{"podcast":{"title":"Keep Talking","slug":"keep-talking-1331245","podcast_index_feed_id":1331245,"rss_url":"https://media.rss.com/humans/feed.xml","website_url":"https://rss.com/podcasts/humans","image_url":"https://media.rss.com/humans/20210520_005222_a8e19a4cd6d9a7bc6e33dc39aa33e2b3.jpg","author":"Dan Riley","episode_count":155,"summary":"\"Keep Talking\" exists to have conversations that might help to make a better society and a better culture. I believe that each guest has important information and stories to make public. And it's something that I want to share.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-20T02:20:25.098457+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245"},"episode":{"title":"Episode 127: Merle Bombardieri - Kids: How to Make Life's Most Important Choice","slug":"episode-127-merle-bombardieri-kids-how-to-make-life-s-most-important-choice","published_at":"2024-11-01T10:00:13+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245/episode-127-merle-bombardieri-kids-how-to-make-life-s-most-important-choice","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245","url":"https://rss.com/podcasts/humans/1728287","audio_url":"https://content.rss.com/episodes/14586/1728287/humans/2024_10_30_15_27_38_f7746d6c-8dc5-4678-b912-69483b4aa634.mp3","summary":"Merle Bombardieri is a clinical social worker, a psychotherapist and the author of \" The Baby Decision: How to Make The Most Important Choice of Your Life .\" ------------ Book Dan to do an interview or a meeting ------------ Keep Talking Substack Spotify Apple Podcasts Social media and all episodes ------------ Support via Venmo Support on Substack Support on Patreon ------------ (00:00) Intro (01:00) How Merle got involved in helping people decide about kids (07:21) How Merle decided whether to have kids (09:44) Maintaining neutrality when going through exercises (13:34) Being childfree should be the default (17:57) Role models for the childfree (21:00) When is not having kids a growth decision? (23:05) Is Merle disappointed that one of her kids is childfree? (26:30) Exercises for straight couples to decide whether to have kids (36:02) Long-term ambivalence should result in being childfree (38:50) How to better understand what it's like to have kids (40:48) What do the childfree not understand about parenthood? (42:30) \"As a child-free person, you have a right to be ordinary.” (44:30) Suggestions for someone who wants to be childfree and has no support (49:05) Who should become parents? (56:49) Are we getting better at having this conversation? (58:34) The importance of growth for the child-free","meta_description":"Merle Bombardieri is a clinical social worker, a psychotherapist and the author of \" The Baby Decision: How to Make The Most Important Choice of Your Life…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3781,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/keep-talking-1331245/episodes/episode-127-merle-bombardieri-kids-how-to-make-life-s-most-important-choice/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/keep-talking-1331245/episode-127-merle-bombardieri-kids-how-to-make-life-s-most-important-choice.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}