Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Children / no children: talking with sister

36 replies

Everythingchanges72 · 16/08/2025 06:33

So I have two children and my sister is child free by choice. We’ve managed to stay pretty close even though we don’t see each other that often (I don’t live in the UK). We are visiting just now, and we usually try to have a night or two staying with my sister and her partner, and leave the children with my parents (they didn’t really have room to host all four of us, plus she and her partner are very particular about their house / possessions. Plus it’s fun to live like a DINKY for a couple of nights).

When children come up in the conversation, things feel really unbalanced, and it’s getting to me.

It’s like it’s fine for her to openly say how fantastic life is with no children (and she for do this, quite openly) but that it would be to insensitive for me to do the same from my side - to talk openly and enthusiastically about how great it is to be a parent and a mum to these two fantastic young people.

DH and I - like most parents - have made sacrifices and compromises along the way to do the best for our kids, and our life looks very different to hers. But I wouldn’t swap it for anything. But it feels mean to tell her that? That all the things she values so highly - super tidy, minimalist house, freedom to travel, never having to compromise, more money - yeah, great but I’d never swap my kids for any of that, not in a million years. But I can’t say that directly, right?

Maybe I am being over sensitive. It just annoys me that she can say how great her life is and why, but I can’t do the same because it would hurt her feelings / rub her nose in the fact she doesn’t have children. I know she’s sensitive about it even though it’s a choice she made for lots of good reasons.

i think it’s come to a head because she and her partner have recently made some big life changes, which they can only do because they don’t have kids, and our lifestyles are about to diverge quite dramatically (not just the kids / no kids, there are lots of other things changing).

I’ve taken the poll off but AIBU to think it’s easier to go on about how great a child-free lifestyle is, to someone who has children, than it is to do the inverse? To go on about how great it is to have children, to someone who does not?

OP posts:
bldy · 16/08/2025 07:53

Neither of you should need to prove to the other that your choices in life - in this case to have DC or say you are child-free by choice - are just so amazing and the best thing ever. I’m inclined to think that people who go on and on about certain subjects like this sometimes means they wish they had the opposite of what they do have in reality.

Agree, my sibling doesn't want dc. We never feel the need to justify our choices to each other.

Dozer · 16/08/2025 07:46

It’s crap to talk lots to you, her sibling (or indeed anyone), about how great an aspect of her life is, when your situation is different and she doesn’t ask about yours.

Doing this back to her by saying things like how much you love being a mum would just be ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’.

It’s not routine or helpful conversation.

Does she rarely show interest in or spend time with her nieces/nephews, even now they’re teens? If so that seems unusual.

Wondering if there’s an underlying problem, eg your views about her, your relationship with her and/or her choices as an aunt to your DC.

If the visits no longer work well for you and/or your DC would perhaps just see her for a shorter time and not stay there.

LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand · 16/08/2025 07:41

"Well Sarah, we're coming at this from very different angles, so let's leave it there"
I don't understand why you would both engage in talk about a subject that bothers you both. It's like pulling off a scab before it's ready. Stop engaging with her and move the conversation elsewhere. It sounds like you are both stuck in childhood roles. .

KPPlumbing · 16/08/2025 07:33

I'm childree by choice and honestly think it's odd that the conversation would ever head in the direction where you're both telling one another how fantastic life is with/without kids.

With my parent friends and sister, when the conversation gets onto kids it's in the form of what they've been doing recently, how their hobbies are going, an update on the recent issue they were having at school, what they've requested they do for their upcoming birthday party etc.

It's the same with me talking about DH to a single friend. I can't imagine I've ever sat there glowing, talking about how wonderful marriage is. Instead the conversation is more "Oh yes he's fine thanks. He's been really busy with work. His mum's having an operation next week. His sister is pregnant. He's back into running again etc etc."

I can't think how the conversation would go otherwise: "What did you do on Saturday?" "I had a wonderful lie in because I don't have kids and it's amazing and restful". "What did you do?" "I took the kids to the park. It's so amazing watching them play, they bring me such overwhelming joy and it's brilliant being a parent"!

Original poster
Everythingchanges72 · 16/08/2025 07:11

MuffinsAreJustCakesAtBreakfast · 16/08/2025 06:49

In the room it feels like just you and your sister.

But remember you have the entire weight of society, media, centuries of patriarchy and governments right behind you reinforcing your lifestyle as the best one

whereas people like your sister are just a few small voices.

that being said, no one should be rubbing anyone's nose in their lifestyles and "going on about it" so to speak. I moved to the countryside village from my crime ridden London suburb but I don't bang on about it to my friends still living there.

You are spot on, thank you for posting.

And yes she’s made that kind of move recently, plus looking at very early retirement and she’s very excited about both of these. So she doesn’t have a lot of headspace for anything else just now.

OP posts:
CircuitMaze · 16/08/2025 07:11

Neither of you should need to prove to the other that your choices in life - in this case to have DC or say you are child-free by choice - are just so amazing and the best thing ever. I’m inclined to think that people who go on and on about certain subjects like this sometimes means they wish they had the opposite of what they do have in reality.

Or, some just like to boast about what they have and, more importantly to them, what they perceive you don’t have compared to them.

Original poster
Everythingchanges72 · 16/08/2025 07:01

Pinky1256 · 16/08/2025 06:47

I think that if she really is childless by choice she shouldn't feel bad about you talking how great life is with your children and how you would never swap them for anything in the world.

Why do you think she's sensitive about it? She should be sensitive about it if she wanted kids and couldn't have them. Has she told you this directly or you are just assuming she will feel bad?

I don’t know for sure, but I know she felt very pushed out because our parents absolutely love being grandparents and make no secret of it. Plus she’s had questions / pressure from relatives in the past. And she’s a fairly uptight, anxious person - I think I do tend to tread carefully around anything sensitive with her.

Also in the past when the children were younger it genuinely was nice to escape to spend a couple of days with her and her partner, having child free time. It’s possible DH and I overdid the gratitude. But now it feels like it’s tipping over into her feeling sorry for poor downtrodden me with my messy little house and having to take the needs of two teenagers into consideration 🙄

OP posts:
disappointedconfused · 16/08/2025 07:01

Doesn’t sound like a choice to be childfree to me if she is so sensitive about it

MuffinsAreJustCakesAtBreakfast · 16/08/2025 06:49

In the room it feels like just you and your sister.

But remember you have the entire weight of society, media, centuries of patriarchy and governments right behind you reinforcing your lifestyle as the best one

whereas people like your sister are just a few small voices.

that being said, no one should be rubbing anyone's nose in their lifestyles and "going on about it" so to speak. I moved to the countryside village from my crime ridden London suburb but I don't bang on about it to my friends still living there.

Pinky1256 · 16/08/2025 06:47

I think that if she really is childless by choice she shouldn't feel bad about you talking how great life is with your children and how you would never swap them for anything in the world.

Why do you think she's sensitive about it? She should be sensitive about it if she wanted kids and couldn't have them. Has she told you this directly or you are just assuming she will feel bad?

GreenAndWhiteStripes · 16/08/2025 06:45

I think YANBU in this specific situation with your sister, and I can see how it's frustrating for you.

But I think maybe you're underestimating the societal pressure that is still strongly to have kids (although not as much as it used to be), which she probably comes up against all the time.

So I think overall you still get the better deal.

Swipe left for the next trending thread