[NEW EPISODE] Beating Depression with Exercise

“The mission of Mind Body Health & Politics is to expand consciousness, stimulate thought, enhance mental and physical health, and encourage community.” — Dr. Richard L. Miller

I'm excited to share my recent interview with Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, author, editor, and digital content strategist. Rachel is the founder of StoryMade Studio, a boutique storytelling studio that focuses on creating compelling consumer-oriented digital content for health and wellness companies. Her expertise lies in helping writers, artists, video producers, and animators tell their stories and amplify their messages through digital marketing.

In our conversation, Rachel discusses the importance of collaborative reproduction and the various methods available, such as sperm donation, surrogacy, and gestational carriers. She shares her insights on the financial aspects and challenges of single motherhood by choice, and the need for new rules and contracts to address the complexities of these reproductive options.

Rachel also talks about the advancements in reproductive science and technology, particularly in egg freezing and fertility preservation. She shares her personal experience with egg freezing and the impact of technology on women's reproductive choices.

Join us as we explore the intersection of reproductive science, technology, and personal choice.

Tune in for this healthy conversation at TalkRadio.nyc

Show Notes

Segment 1

Segment 2

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Segment 4

Transcript

Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics. I'm your host, Dr. Richard Lewis Miller. The mission of Mind Body Health and Politics is to enhance your physical and emotional well-being and encourage community. I say encourage community because I believe that human beings are tribal animals and that we love to be together in community.

And when we are in community and we know the people around us by name or at least by face, our fear levels are the lowest, our immune systems are able to really function, we are the healthiest and most effective in community. We are very collaborative animals as a species.

We like to do things together, all kinds of things. We like to do sewing circles. We like to do bike riding together, watch football games together, play poker, you name it. We love to eat together. We love sitting around in circles and eating together.

So you might say, well, if we're so wonderful and collaborative, then why is the history of the world written in murders and wars and mass killings? Good question, eh? And the answer is, because a small percentage of us, very small, are predators. They do not share our way of being in the world.

They have a very different philosophy. They believe in what I call is social Darwinism. The fittest run the show in a Darwinian way. So if they make a lot of money, it's because they were destined to make a lot of money, because they were the fittest to make a lot of money.

And the people who don't make a lot of money were not supposed to make a lot of money, because they're the ones that are allowed to die by the wayside in a Darwinian way. And if it means killing off millions, that's okay too, because the strongest rule. And what they like ruling is ruling subjects, not citizens.

So the rest of us, we can't go to sleep on this issue. We must stay awake. Even in hard times, such as the times that we're having right now, when 60% of us are one step away from maybe losing our apartments or not having food on the table.

such huge numbers when 70% of us, 72% of us are obese or overweight. 30 to 40% of us are suffering from anxiety and depression. And within all of that, we still must stay awake as American citizens in order not to let the predators take control.

We have to figure a way out of this and we will, but we must stay vigilant and we must vote. I leave you with the words of Thomas Jefferson, one of my heroes, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Today, I have the privilege of having with us here on Mind Body Health and Politics, a person whom I refer to when I'm thinking about her after I've been reading her book and preparing for this interview. I think of her as Captain Courageous.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt and she's here today in part to talk about her book, Reconceptions, and she's going to talk about a lot more than that. Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics, Rachel.

Thank you. That was a great introduction. I don't think anyone has called me Captain Courageous ever, but I think I'll take it as a badge.

Please do. I could, I guess, have said generally courageous and promote you up a bit. So my wife, as I was leaving the house and coming to the studio, says, who are you interviewing today? And I said, Captain Courageous. And she said, oh, what do you mean?

I said, this is a woman who chose to be a single mother. and had her own eggs that she had on ice, so to speak, fertilized by choice, knowing she was going to be a single mother. And my wife went, thumbs up.

And then the next thing out of her mouth was, she must have had enough money to do so. And I thought, that's correct. So it's yet another way that those of us who have the privilege of having some money

can be courageous, whereas women who don't have that kind of money are looking at a very difficult life in a different way, because how do you both take care of the child and go to work? And how do you do that? Tell us.

