Having kids is awesome… but I really don’t care if you don’t want to have them!

[SockTurtleMoop]

This is just a rant. Getting something off my chest.

I’m mid 30s and the majority of my friends have now got kids but a handful haven’t. This handful moan a fair amount about ‘society’s pressure to have kids’ and how awful it is and how they get asked all the time and post a lot of things on social media about HOW ITS A VALID CHOICE NOT TO HAVE KIDS THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Greg James off of the radio has written some blog post about how he doesn’t know whether he wants kids but he wishes people would stop asking him. And loads of my childless acquaintances have shared it with clapping emojis.

But I can’t work out who is asking them if they’re having kids. Outside of their nannas. Everyone in my generation knows you don’t talk about these things. A couple of people at work asked me if I wanted children (before I did), but that was usually when I was chatting to them about theirs. Not an invasive inquisition. No one I know cares if other people don’t have kids. I’m really curious how often they actually get asked.

On the flip side, they’re so rude about the assumptions they’ve made about being a parent. There are constant comments about how they’d prefer to have money and free time and no responsibilities. There’s a suggestion that people with kids are miserable all the time.

I’ve got three small children. It’s hard work. But they’re bloody hilarious. When they’re babies it’s sort of like being in charge of some wild animals. But eventually they really do become amazing company. They’re such fun. Rare days when it’s just me and my husband are fine. We enjoy each other’s company and we get to actually converse. But the kids come back and it’s silliness and games and laughter and life feels significantly less serious and I’m distracted from “grown up things”. Life takes a slower pace and I love it.

Anyone else relate to this at all?! Or is the consensus that actually yes society is still obsessed with making sure everyone reproduces as quickly as humanly possible and those who don’t have children are letting the side down?

It may depend a bit on family type. DH and I both come from largish v religious extended families. Trust me people ask. And our grandparents died years before we married so it wasn't them. And it's not just the direct questions, friends joked about the kind of kids we would have or what a disaster we would be as parents or how it was a good thing we only had to worry about ourselves. It took us over a year to conceive DC1 and each stupid comment was staggeringly hurtful. I was then seriously ill ( serious TBI) and we were told not to have a baby until I fully recovered. God the comments about how we needed to get on and have another! It was relentless and even worse than first time round. Train guards, waiters everyone told me I needed to give DD1 a little sister or brother, DH went to a work conference when DD1 and an American colleague asked if I was pregnant yet and if he'd had his swimmers checked out.

So you may have rightly learnt that it is socially unacceptable to quiz people about their family plans or make comments but trust me a lot of people haven't. And regardless of whether people don't want children, don't want them yet or do want them now but can't have them they are entitled not to put up with utter fucking eejits needling the everloving shit out of them.

*Everyone in my generation knows you don't talk about these things
*
Huh?! I'm of the same generation and despite it being so blatantly obvious that people definitely shouldn't talk about these things....THEY DO!! On the DAILY!!

I would say I got asked on a weekly basis before I had a child (particularly in a work setting) when am I having children? Are you pregnant? Are you trying to tell us something? (If I so dare to mention anything child/pregnancy related) etc etc it was soooooo tedious and RUDE!!!

So I get why it irritates those who don't want children...because it's irritating to anyone...those TTC, those who have lost babies, those just wanting a break...

Now I have my second child who's 1year old...I get asked even more often than before "time for baby no.2?" "You having another?" Etc etc you get the picture

You can see why it's frustrating? And your friends who don't want children end up justifying their decision? And have valid reason to do so?

I also think it’s a bit like when people talk about ‘peer pressure’ as it relates to alcohol, drugs, social media etc. What’s usually meant is not actually pressure from one’s peers, but pressure from oneself not to be left out of something that one’s peers are doing.

Oh yes, I’ve just remembered the time when my friend’s boyfriend asked my DH if he was shooting blanks since we’d been married for 7 years and didn’t have any children. That was fucking wonderful for us both, 18 months into TTC.

I don't get why people think they know others and their choices better that they do themselves

If people want to have kids do and if not don't, why do people have to deep think other people's choices?

I have one child, I get why people have more and I get why people have none, do people need to justify their choices by questioning others?

People DO ask though - friends, family, colleagues, randomers.. even close friends will say ‘oh you’re so good with kids’. I have step kids BTW, I really love them and have been around since they were little, but I wouldn’t have planned step parenting lite, never mind the real deal, but people do find that hard to comprehend. IDK why.

Greg James the children's author saying he doesn't like children did make me laugh.

Nope. As above a lot of people really do ask. A lot.

I'm 54 and stopped getting asked when I turned 50, thank fuck.

