Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： Creation Myth

00:00:00.000 hey y'all joe here and welcome to sunday nice things from under the influence we recently had 0.94

00:00:13.900 helena de groot on the show to talk about her decision to not have children and that episode

00:00:19.640 was so wildly popular that i want to drop the first episode of her podcast creation myth in

00:00:25.580 the feed today so you guys can listen to what she's created. It is a beautiful, beautiful reflection

00:00:31.840 on just how hard this decision can be for women and why it is such an incredibly valid choice

00:00:39.640 that we need to talk about more and more and more. This is the first episode of Creation Myth. Like

00:00:45.740 I said, I'm going to drop the link in the show notes so you can listen to the entire series if

00:00:50.500 you want. I just love this show because I think that we really need more stories from women about 1.00

00:00:56.540 their real lived existence. There's not enough of them, and too often women get pigeonholed 0.97

00:01:03.240 because we don't hear these stories enough. So enjoy this episode of The Creation Myth. 0.80

00:01:08.660 Have a great Sunday. Do something nice for yourself. You deserve it.

00:01:20.500 We met in Paris.

00:01:34.280 Not for the romance.

00:01:36.460 I'd suggested Paris because it was close.

00:01:39.360 I'm from Belgium.

00:01:40.940 And I was only going because I was trying to forget my ex.

00:01:44.600 This ex had been smart and beautiful and abusive

00:01:50.820 All I wanted now was a man who'd make me feel good for a few hours

00:01:57.400 And then kindly disappear from my life forever

00:02:01.700 So I'd gone online and found David

00:02:07.240 He was American, traveling through Europe, but about to go back home

00:02:12.300 Perfect.

00:02:22.180 When I arrived at Gare du Nord, it was noon

00:02:25.360 and it looked like it would be raining all day.

00:02:28.500 I got out my umbrella and walked half an hour

00:02:31.280 to the modern art museum, the Centre Pompidou.

00:02:40.000 He was already there.

00:02:42.300 His shoulders were impossibly broad, 0.99

00:02:46.780 and he was leaning against the railing in this way only Americans can. 0.58

00:02:51.700 You have to be from the heart of empire to be so at ease.

00:02:57.640 We headed to the closest cafe we could find and sat under a plastic tarp.

00:03:03.880 It made me smile seeing this man in a rainy place.

00:03:08.080 Every one of his profile pictures had been sunny,

00:03:10.400 whether he was on a glistening ski slope

00:03:12.840 or on a beach in his wetsuit

00:03:14.780 smiling next to his surfboard.

00:03:18.000 I'd half expected him to be rain-repellent.

00:03:24.280 I was worried I wouldn't be his type. 1.00

00:03:27.340 I looked nothing like the female lead

00:03:30.140 with the flowy hair I imagined next to him.

00:03:32.940 My hair was short, dark,

00:03:35.220 and I was wearing the Northern European uniform,

00:03:38.280 all black.

00:03:40.400 But I shouldn't have worried.

00:03:43.880 All it took to have him look at me with shimmering eyes was ordering a tea in French.

00:03:50.980 I liked him.

00:03:52.780 He was attentive, comfortable to be around, and very funny.

00:03:59.760 But it was cold under the tarp.

00:04:02.520 And when my hot tea was gone, David suggested we go to his Airbnb.

00:04:11.260 We sat down on the couch, close enough that our bodies were touching.

00:04:17.320 I could feel the buzz between us.

00:04:22.580 But nothing was happening.

00:04:26.840 I couldn't take it anymore.

00:04:29.360 So I turned to him and said,

00:04:31.500 Are you going to kiss me or what?

00:04:35.880 And he did.

00:04:41.300 The next thing that happened was that the column broke.

00:04:48.380 David jumped up, started apologizing, asked if I was okay.

00:04:52.000 I was fine.

00:04:53.780 But he took my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said,

00:04:58.060 Whatever you decide, I support you.

00:05:01.540 I don't sleep with anyone who I couldn't imagine having a child with.

00:05:07.120 We'd met only a few hours before.

00:05:10.400 Was he some sort of Christian that I hadn't noticed?

00:05:14.280 A Republican?

00:05:16.060 Then again, I didn't know many Americans.

00:05:19.080 Maybe they were all like that? 1.00

00:05:21.440 I was ready to make a joke,

00:05:23.720 but David looked at me like this was an actual conversation we were having.

