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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU to think that childfree living forum is sick!!!

309 replies

dekoLL · 30/07/2010 02:50

but the language used on this site is just shocking! if you all got such a perfect , selfulfilling life, why are you wasting it by ranting on this forum, even more..wasting time looking through mums forums to show off how negative parent?s life is. This is just pathetic!!!! You show such a strange hatred to mums and whole idea of parenthood, and created new concepts and meanings around this hate. This looks almost like hitlero style site. I cannot comprehend how can you be so spiteful and why to women that choose to have children, although you are yourself children of mothers that are just the same as the ones that you attacking. Moos.....baybee....that is so childish and sick! And i think you all like little never- to ? grow up children, and that?s why having kids scares you so much. This forum could be a perfect source of perfect psychology PhD thesis.....
sick ideology of never milked cows...mooooooooooo!!!!!!!

OP posts:
Ilythia · 31/07/2010 14:04

I am not defending the CFL forum, even though they do seem like such pleasant people

I am just trying to put forward the other point of view, but in all honesty I don't feel strongly enough about it to care to get emrboiled in a deep discussion.

terryble · 31/07/2010 15:14

You know, the manner in which people retaliated on this thread casts some light on why childfree people might sometimes get a leetle aggressive in a forum built to provide an understanding environment of like-minded people.

People have immediately attacked the validity of their desires not to have children ("they must just be infertile"; "they must have something psychologically wrong with them"); they have outright reduced individuals to nothing more than unsatisfied biological imperatives ("unmilked cows" indeed- by the way, there are unwillingly childless members on this site. And maybe new mothers struggling to breastfeed, or women who couldn't breastfeed and are still unhappy about it).

There is often tremendous amounts of pressure upon women to have children, to the point that those who actually want children chafe under it. (And they post on here.) Think how awful it is when you don't want children. Some of the posts were overly-vitriolic (I do think that wishing that another woman has a miscarriage/is raped was beyond the pale, but I didn't actually see such posts myself), but that's the internet. In fact, that's people. They say unpleasant, unreasonable things.

tittybangbang · 31/07/2010 15:45

"if you are childfree but have (for instance) an adult dependent who you care for, or like to spend your weekends doing charity work, or even if you do like to spend your weekends Having Fun, it's not all that fair to be told over and over again that your time, your life, your interests and your needs come second to those of people who are parents"

No - you are right, all carers should have some entitlement to time off work and increased support as their job is vital to a civilised and humane society.

BTW, if you're jack-booting around referring to parents as 'breeders', it's going to be difficult for you to protest when people refer to the child-free as 'barren', or 'evolutionary dead ends', which is also pretty offensive.

(have to say, while reading the posts on the cfbc board I did start to think about Darwin and natural selection. Wondered if there is something within some people, a sort of unacknowledged evolutionary compulsion to bring their particular branch of the family to a full-stop)

poshsinglemum · 31/07/2010 17:34

Im not looking down my nose at the child-free. Im positively envious of the childfree at times!
I just think that there needs to be a consciousness of flexible working in this country.

OrmRenewed · 31/07/2010 19:14

Don't give a flying fuck what breeding choices people make, but when otherwise supposedly intelligent normal people make such vile, aggressive and down-right bigotted comments about children and mothers it's perfectly valid to assume they are vile, aggressive and down-right bigotted people.

I know people without children and by and large they manage to resist the impulse to froth at the mouth at the sight of children

Where does this sense of entitlement come from that says 'hey, I'm not getting as much attention or perks as this other group of people! It's not fair!' Just like some under-developed cunt maggot really

curryfreak · 31/07/2010 20:24

i haven't ventured on to this site. However, sounds like they have some valid points.
i think some people who are parents have a massive sense of entitlementnt.
I have a few friends who are childless by choice. Love spending time with them It's so refreshing. I'm afraid i find many fellow parents as boring as shite!

PosieParker · 01/08/2010 07:57

One thing that strikes me about people that don't have the desire to have children, despite perfect circumstance, is that we are animals and it is a need and natural drive to procreate. So you have to wonder if some people are out of kilter with other things that make up the less tangible bits of us humans. Not saying 'wrong with' them, at all just different. Often older childfree women come across as different, imle. Or perhaps being a mother changes you? For differences in men we will probably have to wait a generation until old men are the ones that helped with childcare!

vetnursegirl · 02/08/2010 16:20

It is not a 'natural' instinct to procreate, PosieParker, just to mate; babies are just a side-effect.

sanielle · 02/08/2010 16:36

Keeping up the species and mothers protecting their offspring seems pretty instinctual to me. SO I would assume having babies would be part of that instinct.