Before that, I'd give them two reasons why not:

1 I hate children

2 I never had to give a second reason as the first shut them up. It had the added bonus of being the truth, too.

I can totally understand people who dont want to have children making it clear that they aren't having any. It used to really piss me off when people were constantly asking when we were going to start a family as soon as we'd got married. I found it really intrusive and personal. We have 2 dc now and after the first, people were asking if and when we were going to have baby number 2! People have stopped asking now we've had number 2 or get a very quick no if they ask me if I'm having any more!
I can understand the annoyance that some people have at being asked when they are hoping to have children, not if but when!

I’m childfree by choice and these experiences really don’t chime with mine at all. I’ve never been asked whether I want kids or why I don’t want them. People who know me know I don’t want them and accept it, several friends don’t want them either so I’m not the lone barren-wombed one in my friendship group. My mum thinks it’s a sensible decision. Colleagues, strangers or hairdressers have never asked. Neither have I ever felt this so called “societal pressure” but then again I don’t give a monkeys what other people are doing or what society says your life should look like.

Early 30s here! I get asked all the time. You say our generation know not to ask - correct they don't (often). It's the older generation, older family, world colleagues. It happens a lot!

There's a lot of pressure and when you are asked people ask why. It's rarely just a 'not for me' and move on.

And don't lie, you know full well you ask in your head or wonder if that person will have kids/when they will have kids even if you don't speak it out aloud.

I think this must really vary depending on social circle etc. I guess my really close family e.g. my mum knew we wanted kids because we talked about it. Other than that the only person I knew who asked inappropriately was a work colleague. Probably a couple of friends asked in genuine discussion/conversation. I wouldn't ask someone unless I knew them very well and it was a genuine question.

I completely agree with you. That is all

This all over!!

I’m sure people do ask, but I don’t think they do it because they sincerely want to influence your choices. I honestly think life gets much easier when you realise people are mainly interested in themselves and the things that they say tend to be about them and not you, even if they are, on the surface, about you.

Bloody everyone used to ask me and tell me how amazing it was and how I don't know true love because I've not had children. When I got pregnant those same people liked to smugly tell me how hard I'd find being a mum and birth and everything else.

"The thing is, when people asked you if you were going to have kids I presume you answered "yes". How many times after you said "yes" was the response "WHY?!?" or "Oh you'll change your mind!" or "haha I used to think that too!" or "Maybe once you've met the right person".

That's almost always the response to a "no, I don't want kids". Constantly having to justify your life choices to nosy arseholes gets exhausting, and boring, and irritating."

this. And EVERYONE asks. It's astonishing. Then when you say no, they get quite aggressive.

I stopped going to a regular xmas drink with neighbours because of it.

it's interesting OP says that everyone knows not to ask in this day and age. i'm 46 so I don't know if young folk are still getting the constant chat about it.

Well I have a few friends who are childfree by choice and yes people do ask them when they're having children / question why they don't want them blah blah and we've had a few in depth chats about how society struggles with women who don't want children and how difficult it can be for them at times.

We live in a society where we supposedly have freedom of speech, so yeah actually people can write articles about topics you're not interested in. Just because it doesn't resonate with your lived experience doesn't mean we can't talk about it.

OP I see what you have described. No one asked me, it’d be considered rude to question someone in that way amongst my family and friends. I never felt any pressure. That’s my personal take on it, but I haven’t observed social pressure.

I love my child but I don’t think anyone should have a child if they don’t want to.

What I do see often is misogyny about saggy tits and baggy fannys, sneering at boring mumsy types. Lots of jokes about tripping up annoying kids or dropkicking screaming babies. Lolololol so funny, until you see footage of some poor kid who is living the reality of that kid of abuse.

Totally agree. It’s always the same people who complain they feel pressured that feel strangely free to rant at parents about how crap they think children must be 🤷‍♀️

I really wonder if this is a demographic thing because this has literally never happened to me and I’m nearly 34.

The other thing people got cross about..

they say "you haven't met the right man" and I'd say, "he's not right for me if he wants children" and they would get annoyed, or laugh at me like I was an idiot. I don't think anyone ever said "oh yes" and laughed off their mistake.

I’m with you 100%, op. Why don’t they go be happy instead of acting like there’s pressure put on them and constantly trying to justify to everybody who never said a thing to them why they don’t want children. Nobody cares. Disclaimer, I’m not talking about women with fertility issues. And I’m sure op wasn’t either.

To those who claim they are constantly asked, why don’t you say something to those people? Tell them to stop, but don’t take it out on us, who couldn’t care less.

I also think the mistake people make us assuming someone cares because they ask.

Idle chit chat at the hairdressers is not social pressure, they don’t care anymore than they care where you are going on holiday.