shiv. Hey,
Speaker 2 00:01:35 Chef pays them. How's it going? Not bad.
Speaker 1 00:01:41 You want to do a little bit of a recap of where we landed last week?
Speaker 2 00:01:45 Okay. Yeah. So, uh, last week we were just chatting with Taz about, um, you know, like biological clocks and, you know, our decision to have children or, you know, like, like our decision around being child-free or how we felt about being child free right now. And, uh, my truck wow. Like Syrian birth or something that anyway, it's all traumatic as you can see still suffered from PTSD. Um, but, uh, yeah, so, so, but the thing is, is that we had such an interesting conversation with Taz, um, that we actually ended up recording quite a bit. And so, uh, yeah, we just wanted to let our listeners know that this is part two of three. Um, mainly because we didn't want to subject you guys to like a two hour conversation. Uh, and, uh, yeah, we're just going to be continuing on with our conversation with Taz and, uh, having kids and basically our thoughts about having kids in our generation versus our parents, as well as climate change.
Speaker 1 00:02:53 Yeah. Ever present, present site change. Yeah, exactly. Anxiety that pervades our Alliance. And last week when we, um, were signing off, uh, we had just started the topic of natural birth, I think. Yeah. We were telling about Taz experience. Yeah. Yeah. We're just going to be continuing
Speaker 2 00:03:17 With that and uh, yeah. Hope hopefully, uh, you are going to enjoy this episode and be happy to join us.
Speaker 1 00:03:29 The mention of epidural. This is irrelevant. No human being is coming out of your separating while this is happening. Your bones literally separating and rejoining nothing about this as magical. Yes. As magical digital, your body can do it. And I think, yeah, that part is magical. The fact that you can do it, but yes, even during the pregnancy, yes, it's magical. And what happened when, when you are talking about the parasite growing in a woman's body, that is what I thought of. When I fell the first cake, I was like, oh, this is weird. I mean, I love this baby, but this is also an alien growing inside me, like demanding everything. And now suddenly I'm allergic to dust. I'm like, what's happening? Like your whole body is it it's very magical, but also very weird and scary at the same time. Your body's not yours. Random people are coming and touching your belly. You're like, oh, you stop touching my belly.
Speaker 0 00:04:39 It's true. I find that society's society's attitude towards a pregnant woman's body is very strange touch. You would never touch a woman's belly. If she was not pregnant. Why do you still feel the need to touch her when she is so much a thing so much of it like get pregnant yourself. Jesus <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:05:13 That was all pretty. You know what I don't what I'm saying is that actually a lot of these topics, these conversations that have become normalized, actually, to be honest, that people are talking about it. I have said it in the moment. I told a pregnant friend of mine that, Hey, you know, I was trying to fight off, but she, she had this look of relief. She was like, oh, so do I. But I feel like I can't say it. Right. Yeah. I totally
Speaker 0 00:05:38 Agree. It was totally terrifying. Like, I mean, just like just watching it is just like, like it's, it is like surreal when it happens. You're just like watch and then like, and it's so funny because like, even in the medical field, it's kind of boring. Cause like I remember like my partner at the time was also like also doing same rotations, but did, will be dying before me. And so like when they were in the, when they were in the room and like delivered their first baby, they were all like, oh my God, it was so magical. And I was crying, the father was crying, everyone was crying. We were all hugging each other. It was all like kumbaya. Right. Meanwhile, like I go to my first birth and it's just like so disturbing, like, like, yeah, like it was just like, oh, there's a strange smell in the air because this is an infected uterus and everything is ripping and yeah.
Speaker 0 00:06:37 It was just, yeah. Anyway, it was just like, yeah. And like, I was like, oh yeah, now this woman's torn and we're going to have to, you know, we're back up so she can like pee and poo properly. Like it was just like, oh God, what is happening right now? And everybody's just like, this is amazing. And it's like, no, no, it's not that amazing. I mean, it's amazing the end result. Yes. Like, you know, it's, it's a happy, healthy baby happy family. That's amazing. And like, and you know, like eventually the woman heals and everything's fine, but like at the moment it is not amazing.
Speaker 1 00:07:18 But you know, like everybody sells it. No magical. Yeah. What I try to do now is I tried to say, I'm not going to tell you part stories, because I think anybody who heard this or saw all of this or heard any of this, nobody would want to have children. Really. It's
Speaker 0 00:07:35 Kind of fun for sure.
