You know, it is like the millennial generation, I feel, that has said openly, I don't want to have children, but also finding that conversation difficult to have with their parents who expected to be a grandparent, you know, like the disappointment of being a woman who doesn't want children. People love to say you'll change your mind. They love to scaremonger you and say you're going to sort of die a lonely death. And I, as I get older, I'm so

happy with my decision more and more.

The American birth rate is declining and there have been countless theories as to why that is.

But we've mostly explored the following birth rate from the perspective of people who might

otherwise want kids. But what about people who might otherwise want kids.

But what about people who don't want kids at all?

To get into all of this, I've got Sarah McCammon, senior fellow at Third Way, and Emma Gannon, author of the novel, Olive, which explores the decision of being child-free by choice.

Emma, Sarah, welcome to it's been a minute.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR,

a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

Good. why it doesn't happen by accident. Okay, so I want to start off by defining some terms.

Like when people talk about, you know, those of us who are adults without kids, there are

a couple different terms used, childless and child free.

Sometimes in other media, I'll see those terms used interchangeably, although they're

definitely not the same thing.

Childless implies that being a non-parent may be a matter of circumstance.

Like maybe you wanted kids, but it didn't work out.

But the term child free is much more rooted in the choice to be a non-parent.

That's the group of people we'll be discussing today.

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