Petal02 · 02/08/2010 16:43

I've no idea if it's instinct or not, it just winds me up when people imply you're "not quite right" if you elect not to have a baby. There are a million reasons why a woman may decide not to have a child, each to their own perhaps?

OrmRenewed · 02/08/2010 16:45

Quite agree petal. But even if I didn't I don't think I'd feel the need to hurl vitrol at women without children - it's not my business and simply doesn't matter that much to me.

Petal02 · 02/08/2010 16:48

Absolutely - there's no need to be horrible to women who've simply made different choices, no matter which side of the fence you're on.

ValiumSingleton · 02/08/2010 17:03

moosnet still has far more childfree members than they do!

I say leave them to it, but I would love to know why they ONLY hate mothers and not fathers..

Kaloki · 02/08/2010 17:04

"One thing that strikes me about people that don't have the desire to have children, despite perfect circumstance, is that we are animals and it is a need and natural drive to procreate. So you have to wonder if some people are out of kilter with other things that make up the less tangible bits of us humans"

I don't like this way of thinking at all.

Yes I am on MN, and yes I am TTC now. But before I met DP I had no intention of having kids, and was well aware that I was regarded as somehow "unnatural" and going against my biology. And people don't keep thoughts like that to themselves. It is horrible being treated this way and does make you feel like your only use on this planet is to produce babies - like some kind of machine. So although I disagree with the venom by the other forum, I do understand their motivation. I was highly aggressive about my desire not to have kids, because it was very upsetting to be judged for it so much.

ValiumSingleton · 02/08/2010 17:06

well i agree with posy. I think there are strange voices telling you to think about having more children even when you've got a couple of little ones. You can override them with your brain, but it is nonsense to suggest that we have no urge to procreate!! why is the World full of children ?

Kaloki · 02/08/2010 17:07

Not everyone has those "voices" Valium, it is not that weird not to want to procreate, as you say, the world is full of children. Some people don't feel the need to add to it.

ValiumSingleton · 02/08/2010 17:09

Kaloki, with respect you haven't yet had a child so you don't know that the most broody you may ever feel is when your baby is not really a baby anymore. I think that is largely hormonal.

coolma · 02/08/2010 17:09

can't get onto it

sanielle · 02/08/2010 17:12

I was just saying I disagreed with vetnursegirls comment that procreation wasn't an instinct. I think it is. And I again was someone who didn't want to have children until I met my partner, also I never wanted to "have" children the traditional way. I always hoped to adopt... I think I am fairly unusal in that urge though. In the end DH felt the need to sprout some fruit of his loins so we did that anyway!

Kaloki · 02/08/2010 17:19

Your logic is interesting, as someone who doesn't have a child, surely that puts me in a better position to say that it is possible to not want to procreate?

OrmRenewed · 02/08/2010 17:20

I didn't have these voices. That'd be a little worrying. I think I'd go and see someone if I did. I did have no interest in children at all and no desire to procreate until I was pregnant. We only conceived because FIL was dying and DH wanted him to meet his first born - I was a bit about it all TBH. I must admit with my second baby there was a voice - but it wasn't a little voice, it was someone with a megaphone standing about an inch away from me No 3 was an unexpected 'joy' and lovely as he is, if he'd been no 1 he'd have been our last - voices or no voices!

ValiumSingleton · 02/08/2010 17:39

Well, if you read OrmRenewed's post you'll see that my theory is backed up there. The broodiest was after baby 1.

Not trying to be patronising, but those post first baby hormones are a force to be reckoned with.

vetnursegirl · 02/08/2010 18:40

I was just saying that biologically speaking it is not technically a 'natural instinct' to want babies. It is an instinct to mate and then when the baby is born hormones and feelings usually ensure the mother cares for the baby.

Humans wanting 'babies' is more to with social pressure, finding babies 'cute', and culture (love, family etc.) If someone male or female doesn't see value in having a baby in their life and is strong enough to resist social pressure then that does not make them 'an abomination' or unnatural, just modern humans making choices that are sensible for them. Being made to feel second class because they have made a different lifestyle choice to the mainstream is unfair to say the least.

ValiumSingleton · 02/08/2010 18:51

I have to totally disagree with you there. I think it is instinct to want to have children. The vast majority of people want this.

vetnursegirl · 02/08/2010 19:09

Instincts and 'wants' are very different. Instinct is not something you think about, it is just something every creature in a species does automatically. 'Wants' are things you learn to desire and do by observing the world around you and making decisions.

I don't want to be picky about language but by saying wanting babies is an instinct you are saying childfree people are not human (because instincts are common to a whole species).

And I imagine that would piss them off something chronic.