Childless couples

[letsgohooray]

I came to the realisation that 90% of our family life involves or revolves around the dc. Either driving them somewhere or organising something for them or getting stuff for them etc. I genuinely want to know what childless couples do when they are not working? I want a breakdown!!! Weekday evenings and weekends. What do you do with your time? DO you spend it with your dp or away on activities? What do you talk about with each other. It is a whole world I can not imagine.

@PurpleDaisies well if you had children you would have even less time and even less money than you currently do!

It can not be disputed that children cost money and harm your earning capacity surely?

I’m not saying that they don’t blue.

It’s a lazy assumption that people without children are all rich with lots of free time.

I remember meeting up after work and going out for dinner, or meeting friends and doing the same. Going to the cinema/theatre without having to think about anything else.
If I wanted to see an exhibition in London I could just go, or indeed anything similar in my home town!

This was on during my maternity leave and I couldn't get to it - it was 24/7 for nearly a month and I couldn't manage it! Without kids I'd've been down there daily.

Blue No it can't but not all childless/childfree couples or individuals are spending their days shopping at Chanel before heading off to their yacht in Cannes.

The cleaning stuff is interesting. What's it like to clean a room and it stay that way for longer than 5 minutes?!

I often say I probably do more housework in one day than my childfree friends do in a week, yet they all have immaculate homes.

I am fascinated by childfree couples who have a cleaner. I often think the cleaner must think they're mad when they walk into their immaculate, spotless home and surely wonder why they're there!

I am fascinated by childfree couples who have a cleaner.

Why? Can’t you imagine two adults working in busy, stressful jobs with other commitments (just not children) choosing to employ a cleaner?

The cleaning stuff is interesting. What's it like to clean a room and it stay that way for longer than 5 minutes?! grin

Ohhh yeh thanks for that! I was contemplating how she said she feels accomplished and I was thinking to myself yehhh maybe I need to get up and do more of that ...

Then I realized you are right. Housework with kids is another mission because it’s a never ending cycle of kids messing up your work and you not realising the fruits of your efforts.

The majority of childless people are not childless by choice.

Huh???

"Up at 5 for one hour’s housework "

So 5 hours' housework a week, plus the time you spend on the weekend doing housework. Why do you have so much housework if you don't have children?

I have an aunt and uncle who are child free. What they do....lots of holidays, italian lakes being a favourite, very active with hobbies, loads of friends from hobbies, great fun to talk to as they read alot and are well informed on everything. They've lots of friends they visit. They seem vvvv busy. Some of my most amazing childhood memories are of these care free and fun couple.

We spend way too much time in bed (and not just for sex, we are big sleepers!), we drink, we listen to music, we travel regularly, go to gigs, eat out. We often work from home together too so are very much in each other’s pockets all of the time but it works. I miss him like crazy when we are apart.

Sunday we were recovering from a couple of days away we so we had a bed day and ate a selection of amazing deli foods, drank champagne, read crap on our phones and slept. It was blissful and is a fairly regular Sunday recovery/treat. We are mid thirties now though and planning children soon so I realise we are likely in for quite a shock!

My aunt and uncle are retired. When not retired they had busy work life as well as hobbies etc

Housework with kids is another mission because it’s a never ending cycle of kids messing up your work and you not realising the fruits of your efforts

Yes! When I clean, it's not with the intention of it staying like that, more an effort for it not to descend into total chaos and filth.

I have a childfree friend who cannot cope with a single thing being out of place. She looked horrified when coming over to my house because I had a plastic beaker visible from my glass kitchen cupboard door instead of just nice wine glasses...her actual words "how do you cope with that?"

Loads of really unhelpful stereotypes on this thread, it's those that make it even harder to be childfree not by choice, obviously im not even doing childlessness right if I'm not climbing mount kilimanjaro or bathing in my spare money. Makes it really tough to not only not have kids but to be disabled, have my career and earning potential limited by my health, not be able to travel, socialising limited etc. when there are so many false expectations of what life without kids is like.

