To feel like there are fewer and fewer mums on Mumsnet?

[changerr]

Sooo many threads are full of people who either:

1. Have no children and don't want children
2. Are men

Or maybe it's just my imagination.....? (and before I get flamed, obviously everyone is welcome)

• the childfree brigade

You know we’re not a homogenous group, right?

I’ll put my hand up, I’m a child free-by choice woman. I googled something one day, when I really should have been doing some work and fell down a MN rabbit hole. I’ve been here ever since because good forums where there can be a free, robust (and no, I don’t mean that as a euphemism for “be as rude as you like”) discussion combined with the sort of humour that makes me laugh until I can’t breathe. There’s plenty here that isn’t parenting-related and I wouldn’t dream of giving an opinion on parenting stuff unless I had some sort of specific and relevant experience and I’d certainly never say “This is why I wouldn’t want to spoil my lovely childfree life” in response to a problem unless it was clearly a jokey thread.*

Yeah, I do. You’ve taken my reference to my ‘the childfree brigade’ out of context - if you go back and look at how I used it in context I hope it’s clear I am referring to the habit of ‘childfree by choice’ posters using Mumsnet to provide unhelpful commentary on topics they couldn’t possibly relate to (eg having an severely autistic son, as per my example).

I am referring to the habit of ‘childfree by choice’ posters using Mumsnet to provide unhelpful commentary on topics they couldn’t possibly relate to

Again, you are lumping all childfree-by-choice posters in together! And just because someone doesn’t have an autistic child doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have relevant experience by having, say, an autistic close young relative or a job working in that field.

@AmICrazyorWhat2

I assume that child free posters don’t comment much on the parenting-related threads, more on other topics. I originally joined for parenting advice but there’s plenty more to talk about!

Try starting a 'happily child free by choice' type thread and see the parents come flocking to out-number us and tell us why we're wrong though

@bungaloid random, yes, but are you 45yo?? And did General Studies?

@BrightYellowDaffodil

I am referring to the habit of ‘childfree by choice’ posters using Mumsnet to provide unhelpful commentary on topics they couldn’t possibly relate to

Again, you are lumping all childfree-by-choice posters in together! And just because someone doesn’t have an autistic child doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have relevant experience by having, say, an autistic close young relative or a job working in that field.

I'm afraid you are wrong. I was childless (not by choice) for a decade and heavily involved with god children, nieces and nephews etc. Now, miraculously I have a DC and I can assure you that there is no equivalent experience. Anyway - fine to say oh dear poor you keep on keeping on etc. But I have not yet seen a childfree poster do that.

@Yeahnahmum

Its called MUMSnet....

Yes and MNHQ are always saying that it's not just for mums, everyone is welcome, so long as they stay with talk guidelines 🙄

I see quite a few more posts from people saying they aren't mothers and a few more from people saying they are men than I did 5+ years ago, but I think there are still as many mums, just there have been more non-mums joining of late.

I don't think it's irrelevant how many posters are mums. At the moment the ratios don't threaten the female & family centric vibe of the forum so it's good to have other voices too. But I would care if did threaten to be just another general forum with the same heavily weighted bias away from the responsibilities that women with children have thrust upon them. I can get that sort of bias anywhere.

@ChasedByFox, afraid not on both counts, but now I'm intrigued.

Message boards is a bit old. It was there when I started computer in 1997. I would not be surprised younger generations are not interested. And it may also be that more and more people don’t want kids or don’t think about family planning (guys are the same way)

@FunDragon

Yes I agree with you OP, I’ve definitely noticed that.

Obviously this site isn’t solely for mums, far from it. I got a lot of support on here throughout TTC and pregnancy for example.

But there have been a lot of instances recently of posters who appear to be male or childfree ‘by choice’ people making deeply unhelpful comments, particularly on threads started by women who are struggling with parenting. There was a thread a few weeks ago started by a woman who was obviously had terrible postnatal depression. The comments she got were vile and genuinely dangerous - it ended with her saying she was going to log out and not come back, and I hope she’s ok. There was another one started by a mother of an violent autistic son where the childfree brigade hopped on to tell her to ‘do some parenting’.

And that’s my only problem with the changing demographic. If it makes the site less of a safe space for women, and in particular makes it a genuinely dangerous place for women who are struggling with mothering, then I think that is a problem.

I want to point out that I have never and would never comment on this sort of topic; it's of no interest to me and my views would be unwelcome and out of place.

There’s so many people on here how would you think of anything like this?

Many of the discussions on this site are on subjects not related to parenthood or children, so it’s hardly surprising that many posters are not parents, and don’t want to be. Like me.

I agree with posters , it is not always about having or raising kids . It could be any topics: politic, movies, female/male/sex issues

Yes and MNHQ are always saying that it's not just for mums, everyone is welcome, so long as they stay with talk guidelines 🙄

And nobody, nobody at all here, is saying we should turn people at the door if they aren’t a mother.