It is very, very true. And I think that you really immediately went to the heart of the matter, like a true New Yorker. Let's get to the bottom of how this works. And I do think, you know, you kind of got to follow the money. No, I am not rich. I'm not a trust fund, baby.

I'm not any of those things. But I will say that I had a baby when I was 40, or actually he was born when I was 42. And I had already invested around 10 years in my career or more, more than 10 years in my career.

And I was in a position where I had strong financial earning power. I mean, you know, I'm a writer and I'm an editor and I'm a now, what they call a brand content consultant. But as a communicator, that does not equal rich, but it equals earning power.

And I think what separates the single moms who the media kind of goes out and clamoring about how they're the downfall of American society and Single Moms by Choice.

And this is not meant in an elitist way, although it is coming out saying elitist, it's meant in an encouraging way, is that many women become single moms because they, you know, are not educated and don't have the Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Ph.D. You know, single parents in the country.

I think that there is a new era that is coming of women like myself, of all races and all economic backgrounds, rich middle to middle class, probably even to not so middle class, that are more empowered about their reproductive choice now.

And actually, instead of, you know, the baby daddy going away, you know, they're getting pregnant on their own. They're making Decisions to have babies with friends as co-parents. And I think, you know, the basis of it is, is that women have, you know, much more economic empowerment.

You know, there's a character in my book who is, she heads a major feminist organization in Washington, D.C. that is focused on pay equity. and she has a PhD from NYU. She's African-American and she was born to one of the other kinds of single moms that I'm talking about.

No education, had her when she was 16, worked three jobs, there was no dad in the picture. The dad was around but not in the picture. And she talks in the book about the difference between her upbringing as a Single Mom and her decision to become a single mom, which was very different.

She worked her way out of, you know, out of, I think she lived in Compton in LA and worked her way, got into college, actually managed to get into NYU and get a PhD at NYU and kind of find her way into the feminist circles of New York.

she was talking in her feminist circles about all of these women that said the one thing I regret in my life in my career is that I didn't have a child and she thought to myself she's also gay and she thought to herself I make money I have my own I make a living now

I can do this. I can have a baby on my own. I have earning power. So I think that we're not talking about a story of the elite.

And I also will... Well, let me let me interrupt and ask you a question. Are you comfortable differentiating between single mom by choice and single mom by abandonment or divorce?

Yes, definitely.

Well, in that case, then what the media are talking about is one of those groups, but not all of those groups. And what I want to focus on today, although, of course, because of my great concern about capitalism and poverty, I got right into that.

But what I want to talk about today is what your book is about and what you've been going through, which is

single mom by choice the fact that you were able to do it because you had education because you had the money that's important because you had the earning power and the fact that evidently you could work at home part of the time which is a major thing that we can talk about perhaps if we have time but right but the big thing is you chose what perhaps

Millions, if not hundreds of millions of women are not choosing. They are being abandoned or they're getting divorced and they are bringing up children alone, not by choice. Let's talk about the by choice group, okay? And to begin with, let's talk about, tell us about collaborative reproduction.

Right. So collaborative reproduction is way more than about single moms, but it is about choice. So I think what happened is science created these new ways to produce children. So we could separate, um, you know, procreation from, you know, romantic entanglement or even, you know, physical intercourse and, you know,

Technologies like inter uterine sperm insemination, you know, made it possible or what, you know, the lesbians in the 70s called the turkey baster, you know, made it possible for women to get pregnant either by a doctor, by a midwife, by their partner. But that was a technology that separated sex from procreation.

And then this industry started building up that said, hey, there are these women who are either suffering from infertility, or their partners are suffering from infertility, or they're gay, or they're single. Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Ph.D.

Is it true that you can buy specific kind of sperm? Like you can buy Nobel sperm or baseball player sperm or scientist sperm or artist?

That's getting a little into sort of like the eugenics realm. I do think that a lot of... No, I'm serious.

Are there businesses that sell specific kinds of sperm?

Well, I'm going to be honest with you. There is a sperm bank in L.A. that sells celebrity lookalikes.

Well, thank you for being honest. We want you to be as honest as possible, Rachel.

No horsing around here. No horsing around. I mean, yes. And can you buy, you know, sperm from, you know, kind of elite donors? Yeah, you can. And eggs. I mean, you know, college students, Harvard grads will, you know, sell their eggs for upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. to Egg Banks.

