Bella DePaulo

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’m 70, I have always been single and I always will be. I do not have children and never wanted to. I’m a social scientist (PhD, Harvard) with about 150 scholarly publications, but my real passion is researching and writing about single people and pushing back – with data – on all those deficit narratives of single life. I’m not just saying that single life can be fine; I’m saying that for the single at heart, single life is way more than fine. It is our best life – our most joyful, meaningful, fulfilling, and psychologically rich life. The risk to us is not what we would miss if we did not put a romantic partner at the center of our lives but what we would miss if we did. We wouldn’t get to live authentically, to be who we really are.
 

I’ve been writing the 'Living Single' blog for Psychology Today since 2008. My TEDx talk, 'What no one ever told you about people who are single', has been viewed more than 1.7 million times.

My first book about single life was Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. I am most invested in my most recent book, Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life. It includes a chapter on the role of children in the lives of the single at heart, Chapter 6, 'Our kids, other kids, no kids'.

Happily, that investment has paid off. Single at Heart won a gold medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Excerpts have appeared in Time magazine, Goop, and Next Avenue. It was named one of the best books of December 2023 (the month it was published) by AARP and Ms. magazine. I’ve been interviewed for dozens of radio shows and podcasts, and I appeared on TV to talk about Single at Heart on PBS, NBC (twice), and The Social (like The View, only nicer because they are Canadians). You can find all my media appearances, and more information about me and my work, at my website.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B?
I’ve done academic writing my entire professional life. I write academic articles about single people, but for me, that was not enough. My affirming view of single life is something I wanted to share way beyond academia. My focus now is on writing books such as Single at Heart, blogs such as 'Living Single', and articles for many newspapers and magazines.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
Ideas are all around me! Many come from the ways single people are stereotyped, stigmatized, marginalized, and targeted with discrimination (what I call “singlism”), even by people who consider themselves open-minded and would be appalled at the thought that they are at all biased. I am also inspired by single people who are living their lives fully, joyfully, and unapologetically. Many of their stories are in Single at Heart.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
Writing is easiest and most engaging for me when something happens, or there is something I’m thinking about, that I just have to write about. For example, I was participating in a debate on NPR with a person who said that maybe singles were treated unfairly in the past, but he didn’t think that happened anymore. Wow! That just set me off and I immediately wrote a blog post critiquing it.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
It gives me clarity about my own ideas. Even more rewarding is when people read writings such as my Single at Heart book and tell me how meaningful it was to them to learn about such a positive perspective on single life. I also love when they tell me that they, too, are single at heart.
 

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
Seeing my work in print has been validating, so I guess you could say it changed how I view myself. Much more gratifying, though, is when readers tell me that my work, such as my Single at Heart book, changed the way they view themselves. Single people often tell me that after reading my book, they feel proud to be single, rather than defensive.

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As for not being a mother, I’ve been shamed for not wanting that. (I told one of those stories in Single at Heart.) However, when other people are not judging me for it, I’m not self-conscious about it, so seeing my work in print has not had a big impact on that.
 

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
I’d like to think they understand it better. If any of them wondered whether I ever felt badly about not being a parent, then after reading my work, they would have an answer: not at all. In fact, I feel proud of myself for resisting the pressure to have kids when I knew it wasn’t for me.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
Of course, it could be better. More so than in literature, I’ve been noticing changes on TV and streaming. It used to be, I think, that if you wanted to find a strong, interesting woman who did not have children, did not have an issue about it, and did not have other people giving her a hard time about it, you could look to detective shows. (There’s some of this in literature, too – I love Tana French’s The Trespasser.) But now, more and more, the women detectives on TV have kids and often a spouse, too. I prefer the shows and literature with childfree protagonists.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
I think they often assume that stories about people who have children, or who aspire to have children, are more relatable to more potential readers. I’m not denying that market, but too much of a focus on them overlooks all the readers who want something different and all the writers willing and able to provide that from their own personal experience.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I’m continuing to write about single life, and life without children, for my 'Living Single' blog at Psychology Today – I’ve been writing it since 2008. I am continuing to write other blogs, articles, and essays too. As for books, for now I am just totally enjoying having Single at Heart out in the world, and I’m going to savor that for a while longer before I even consider writing another book.

More generally, I plan to continue living my single life fully, joyfully, and unapologetically, and I hope other single people are inspired to do the same.