00:05:29.220 So I put my hand on his and said,

00:05:32.320 Don't worry, I wouldn't go through with it anyway.

00:05:35.780 I don't want kids.

00:05:40.400 I'm Helena de Giroud, and from CBC's Personally, this is Creation Myth.

00:05:58.040 I got obsessed with the kid question in my early 20s.

00:06:03.240 I was in no way ready to have a kid, but did I want one?

00:06:07.780 Did I not want one?

00:06:09.820 It felt like the biggest decision I would ever make.

00:06:13.980 My thinking was that I would probably not have kids.

00:06:18.140 It wasn't something I'd ever dreamed of for myself.

00:06:21.640 Then again, maybe I was just scared.

00:06:24.720 Because I was not the most emotionally stable,

00:06:28.680 even small things could knock me off balance.

00:06:31.860 A stack of dishes a roommate left in the sink,

00:06:34.580 a party next door that went on all night,

00:06:37.120 two days of pizza in a row,

00:06:39.820 My friends knew that about me.

00:06:41.960 I'll just put this away so I don't bump it.

00:06:44.720 Yeah.

00:06:44.980 And no one knew it better than Sigrid.

00:06:48.420 She's my oldest friend.

00:06:50.400 For my sanity, I need things to be a certain way.

00:06:55.060 Yeah.

00:06:55.700 You know, like the house has to be perfectly organized and there has to be this kind of food on the table.

00:07:00.940 And if I haven't slept well, I just don't function.

00:07:04.680 So I have to, and I do go to yoga every day, you know, just for my mental health and stuff.

00:07:11.520 Cigarette was different. 0.78

00:07:13.380 What I'd always admired about her was that she had a sense of proportion.

00:07:18.260 She was passionate about the things that mattered.

00:07:21.020 Her friendships, her first big newspaper article, she's a journalist.

00:07:24.840 But about things that didn't really matter, she didn't get worked up.

00:07:28.760 So what if she saw midway through an interview that she was wearing a shirt with a coffee stain?

00:07:33.840 The same was true now that Sigrid had kids. 0.64

00:07:37.380 She was merely amused when she came downstairs

00:07:39.880 and found her six-year-old making himself breakfast,

00:07:43.740 wielding a sharp knife.

00:07:46.000 And when her 12-year-old said she wanted to skip school

00:07:48.600 to go and protest the war in Gaza,

00:07:50.960 she said, it's against the rules,

00:07:52.980 so it'll be your problem if you get punished.

00:07:55.920 But if it's important to you, go.

00:07:58.380 But if there was one thing that I envied about her, it was that she went easy on herself, too.

00:08:08.220 Yeah, you know that.

00:08:10.440 And I love that, that you'll just be like, this is going to be an off day because I slept like two hours, you know, whatever.

00:08:17.720 I'll wrestle through.

00:08:18.820 Tomorrow's another day, you know.

00:08:20.440 And I've just always been afraid that I couldn't do that, you know, that I would just fall apart.

00:08:27.840 If you had a kid?

00:08:28.920 Yeah.

00:08:30.620 Yeah.

00:08:31.900 I've had that fear too.

00:08:33.660 Like, what if I will feel that it's too much or that it's not worth it?

00:08:38.520 But I think you can kind of just trust biology there.

00:08:46.600 Wait one second, Helena.

00:08:48.460 Yeah.

00:08:48.640 They're knocking on my door.

00:08:50.020 Yes?

00:08:51.040 Do you want to eat?

00:08:52.180 No, thank you.

00:08:53.340 But I'm recording.

00:08:54.940 Okay.

00:08:55.680 Thank you very much.

00:08:57.360 What was that? 0.99

00:08:58.960 It's the Ukrainian refugees living here.

00:09:02.520 Oh, I forgot that they were living with you.

00:09:06.580 And he's very, very sweet.

00:09:08.340 And so now, you know, he's knocking and saying,

00:09:11.940 do you want to eat? I'm cooking.

00:09:15.440 Wow.

00:09:19.060 How had I forgotten about the two Ukrainian refugees

00:09:22.160 living with Sigrid and her kids?

00:09:24.760 If I had taken in two total strangers,

00:09:27.360 Strangers who had fled a literal war zone.

00:09:31.020 I would not let you forget my heroics.

00:09:35.000 Though, who was I kidding?

00:09:36.740 I wasn't taking anyone in.

