Childfree by choice #6 Sleeping well at night, petition for childfree flights

[ATV2021]

This is not happiness to me. This is pure hell

 

[shadowcat5]

“Adults would take whatever couch was free”

what like a holiday to zante at 18? No thanks mate.

 

[Pebbleybeach]

I read in the paper a while back a woman who had tried everything to conceive and did eventually, only to find she hated every minute of being a mother but she couldn't send "it" back . Quite brave to say actually - she's probably been lynched by now.
I was designated by family to look after my sister's child as I was 1) on leave from work and b) a woman. That 3 weeks put me off kids for life. I was knackered when I returned to work ,

I’ve seen that a few times. There was a post on Reddit around Christmas by a woman who had ivf to have her child and she said if she knew then what she knew now she wouldn’t have spent years and £££ having the child. She was so focused on having a baby she didn’t consider actually having it would be harder than the process to get pregnant because everyone only talks about the good things.

There was a post on mumsnet after Christmas where the woman posting said she was really upset because Christmas wasn’t magical it was hard and stressful etc and she hated it but she remembers as a child Christmas was magical and everyone always told her Christmas with kids is magical. It was sad for her but how did she not realise it’s magical for the kids who get all the results of the hard work the parents put in!

 

[whocarez]

My friend has taken to posting daily baby and toddler photos in the group chat and is umming and ahhing about taking up her work’s informal offer to eventually up her hours to full time because she’ll see the kids less.

These aren’t her kids.

They’re her niece and nephew.

omg I love my niece but sometimes i visit when I know she's napping or gone to bed so I can have a conversation with my sister and not be listening to screeching.

My sister says oooh it's a shame she's just gone to bed

 

[pinkmug]

To be fair I think some people are very maternal. That ain’t us though

I have no issue with parents in general, if someone wants to dedicate their life to their child, that's their choice and godspeed. What gets on my nerves is when some act like their way is the only way and anyone who chooses a different path is somehow beneath them.

If parenthood is a virtue signal for someone, I will go ahead and feel sorry for their kid because it's not about the child or the family, it's about compensating for other things that are lacking.

 

[really_whythough]

It’s not even just the ‘having a baby’ bit (which itself sounds horrific) but as a parent you (hopefully) then have - technology obsessed tweens, hormonal teens, young people going out in to the world knowing really nothing about what’s about to hit them and keep hitting FOREVER. Adult children who are just out there doing god knows what at any time.

I have friends of friends who are just living actual nightmares having become parents. Fully disabled children which as joyful and worthy of love as they are, limit your life and your family’s life substantially. An adult only-child passing away at New Year. Single retired Mum understandably distraught.

I know it sounds dark but if the biggest grief I’m setting myself up for is for my own waning fertility (which I’m not currently AT ALL bothered by but you never know what hormones or time might do to me!) then I think I’ll keep focusing on the positive things I’m enjoying and achieving in my life and nurturing my inner child.

That way I feel happier and more able to give help and love in my, not entirely child free, community.

 

[Chandler Bing]

Shopping centers during Christmas time are worst. Kids screaming their heads off, running all over the place, crying. Not for me. Headache inducing. I still wonder how in this day and age some parents want multiple kids.

This is why I do all my Christmas shopping either very early in the year or online! Absolutely no chance of me going to a shop this time of year.

Someone put on FB this morning a photo of their kid, during the night he had moved the entire contents of his room into the bathroom. Proud mum posts it on FB 'cos it's funny'. Nope, not funny in the slightest. If it were my kid I'd have committed murder suicide by now. Absolutely zero tolerance for that kind of s**t.

 

[JoeBloggs]

Thread on reddit you folks will be interested in - someone has posted asking if others have noticed more parents bringing kids along to events.