It’s more like... Say that I, as a person who does not own horses, joined Horse-Owner’s Chat Forum somewhere. Maybe because the political forum was great or whatever. If someone started a thread on there saying “Anyone else noticed that there are more non-horse owners on here lately?”, I might pop up to say “yes, I’m here for the politics”, but I probably wouldn’t go marching in in a bristling fury all “HOW very DARE you, I have as much right to be here as you, it’s not just for horse-owners you know!”

I also probably wouldn’t comment on threads about people paying expensive vet bills or having problems with aggressive horses to say “yuk sounds horrible, so glad I don’t have horses” or “well I’ve never owned a horse but speaking as someone who read Black Beauty as a child it’s fairly obvious you just need to be firmer here, stop whining.”

And if I started a thread about how great it was to not own horses because you get to have money and don’t have to wade through knee-deep mud in winter, I would probably not be THAT surprised to be ‘outnumbered’ by horse-owners.

You don’t have to be a mother to be looking after children. We are child-free (initially not by choice but we have now accepted it) but that doesn’t mean we don’t care for any children. We have nieces and nephews.

Considering there are sections in here to discuss pets, TV, music, sports, food, etc, etc I would say that the parenting side is very small now. It’s has grown ash beyond that. On AIBU, for example, you will see questions on interior decor, clothing, recipes, moral dilemmas with in-laws and neighbors, and hundreds of other things where being a parent or not has nothing to do with it.

I think mothers posting about non-child related topics has confused people.

@GoldenOmber

Yes and MNHQ are always saying that it's not just for mums, everyone is welcome, so long as they stay with talk guidelines 🙄

And nobody, nobody at all here, is saying we should turn people at the door if they aren’t a mother.

It’s more like... Say that I, as a person who does not own horses, joined Horse-Owner’s Chat Forum somewhere. Maybe because the political forum was great or whatever. If someone started a thread on there saying “Anyone else noticed that there are more non-horse owners on here lately?”, I might pop up to say “yes, I’m here for the politics”, but I probably wouldn’t go marching in in a bristling fury all “HOW very DARE you, I have as much right to be here as you, it’s not just for horse-owners you know!”

I also probably wouldn’t comment on threads about people paying expensive vet bills or having problems with aggressive horses to say “yuk sounds horrible, so glad I don’t have horses” or “well I’ve never owned a horse but speaking as someone who read Black Beauty as a child it’s fairly obvious you just need to be firmer here, stop whining.”

And if I started a thread about how great it was to not own horses because you get to have money and don’t have to wade through knee-deep mud in winter, I would probably not be THAT surprised to be ‘outnumbered’ by horse-owners.

But this isn't a good comparator as no screaming societal pressure to be a horse owner. I do understand what inspires people to say gosh so glad I never had kids, sounds shit etc. But it's passive aggressive, it's projecting their issues on some poor struggling mother (and it nearly is always mothers) and it's just a bad way to behave.

In every other forum I couldn't care less if people are parents or not. But boasting about not having kids is nonsense.

I've never been to Timbuktu and I don't want to, I've been to similar places and to west Africa. But I wouldn't dream of weighing in on what it's like and it would be extremely bad form to do so.

I don't mind the child-free members at all - in the same way that I have child-free friends in real life.

However, there's a vocal few who I wish would fuck off when they start commenting on how having children ruins the planet, how much they dislike children, how awful parents are etc.

So depressing when a 'woke' poster derails a thread with the ethics of childbearing.

You wouldn't go on a bodybuilding forum and post about how great it is to be overweight and how stupid fitness fans are.

@sabrinaq

I get totally fed up of childfree people posting on the threads where someone is having a meltdown over parenting and saying - I knew having kids would be a nightmare and that's why I don't have any! Unhelpful in the extreme.

This x1000

Sorry @bungaloid there was a question on A Level General Studies in 1993 about 'sloping off to bungalows happiness' - many of my cohort remember it and discuss...

We're obviously very sad individuals.

Well I tried setting up “ OpinionatedArseholesnet” but it didn’t take off so I came here instead..

I don’t think that’s the case at all although I’m not a mother so what do I know

I’m childfree by choice. I avoid any threads about parenting, conception etc. There’s still plenty of threads to keep me entertained.

I would never ‘brag’ to a parent that’s struggling. Those that do are just goady fuckers, which you’ll find all over this site.

I frequent a few childfree groups and you’ll often get parents turning up trying to convince us that we’re terrible people who will all die alone, so the annoyances happen both ways

However, there's a vocal few who I wish would fuck off when they start commenting on how having children ruins the planet, how much they dislike children, how awful parents are etc.

I do see a bit of this though now and again which I think is strange on a parenting forum! I’m all about people getting out of their echo chambers but it’s just so provocative!

I agree OP. You wouldn't notice if it weren't for the growing anti-motherhood sentiment. It's becoming quite agressive and rude

I’m not sure if there has been an increase as I haven’t been around long enough, but definitely agree with the above that there is a feeling of anti-motherhood coming across in a lot of the threads.