Thrive Solo The One Where I Talk To Professor & Author, Peggy O'Donnell Heffington
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In this week's episode, I talk to history professor and author, Peggy O’Donnell Heffington.
Peggy O’Donnell Heffington is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Chicago, where she teaches courses on gender and women’s history as well as historical research and writing methods. When she’s not answering email, you can usually find her trail running, baking gluten free cake, and looking at clothes on the internet. Peggy lives outside of Chicago with her husband Bob and two pugs, Ellie and Jake. Without Children: The Long History Of Not Being A Mother, is Peggy’s first book.
Topics that Peggy & I cover are:
- how and why Peggy came to be childfree;
- how finding herself in an environment where the ‘norm’ was to have children, was what prompted her to think about her own situation;
- the many, many shades of grey in terms of the reasons for not having children;
- the weaponisation of the word ‘spinster’;
- what motivated her to write a book about the history of non-mothers;
- how the question of not having kids can be far beyond just a lack of desire, and more about the context of your life;
- The weird and wonderful ways that women avoided pregnancy and birth in the times before birth control and abortion;
- how the reasons that women a century ago chose not to have kids weren’t that different from the reasons women cite today;
- the divide between mothers and women without children throughout history, and where we are today;
- how 200 years ago, the divide was not so much of an issue as children were raised much more communally;
- the ‘European Marriage Pattern’;
- why the statistics show that people with children report themselves to be 12% less happy than non-parents;
- how we rarely talk about what we actually gain by not having children, or what parents have to sacrifice by having them.
Follow Peggy on Instagram:
@peggyohdonnell
Follow Peggy on Twitter:
@peggyohdonnell
Peggy’s website:
http://poheffington.com/
UK Link to Peggy’s book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Without-Children-History-Being-Mother/dp/1541675576
US Link to Peggy’s book:
https://www.amazon.com/Without-Children-History-Being-Mother/dp
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