Speaker 1 00:07:38 Because most cases, things do work out. So I try not to say, Hey, all the horrible things that happen. If somebody is already pregnant, cause you've already gone down that road. I'm not going to say anything, terrify you more. I feel like normalizing that topic that, Hey, you know, it is not like, oh my God, this big destiny, this walk, you know, running through the Meadows kind of an experience. No, it's okay to be scared. It's okay to, and in fact, it's okay to even really consider that how much your life is going to change. Are you ready for it? Um, and because of, you know, now that talk about postpartum, depression is also so normalized. There's very like, at least in our mom groups, there's this talk where people say, Hey, are you doing okay, tell us if you start resenting your baby, it can happen. And what has no one before could ever talk about it because you're supposed to be, it should be all magical. The birth is magical. Your love for your babies, automatic. Everything is just hunky-dory and amazing. This is the destiny for all humans. And I'm like, that's not true. That's really not true. There's a lot of topics that you may not. Uh, there are certain times, yes, kids are great. Sometimes they're little.
Speaker 0 00:09:00 It's so true. Like I like the number of things that my brother and I used to do, like when we were like kids, like, I can't even imagine that like, you know, like my mother was throwing things like, like we were, were awful kids, but you know, you're just like a kid and just, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:09:24 There's lots that goes in that decision. So I would, I would like to think that, you know, if our generation is kind of in this phase where we're like, Hey hop kids, don't have kids. It's all good. Right. Nobody tells somebody, you are how many kids you should have. That's another topic. You have another one now. Right? That's oh my God. The number of times I heard that I can't even like, it was ridiculous, but I'm hoping that, you know, down the road, this become it. I hope it continues in that thread where you uh it's okay. Have kids don't have kids make that decision, make that decision or whatever point you want in your life. And I don't know, maybe, maybe that would, hopefully it would mean that maybe there wouldn't be this ticking, biological clock that we would hear. I don't know. I mean, I think it would be a good thing to not feel that, oh my God, I'm running out of time. Like, you know, I should remember at 37, like, oh my uterus might be shrinking as I speak here
Speaker 0 00:10:27 Right now. It really does. But
Speaker 1 00:10:33 No, no. I mean, you can, you could be in your twenties and you can still have very little chance of pregnant. Right. So, I mean, I think it's good to be prepared like yeah. Kids maybe in your future or it may not end if there aren't, there are plenty of children in this world. I think maybe it will be fine.
Speaker 0 00:10:51 Yeah. So there are two topics that I want to chat about and we can chat about them in whatever order or whatever, but like, okay. So one thing is this conversation that I ha I overheard at my nail salon, which is really fascinating between these two young, younger women, like younger than me, um, about egg freezing and then the other topic that I wanted to bring up. And it's because Taz, you mentioned, um, you mentioned that in like our parents generation, it was all about like having kids was kind of like the completion of a life or like the completion of your purpose on earth or whatever. Like, I'm wondering if, okay, so let's, let's start with that first. We'll come back to the egg freezing in a second, but like, like, um, so I'm just curious to see what you guys think, but like, um, this idea of the fact that like having children in order to make you whole, as a person I'm wondering that is less of a concern for our generation because women have more chances now too, do more with their lives. Do you know what I mean? Like that they have more abilities to kind of, you know, foster like creative venues and, you know, um, have like fulfilling careers and things like that. Like, do you think that's part of it where before in the past it was just kind of like you got married, you had kids and you raise them and that was basically like most of it.
Speaker 1 00:12:32 Yeah, no, I think the economic independence of today's women, um, does play a role, um, in, in that. So I would definitely think that, you know, um, the fact, I mean, it's not just having, I mean, Lord knows that I haven't been very creative lately, so for women now, but yeah, no, I think the economic freedom for sure. Um, I think, you know, gives a lot of women courage to sort of say, you know what, maybe I'm not ready yet. Um, you know, um, and, and maybe I'm not, uh, either I'm not ready yet or, um, I actually don't want children or, um, you know, I, you know, the circumstances won't allow for it, whatever it is, but you're more, um, you feel more empowered to say that and hold true to it, you know? Um, but having said that for me, it was a little bit of a process, I think, because I think I, I love kids a lot, you know, if you, you guys probably know that a lot, but, um, I enjoy kids.