00:09:39.060 I loved talking to strangers.

00:09:41.160 A conversation at the post office could make my day.

00:09:44.120 But I didn't want them to move in.

00:09:47.080 What if they left all the lights on?

00:09:48.920 Or blasted bad music?

00:09:50.560 Or had friends over all the time?

00:09:53.040 I got stressed when someone got the inside of my dishwashing gloves wet.

00:09:57.360 I didn't like this about myself, but that's who I was.

00:10:02.320 I loved spending time with people as long as I could walk away.

00:10:15.120 David and I hadn't talked in three years.

00:10:19.320 But then, one spring, I went to visit a friend in the U.S. and thought,

00:10:24.220 why not? Let's see if he wants to meet up.

00:10:27.360 He did.

00:10:29.500 Again, I wanted nothing complicated.

00:10:32.940 A few days of sunshine and desire, then go home.

00:10:38.780 I didn't know it then, but David had bigger plans.

00:10:45.120 He'd had a dream about me.

00:10:48.200 In the dream, the two of us were wrapped in an embrace.

00:10:52.680 The light was filtered as if through white curtains.

00:10:55.200 And I was pregnant.

00:11:07.440 With that image in mind, he drove to the airport.

00:11:14.820 Once I got in the car, he put a bag with snacks and fresh orange juice at my feet and took

00:11:20.520 me on a carefully planned, week-long road trip through his home state, California.

00:11:28.420 It was my first road trip. I didn't even have a driver's license. Growing up in a European

00:11:34.820 city, I just took public transport. But here was a man with a car, and he knew how to drive

00:11:41.900 it through nature like I had never seen. Redwoods with hundreds of year-old trees and ocean

00:11:49.620 water that wasn't gray like the North Sea, but a clear blue-green.

00:11:58.040 I was enchanted.

00:12:04.560 Whenever something caught his eye, David would park the car so we could look together.

00:12:10.980 I wasn't used to this mode of traveling. I was used to diving into the history of a place,

00:12:16.860 the political system, read the novels that were written there. But David just looked.

00:12:25.340 He had an uncanny ability to see whales in the distance. Unfortunately, however much he pointed,

00:12:32.700 all I could see was water and more water. It didn't matter. He got me to notice other things,

00:12:40.740 the waves, the eucalyptus trees, the warmth of his body as he held mine.

00:12:52.960 As we drove, we also went through a list of questions I'd found on the New York Times,

00:12:59.060 designed by a scientist who had succeeded in making people fall in love in his lab.

00:13:05.600 What would you save in a fire?

00:13:06.880 What are you most ashamed of?

00:13:08.080 How do you think you'll die?

00:13:09.120 What is your life story in four minutes?

00:13:12.420 I wasn't too sure what my life story was.

00:13:15.760 My parents were still together.

00:13:17.220 My sister and I were close.

00:13:18.700 We all liked to read and play music.

00:13:21.320 The most dramatic thing about me was probably the mental health stuff.

00:13:25.580 A few times it had gotten pretty bad,

00:13:27.840 and I was always scared I'd do something that would set it off.

00:13:31.740 So I'd gotten used to living with one hand on the railing.

00:13:36.840 David was different.

00:13:38.840 He surfed, climbed volcanoes,

00:13:41.140 spent months driving through the mountains of Bolivia and Argentina

00:13:43.940 to study the movement of tectonic plates.

00:13:46.420 He'd manned a weather station in Antarctica.

00:13:49.020 He lived in Brazil to learn capoeira,

00:13:51.220 in China to learn Mandarin.

00:13:53.960 What would my life look like if I let myself take risks?

00:13:58.120 I imagined having a go-bag by the door

00:14:00.860 with a few changes of clothes, dry shampoo, a microphone, and my passport

00:14:04.760 so I could hop on a plane whenever something happened.

00:14:09.260 David would do his fieldwork.

00:14:11.500 Then we'd both come home to our cozy apartment in a big city,

00:14:16.260 regale each other with our stories, and recharge.

00:14:22.260 I never asked David how he imagined our life together.

00:14:34.760 On the last day of our trip,

00:14:40.260 we did the only thing that made sense to us.

00:14:45.100 We went to San Francisco City Hall and got married.

00:14:52.740 David knew I didn't want kids.

00:14:54.880 I told him a few times, including the day we met,

00:14:57.860 and I told him again while we were in line at City Hall, 0.88

00:15:01.380 do not marry me if you want kids.