I’ve already explained the housework thing in a follow up post.

In short:

1. This includes EVERYTHING. Every step of the laundry, dishes, house admin, cleaning the car, tidying the garden, meal prepping, stupid stuff like cleaning filters on various gadgets, fixing broken stuff and mending clothes, actual cleaning, and so on it goes.

1. I like everything to be pretty well perfect, as much as it can be. I don’t like clutter or mess.

1. I really enjoy doing the housework. It’s so nice to complete a task. I don’t get that kind of satisfaction anywhere in my career, because the job is never done. It’s very therapeutic to me.

OP, I feel a bit sad for you.

Have you and your husband thought about how to protect your relationship when the children have left? It doesn’t sound like you have much of a foundation at all.

How many coffee shops and National Trust properties can people enjoy, for 20, 30, 40 years

I have DC but I still don't understand this comment.

Unless someone is committing to only visiting National Trust properties to the exclusion of everything else in the world, why would anyone ever be worried about running out of places to visit?

And surely the number of places in the world is the same for people with and without children?

Personally, I don’t understand how you get everything done in under five hours’ housework a week! Like, surely you must have unfinished tasks, dust hanging about, unorganised laundry, recycling not sorted... fine if you don’t mind it, but I do in my house.

Though I look forward to having DC hopefully in the soonish future, I worry about missing the lovely life I have with my DP. We love eating out, cooking for each other, going for coffee, meeting friends, the National Trust, going to visit parks and see the birds, snuggling in bed, wedding planning, photography, encouraging each other in our careers, spending time with family, road trips, planning trips further afield, going to see art... the list goes on! My life feels very full. I imagine this is how many other couples without children feel also.

Hmmmmm. As part of a “childless” couple for 10 years we spent a lot of it trying for children - both naturally and through IVF. After many miscarriages and periods of intense treatment and subsequent grief I can guarantee you that 90% of our time was spent talking about and hoping for a family or indeed grieving for the one we don’t have. The other 10% we had fun and this percentage grew over the years thank goodness. Us childless couples often spent our free time baby sitting family or friends children funnily enough. After all, they need to rest after running around after their children and organising things for them that they need time to rest go out as a couple and, as you point out, look at each other and wonder what they should talk about. Us childless couples came In handy. I can almost Guarantee “childless” couples spend time admiring your parenting methods and saving ideas in case they ever managed to have a family or alternatively they would be discussing how they wouldn’t parent!

Of course you have “child free” couples who choose a life without children but still baby sit and play an active role for children in their lives and they probably discuss parenting too. They probably just enjoy planning adventures and experiences.

What a wonderful colourful life.

Are people on here being obtuse on purpose?

Great thread OP.

Dh and I went away for 2 nights last week leaving the teenagers behind.

It was bloody marvellous. Walked around naked, shagged a lot, drank a bit, no refereeing, no argy bargy.......loved it.

When are they moving out I wonder?

The phrase is child free, not childless
This! Childless makes it sound like something to be pitied.

I love my child free life so much it's putting me off having kids tbh. I always thought I wanted them but looking at my friends with young children doesn't make me broody - it makes me appreciate not having them. Maybe I'll change my mind.

In the meantime, DP and I work a fair bit, cook a lot, drink wine, go to to the theatre, concerts, cinema, films on telly, exhibitions/galleries, see friends, city breaks, play games, just chat, read, listen to music, go to NT properties! All the stuff people with kids do but with a lot more free time. We also have cleaners (we live between two places) because who the fuck wants to clean if they can avoid it?

@sachastark can you come and do mine sometime

I do have a DC but I’ve always ensured I have my own life too, not just devoting every spare minute to being a ‘mum’. Both DH & I have (separate) hobbies & interests, we spend a lot of time volunteering in the community. We don’t actually spend a huge amount of time together, we have plenty to interest ourselves in.

I think it sounds a bit sad if you say you spend 90% of your time focussed on your DC & have no idea what you would do in your free time, your children will grow up & leave home.