So 100% you can buy, I mean, I don't know how like specific it is, but you know, it's kind of like online dating where you, there are these, you know, databases of profiles of egg and sperm donors out there now that allow you to choose. And so that's collaborative reproduction.

It's a, it was actually a term coined by a lawyer and bioethicist named John Robertson, who called it, Collaborative Reproduction because it was a way of bringing together all these disparate parts and pieces of biology to satisfy the new kinds of lifestyles in which people wanted to build their families.

So, again, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you great.

Well, we're on the topic of the all-important eggs right now, so we're going to stay with it. Professionals or friends? Where do you fall down on that? Or both? What's okay in terms of getting sperm?

You know, that's a big topic in the book. Yes. I am very much not on the side of co-parenting. You know, getting pregnant accidentally on purpose, getting pregnant with a friend as a co-parent, unless you're really have an incredibly worked out relationship and firm contract. But then what does that look like? Kind of marriage?

I mean, I guess if it's like you're gay and he's straight or he's straight and you're gay and I mean, or he's gay and you're straight and he wants to be a dad. I mean, I've heard these stories before of, you know, gay men wanting to become dads and single moms wanting to become moms.

therefore them working out a relationship. I think it really is based on the individual. I feel like from a legal perspective, at least in terms of my personal decision, it was better to go with the bank because there was really no gray areas around paternity.

It left me with the option to find a partner who could play a parental role in my son's life

um it left me with a lot less of a legal gray area uh you know but then again the collaborative part with two people who are co-parents you know it also is in some cases you could argue you know financially more reasonable like if both people are contributing exactly so really in a way what we're saying here Rachel is that

We need new rules because we have rules and agreements that cover people financially when they're married. But here we're talking about people who are getting together. They don't particularly want to get married, but they want to co-parent because they each want a child. So since they live separately, most likely, it's almost like

but better than a divorced couple who are sharing custody.

Because the- In a way, there's no, the acrimony isn't there.

That's right. But as you're pointing out, and rightfully so, if there isn't some kind of contract and maybe a legal contract, then it gets a little squishy for the kids.

It's true. And I also think, you know, paternity, you know, becomes squishy because then like, you know, I had a baby with a gay guy, and that's the dad, and the kid goes back and forth, and then maybe I'm with somebody now, and who is that parent to my child? The man, is he the dad?

Is he the stepdad? I mean, in a way, it's like we need new language to redefine these roles and new contracts You know, to redefine these roles outside of the traditional marriage and outside of the traditional nuclear family.

So once we have the eggs and we have the sperm, then we need housing. So talk to us about surrogates and gestational carriers.

Right. So there's a chapter in the book about a surrogate. You know, it's a it's a tough job. I met a woman, I spent a lot of time with her. And she, interestingly enough, she's a millennial who had absolutely no interest in having children of her own. But she wanted to do as her vocation

The chapter is called Portrait of a Professional Babymaker. Due as her vocation, she wanted to have children for other people and get paid for it. Are we talking about Tyra? We're talking about Tyra.

I read. Tyra, you know, wanted to pay

You know, get paid so she could, you know, be free to travel around the world with her, at the time, boyfriend, now husband. And, you know, so for her, it was a good gig. You know, she was pregnant. She gave this, she grew a baby for a family, generally wealthy.

She, Tyra is also not, you know, poor, but she's definitely not, you know, as wealthy as some of the people that she carries babies for. But, you know, the money allowed her to, You know, do what she wants, which is, you know, to travel the world.

You know, then there is also... Rachel, one second with Tyra. As I recall, didn't she eventually retire from surrogacy after having three and then is she selling life insurance? She is, correct. Well, you know, I had some trouble with Tyra and I'll tell you what my trouble with her is.

Tell me.

First of all, The Predators. The Predators that I talked about in my intro. When they hear, and they already know, that a woman can have three babies in five years, some of those people are going to force women to have babies so they can sell them as a business.

That scared me a bit, but I can't do anything about it. I know that's going to be going on. Excuse me, go ahead.