00:15:04.760 But he responded, I'd rather be with you than have kids.

00:15:13.760 He didn't mention his dream with the filtered light where I was pregnant.

00:15:21.960 In my mind, the issue was settled.

00:15:28.680 The first time Sigrid met David, she had to laugh.

00:15:33.320 He looks like a superhero. 0.99

00:15:35.620 Like that jaw, it's ridiculous. 0.99

00:15:39.980 It is. 0.98

00:15:42.420 He looks like he would be named Buck or something.

00:15:47.920 And you're like, I'm leave from a matre, you know? 0.96

00:15:55.460 So what did you think of us, you know, being together?

00:15:58.940 I liked him.

00:16:00.420 You did?

00:16:01.100 Yeah.

00:16:01.400 Yeah, yeah, it's a very kind, warm person, yeah.

00:16:07.360 And when we got married, did you think that I would have kids, that I would, like, change my mind?

00:16:19.180 Yeah, probably, yeah.

00:16:23.000 Yeah, also because, well, most of my friends who said that they didn't want kids, maybe they weren't with the right person.

00:16:31.640 And then five years later, they were with the right person and then they had kids and you were good together, you know.

00:16:38.300 So, yeah, I could imagine that you would be swept along with that.

00:16:42.660 Yeah.

00:16:43.060 I can't remember when exactly

00:16:53.320 but David told me about that dream he'd had

00:16:57.520 the one where I was pregnant

00:16:58.960 I could just see it, he'd said

00:17:01.960 you'd be such a good mother

00:17:04.080 I didn't know what to say

00:17:07.180 I was halfway through packing up my life in Brussels

00:17:10.500 so I could move to America

00:17:12.180 I had so much on my mind.

00:17:15.660 I'd quit my perfect job at the Belgian Public Radio, sublit my apartment,

00:17:20.600 and I was spending my days saying goodbye to my beloved Brussels, my family, my friends.

00:17:26.820 I was excited for my new life, this new me.

00:17:31.240 Maybe I would learn to drive and go on my own road trip.

00:17:34.620 Maybe I would have the guts to become a real journalist.

00:17:37.120 Maybe I would even make a critically acclaimed podcast and win a prize. 0.87

00:17:42.180 but what if no one cared about some Belgian lady's podcast what if my black clothes were 0.74

00:17:51.520 not seen as sophisticated but sad what if I sounded like a book when I spoke because that's

00:17:57.720 where I'd gotten most of my English and when a cashier or barista said how are you today

00:18:02.280 should I respond ask them how they are doing or would that just hold up the line and irritate

00:18:06.780 everyone. Should I say Helena de Groot or Helena de Groot?

00:18:17.420 Meanwhile, David had found an apartment for us in San Francisco. He showed it to me over Skype.

00:18:24.780 It was beautiful. Wooden floors, high ceilings, and bay windows with little mosaics of stain-colored

00:18:31.500 glass. Then, on a Thursday in early January, I boarded the plane. Eighteen hours later,

00:18:42.720 David came and picked me up from the airport and drove us to our first home. He was so excited to

00:18:49.920 show me where we'd lived together. He had thought of everything we'd need, even the boring things,

00:18:55.440 cleaning supplies, a shower curtain, and he'd built shelves for the books he knew I'd bring.

00:19:01.500 But when I walked through the door, instead of seeing his effort,

00:19:07.600 all I saw was the image of my mother at Brussels Airport,

00:19:11.900 her eyes red and swollen from crying all night.

00:19:16.060 And I saw the apartment of a single man.

00:19:20.260 Every object was gray or plastic or pleather.

00:19:24.940 His face fell when he saw mine.

00:19:28.260 We'll make it ours, he said.

00:19:30.880 I know I'm not good at this stuff.

00:19:43.360 The next morning, he took me to a diner,

00:19:46.960 something I only knew from movies and wanted to try.

00:19:50.920 As I marveled at the booths, the chrome-lined bar stools,

00:19:55.700 the giant portions and the endless coffee,

00:19:57.960 He squeezed my hand, his eyes lit up.

00:20:03.580 Then he went to work, and I started Googling public radio jobs.

00:20:08.200 I wasn't allowed to work yet, but I wanted to be ready when my green card arrived,

00:20:12.540 whenever that would be.