I can't post a link but here is what she has written:

"Over the past few years I’ve noticed more and more other parents bringing their kids along to events that would normally be adult only.
I’ve been too a few dinner parties over the last few years where a couple will bring their kids along and then spend the whole time fussing over them. Celebratory dinners too for new jobs or whatever. My husbands friend brought along his two year old on a night out in Newcastle and then to watch Forest play the next day back in august. Im not talking about hosts of these events I mean guests just turning up with their kids. Saw a coupe refused entry to a wedding last summer because it was a child free wedding but the guests thought two kids wouldn’t make a difference.
This brings me on to what made me ask this question. On Sunday I’m going on a hen do, an air bnb with spa days, adults indoor play and then night events which includes raunchy games and sexy waiters. Not child friendly activities. Well, two of the party have announced they will be bring their kids along. One woman has a one year old she’s bringing and the other has a 3 and a 4 year old. What a way to ruin the two nights away!
I’m 38 so have been to loads of events over the years and no one brought their kids until the last few years!"

I have a lot of opinions (shock!) but mostly, I cannot possibly fathom why you'd want to bring a child to a hen party. I don't even want to be at a hen party!

People have some obsession that their kids are loved by other people and an extension of themselves.

Unless you are specifically invited you don’t go, no exception for kids. If I was the bride I would be fuming.

 

[hannah123]

I’m one of 7 kids and only 1 of 3 that doesn’t have children, it’s Christmas next week and it’s only after I’ve text my parents about visiting me on boxing day that I’ve organised to be seen by family over the holiday period and I know a large part of it is purely down to me not having kids. I live in a different city to the rest of my family, they all still live back home, but I was the only child to go to uni and I’ve stayed living here. My parents see my other siblings and their grandchildren at least once, maybe even twice a week. I see them a handful times of the year, but who gets ignored because they don’t have any grandchildren for them? Me. I will eventually have children, but it’s so frustrating to feel you’re being ignored like there’s no reason to see me. I was planning to stay at mine with my partner and our pets and would have had people round here, my dad said every year that he wanted someone else to cook for him, but I didn’t even get asked what I was doing never mind be invited or be able to invite others. For my nieces birthday party my mum turned up early, left late and cleared her entire weekend for the birthday. My siblings left the entire day free for the party but one has ignored my message about seeing each other and another has said just said they can’t with no suggestion for a different day. I guarantee if I had kids this wouldn’t be happening. It’s the same bollocks as when I got my qualifications, I got a degree, a masters and spent 3 years training in my field doing exams and I didn’t get so much as a well done from some of my siblings, if I had 5 minutes of shit sex and ended up with a small human I’d have cards showering me with congratulations.

This is such a long post of me venting about how basically childless people in their mid 20s are invisible in a family of siblings with children.

 

[judgejohndeed]

I know a tonne of couples who got married in the last two years and within a year they’re pregnant. Even if I wanted kids I wouldn’t do it that quickly, don’t they want to enjoy just being married for a bit first? I don’t get it

 

[witchofwestbyfleet]

someone told me i'm getting to the age where i should 'really be' thinking about having kids.. i'm fucking 21

i'm really not arsed about kids, 90% sure i don't want them, but things like that do upset me

It is really absurd how many people think anyone and everyone should have a baby regardless of how young they are, being in poor health, etc. On one of the feminism-related threads here there was a poster who knew someone with a severely disabled teenage daughter who has no chance of ever living on her own or supporting herself - much less a baby. But social services told her parents that when she reached 18 she should no longer have the contraceptive implant (which was to stop her periods because she could not cope with them) as she "had a right" to have a baby!

 

[JoeBloggs]

“parents: not everything is about you” needs to be the next thread title

i noticed that too in his insta comments, like he wrote an honest and frank article about why he doesn’t want kids, doesn’t think they would fit into his life, would mean he would have to give up things he enjoys….. and there are parents commenting like “yes know exactly where you’re coming from! people ask me when i’m going to have my seventh child all the time!”

why do parents want so desperately to be included in everything?! it’s like if we all went and joined a mother and baby group.

Because being a parent is their whole world, personally and life. How dare they be excluded!

It is so draining, stay in your lane. This is our conversation and as the articles explains we do not a parents point of view.

 

[rosemarina]

Oh god, so embarrassing, putting that on LinkedIn. Cringe.