Speaker 1 00:13:46 I have, you know, a ton of fun with them. Um, and, but, and I think when I was younger and I don't know why, but I used to always think that I'd have, um, you know, I don't know, like maybe three kids or something like, and if it didn't have to be biological kids unnecessarily, but like, you know, it was like, oh, I think I was like, I want it to be like, what Angelina Jolie did before she did it. And then she started doing it kind of a thing also when you have that kind of money to do it right. But I think in my head I've always loved that idea. Um, uh, yeah, I've always loved that idea of actually having, um, kids, um, you know, over time. Um, and it's like, you know, not meeting the right person and the timing not being right and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 00:14:45 And then, and, but it was like, while it's important to me to have, it was important to me to have kids, but it was more important to me that it'd be with the right people, like support system, if you will. Um, not just economic part. Right. Um, so, so I think that, um, I actually did go through that process emotionally that, oh my gosh, what does it mean for me if this doesn't happen over time? And you know, there's been ups and downs about it. And some of it was emotional. Some of it was not, some of it was like, huh, this is good. You know, cause I also appreciate all the freedom, you know, talking about it, like all the freedom that you get to pursue other things and all of that. And I really, really do appreciate it, but, um, you know, it was for me, uh, quite a bit of a journey to get
Speaker 0 00:15:35 There for sure.
Speaker 1 00:15:38 But you know enough about me. Let's let's switch tracks again and ask Taz, like, so what about you Taz? What did, what do you think? Um, no, I, I agree with you. I do think, um, the fact that, you know, women have multiple multitude of careers, not just our career, there's multitude of careers, um, that are very fulfilling, that are creative. That, um, may in some ways fulfill certain inclinations because I mean, the thing with w I, I dunno, I always thought about this too. Like, why do we want children? Do we want babies? Like nobody says, Hey, I want to have sulky teenager that slams the door. Right? Like nobody wants that, but anyway, down the road, right? Like, is it, is it because we love babies, they're cute or is it young children? Because you can get that being a teacher, you can be a teacher and, you know, you could be like, yeah, this is, this is, I love doing this with kids.
Speaker 1 00:16:39 And, and there's a bit of like, um, also, um, you know, shaping their mind, shaping their minds, mentoring them, mentoring them in some ways then there's other ways. Yeah. So like, some people used to, I think, look at children as a legacy, right? Hey, this is my actual legacy. You know, when I go, a bit of me stays on. Right. But then, I mean, I think, and maybe that's how, you know, men thought and women thought too, like both. Right. But I mean, if, especially because the decision to have a child is a big part on a woman, unless obviously you're a surrogate using a surrogate or things like that. But generally if it is for a woman, it's true. I think there's lots of careers that may give you that you could leave a legacy in different ways. So I think just giving that option, um, for girls who are growing up now, uh, I can see that they'll be like, no, I don't need to necessarily feel that, um, to have a child.
Speaker 1 00:17:38 So that's definitely one aspect of it. I do think the economic, um, implications, but I mean, I also wonder like, well, what does it say about men? Right. Like, so, um, I'm sure there were always men who never wanted children. I'd never actually had children or, um, you know, maybe never settled out because they didn't want children. Um, and then, I mean now, like, and there is same thing, just the same way as a lot of women who don't want children, there's a lot of men who also don't want children. Um, and in their case, I mean, they have the same presumably same economic opportunities, right? So they themselves, they're also quite vocal now I think before, if they didn't want children, I don't think if you were married and if your wife wanted a child, you kind of want like, okay, I guess we're having a child.
Speaker 1 00:18:33 Like, I don't know, like our parents probably, they probably would have never voiced it. Right. Whereas now there are people even I know personally who, um, mention it, say on that online dating profile, I don't want children because they want to be very upfront that, Hey, you know, I only want to date also don't want children because this is important to me. So yeah, out of that, and I remember having a discussion, so I think it's two, one of them is for women specifically, I do think as careers and other goals that, uh, you know, take priority and they're like, Hey, it's fine. No, I have other things I can achieve rather than just have a child. But I think if it's also men becoming more vocal, um, when I asked, I think a lot of it has to do with believing. I'm not really like climate change state of the world.
Speaker 1 00:19:23 There's a lot of people who are very vocally, like, do we really need more children, honestly. Right. Like there's, it's, we're overpopulated. Right. And, or would be like, well, I don't need my own, whatever I'll mentor, I'll, I'll open up a school, whatever, same ways. Other ways I think fulfill that a, um, so there is definitely, it's not just women who are, who are vocal about, I think men are too, like in general, everybody is, um, and do flip that around to us. I think I had conversations with another friend of mine who is my age. She also is a mom. And we were both like, because our kids are a bit older now we're both like post COVID posts, climate change. Like the climate just feels very accurate right now. It feels like, oh my God, it is X rating. It's not just something I heard 20 years ago that this is going to go underwater.