00:20:14.200 It could be weeks, months, another year.

00:20:17.660 So, for now, I decided to make it my job to get to know America,

00:20:22.960 starting with San Francisco.

00:20:27.960 Most mornings, I'd take my computer to a coffee shop and journal.

00:20:36.140 I wouldn't include anything about my day or my feelings.

00:20:40.040 A loss I felt without a job or even a single friend

00:20:43.260 that David and I had had our first fight

00:20:45.740 because he wanted me to at least consider having a family with him.

00:20:49.820 I didn't write any of that.

00:20:52.220 What I thought made the most sense was research.

00:20:55.820 I tapped on my keyboard.

00:20:59.860 The first humans to have set foot on what is now San Francisco

00:21:03.120 would not have been able to see the ocean.

00:21:06.440 It would have been a great plain with a view of a distant ridge of low-lying hills.

00:21:14.960 I'd copy a few more paragraphs, sip my coffee, think about Earth and time.

00:21:20.900 Then I'd start a conversation with whoever was sitting next to me

00:21:27.180 But all anyone wanted to talk about was their app idea, their startup, or their upcoming IPO

00:21:34.160 So I'd pack up my computer and start walking through the neighborhood, the mission

00:21:40.280 It was beautiful

00:21:44.140 The murals, the park on a steep hill, the candy-colored Victorians

00:21:50.200 Curious about the inside of those houses, I started searching for listings.

00:21:56.320 I had never seen prices like that.

00:21:59.200 Three, four, five million?

00:22:02.220 On the sidewalks, I saw folks who lived in tents.

00:22:06.840 But we could afford the ridiculous rent and the price of an $8 ethically sourced pour over coffee.

00:22:13.140 And so I remember these fights that I had with David.

00:22:16.480 Like, and you want to bring a kid into this?

00:22:19.200 I was just so angry with him and with America.

00:22:24.480 And I would go on and on about like segregation and income inequality and no support for mothers and how the gender imbalance between us would only get worse.

00:22:33.840 Because, of course, like he worked in tech, so he made all this money and I was a freelancer trying to find work in media.

00:22:39.900 So who would stay home with the kids, you know?

00:22:42.200 And I just got so angry because that was not a context that I could imagine becoming a mother in, you know?

00:22:49.200 But why did you take it as a given?

00:22:51.680 You could have changed that.

00:22:53.980 While I could not change America,

00:22:56.460 we didn't have to live in this sci-fi dumpster.

00:23:01.260 I begged David to move.

00:23:03.860 He was the most adventurous person I'd ever met.

00:23:08.240 Maybe we could travel for a while,

00:23:11.260 find some place where we could both be happy.

00:23:14.620 But he said he'd done enough adventuring,

00:23:17.700 Enough living out of the trunk of a car, eating cans of beans and unidentifiable meat.

00:23:23.380 He'd seen places few people got to see, and he was grateful.

00:23:27.900 But he was ready to settle down and start a family.

00:23:35.040 This was the opposite of what I wanted.

00:23:37.480 My whole existence had been lived settled down, at the piano or on the couch with a book.

00:23:43.400 I wanted to go outside, talk to people,

00:23:46.360 learn about history from those who'd lived through it,

00:23:48.760 get to know my neighbors.

00:23:51.940 And I badly wanted to make my way back to my career in audio.

00:23:56.380 So I tried making a radio story, Green Card Be Damned.

00:24:00.600 I found an article in the paper about a family that was being evicted,

00:24:04.400 and I went over there and talked to them.

00:24:07.520 But what could I do?

00:24:09.840 I had no contacts in this country,

00:24:12.620 and my Belgian portfolio wouldn't mean much here.

00:24:15.980 I wanted to be the kind of person who tried anyway, gave it her all.

00:24:21.640 But what if in this new country, my all was not enough?

00:24:27.220 So I filed a recording away, ashamed of myself for having wasted this family's time.

00:24:36.680 But I was desperate to be employed again and feel like a member of society.

00:24:42.120 So when, after 15 months of waiting, my green card arrived in the mail,

00:24:48.540 I took a job as a line cook, doing a few things on an endless loop,

00:24:53.660 prepping carrots and broccoli, massaging kale, boiling bones.

00:24:58.160 I often cried in the bathroom.

00:25:01.220 This was not the new life I had imagined for myself.

