To find the term 'child free' annoying?

[stuffstuffeverywhere]

Why not just say you don't want kids? Why do people have to make it sound like some dietary requirement? It's as if they see small humans as some kind of allergen or digestive irritation to be avoided.

I didn't realise people actually cared about stuff like this... must be exhausting!

OP- are you Andrea Leadsom?

How would a couple, who are parents but manage to talk their parents into a full weekend of babysitting describe the resulting weekend without using the term “child free” ?
Childfree, without children, it does exactly what it says on the tin. I was childfree for the first six years of marriage, I can not think of any other way to describe childlessness.

On second thought...the world has lost a great scientific mind and Russia is murdering people and thumbing it's nose at the UK, but let's discuss the term 'child free'. Really??

Think this is far more about your relationship with this particular friend - for all the talk about finding it offensive and comparing children to something unpleasant, it looks like for whatever reason you have taken your friends comment as a personal slight on your own situation.

You are choosing to read that her 'child free' status is somehow insulting your own choices?

You've never met a smug child-free couple? Really? Lucky you, I've met plenty. People can be just as smug about their houses, cars, etc. I think it's a bit unreasonable to care about what child-free people want to call themselves. Why does it matter to you?

I've found that these 'child free' people are often also 'gluten free' and 'dairy free' for no medical reason, other than " it's healthier " or " more natural ". Possible also wibbling on about paleo-bollocks or clean eating. Or they only want 'positive people' in their lives.

I’m enthusiastically and totally child-free. I also eat gluten, dairy, love a good steak, a full bodied red wine and a whisky so peaty you could grow marrows in it. So fuck
off with your narrow-minded assumptions op.

OP: I am sure that you are not meaning to come over the way you are. People use the term "childfree" for any number of reasons and as others have said it also hides any number of personal heartaches and decisions. Fair enough that you do not like it but to judge others for using it is a tad (nay very) unfair.

Or they only want 'positive people' in their lives.

Well, with your negative attitude I expect you aren't going to have to worry about what your friend calls herself much longer.

I have children. We have many friends who did not, either by choice or inability. They are 'childfree'. Why on earth should their choice of words to describe their lives bother me?

Suspect the 'friend' will have many of the traits that Op is assigning to anyone who has ever said 'childfree'.

Think you need to just take this up with her rather than decide to be angry at a big chunk of the population...

Childless sounds like you’re barren, child-free is a choice.

This is an awful thread. Awful.

@Peregrane You've got it.

Nobody describes themselves as free if something positive.

On this thread, a few have taken this to be about the fact that they don't have not children. Believe me, I really do not care whether other people have kids or not. None of my business, sorry to disappoint.

Basically, the term implies that people who do have kids are not free and are somehow encumbered. There are lots of jokes to be made about that but some childfree people aren't actually joking. That's a pretty unpleasant attitude to have towards the youngest and some of the most vulnerable members of society.

Because childless can sound just as bad I suppose. It can get a bit co fusingthough. I often use ‘childfree’ to mean I don’t have two toddlers attatched at the hip for once.

you are over thinking it op

Red That would imply the OP has thought about it at all or has a brain bigger than the size of a walnut. I doubt both.

Op with all due respect you are being a right wally. You sound very jealous of people who probably do have a lot more freedom due to the choices that they have made. You're trying to insinuate that you are somehow standing up for vulnerable members of society, when that's clearly not the case. Hence no one on this thread is buying it.
There are so many sections of society which are genuinely vulnerable and in need of people speaking out for them, why not reflect on that and focus your energies on where they could be of actual benefit?

Also, small humans kind of are annoying, as a group. I have three of them and much as I love them, I can totally see why people might want to avoid small children at all costs! It's not like comparing to any other demographic because childhood is a universal, temporary state and not a specific, permanent characteristic. We were all small annoying things once, but then gradually emerged out of the snot and nappies and tantrums. It's really nothing like discrimination against any other group, it's part of the human condition to treat children differently to adults.

What the fuck are you on about OP.

How many times do people have to explain the same, really basic point to you for you to get it? People who don't have children want a positive term that defines this as a choice, in a world where motherhood is seen as normative, and not having children has too often been defined as a lack.

Just because one thing is positive for some does not preclude a completely different decision being positive for others. To give a trivial example, I don't like beer, so I have beer-free nights out, my DH loves beer, so he wouldn't. We can both describe those choices in a positive fashion as 'right for us' without also saying 'right for everyone'.

I imagine that people who do not have children (whether by choice, infertility or lack of opportunity) get fed up with people asking them questions about it. if they have concluded that using the expression child-free is the best way of limiting the questioning, I am not sure why anyone else should object to that.

Basically, the term implies that people who do have kids are not free and are somehow encumbered. There are lots of jokes to be made about that but some childfree people aren't actually joking. That's a pretty unpleasant attitude to have towards the youngest and some of the most vulnerable members of society.*

There are some pretty shit parents around who do a lot more damage to the "youngest and most vulnerable members of society than the childfree who have the effrontery to use a term you don't like.

You're scrabbling to justify yourself now Op....somehow someone choosing to say they are childfree to show it's a choice rather than some sad status thrust upon them is actually them attacking young & vulnerable members of society??

That's ridiculous.

And as for 'no one uses the word free to describe anything positive'...Ffs...you are starting to sound really silly.