That's exactly my point is that, you know, there is in this industry, especially on the female side, but also slightly on the male side, there is a deep systemic sexism. Yes. And that is a very important theme of the book that I actually haven't really talked about that much.

But it is indeed a systemic sexism, which is the idea that on the sperm side, the guys can like, you know, masturbate into a cup, walk away and not have any responsibility, you know, and that this industry churns out, you know, sperm and there's an anonymity.

Very important note, there's an article that just was published in the New York Times Magazine that most sperm banks now are realizing the systemic sexism of that policy and of the anonymous sperm donor policy and they are changing their policy meaning that more and more women can meet the donor.

More and more women can do something called an open identity donor, which is actually what I did with my son, which is that he will have the opportunity, you know, the guy has no legal or financial obligations to me, but for purposes of identity and self-understanding, my son will be able to meet him when he turns 18, if he so chooses.

So, you know, I think that's a very important change. I mean, I think they're realizing that secrecy, you know, is not a good psychology. Here, here, here, here, here, here.

Secrecy is not a good policy for us human beings.

It's not so and very, very important. So on the other side of the coin, which is really where the systemic sexism is, is, is, is with the egg donors and with of the Gestational Carriers.

I mean- No, I want you to, for our listeners, I want you to just quickly define the surrogate and gestational carriers so they know what you're referring, how do you do it?

Okay, well, very few people are surrogates anymore. So the traditional idea of a surrogate was a woman that actually got pregnant with her own eggs and carried a baby for somebody and gave up their biological child for adoption, essentially. Gestational carrier, which is the more common route now,

is basically a hauser, like a woman who sells her uterus to hold embryos that are created with either donor eggs or the mother's eggs and the father's sperm. What they call rent-a-womb. Their rent-a-womb. It's rent-a-womb. Yeah. Exactly. But in, you know, and in both of those cases, the women that donate their eggs and the women that, um,

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt on Redefining Family Building for the Modern World Quite intense what the industry does.

And you dropped a very telling quote in your book from Tyra where she talked about, I think you said she was getting $50,000 per child plus perks, clothing, food, various other things. But you also quoted her as saying, something like, I didn't have to go to work. It was easier than going to work.

Right, well I mean... So she looked at it as a job as well as a service, no question.

She was... Oh, 100%, 100%. And it's interesting though because, you know, I find it beautifully poetic because, you know, if you look back to what you were talking about, about, you know, the fact that, you know, and essentially we are tribal people, the work of women's

Raising, you know, having children, the work of pregnancy is truly is a job. And it's a job that is often is very marginalized in our culture.

And, you know, where women are expected to have pregnant, you know, be pregnant, and go to work and then take a very short maternity leave not so their body can heal, and then are kind of looked down on Rachel, I've heard in the last two weeks that maybe a little late learning it,

There are countries in Europe where women get a year or two off and still work.

Yes, Scandinavian countries. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm working with a doctor on a book right now. I'm also an editor, you know, where, like in Mexico, they, you know, give they it's part of the culture for women to take 40 days off in India. It's part of the culture for women to take 40 days off.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt on Redefining Family Building for the Modern World their assembly line.

It's like kind of like, you know, Lucy with the chocolates, like they can't friggin keep up these women with, you know, with donate, you know, their bodies are pushed to donate more and more and more eggs and their, you know, bodies are pushed to have children's and, and they push themselves so they can make enough money.

So, you know, it's, it's, um, I think there's a systemic sexism in that.

I mean, you know, Rachel, Rachel, thank you. I think it's fair to say there's systemic sexism in everything. And we might be wrong once in 500,000 times, but we're right all the rest of the time.

Because from my research and my life of study, it appears to me that the male gender has been subjugating the female gender through all of recorded history, with a couple of exceptions. It's in every manner whatsoever.

I know women have focused on the financial aspect and the glass ceiling, but I had one of my guests point out to me that there's a direct relationship, a correlation between the percentage of the amount of orgasms that women have in the United States compared to men is the same relationship as the amount of money they make compared to men.

Rachel, I've never heard that before, but it might be right.