00:25:04.460 Late at night, after my shift

00:25:08.820 I would search online for places I would rather be

00:25:12.360 On Google Maps, I found my favorite literary magazine

00:25:16.800 which had its office in New York

00:25:18.840 and I'd click through pictures of their bohemian-looking office

00:25:22.780 filled with plants and books

00:25:24.740 That's where I belonged

00:25:27.660 And then, after three years in California

00:25:34.620 David accepted a job in New York.

00:25:40.740 We arrived in New York in November.

00:25:45.020 It started blizzarding almost right away.

00:25:47.960 But after all this time in California, I loved it.

00:25:52.540 The seasons, the buildings, the subway, but most of all, the people.

00:25:57.800 She's doing fine. She's upstairs. I'm about to go get her now.

00:26:00.360 Good. Good seeing you, honey. You too.

00:26:03.700 I mean, it's funny, you know, like, the cliché in America is that New Yorkers are rude.

00:26:11.200 Yeah.

00:26:11.500 But, you know, compared to what we're used to in Europe, they're very nice.

00:26:15.420 Us being used to French people, yes.

00:26:18.480 Exactly.

00:26:20.560 No, but, no, of course, I don't think New Yorkers are rude.

00:26:25.260 Maybe one or two New Yorkers were rude, but New York itself was nothing but kind.

00:26:31.720 It was almost unbelievable.

00:26:33.700 Within two days, I found us an apartment on the top floor of a brownstone on a quiet street.

00:26:39.320 I made my first friend just a few days later.

00:26:42.040 And within 10 weeks, I'd lined up two of my dream gigs.

00:26:46.480 Do you want to start with...

00:26:47.360 Yeah.

00:26:47.880 Two podcasts about my favorite topic, books.

00:26:51.280 And hopefully he's just entertained by that bone and it doesn't pick up the gnawing sound.

00:26:56.920 People just think that's me, right?

00:26:58.760 I zoomed all over the city with my microphone, spoke to writers I'd admired for years,

00:27:04.780 and had meetings at the place I knew so well from Google Maps, the office of my favorite literary magazine.

00:27:13.240 Only now, I was really there, sitting on their old leather couch, discussing which stories we would adapt for sound.

00:27:24.780 One night, in bed, David pulled me in close.

00:27:28.760 kissed me, and whispered in my ear how proud he was.

00:27:33.420 He even had a present for me.

00:27:35.660 Tickets to the opera.

00:27:37.920 That Thursday night, we put on our shiniest clothes,

00:27:41.280 got on the subway, and walked into the building

00:27:43.980 and up the Cinderella staircase,

00:27:46.340 where a stranger took a picture of the two of us,

00:27:49.040 grinning in front of the epic chandelier.

00:27:51.380 But while I felt like the city and me were lovers

00:27:59.660 David's New York experience was nothing like mine

00:28:03.220 He was taking the subway at five every morning

00:28:07.300 To get to midtown before rush hour

00:28:09.480 And then work crazy hours at a startup he only half believed in

00:28:12.760 He'd brought in some plants and some photos of seaweed to hang on the wall

00:28:17.920 but that didn't change the fact that the view from his office was nothing but other offices.

00:28:25.480 When he came home, he was still all smiles and funny stories,

00:28:29.500 so I didn't realize until it was too late.

00:28:33.660 David's gentle soul, raised on palm trees and temperate weather, was withering away.

00:28:39.800 then the pandemic happened which was particularly brutal in new york sirens went by our apartment

00:28:51.320 day and night and morgues were filling up so quickly that bodies were stored in refrigerated

00:28:56.960 trucks one day david asked me what is the point of life if all we do is work and then what die

00:29:07.560 He wanted his life to be about more than that.

00:29:12.540 And he told me, I really want to have a child with you.

00:29:17.320 A child.

00:29:18.840 I'd only just gotten my career back on the rails.

00:29:21.800 And I love my work, lived for it.

00:29:24.340 I wasn't going to give that up.

00:29:26.860 But I do remember, Helena, that I think I tried to kind of push back a bit on your view that it would be like incompatible.

00:29:35.560 incompatible, like to do the projects you want to do, to do the jobs you want to do,

00:29:41.200 and like the independence, that that would be incompatible with kids. And so I do remember

00:29:46.840 not agreeing with you. Like you don't have to choose. You can have it both, you know?

