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.

@GabsALot sure, any time! I think in another life I would actually have loved to be the Americanised concept of a “professional organiser”. I did briefly glance at the course for becoming a KonMari consultant!

this thread is proper cray cray.

I think it’s a bit weird to come on this thread just to say that it’s a weird thread 😉

I think it’s an interesting question. Although mumsnet possibly not the best place for it.

Anyway my life revolves around my son and although my pre-child memory is v fuzzy owing to brain shot to bits by years of chronic sleep deprivation, I think pre-kids we mostly ate out, shagged, played board games and did an amazing amount of gardening.

Sex, brunch, go for a walk, sex, cinema, maybe go somewhere expensive for nice cocktails, sex, sit and do nothing, read a book, watch TV, sex, visit museums and galleries, drive out to the coast for the day, cook elaborate meals together which are far more effort than they're worth to actually eat but you have fun learning something new, sex, go for a meander down the shops together, meet friends for coffee, go to the gym, take a yoga class, sex...

Saturday is usually breakfast, farmers market to get food, home to do some gardening, then off out again to do something fun. Often shopping, hiking or a project. Evening is usually dinner and a movie at home.

Sunday generally involves a lie in, a big cooked breakfast followed by the rest of the chores and the grocery shop. After that we usually go out hiking.

Before work I water the plants and then drink a coffee whilst reading the news. After work I usually work out then start dinner. After dinner we often go for a walk then watch any TV shows we're into. We both read before bed.

We do travel quite a bit and we can afford to do quite expensive trips and stay in nice hotels, which we won't be doing when we have kids.

@Lockheart 🤣🤣

Long lie ins, afternoon naps, going out for breakfast/lunch/dinner together or with other couples or other friends independently, days out, national trust properties, DH has a couple of hobbies, I do fitness stuff, gardening, we go to gigs, the theatre, cinema, sit on the sofa watching tv, the list goes on....

We do all the things you would do if you weren't driving children from a to b. Y'know the stuff you dream about doing when the kids finally leave home.....

I can’t imagine what I will do when DDs leave home.
I had DD1 (too) young and am now a lone parent so goodness only knows what life without running around after the girls will be like.
...Lonelier I expect! Well isn’t that something to look forward to.

God we’re doing it wrong I think, we don’t do a huge amount of exciting things, nor do we do much housework.

DP plays sport twice a week so I enjoy one week evening to myself either watching stuff he doesn’t like or reading/pottering in peace. The other evening he’s out I have a standing date for dinner with my best friend. The rest of the week we walk the dog, cook for each other, watch box sets or he’ll go on his computer game whilst I read. Weekends we see friends either together or separately, or drive to the coast or countryside for long dog walks, or walk round the beautiful parks near us and stop at the pub for lunch on the way back, or we’ll go away to visit friends/family. Sometimes we’ll stay home and get drunk together taking turns to choose songs to play and have our own disco in the kitchen, other times we’ll just have cups of tea and watch a film.

We talk about the dog, work, our upcoming wedding, current events/news, stuff going on in our families or with our friends, future plans etc. Or just random ‘would you rather ...’ or ‘what would you do if ....’ type nonsense.

I can't imagine being so consumed by parenthood and family life that you can't even think what childfree couples do with their time! I spend a lot of time thinking about all the things I'd love to do if only I had time to do them!

I don't think this is a weird thread at all.
It's very interesting to ask "what if."
I do sometimes envy child free couples who don't have to spend all their time taking into consideration the needs and wants of children.

I think it's a great question OP. I always wanted children from being very young so I was always imagining life with them. I imagined the whole fairytale wedding, marriage, children, Mary poppins type approach to motherhood during my teens and twenties. At that time I didn't seem to do very much as never had much money.
Now I have 3 children, am single, and have fantasies about what I'll do when they leave home I'm planning on doing lots of travelling and sleeping and hobbies that I don't have the time, money or energy to do now. I have 14.5 hours a week that are child free in theory but I spend most of that time doing things for them or because of them so it's not really free. Mentally it's a 24/7 challenge so I'm looking forward to some proper child free time in my golden years.
My two girls say they'll live with me forever

I did have 48 hours without any of them a couple of years ago. When I was in hospital with a kidney infection and was borderline septic. I slept for most of those 48 hours and wanted to die but still I was concerned with how they children were and how the small one was coping without breastfeeds. I cried at being away from him and would still hate it now. I guess I dream of child free times but the reality is I'd be lost without them and can't imagine a life that doesn't revolve around them. But yes, those golden years are going to be fab so keep the descriptions coming of child free days!