Well, this was, it's in my book, Freeing Sexuality, and it came out yesterday. You can look it up. There's no question, you know, that I thought she did the research. She didn't just make that up. So it, yes, systemic sexism. Yeah. And we, I think we need a renewed women's liberation movement. Tell me more about that.

Because you can't, sometimes in history, you can't have just a movement and then rest on your laurels. You have to renew it and renew it and renew it. That's why Thomas Jefferson warned us. He said, you've got to write the Constitution again every 20 years because it's a different generation.

And we're hanging out in the same one for over 200 years, although it was wonderful at the time and a beacon to the world. I'm very proud of that. But at the same time, it had its major flaws, like women and people of color.

It is true that, you know, I think that there are more layers of the onion of this systemic sexism that need to be unfurled. Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Ph.D. Still, interestingly, very, very focused on reproductive choice as, you know, having to do with the, you know, abortion.

And I really think that the new women's movement really needs to be, you know, more than, reproductive choice needs to really be expanded into a focus on, you know, choices like mine, you know, LBGTQ plus choices around family building. I mean, that is so much of the new movement. I mean, I think family building.

Yeah. Talk to us more about family building in that regard, please.

I mean, family building is a very important part of life. I mean, it's, you know, and if you are a gay family, you know, you

should have the right to have a family, you know, and now, you know, there's, I mean, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine just came out with a new sort of more inclusive definition of infertility.

I don't think it should be called infertility personally, but, you know, it includes people, you know, who are single and in same-sex relationships and trans.

And and that's a way for, you know, insurance companies that cover these, you know, fertility services that used to just cover them for heterosexual couples are, you know, can now cover them for a broader array of families.

So, you know, I think that is part of the women's movement, because, you know, trans I put trans under the women's movement now. It's a people's equality movement.

That's right. I agree with you. It's people's equality movement, pure and simple, for each person to be able to express themselves in the way that they want so long as they're not hurting another person. Whatever is okay. And that's what it's really about, and that's what the tension in the country is about, I believe.

Because what I've learned from the study of history is that when a country is at war with another country and A wins, all it means is that militarily B lost. But it does not mean that whatever B believed in that was different from A, suddenly all the B people, because they lost militarily, changed their belief system.

They don't. They maintain that belief system until there's cultural change. And so we go down as saying that the North won the Civil War. Well, the North won militarily, but the South didn't give up their belief system. 150 years later, a very high percentage of them still believe the same thing they did 150 years ago.

In fact, some of them even more so because they're upset about the fact that they lost militarily, which also happens in history where you hear about countries going to war again, over something that happened a thousand years ago.

I think Croatia is one of those areas where they keep fighting it out back and forth because the descendants going that far are saying, no, we don't believe in that. And since you ran over us, we're going to run over you now.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's a very divisive time. It's a very divided time. It seems to be more extreme. You know, I guess, I'm not sure what to say about that.

I can head you somewhere. Talk to us about cooperative breeding and alloparenting. What do those words mean?

Cooperative breeding and alloparenting are actually anthropological phrases. And they are, they are across species. So I'm now going to like put my sort of scientist geek hat on. They go back millennia. I mean, it's not like collaborative reproduction with technology, with reproductive science is the modern version of alloparenting or cooperative breeding that, you know, we have.

done as a species and other people have done, other species have done for millennia. I mean, I think it goes back to what you said at the beginning of this radio show is that we are tribal people. I don't think that the nuclear family was, you know, the original family.

I think the original family was the tribe and the tribe was raised children cooperatively. And that's what's known as alloparenting.

There is somewhat of a movement going on now in that direction. It's sort of a combination of the community, communitarian movement of the 60s that has shown up at various times in American history and mixing together with what's referred to as the polyamory community.

It's true. I mean, it's really interesting that there is really in many, you know, I don't even know if to call it countercultural because the New York Times is writing about it. And I don't consider the New York Times countercultural.

You know, yeah, I mean, people, I think, are realizing that there are many different ways to have community and to express love and to, you know, raise children. You know, I think, again, like with collaborative reproduction or co-parenting, you know, there need to be really strong guidelines and rules around this because, you know, I've seen it

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt on Redefining Family Building for the Modern World Rachel Lehmann-Haupt on Redefining Family Building for the Modern World Some would say it leads to more intimacy and more openness.

