Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver.

I am childfree by choice. That is allowed. Not only is it allowed, it is wonderful, as is the choice to become a parent. Both of these options are equal in validity, dignity, and value. While there are certainly reasons why we’ve devolved into a place where women are discussed as sentient incubators and abortion is no longer considered essential women’s healthcare, I’ll never be able to settle my nervous system around the fact that men think they can control what does not belong to them. As a single woman who wants a partner and for 17 years hasn’t been able to find one and as woman who wouldn’t want kids even if she had a parter, my silence doesn’t serve anyone today. At least no one whose company I enjoy.
Last week JD Vance gave a speech at the March For Life, which is yet another way the right wing fights against things that are no threat to them. Rather than stew in my own frustration about all the good they could do for the nation they supposedly serve with all the time and energy they spend taking away people’s rights and safeties, I’d like to assure anyone reading this newsletter who happens to be childfree by choice that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. The federal government you pay taxes to thinks otherwise, so I think it’s important to offer my community a moment of fucking sanity.