Fabulous Childfree Women, please tell me to bring meaning into my life.

[MoonbeamSprinkles]

I was always on the fence about having children but for a whole host of reasons I’ve recently made the decision not to have them.

But for some reason this has put me into a bit of a tizz.
It’s like because I’ve made the decision I now need to make sure I have the most FABULOUS child free life ever.
Like I have to prove that my life is wonderful so people don’t feel sorry for me.

All of my girl friends are having babies at the moment and I feel really left out. I get a pang whenever someone says they’re pregnant, it’s not jealousy it’s more like grief that they are going to another life stage and leaving me behind. I’m sad that I’m losing my friend.

I have brilliant friends who have babies but it’s like we’re not walking in sync in the way we used to. I still love them, they love me but it’s just different.

Also I am extremely lucky in that I have a job I love and am proud of, that brings me a lot of joy.
I only work at the weekends and in the evenings so I spend a large portion of the day on my own. I spend most of the time in the gym but all the people there are either retired or have small babies so I’m a bit of anomaly.

I want a bit of excitement. My life is wonderful and I feel so ungrateful for saying this but I think I’m a bit bored.

I also feel sad that I’m not going to give my parents or my in laws the grandchild I know they are desperate for.

If you’re child free how do you deal with these things and what do you to make your life fabulous?

I think you might need to reframe your thinking. You have intrinsic value whether or not you have children. You are enough. Look within, find your value and stop looking outside of yourself. Also, travel and cats.

Ha! I definitely have cats.

I used to travel loads but the pandemic and a very poorly cat has meant I haven’t been able to as much recently.

I’m childfree but this isn’t the best platform for finding childfree women 😄
There’s plenty of fb groups and pages for us. I don’t justify myself to anyone, you don’t need to either.

Oh is there???
Do you have any good ones you recommend?

It sounds like you need to broaden your experiences, maybe take up a new hobby/sport/learn a language? Something which gets you meeting different folk.

That said, this weird thing where child free women (rarely men!) are expected to justify their existence is total BS. If you're not happy, definitely change it up. But if you are happy just doing your job and going to the gym, then what's wrong with that?

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head that I feel like I have to justify having a fulfilling life and maybe I just need to not try so hard.

I’ve tried joining groups but they all seem to happen in the evening and the weekend or be aimed at retired people.

The reality is that my job is really sociable, I run events which I love but it means that I meet maybe 100 people a month so I don’t have much social battery left for the rest of my life.

What I really want is that closeness you used to get from flat mates where you could just watch telly and go about your life together but not have to do small talk.

In an ideal world I’d just have a companion to come to the gym with me.

Yeah don't fall into the trap of feeling you have to justify your existence or be constantly having glamorous / daring adventures etc or 42 different hobbies to "make up for" not having children. Your life is perfectly valid without them.

But as PP said if you're bored, look at ways to address that. Surely not everything near you can be aimed at retired people. Have you had a look at Meet Up?
I know what you mean about that sort of work taking a lot of your social energy though.

Maybe have a look at sites like meetup etc, or could do volunteering at something reasonably active (for example we have some farms in East Anglia which are run for disabled people) as you might get a younger demographic? Or just try a few things, for a month each and see what they folk are like?

But you're enough, you don't have anything to prove.

Well it’s more about what you want. You don’t have to do anything to appear a certain way.

What matters is that you are happy. What would you like to do ?

I assume you haven’t felt the need to justify your existence up until now? What’s changed, other than deciding not to have a child?
I’m pushing 55, don’t have children and haven’t ever felt that I’m less of a woman because of it. Being you and being happy is enough.

What makes you think that childfree women owe you interesting?

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this recently. There's such a preconceived notion about what a Fabulous Single Life looks like... holidays and great careers.

For me, I really don't want to go on holiday alone, and promotion for me would mean so much more stress. I don't want that either.

I keep reading 'advice' that says you have to make yourself happy, and I don't know about you, but that's all I ever do! I don't do anything with the purpose of making myself cross. Life is good, but I know it would be better with a good partner.

I'm really sorry if this isn't what you're looking for, but for me, I am accepting that I am lonely and would like a partner. I am grieving the relationships I haven't had and thought I would. I am grieving the babies I might never have and I'm grieving being a young mum.

I don't really know how I'm doing that, but giving myself a little bit of compassion has made the load a little lighter.

You are having a good life.
You have no obligation to provide grandchildren for parents/in laws - this is your decision, & none of their business.
You can do anything you want re work, travel, hobbies etc.
You can truly enjoy the solitude of your time alone - it is a great gift.
You will have far fewer stresses & worries in life than your friends with children.

Being childfree is brilliant, but it's understandable that you have doubts when all your friends are in the baby phase. When I was 35 I would feel terrible when someone told me about a pregnancy. Now - 20 years on - I think that was probably a combination of social conditioning & hormones! I am now just so relieved that I didn't fall for the pressure to reproduce that is put on women. Whatever you want to do is fine - it's your choice.

There's a lot of societal pressure to have children and all our life transitions & celebrations are based around following a certain format, eg. Marriage, mortgage, kids, etc. Being a child-free unmarried woman is a liberation from all of that in my view. When I decided not to have kids, all the preconceived ideas about what I was 'meant' to do began to unravel. But I do think it takes courage to go against the grain. There's no laid out format to follow and that's a bit scary!

