Ask Alexandra December 2013

1) Firstly, I enjoy your movies…big fan. I am 39 years old and have been married to a wonderful man for 8 years now. I love being married and we have a happy and active life together. We get a lot of pressure from family and friends about having children. they call us selfish and tell us we will regret our decision to remain childless. Did you receive similar pressure and how did you deal with it? Thank you.

Antoinette Paolini Lepre

Hi Antoinette,

I am so sorry you are getting such pressure from your family and friends. I can tell you that Ian and I have been together for 18 years, and we do not regret being child free. We are extremely happy! We are still incredibly in love and we have a very great balance of work, romance, volunteering, sports, friends and family. I sometimes have the odd moment where I wonder “What if?”, and I know I am missing a lot of things that parents experience (both good and bad), just like those couples that do raise children are also missing things we are able to accomplish because they are raising children. Life is a trade off!

I did not get pressure from my family to have children. I have been called selfish to my face by two people, neither whom knew me well. It hurt my feelings, but t my views on overpopulation are so strong that I cannot in good conscience bring a child into the world. Your decision to not have a child (or three) actually makes it better for everyone else’s kids, since the world population is over 7 billion and is growing by one billion every 13 years.

The people who call you selfish for not wanting to have children are disrespecting the extremely difficult job of raising kids. Why would they want to force anyone who does not really feel called to be a parent to do the most important job in the world, rearing offspring? The only folks who should do this very special task are those who are excited and motivated to be parents. Everyone else should concentrate on making the world a better place in other ways.

I find it curious that Society makes people who choose not to be parents justify their choice to be child free, but does not ask parents to justify their very important decision to bring children into the world.

There are profound beautiful moments with children that we, the child free, will never know. Studies show, however, that couples who are child free are happier together and with their lives than those with children, at least (ironically) until parents’ kids are out of the house. In an already overcrowded world, I know that my decision was the right one for me. It sounds like it is the right one for you and your husband too. I would just tell the people who criticize you that it hurts your feelings that they think you are selfish, but that you are very happy. Tell them that loving you means accepting and respecting your life choices, just like you accept theirs.

Best of luck,

Alexandra

2) What about the B-Team? Is there something coming up??? I am still a huge fan of Baywatch and was really excited to find the B-Team website 🙂

Greetings from Austria
Nici

Hi Nici,

The B Team is an action comedy feature film starring 8 cast members from Baywatch. Go to www.meetthebteam.com to find out who is involved! It is a very funny script and we have a terrific director, Chris Cottam, attached. We are currently securing financing and finishing casting.

I am so fortunate to have worked with such awesome people on Baywatch, and so many of us are still friends. I recently saw Kelly Slater and Jaason Simmons , got rocking holiday cards from David Chokachi and Kelly Packard, a New Year’s text from Michael Bergin and an email from Jeremy Jackson – and that was all in the last 10 days!

I look forward to working with so many of my Baywatch costars again… stay tuned….

Alexandra