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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you judge women who don’t want kids?

827 replies

Ellabella989 · 29/03/2019 10:33

I’m in my early 30s and have decided I never want kids. Literally every single female who I’ve confided in about this, from family members to friends to work colleagues, have been incredibly judgemental and told me i’ll be missing out and will eventually regret it and could potentially spend my later years very lonely if my partner dies before me.
AIBU to find these opinions very irritating? I don’t list all the reasons to them why I think their way of life is less appealing to mine so I don’t see why I have to sit back and basically be told I’m a freak for not wanting kids. Maybe I just know some very judgemental people :-(

OP posts:
IcedPurple · 02/04/2019 19:11

So @silver unless you've had the unique 'joy' of picking up a kid from the nursery you've lived a 'low level kind of nothing' life! What an odd comment, indeed.

prozacgirl · 02/04/2019 19:17

No way would I judge. I don't necessarily understand it as it was quite a biological drive for me but I don't think less of anyone who has made that decision. You read about this quite a lot and I don't understand it - I do wonder (prepares for a pasting) whether women like you who have decided they don't want kids are perhaps slightly more sensitive to comments about it. If you had decided this and it was a non issue then why are you bothered? Just ignore and crack on!

Lokidokiartichoki · 02/04/2019 19:21

nobody says we should go around doing things we're pretty sure we don't want just on the off chance we might like them

My older sister is childfree by choice. She’s also into extreme outdoor sports. Her and her partner are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro next year for charity. I can well believe my extreme perplexity at choosing to do something like that is on the same level as hers is when faced with the prospect of birthing and raising a child.

IcedPurple · 02/04/2019 19:26

@prozacgirl I think the point is that the choice not to have children is questioned and openly judged in a way in which the choice to have them is not.

If people frequently said to you 'I don't understand why anyone would choose to put themselves though pregnancy, childbirth and years of shitty nappies and tantrums just so you can reproduce your genes' wouldn't you find it annoying? I doubt anyone does say that do you however.

Trills · 02/04/2019 19:27

You don't have to be overwhelmed or all-consumed to have joy.

I prefer a quieter, gentler kind of joy.

YukoandHiro · 02/04/2019 19:28

God no! I loved my daughter endlessly but often have moments of fantasising I didn't choose - she's high needs in a lot of ways and I'm constantly exhausted. Anyone who chooses not to go for it is sensible. Yes they will miss out on some parts of life, but I'm missing out on a lot right now too! Tell them to bugger off

Voila212 · 02/04/2019 19:31

No not at all, I knew I wanted a family from an early age, I have a close friend that didn't. I never saw it as weird or tried to talk her into the joys of parenthood. She had her reasons, the same way I had mine. In fact other people would ask me if she had kids and when I said no they give you that look of poor her. I quickly explained that she didn't want kids and was very happy in her life. She did have a fleeting moment of regret when she was about 50 but I think that was just a moment. She sends me pictures of her gorgeous doggies now and as a mother of stroppy teens Im sometime jealous(joke)Wink

prozacgirl · 02/04/2019 19:45

To the contrary @IcedPurple I think we/I say that to ourselves ALL the time by recognising and sharing how bloody hard it is Grinbut I take your point. It's just that I keep reading this and thinking who are these judgey people?

You can't stop people thinking stuff about you no matter what the issue - I'm sure I get judged for being a middle class cliche ALL the time. I can't be arsed to care. My life, my decisions.

It's none of your business what other people think is a good mantra to live by I think!

Leighhalfpennysthigh · 02/04/2019 19:57

Depends if you want joy from life I suppose or to feel a non descript level kind of nothing

How insulting. I thought that having children would give me joy in my life, to the point where it consumed me and my husband. He too killed him self because of infertility.

In the years that followed I've found joy from many different things. My life, and the lives of other childless or childfree people are not nondescript. We just find joy in other things. If a parent can't see that life is actually more than a child then really I do pity their children because not only will they be leading small little lives, they will have the responsibility for their parents happiness and that is unfair on them.

AlexaAmbidextra · 02/04/2019 20:05

Depends if you want joy from life I suppose or to feel a non descript level kind of nothing.

You really can’t stop can you? Why can you not just accept that you may feel like this but others don’t? Why is that such a difficult concept for you? I will accept that you feel joy so why do you imply that my chidfree life is a level kind of nothing? Why is your thinking so restricted and narrow?