 

[Tabitha]

I’m new to this thread so I don’t know if it’s ever been bought up but r/breakingmom on Reddit is the best form of contraception for me. Thought today would be a good day to read it, so many moms complaining that they did not get one gift! Zero, zilch under the tree for them! Imagine all the time and money invested into others and you don’t even receive a simple kind gesture of a small gift for Christmas. One son said he spent the money on pizza instead.

Not sure if we’re allowed to share Reddit posts here but also appreciated a post yesterday about a woman who was fed up because her husband/baby daddy’s kink is having her fart in his face.

 

[shadowcat5]

It reminds me of when someone who is suicidal gets asked 'what about your family?'

These people never stopped to think that my family may have actually been the reason I had mental health issues in the first place

 

[Satisfying Click]

Also you’ll die all alone rather than gathering your kids around your death bed (because everyone dies like rich women in period dramas) and traumatising them by making them witness you die.

I might hire a group of paid actors to sit around my deathbed. That actually sounds quite cool, will also ask them to do some Shakespeare

 

[pinkmug]

A little bit off the current conversation, but I went to my works Christmas do last night. I was talking to a male colleague and he asked me if I had children (we were talking about Vagas so nothing related!) I said I didn't and he replied that he just assumed I would. I said I have a dog. He then started asking why I did have children?! I was so shocked I just blurted out "because I fucking hate children" then tried to backtrack to a more polite (god knows why) tactic of explaning that I'd never felt the urge for kids. He still didn't get the message and started asking what my husband and I do with all our free time like he absolutely could not believe that we had so much time on our hands!! It was the way that he said it like I must have a completely empty worthless life without children to occupy my free time!! Like what the actual?! Then he started asking if my husband likes football and could not believe it when I said no, he doesn't like any sport. He was incredulous! I was so upset I made my excuses from the conversation and left the party.

My previous job was at a company where having dogs not kids was the norm so I never encountered this kind of thing before so have been a bit blasé about people challenging me on my lifestyle choices before. I clearly need to think of some better responses to idiots like this!

This is shocking, I'm sorry you had to deal with this.

I just say I don't have kids and don't want them, but if someone keeps pressing on, I just attack back with 'Why do you want to know something so personal, why do you ask?' and keep asking until they drop the subject. Usually they act like they've been victimised by some crazy radical feminist (lol) but I couldn't care less about bruised egos of tactless people. Ours is 'our' decision but what if it wasn't? Plenty of people are childless due to infertility, medical issues or loss, it's a difficult subject for a lot of them. It's just rude.

 

[DCICassieStuart]

Completely agree on restaurants. I was a child in the 80s and if we were taken to a restaurant we were always on our best behaviour, having being warned in advance!
I hate going out and spending my hard earned money on a meal and not being able to enjoy it because there's a screaming, noisy rugrat at the next table whose parents completely refuse to tell them to be quiet and to behave themselves, and don't even get me started on kids using devices in a restaurant with the sound up as high as it can go and no headphones

 

[OatMatchaLatte]

I’ve had to leave the Elle Darby / Elle Swift threads, as she’s pregnant and EVERYONE is just discussing their own pregnancies/children and being unable to get pregnant etc etc. Like make your own threads for that please

SAME HERE!!!! It's SO tedious.

Not sure how to quote two posts at once, but I also agree about everywhere being made into a playground. We're also expected to give children the priority in these places. I want to look at something a child wants to? Tough luck, I should let them do it first. I want to do one of the experiments in the Science Museum? Ok, but only if Little Johnny has had his go first.

 

[LaBlonde]

I am struggling to see what this post adds to this thread exactly? Why would we want to find a post about our own thoughts and feelings that we have already said on here. What is it that you are trying to achieve? I am not trying to be mean but this thread is for us at childfree people to post about in a safe place, not for parents to come and tell us how we should feel.

exactly

the flip side is one of us going into the new baby/toddler thread and trying to give advice there. it isn’t our space to do so and we all respect that. it would be nice to have that respect repaid sometimes! i don’t get the sudden parent influx we’ve had recently.