00:29:51.980 Yeah. I mean, I also think we just come from such different families, right? Like

00:29:57.460 my mom used to be a teacher. And then when she got pregnant with me, she gave that up and stayed 1.00

00:30:04.840 home with us kids. And of course, it doesn't mean I would have to do it like she did. But

00:30:09.960 that was the example I had. That's what I could imagine. And I think it's very different for you,

00:30:15.960 right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My mom throughout my childhood, she was a student and then a PhD.

00:30:22.680 So she did kind of an academic career after having had small kids. And then they split

00:30:27.980 It's 50-50 on everything.

00:30:29.800 Mm-hmm.

00:30:31.700 David said that's what we would do too.

00:30:34.420 He promised he'd find a job that would let him work part-time

00:30:37.560 and we'd divide the childcare 50-50.

00:30:41.840 50-50, what was he even talking about?

00:30:44.700 Only one of us would be spending nine months growing this baby.

00:30:49.340 And I was terrified of pregnancy.

00:30:52.300 Being pregnant when you don't want to have children,

00:30:54.760 like I can't imagine anything more scary, you know?

00:30:57.200 No.

00:30:57.980 like alien like the movie you know yeah and it just felt so unfair that the person who wanted it

00:31:07.520 less or maybe not at all would have to do more even if after birth we can split it 50 50 which

00:31:15.540 i doubt because david is also like wildly unrealistic you know yes but he's a capable man

00:31:22.540 you know like there's no reason he wouldn't yeah maybe he didn't know it before like how much

00:31:27.800 work it is but he would find out after one day yeah but actually liana what you're saying is

00:31:36.920 like you didn't want it but you you kind of went looking for other reasons than just not wanting it

00:31:45.780 like one reason being economic aspects or the inequality but but that is like yeah kind of

00:31:53.160 beating around the bush you know I just have in general like a hard time really trusting myself

00:32:06.500 and I'm sort of afraid to admit this because you know it's it's just gonna sound like

00:32:15.220 a natalist propaganda or whatever, you know.

00:32:19.480 But I do feel like, well, maybe, you know, they're, I don't know why it's so hard to

00:32:33.660 say.

00:32:36.500 I do wonder about, like, what meaning I can find in my life.

00:32:44.840 Like, what am I building?

00:32:48.180 What am I living for?

00:32:53.440 It can just feel exhausting, you know, like every day, here we go again.

00:32:58.860 Let's try and find some meaning, you know.

00:33:00.780 And, of course, some days it goes better than others.

00:33:04.440 Like, when I'm having a really good conversation with a stranger that I'm interviewing, you know, then I'm like, yes, this is my purpose.

00:33:13.840 You know, I'm making this project feels really meaningful to me.

00:33:18.460 You know, I I hope that I can maybe help someone who's listening feel less alone, you know, because it can feel really lonely that like when you don't want kids, you always have to be so clear about it, you know, on the outside, because you don't want to give rope to people who are trying to convince you.

00:33:39.740 so you have to be like really firm and clear and unwavering yeah yeah but of course on the inside

00:33:48.520 it's not necessarily like this you know no and so even though i keep saying i don't want kids

00:33:56.260 i am filled with doubt no and especially because like okay the opinion of strangers i can tune

00:34:04.900 that out you know but you know the way you thought about me and I don't even want to say try to

00:34:13.760 convince me because I feel like that's not really I mean that's totally what it was but I just mean

00:34:19.600 like you weren't pushy or annoying like yeah like you would say something like but Helena you're

00:34:26.780 so good at love. Or like, having a child is creating a world with them. And you would raise

00:34:35.600 your kids in a way that you like, you know, so if you like music and books, you would raise your

00:34:41.720 kid with a lot of music and books. At any time, did it bug you that I didn't just accept when

00:34:49.860 you said like you know i don't want it because of xyz yeah i mean initially i did what did you feel

00:34:58.400 judged in any way i didn't feel judged by you good but i judged myself i always felt like

00:35:14.280 what the hell is wrong with me that i don't want this and i remember this one time actually when

00:35:21.660 i did feel like you managed to make something shift in me you know it was after you had your

00:35:29.580 second child and you were thinking like you know should i have a third um which always happened

00:35:36.680 when you were on vacation you know and you were like relaxed and well-rested and of course you'd

00:35:43.020 Get back to your life in Brussels and start working again and be like, what the hell was I thinking?