Queenofmyownheart · 02/04/2019 20:16

I don't. I have kids, bloody drive me insane, couldn't imagine my life without em. I have friends who don't ever want kids and that's fine by me. Do I think they are missing out? Of course. Do I judge them for it? Not at all. After all I have friends who are lesbians who probably think I'm missing out being straight 😂 is a lifestyle choice like the rest of them. People need to do what they want to do, to live the life they want to lead. Not everyone wants to be a parent, and who am I to tell them that's wrong? 😊

HarrysOwl · 02/04/2019 20:20

Depends if you want joy from life I suppose or to feel a non descript level kind of nothing.

I can't work out if you're being deliberately goady or if you're really that narrow minded.

Shiverrrrmetimbers · 02/04/2019 20:25

@harrysowl @alexaambidextra read the thread before you get angry at an isolated comment. That was said in relation to a poster saying that feeling excitement at seeing someone was ‘unappealing and tiring’. That would be the same as for an adult as a child.

Trills · 02/04/2019 20:29

I didn't say that feeling excitement at seeing someone was unappealing.

I said that feeling so excited that the physical feeling can be confused for being nervous, and it not ever stopping, sounded unappealing.

The exact thing that I said was unappealing is this
I thought I felt nervous but then I realised it was excitement bubbling up in me as I couldn’t wait to see her again. That doesn’t go away

Trills · 02/04/2019 20:30

But apparently it's never-ending nervous butterflies, or being dead inside, according to some.

Shiverrrrmetimbers · 02/04/2019 20:31

These threads always go the same way. Someone without children asks what those with children think of that choice.

Everyone says that the right to a choice is the most important thing, which is true.

Everyone says they would never voice whatever opinion they have in real life. Which is the right thing to do

Some are honest and say they think people without children are missing out. This is the most awful thing anyone can say. Even though the original poster asks for honest opinions.

If you’re happy you’ve made the right choice that’s what counts right.

Shiverrrrmetimbers · 02/04/2019 20:32

@trills that’s fine and I agreed with your later post. I’m taking issue with the fact that people are now stating I said that about not having children which I clearly didn’t!!

Trills · 02/04/2019 20:36

Shiverr you did seem to say that the options were the joy you described (feeling nervous, not going away, tiring and unappealing to me) or "to feel a non descript level kind of nothing."

That's rather extreme, don't you think? To suggest that those are the only possibilities and there's nothing in between?

PianoVigilante · 02/04/2019 20:38

Shiverr, you must have led a particularly dreary life pre-children to describe it as a ‘nondescript level of nothing’. My life was great before I had a child, and was not planning to have any, and it’s been great since.

I’m not insecure enough in my choice to need to denigrate other women’s different choices, or unimaginative enough to be incapable of understand why some women choose differently to me.

pouraglasshalffull · 02/04/2019 20:49

Not at all, it changes your entire life. Some people certainly shouldn't have kids and if anything, I judge them for having them

Family friend doesn't have kids, she recently turned 70 and she looks incredible. She just built her own home, which she can only afford to do because she didn't have to fork out any money for children, she goes on about 5 holidays as year and comes and goes as she pleases. She has a wonderful life- you certainly won't be missing out on anything OP

Shiverrrrmetimbers · 02/04/2019 21:09

This thread has certain posters who either can’t comprehend or are being deliberately obtuse. The latter I rather feel.

I have at no time suggested people that don’t have children lead a non descript dreary life. And if you didn’t understand that from the original post I then clarified I didn’t think that. But a few posters seem a little obsessed....

Shiverrrrmetimbers · 02/04/2019 21:11

@pianovigilante - a late entrant to the haven’t bothered to read the posts properly but will be rude anyway club. Well done.

Lottapianos · 02/04/2019 21:47

'You don't have to be overwhelmed or all-consumed to have joy.

I prefer a quieter, gentler kind of joy.'

What a lovely point, and well made Smile

'to feel a non descript level kind of nothing."'

Do you even hear yourself???

Shiverrrrmetimbers · 02/04/2019 21:53

@lottiepianos except you’ve take comments from a few separate posts, cut bits out and posted them in a random order to make it appear I’ve said something I haven’t. Well done

I’ve said, I think 4 times now, that this isolated comment you all keep rewriting was nothing to do with not having children. It was merely a riposte to someone saying that my expression of joy was ‘unappealing and tiring’ which I personally felt was rather rude.

It’s getting a little Daily Mail tactics on here....

IcedPurple · 02/04/2019 22:19

In fairness @shiver, when so many of us have 'misunderstood' what you said, don't you think you might perhaps have phrased it a bit better? Or are we all wrong?