The Single Most Important Thing to Know Before Becoming a Single Parent
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stacie is in her early 30s and is ready to have a baby. There's just one problem—she doesn't have a partner. As much as she wants to be a mom, Stacie is worried about being a single parent by choice. On this episode of How To!, we bring on Lori Gottlieb, therapist, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and solo mom herself. Lori opens about her own experience having her son on her own, navigating people's judgment, and finding ways to consider herself "enough" as a single parent. The hardest part? "Every decision you make is ultimately yours. On the one hand, that might seem liberating, but on the other hand, it's very paralzying because there's so much pressure," Lori says. What does Stacie ultimately decide?
If you liked this episode, check out: "How To Decide Whether to have a Baby" and "How To Talk to Your Son About Sex."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was not plan A. It wasn't like I grew I was growing up and thinking one day |
| 0:04.5 | I'm gonna buy sperm on the internet and that's how I'm gonna have my family. That was never play |
| 0:13.9 | Welcome to how to I'm science writer David Epstein |
| 0:18.7 | Deciding whether or not to have a kid that might be the most anxiety-inducing decision imaginable |
| 0:23.8 | We actually did a whole episode on it a while back called how to decide whether to have a baby |
| 0:28.2 | We brought an author Cheryl Strait to help our listener decide if it was the right time for her and her husband to have a kid |
| 0:34.5 | Spoiler alert we heard back them a few months ago and they now have their very own bundle of joy |
| 0:39.9 | But all right, that was a couple the decisions much tougher when you're making it solo and that's the situation our listener this week finds herself in |
| 0:48.2 | My name is Stacy and I am a |
| 0:52.3 | 32 year old woman who is living in Washington state and |
| 0:56.6 | And I am getting my master's in special education |
| 1:03.9 | Stacy reached out to us now because she was diagnosed with a medical condition that makes it more difficult to have children |
| 1:09.5 | so I have intrametriosis and I |
| 1:14.8 | Went to a new doctor and basically he asked me |
| 1:19.7 | Would you consider getting pregnant in the next six months to a year and that was a huge question |
| 1:26.7 | To be asked I'm a single woman and I |
| 1:31.6 | Just started thinking maybe I would want to be a parent by myself. Maybe that would be a consideration and |
| 1:40.1 | That is kind of a big brave new world for me |
| 1:45.3 | Stacy always imagined herself having kids, but not quite like this. I thought you know |
| 1:50.5 | Oh, I would meet somebody we'd fall in love |
| 1:53.4 | Get married and a couple of years later have kids, but if I go by that long timeline that I imagined in my teens and 20s |
| 2:01.4 | That might not be realistic |
... |
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