On this special episode, hosts Sarah Saturday and Tarri Driver interview three women who are childless/childfree by circumstance, diving into the delicate and complex experience of those who don’t have children – but not because they didn’t want to. They are joined by Lindsey Bathke, LeeAnn Love, and Chris Svitek.

Joyfully seated into her forties, Lindsey Bathke is currently experiencing love affairs with Mexico City, strolls in the woods, bread and candle making, conversations with depth, morning coffee, piles of unread books, the eating of vegetables, the joy of watching feeding groundhogs, deer, and feral cats in the back yard, and recognizing fear for what it is. She hopes to continue working within the Music Industry as long as it makes her happy, teach English for a spell, and continue to engage with the beauty of the Spanish language. Getting lost and found in foreign countries, Lindsey hopes life brings her more cherished time with family, the awareness to fully engage with life’s moments, the willingness to embrace the joy of missing out, and to wildly live into wherever life takes her.

LeeAnn Love, a Tennessee native, has been a visual artist and writer from as young as she could hold a pencil. She has dedicated her life to storytelling and meaning making through the arts. In 2007, LeeAnn earned her master’s degree in Expressive Therapies at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Upon returning to Tennessee in 2010, she created Heal with heART, her art therapy and counseling private practice and founded MyCanvas, a successful mobile youth community art therapy initiative, which served at-risk youth, both through workshops and exhibitions, in the greater Nashville area until 2021. Currently, LeeAnn continues to supervise new art therapists and consult with the Healing Arts Project Incorporated (HAPI) to provide art therapy workshops for adults who are in mental health and addiction recovery. LeeAnn Love’s expressive, mixed media landscapes investigate the complex interplay of layered color, movement, and impermanence. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ClearStory Arts in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Gallery27 in Dunbar, Scotland. LeeAnn has spearheaded several community mural projects in the greater Boston and Nashville areas and was selected as the Artist in Residence in Williamson County Schools in 2017. LeeAnn’s work has been published in East Lothian Life and Clover + Bee magazines. LeeAnn recently completed a Mind-Body coaching training and has begun weaving somatic coaching into her individual sessions and workshops. In her childless life, she enjoys exploring the delicate intricacies of nature and balancing her creative life in both Nashville, Tennessee and East Lothian, Scotland.

Chris Svitek is a scientist at heart with a love for words and conversation and helping people see their worth! Raised in western Pa, Chris moved to Nashville several months after graduating college and has worked at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for almost 39 years. She has worked in medical research for much of her career but in the last 5 years, has settled into a job as a safety officer on the Biosafety Team at VUMC. This has allowed her to use her many years of research experience to help others work safely in their research endeavors. If you’ve known Chris for even a minute, you know her dogs are pretty important to her. They are part of her passion for rescue animals. She also enjoys writing and is active in her church.

Recorded on Jan 16, 2025

Find LeeAnn Love online:
Website: leeannlove.com
Instagram: @leeannlovestudio
Facebook: LeeAnn Love Studio
Substack: @leeannloves

Find more about the Letters project at letterstoourunbornchildren.com

This episode introduces the next of 12 letters from their collaborative visual arts project “Letters to Our Unborn Children: An Exploration of a Woman’s Decision to Remain Child-Free by Choice.” They discuss the “Seeker” archetype behind the Letter, and share their research and insights around the themes in the letter. They also interview Orna Donath, author of “Regretting Motherhood: A Study.”

Orna Donath is an Israeli sociologist, lecturer, writer and feminist activist. She teaches at Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurr-Yawn University, and the Academic College of Tel Aviv Yeah-Fo. Her field of study focuses on the social expectations projected on women, both those who are mothers and those who are not, especially by choice. Her first book, published in Hebrew in 2011, is about Israeli women and men who do not want to be parents. Her second book, Regretting Motherhood, is a first-of-its kind study, published in several languages in 2016, is the result of a series of interviews with Israeli women.

Recorded on Nov 17, 2024

Find more about the Letters project at letterstoourunbornchildren.com