There appears to be some research has indicated that children do particularly well in polyamorous relationships that stick together because they learn which parent to go to for which particular thing they want to learn. So they sort of have more parents that way. It's an interesting.

It's it is an interesting thing. And I mean, in a way, you could also look to that as tribal, you know, like divorced families, you know, with step parents.

I mean, I have a lot of, you know, friends who are divorced that say, you know, my kid, once we got through the hell, I kind of find it lucky that my kid has four parents.

That's what we're talking about. Let's talk a little bit about the DNA of donors.

Okay, in what specific context?

Well, nowadays, catch us up. Does a woman get to know about the DNA of the sperm donor that she's buying from?

Yes, that is where the anonymity part has really, I think, we've really progressed in this area. You know, I think that women are learning more and more. I mean, there's genetic testing on the sperm now. You know, they test for, you know, genetic anomalies. You know, they understand their genetic background.

I don't know if sperm donors are actually like going through and putting up their 23andMe profiles, but I think they should. You know, I just think the more open, the more information about this piece of biology that you're buying, the more vital. And I'm not 100% sure that, you know, this, you know, a kid needs a dad.

I have really sort of seen that in the success of my own son I mean, maybe, you know, it speaks to my parenting alone, but I have noticed that kids of single moms by choice tend to do very, very well. The moms are very focused on them.

So in a way, you know, in a good way, not like overly focused. And, you know, I've seen a lot of very successful kids that may, you know, be a combination of like the economics and the, you know, the fact that, you know, I think single moms by choice tend to be high achieving people.

So question, a woman's listening to you on this program and she's been thinking about making this choice and she's gonna go and get your book, Reconceptions, but right here and now, what are some of the first things that she ought to do organizationally and towards making this decision?

I mean not just the decision, but in terms of actually, you know, doing the steps that are necessary to make it happen.

She should make sure she has secure housing. She should make sure that she has a secure income. I'm not saying a job. I'm saying a secure income, a way to make a living, whether it's her own company or whether it's a good job. She has to have good health insurance.

um she has to have a financial plan in place you know for whether it's family help i mean i'm gonna you know i i received some help from my parents in the early years uh which was you know i was the greatest gift they could have ever given me

um you know they have to fix she has to figure out child care I mean you gotta do a budget and then you know so there's like the practicalities there's sort of the adulting stuff life of life and then you know there's the it's not easy You know, it's not easy being the sole parent.

It's wonderful in that you have a lot of freedom to make the decisions, but it's not easy to have somebody be 100% dependent on you. I mean, I've really found, and this again goes back to the sort of tribal nature of humans, that I am parenting by committee.

I have a very strong circle of friends, both men and women, around me. that, you know, help in my daily decisions and choices and understanding about how to raise my son. I mean, you know, they're a sort of de facto family in many ways.

So I think, you know, having a community aspect of it, being secure, if you're a very isolated person who doesn't, you know, rely on lean on community, That's going to have to change because you need that. It takes a village.

In my own life, I've done experimental things, as many of my colleagues in psychology do with our families. There are great stories about Skinner and the reward system. With one of my children, For a certain number, a limited number of years, we did a shared parenting by having our daughter with us three months at a time.

So she'd be with one parent three months and the other parent three months. That doesn't mean she never saw the other parent because we got along great, we were friends, but one person is where she lived three months and then she lived with the other three months.

I think, I mean, I'm, you know, this is... As I'm listening to you and thinking about that, one of the things that stands out for me was during my three months, I never dated. I didn't know how to date with a child. I was responsible for the child. So how do I date?

Was I going to hire a babysitter to stay with my child so I could go out on a date and leave my daughter home with a baby? I don't know. It didn't feel too comfortable for me. So I remember that. My three months dating was out.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt on Redefining Family Building for the Modern World

I was talking about a four-year-old in junior Olympic ski school, right?

Yes.

I hear you. You know, I also think there is something, you know, I think about that, what you said about the three-month aspect. I do think that there is something about the grounding in one home. that is very important.

I mean, I see, you know, these kids that go back and forth between two different homes, you know, while a lot of these, you know, divorced mothers and fathers have a lot more money than me and these kids have two houses.