Personally I've never lacked a sense of purpose of drive and rarely feel bored. I love things like writing, drawing and hiking - all of which become much more difficult when you have kids. I think the experience is different for everyone but I know that not having children is the right path for me. I undertook several months of counselling to work through my uncertainty and the societal pressures around motherhood, so if you can afford it then I recommend doing that even if it's just a few sessions.

I’m very happily childfree by choice, with absolutely no regrets. I don’t feel any need to explain or justify this to anyone, and I couldn’t care less what anyone else (apart from DP, obv) thinks about it. My parents were upset about the fact that I would not be presenting them with grandchildren, but it’s my body and my life and my decision and they just had to deal with it.

Most people want to be parents, this is normal for human beings. Good luck to them. I am not ‘most people’ and I don’t want to be.

What do you truly want from life?

Imagine yourself at age 50 - what are you doing in a perfect day?

Describe your perfect weekend day at age 50. (this is from a book I read, it's an exercise and it really helps)

I never wanted kids & my brother helpfully provided the grandchildren.

I love my tech career, I’ve got a lot of friends & I’m deeply involved in feminist campaigning. Some of my friends have kids & some don’t, all fine. If someone suggested that I had to justify being childfree I’d just laugh at them.

I warn you though OP, you will get people on this thread telling you how kids have enhanced their lives and you will get some wide eyed idiot asking why non-mums are on Mumsnet. At which point we all shout BINGO!!!!!

I think feeling you have a fabulous single life is as undesirable as trying to be the perfect mother.

Just focus on building a life you enjoy. Working unusual hours is a particular challenge, but to build other streams into your life, think about what you are curious about. If you do things that interest you or that make you curious eventually that will lead to purpose and relationships.

It’s great that you love your career, but if it’s really stopping you building up the rest of your life, you may need to pivot a bit to improve the hours.

Just live life the way you want! What do you enjoy? Get out there and do it!

Oh my goodness.

Thank you all so much, these answers are all so helpful and I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Someone asked what’s changed and it is literally making the decision.
Before there was this other life that I might have once children are born but now there’s no reset, or other life this is my life.

I suppose it’s a bit like a midlife crisis.

It feels like there’s no space to talk about either, if you’re going to be brazen enough not to have children then it feels like you can’t talk honestly about the big feelings around that.

It feels like a little grief for the lives I didn’t lead.

Same boat here!! Following for inspiration

The only way anyone can addd meaning to their lives is to be happy. If you’re on your deathbed miserable and full of regrets your life has been meaningless. So you need to work out what happy is for you. Where do you want to live, who do you want to spend your life with, what job do you want to do, kids or no kids, pets or no pets, do you want to volunteer, do you want no hobbies or lots, do you want to be knowledgeable about a topic, learn a new skill, try food from other countries, read 1000 books, watch 1000 films, sleep loads or be up with the birds. Everyone will have a different idea of happy, work yours out and do it.

I work in the mining sector, so with loads of very macho and old-fashioned men. When I was in my early 20s, a (male) senior leader I was working with said “I hope you have kids soon. Women don’t really live a full life until they have children.” I was absolutely floored. I could not believe someone would think that way, or dare say it. But actually, I’m glad he did, because it opened my eyes to the MANY ways that society tells us this, even if it tends to be much more subtle. It sounds like you’ve internalized a lot of that message, and feel like you need to prove your worth to the world. I assure you, YOU DO NOT.

Obviously based on my username, I do have kids, and I adore them. But they didn’t make me who I am or any rubbish like that. I think there are many forms of healthy adult-adult and adult-child relationships that have nothing to do with parent-child relationships, and these should be talked about more and more highly valued.

I wonder if you’d benefit from a bit of therapy to process some of your feelings around your decision. I don’t think it would necessarily take long, but it could help you articulate for yourself what you want to do with your life and what sorts of relationships you want to have, while taking away the sense of pressure to “prove to the world” how great your child-free life is. You really don’t need to justify yourself, and should not make yourself miserable feeling like you do!

The only way anyone can addd meaning to their lives is to be happy. If you’re on your deathbed miserable and full of regrets your life has been meaningless. So you need to work out what happy is for you. Where do you want to live, who do you want to spend your life with, what job do you want to do, kids or no kids, pets or no pets, do you want to volunteer, do you want no hobbies or lots, do you want to be knowledgeable about a topic, learn a new skill, try food from other countries, read 1000 books, watch 1000 films, sleep loads or be up with the birds. Everyone will have a different idea of happy, work yours out and do it.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to this and I totally get where you’re coming from and the spirit in what it was meant.

But I think this is part of the problem. It’s like I’m trying too much to do this.

I’ve spent A LOT of time thinking about what I want and the life I want to lead and I have probably achieved 99% of it.
But it’s left me feeling kind of ‘is this it?’

I’m happy but am I happy enough? If this is going to be my life forever then it feels like a huge decision.

I’m totally aware that I’m doing it to myself.

I had this crisis of thinking several years ago too so I understand it. However, as long as you are happy you don’t need to justify your child free existence to anyone.
I work part time, from home and spend a lot of time alone. I love it tbh. I have a dog and enjoy walks, cuddles etc with him. I also volunteer with the Brownies and have an interview to volunteer with the local library. I enjoy painting, drawing, reading, working out etc. But also it is the fact that I can choose to do whatever I want to with my spare time and some of the peace and quiet that comes with not having young children. If I want a lie I have one, and I sit with my morning coffee in complete silence every day. I am quite introverted though so this is something I really value.