We'd been together 13 years without kids until 12 weeks ago, so here's a list of things I miss doing:

Working - we both have a long commute and get in after 7pm. Up at 6am so not much evening to fill on weeknights.
Freelance work at weekends
Eating out, either as a couple or with friends
Gardening, reading, scrolling through the internet without interruption
Cycling, gym, running
Speaking to my mum on the phone
Doing laundry and putting it away.
Shopping
Exploring new places
Weekends away

DD is only 14 weeks so I can remember our childfree days clearly. We just did 'stuff', watching box sets and films, playing board games, walks with the dog, day trips, visiting friends and family, reading, chilling out in garden, cinema... We had plenty to talk about too. But I don't think one child has to necessarily drastically change life. Since she was born, we've done everything on the above list. And we still chat about non-child things as we still have other interests and things we enjoy doing.

I think there are lots of lazy stereotypes about what being a parent entails. Yes, when you have infant children, it is pretty full on but again, this is more of a shock if pre children you had a predilection for a 'laid back' lifestyle. My youngest has just turned 8, we live next to a train station so often visit exhibitions in London, often eat out at the weekend and my youngest prefers sushi to a burger so it's not all chicken nuggets and chips. This weekend we got up at 9.30 and took a wonder down to the beach, met up with my child's friend and family by chance and decided to go to the pier. Ok, that's a bit more child friendly but I still enjoyed it.

Equally, I visit more national trust places since I had DC, I didn't bother pre-dc. I would imagine the biggest difference is being spontaneous in the evening and not having to worry about playing referee to children arguing.

@LaLaLands, good luck!
I remember these days before DD came along (IVF after 8 years of struggle and treatment), it’s very difficult and draining, not fun at all.

On weekends I'm usually up at 5 to get in my exercise time. We'll have breakfast together, and then I'll do the housework while DW does the supermarkets run. After lunch we relax at home, either gaming or watching a boxset.

On Sundays we usually go somewhere in the vicinity, a local attraction or park or really nice restaurant that might be quite far away.

We usually have a weekend away once a month.

Gigs, festivals, holidays, watch tv shows, go out to eat, order takeaways, have sex, spend lots of time just cuddling and loving each other, we chat, go out drinking with our other childless couple friends, see our families, both work lots of extra hours in addition to our full time jobs, we read books, he plays console games, see our own individual friends, etc.

Child free by choice - in my 40’s.

Love my job and regularly socialise with work colleagues (work in the drinks industry and we have a free work bar). Regularly travel overseas with work and have basically seen and explored the world on someone else’s bill.

We cook together, eat out circa 2 x a week, live a 10 min walk from the River Thames and on a sunny week day we walk to the river and sit and have a birthday of fizz. Run together. We chat about work, life, anything else.... We spend time on our own and with our own friends as we don’t like to be tied at the hip.

We love to travel - popping to New York for a long weekend on Thursday. 2 ski holidays a year and a nice summer holiday.

Do I miss having kids? No. I’m myself and unlike friends of mine who have had kids, I haven’t lost my own identity and I don’t live my life through my children.

We work, watch tv and sleep, have some holidays and walk the dog. We aren’t so different

I'm childless and I'm usually treated in one of two ways.

1. Assumption that I'm rolling in time and money.
2. With pity that I haven't experienced the magic of motherhood 'there's nothing like it you know Guylian.'

The reality is I work 80 hours a week and have very little disposable income. Oh the joys! Second reality is that despite people's assumptions that I'm childfree by choice I'm not. It stabs me in the heart when people make comments like 'there's no moment like it when your baby '. I can't have children and can't afford adoption or IVF. I'm also single. I'm met with pity when I holiday alone. It's that or never holiday.

20% of people are childless and the majority of those people wanted children. It shouldn't be this bizarre thing to need to explore given that it's bloody common. 1 in 5 people. I just wish I was treated the same as everyone else.

What a funny thread. We do whatever we want. And why is it difficult to understand what people without children could possibly talk about? Anything and everything.

The majority of childless people are not childless by choice.

Huh???

@Sarahlou63 - I'm pretty much just going by this:

"But who are the childless and how many of them wanted children? The closest we can come is a 2010 meta-analysis by the Dutch academic Prof Renske Keiser, which suggested that only 10% of childless women actively chose not to become mothers. That leaves 90% of women like Day. Only 9% of that 90% are childless for known medical reasons." link

Granted, I haven't read the meta-analysis. And I know media and social media often gives a different view, although I suspect it's largely because people childfree by choice are comfortable with their decision and don't mind talking about it, and are even proud of it.

I think it’s a strange thread, too. Don’t you know anyone without children, OP?

Maryann1975 for my sins we kept on breeding . Still have younger ones!