Merle Bombardieri

speaker

191 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 3 Jul

Merle Bombardieri’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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It's Been a Minute · To be or not to be a parent · 3 Jul 2026 podcast

ability to have a really undiluted relationship with your partner if you're in a relationship and so on.

If you decide to be child-free, you're giving up experiencing a baby, maybe seeing what the genes and the appearance and the talents of you and your partner will be like, who's going to be around your table when you're 60.

So what I say is don't ask, will I regret my decision?

Ask, which decision will I regret least?

And what makes this decision work so hard is that because people are trying to make the decision and they want to make the right decision and they're terrified they won't, they have a very unrealistic picture of how they're going to spend the rest of their life.

Regret might be a little twinge, a little awareness here and there, but once they start enjoying and living their life,

they're not going to be thinking about regrets all the time.

And when there are twinges, they can say, well, you know, that's normal, that's human, and we made a good choice and we're enjoying our lives.

But when people think they have to make the perfect choice, they really paint themselves into a corner.

And when people make decisions actively, they feel in control.

They feel like they made a wise choice together.

So when the problems come up, they put them in that context.

Whereas people who have an accidental pregnancy or just drift into being child-free never really have a finite decision.

And that energy of not making the decision is actually exhausting.

So the conscious decision allows people to know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and make the most of whichever life they choose.

38 is great.

I have to caution because if you have reasons to expect fertility problems and you're 30, I would not suggest you wait until you're 38 or you're 39.

But actually, a lot of the people that we work with start having a child at 38 or 39.

You were 18 when you first became an adult.

You've had 20 years to travel, get established in your career, get to know

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