Speaker 1 00:20:22 It feels like, oh my God, forests are burning. It's happening. We both outrightly set in that. I was thinking it, I didn't realize she was thinking it that we're like, did we make a mistake? What kind of world did we bring our children in? Like, is this not that our children were a mistake, but having, bringing children into this, our children going to grow up and like turn around and look at us and be like, why did you do, why did you bring us into this world that is shitty? And they know where like, you know, angry.
Speaker 0 00:20:58 Yeah. So that's like a really interesting point. Like, I think that, but okay. But I don't think that your kids are going to be, I don't think your children will think that it was a mistake for you to have them, but I sometimes wonder like, will the next generation be pissed off at us for not fixing things once you had a chance, like when we had a chance and then like left this like disaster of a world for them to fix, you know? So I
Speaker 1 00:21:25 Would be very surprised. I mean, if, if they weren't mad, I mean, okay. So out of all of us, like in that whole friend circle, like I'm probably the least, you know, effective at doing a lot of these things. Um, I try, but even I was like, like today I read an article about how Canada is leading in, um, like 50% of the food produced in the country goes to waste. So there's a new app. That's come, come out that, did you see that in the thing? Um, and, uh, sorry, that was Taz, like giving me a thumbs up.
Speaker 1 00:22:06 Um, so yeah, so I I'm like super excited about this app, which kind of will allow us to, I think you get to sort of purchase or find, or source like excess produce our food, uh, from around the city and, uh, you know, and, and, um, minimize waste. Um, and so, you know, so I think that it's good that these kinds of things are happening more and more now. Um, but I can't imagine our kids or the next generation or the next couple of generations, not actually being mad that, you know, we got so sucked in with the consumerist ways that we were not really taking care of the planet, like we should, but hopefully you'll see some kind of, we'll see some of the impacts of like the changes we're trying to, but we're
Speaker 0 00:22:57 Trying to put in right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, like I, like we had, like, we, as a society had known about this since the seventies, like there were all sorts of campaigns back in the day about like littering and whatnot. And then like, you know, there's the whole ozone layer crisis. And like, I mean, I think like we've known about climate change for so fucking long. Like, it's just like ridiculous that it's only, now that we're like, Hey, maybe we should do something about this. Like, and, but like, I don't think that it's really like up to us as in like, I mean, we all should do our part, but honestly it's like the, it's the corporations that have been part of this for so long that haven't done, you know, they have like, basically, yeah, that it basically allowed for this entire economy where they pursue profit over, you know, doing the right thing socially for climate change. I think it's, I don't know. Like I just get really pissed off when people are like, oh no, it's up, it's up to us as individuals. I'm like, no, it's kind of up to us as individuals to force the companies to do the right thing.
Speaker 1 00:24:10 I agree. I absolutely agree. I know this is, this is a conversation or an argument that I have a lot with my husband, because he's a lot more environmental than I was like more about recycling. And then I was, but still like, now we're here. Oh, even the way we are at a cycling is useless. Or maybe they use this too. I'm like, yeah, I'm putting the plastic. He's like, yeah, but that plastic doesn't recycle. I'm not what the fuck like. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. After a while I was like, okay, no, don't you keep and he's as the same as like, oh, you know, people should be worried about this. I'm like, yeah. But people have done enough. Like we do as much as we could, but now we're realizing, oh, this doesn't even recycle or things we thought were recycling. And now it's getting like sent to garbage to wild country.
Speaker 1 00:24:57 Right. There's a lot happening. I am absolutely with you. I feel like they should have never produced it. Uh, um, you know, they, they would produce those plastics and then put a little recycle symbol underneath it. Meanwhile, the whole time, it wasn't recyclable. That is on the company. But that also these individual things may help. You know, you know, we try to raise children now who are, yeah. Their kids are very, like, they go to school. They, they're not allowed to throw any litter. Like my kids go to a school where it's a little less lunch. They're not allowed to eat all the lunch, the consume any litter. They produce it to bring it back home. Like the small level that it goes, they can't go anything in the garbage like, so these things and kids are very good at like, you know, I remember my eldest went somewhere and there was trash everywhere.