00:35:48.440 But the reason that you were even considering having a third child was that after Alfred was born, your second, you really noticed like immediately from the very moment that he was born, like how different his consciousness was from Nora's.

00:36:10.080 Yeah.

00:36:10.880 And you said, I'm just so curious to meet the others, you know?

00:36:16.300 Yeah.

00:36:17.000 Get to know them, get to know who they are as people.

00:36:21.160 And it's so funny to me because, like, that's not really talked about a lot, you know?

00:36:26.180 Like, curiosity about who are these kids as people, you know?

00:36:31.960 And I like people.

00:36:34.480 Yeah, yeah.

00:36:35.560 A lot.

00:36:36.500 And I love getting to know them.

00:36:38.420 Yeah.

00:36:38.540 I mean, that's why I am a radio producer and an interviewer, you know?

00:36:44.980 Yeah.

00:36:50.520 It was around this time that I got to know our nine-year-old neighbor,

00:36:55.520 a little boy who lived in the apartment across from ours.

00:36:59.080 A few months earlier, his grandmother had died.

00:37:02.000 And now this little kid was getting angry over nothing.

00:37:05.120 He couldn't find his phone charger or something like that.

00:37:08.540 And he would get so angry that he would start screaming at the top of his lungs.

00:37:14.380 Neighbors had started calling the police.

00:37:16.760 So his mom wanted to do something.

00:37:18.820 And we had chatted a few times in the hallway or the elevator and gotten along.

00:37:22.820 So she asked if her son could come and hang out at ours sometimes when he had an outburst.

00:37:28.980 I said, sure, let him come by.

00:37:31.780 And he did.

00:37:32.320 While David was away at the office

00:37:35.360 This little boy would knock on our door

00:37:37.500 His face wet with tears

00:37:39.120 And we'd talk about what happens

00:37:41.060 Breathe a little

00:37:41.880 Then I'd put on some music

00:37:43.780 And we'd dance or he'd jump on my little trampoline

00:37:46.520 And then I would get out my crayons

00:37:48.700 And he'd draw

00:37:49.600 And the whole time he was there

00:37:52.640 I would be in conversation with myself

00:37:55.120 See?

00:37:57.380 This is nice

00:37:58.340 I love this kid

00:38:00.060 I love his little glasses

00:38:01.820 the way he presses on his crayons as he draws.

00:38:05.180 I love hearing about the fourth-grade drama of who has a crush on who.

00:38:09.440 And I love that he leans on me when he needs a calming presence.

00:38:14.580 I've never experienced that.

00:38:17.020 I think of myself as intense, stormy,

00:38:20.580 and the fact that he finds me calming makes me feel so capable.

00:38:26.680 Capable of having a kid?

00:38:31.820 A couple hours later, he would say,

00:38:33.740 OK, I'm going home now, and walk out.

00:38:39.000 Once this opinionated, lively little man was gone,

00:38:43.440 I could almost touch the silence in the room.

00:38:50.320 It made me feel a lot of things at once.

00:38:53.580 Glad to be alone and lonely.

00:38:58.060 Exhausted and fulfilled.

00:39:01.820 But there was something else.

00:39:04.160 My body was feeling relaxed, my movement slower, my mind oddly at peace, almost as if I was a little high.

00:39:13.600 Was this what being around kids made you feel like?

00:39:23.240 And then I noticed.

00:39:25.780 My period was late.

00:39:28.620 I was pregnant.

00:39:31.820 Creation Myth is written, produced, hosted, and sound designed by me, Helena de Groot.

00:39:45.320 My story editor and senior producer is Veronica Simmons.

00:39:49.280 Editorial sound design support by Brendan Baker, who also mixed and mastered the episode.

00:39:54.700 Special thanks to my friend Sigrid Melchior for our two decades-long ongoing conversation.

00:40:01.820 The team behind Creation Myth further includes Anna Achite, who is our coordinating producer.

00:40:07.220 Executive producers are Cecil Fernandes and Chris Oak.

00:40:10.640 Tanya Springer is the senior manager.

00:40:12.820 Arif Noorani is the director.

00:40:14.500 And Leslie Merklinger is the executive director of CBC Podcasts.

00:40:18.740 This project was made possible with the support of VPM Media Corporation.

00:40:24.560 I'll be back next week with a new episode.

00:40:28.700 Thank you for listening.

00:40:31.820 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 15, 2026

Sunday Nice Things： Creation Myth

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