And I do find that, you know, there's something a little bit schizophrenic about that, you know, every three days moving to another house, that sounds challenging for a kid. So I think there is something grounding about, you know, as a single parent, like, you know, staying, the kids, the kids staying in one home.

So Rachel, let's say now a magic wand comes to your hand and you get to wave it and make cultural changes with regard to single mom by choice. What are some of the cultural changes you would like to see?

I mean, total acceptance of it as a choice and, you know, no discrimination against women who are single moms in their careers. Because, you know, I have to say I'm more ambitious and I work harder in my career now that I've had a kid because I have a dependent.

You know, and I think, you know, in that, you know, this is not just a call for single parents. It's a call for all working parents. There needs to be more flexibility. And I think, you know,

One of the great things that came out of the pandemic is the fact that we, you know, we're figuring out that the distributed workplace works. And I think that the distributed workplace allows for more flexibility for all kinds of parents. So that's one thing.

I, you know, I hope for all single moms that they get to find love on the other side. You know, I think we all Love is a very important thing to have in your life.

You get love from your child, but I think, you know, realizing what is important in a partner, it can teach you a lot about that. And, but mostly, you know, just acceptance of all the different kinds of lifestyles. There's no one way that is better.

You know, if you're gay, if you're single, if you're, you know, in a nuclear family, I mean, I think there still is a bit of an attitude in our culture that nuclear families Rachel Lehmann-Haupt on Redefining Family Building for the Modern World

You rightfully jumped right to one of the first things a person has to be thinking of when they're thinking about making the choice of being a single mom is housing, and of course you mentioned insurance, various other things that are all very, very important. How important is it

for the person considering to be a single mom by choice. How important is it that they tell all their friends and their family in advance in order to take the temperature of what kind of support they're going to get or whether they're going to be put down in some way?

I mean, I think one would sense who would support them and who wouldn't. You know, everybody's going to run into the people that don't support them. I mean, there's going to be a discrimination in any community.

I think, you know, but again, that kind of goes back to what I was saying about, you know, kind of creating your committee or your tribe around you. Yeah, you want to know that you have people that have your back and accept you. You know, you want to live in a community that accepts you.

You know, I luckily, you know, live in Marin County, which is a very liberal community that tends to accept me, although You know, does also tend to be very dominated by nuclear families. And I have received my fair share of very judgy comments from married mothers.

Yeah, it's a mixed bag.

It's a mixed bag. I just want to say in two minutes, I have a interview with somebody, a client interview that I need to jump. So are we winding up?

We are winding up. I was just about to ask you if there's anything you wanted to add that you might have thought of if we ended up and you'd say, would you, I just wish I would have said that happened to me just last a couple of days ago.

I interviewed somebody and after I pushed the stop button, he thought of something important that he wanted to say.

No, I think this has been a really, really wonderful conversation. I'm really grateful for you reaching out to me or the introduction between Heath. And no, I mean, follow me on Instagram, rlehmannhaupt. And, you know, if anybody ever needs any kind of book editing or content strategy, brand strategy, you know, help us help support a single mom.

How do they reach you? Rachel, I have a company called StoryMade Studio. So Rachel at StoryMade Studio.

Rachel at StoryMade Studio. Okay, Captain Courageous. Thank you so much for the interview. It's been a pleasure being with you. Wonderful to meet you. And thank you, our gentle listeners, for being with us today on this broadcast of Mind Body Health and Politics.

I remind you that all of our programs, including this one with Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, are archived and open source, which means no fee. You can listen to them for your own enjoyment and education without paying. I remind you also that we broadcast a new program at least weekly at 9 o'clock Tuesday morning, everything else on the archive.

So, until then, oh, one more thing, I almost forgot, I'm so glad. My latest book, Freeing Sexuality, came out yesterday. I hope you all at least take a look at it on the internet, if not go out and buy it. I think it'll give you some thinking to do after you read this book.

Congratulations on your new book. Thank you. Okay, I'm off to my three o'clock. Great to meet you, Richard.

Same here, Rachel. All right, bye. So, until next time, this is Dr. Richard Lewis Miller reminding you that good health is worth fighting for, and it's essential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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