Speaker 1 00:25:48 And he was just horrified. And in pain that people were throwing trash in the garbage and this what's happening. All of that, this generation, next generation of kids are still be all aware, but what is, will it already be too late? Because for raging, it'll be so hard or we would have tornadoes and we're like, climate is accelerating the change in excavating. So it's possible all the people who all this time, uh, chose not to, I think this does have something to do with it. I don't think it's completely that suddenly more people are choosing not to have children. I think it environment does have a factor in it.
Speaker 0 00:26:34 Yeah, no, no. It's true. I mean, like I have a friend who's child-free and like, I mean, like, I don't know, like this might be an extreme thought on her part, but every day, anytime, anything with regard to climate change comes up. If it's a forest fire, if it's flooding, like whatever, she'll always text me and she'd be like, I'm so happy. I do not have children every day. I get confirmation that I made the right choice that I did not have kids. And I'm like, okay, like, I don't know what to say. I'm like, I guess like <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:27:09 Because right now we're grappling where it feels like an ethical dilemma here. We are thinking we're building better humans better than us. Um, we're thinking we're building better humans, but meanwhile, we've like left them a shitty planet. Yeah. Some ways is better in some ways it's not. So I think there's multiple reasons, probably why people, um, are comfortable, uh, declaring. I think they're probably my guess is they probably always were people who didn't necessarily want children, um, are, but that just didn't have an avenue to express it.
Speaker 0 00:27:51 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's becoming more normalized, right? Like I think that, uh, like we, as, uh, I think that more people in society are just like, like here just a little bit, like more conscious of the fact that like, some people choose to be child-free and maybe some people don't choose to be child-free, but like, they are,
Speaker 1 00:28:09 You know, their main reasons, right? PRI people have tried to be very good of, at least we try to be, you know why? Whereas our parents' generation was like, it's been a year since you've been married, have a child. And even my mom, I know, like she doesn't ask that of people because I've pointed out to her once I said, no, you know, people just don't infertility issues are big. I will entirely informational overall because of, again, climate change and pollution, it's possible that this is more and more people have fertility issues and more people have traumatic miscarriages. And nobody wants to talk about that. Um, I mean, people are talking about it, but it's not our business to us. We must not have children. Maybe you did want them really badly on you just couldn't. And that in itself is a, is a sad thing. And no one should be like, bringing it up again and again, right. Basically the conversation as you do you tell me when you're, if you're pregnant and then I'll say, congratulations,
Speaker 1 00:29:22 Tell me when the baby's born, because, uh, don't assume the person is also pregnant. They're telling you like someone random woman came up to me and asked congratulated on my pregnancy and I wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 0 00:29:33 <inaudible> just,
Speaker 1 00:29:42 I lost the weight. Nope. Don't say that either.
Speaker 0 00:29:47 Yeah. That happened to one of my attendings. I think she's one of these people who just like, you know, she's just like super, super outgoing and kind of like very, you know, like very extroverted. And I think like, oh, and she's, you know, and she's like Quebec or French, like she's from Quebec. And she was just like, she did that to a woman. She went up to her and then the woman gave her this like dirty look and was just like, no, I'm not actually. And she was just like, I don't do that ever again. I learned my lesson and I'm like, yeah, maybe you shouldn't make those assumptions.
Speaker 2 00:30:33 All right. I guess we can call that an episode. So thanks so much to Taz for, uh, coming to chat with us about, uh, various sundry topics around, um, biological clocks and fertility and you know, this sort of generic topics that the three of us like to go off on tangents. Anytime we get together,
Speaker 1 00:30:58 I don't know about you, but these are natural segues when you are talking about, you know, biological talks and, you know, natural births and fertility topics are natural segues. Okay. Conversation. I'm just saying, let's go with that.
Speaker 2 00:31:20 Anyway. It was a, it was a pleasure to have Taz on and we will be continuing our conversation with her next week. Um, so yeah, so join us next week. As we conclude our little triplet
Speaker 1 00:31:33 Series on, uh, on this topic, three hours to talk things through, in the meantime, all you, new friends of ours, uh, we hope that you will write back or tweet at us, um, reach out to us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, um, or just email us. Um, uh, most of our handles are, uh, at, does this make me look old? Um, gmail.com. That's our email address and obviously, um, our websites with the same name as well. Does this make me look old.com and you can link to any of your preferred social media, um, platforms from there.
Speaker 2 00:32:14 Yeah. And fall yeah. Tweeted us, follow us. Um, and yeah. And write in we're we're always, uh, looking really forward to, uh, to what you have to say. And we do love that. Oh my gosh. This is so cool. Um, yeah. And, um, yeah, I guess we'll see you next time. Yep.
