Women who don't want kids

[DeadPumpkins]

Is it just me.. or do women who don't want children constantly go on about how much they don't want children?

Nothing against it at all, each to their own and I'm sure I've read that single, childless women are the happiest people which makes sense 😂 but why do they always feel the need to talk about how much they don't want kids??

When women mention being childless it often results in irritating pitying comments and the third degree of questioning, so I find it hard to that believe multiple women you know are constantly dropping this into unrelated chat without anyone raising the topic. If that really is happening, then that’s unusual.

Are you sure that you and your other friends are unaware of how often you talk about your own children and these women are simply trying to partake in the conversation in the only way they can?

^ just saw you don’t have any kids. Well, in that case, yes, they are being a bit weird!

I know several childless people of varying ages and I've never heard them mention it, much less go on about it.
I think it's incredibly rude and insensitive to ask someone why they haven't had / got children.

Works both ways...

If people would only leave my personal decisions alone and stop harassing me over what I do with my groin.

Oh I definitely agree. Not all women who don't want children, but there is certainly a certain type of woman who goes on about it constantly.
I find they're often quite misognyistic and belittling of mothers. It's all very 'eww mums' and a horror that they might be mistaken for someone who might become one.
I'd say it's borne of immaturity but it's often women in their thirties or so who bang on about it.

I should add that these are women who don't say it in response to questions about children or anything. It's shoehorned into the discussion.

I have a couple I follow on social media who do post about it a fair bit but do post about other stuff otherwise I would have unfollowed them.
Both are married so I expected they have been asked loads and get fed up with as still seen as the expected norm.

The amount of times I've heard "why don't you have children, I think you would be such a good mum?".

Just once I would love to be rude enough to respond "why do you have children, I think you would be such a shit mum?"

Haha 😆 I was once told by a colleague “Awwh, never say never, you could change your mind; you don’t know, you can never know”. I wished to god afterwards that I’d pointed out that, by that logic, she shouldn’t have had children - because “You never know, you might change your mind”, and while my decision was reversible, she couldn’t turn back time and not have children.

Of course if I had said that, no doubt the waterworks would have come on, with gasps of “I can’t believe you’re saying my beautiful

I've never encountered either this or people who go on about how maternal love is the only true love etc in real life - but I see both of lots online (my Twitter timeline always seems particularly full of the 'having children is awful/ugh breeders' stuff). I think it's actually a very small but vocal minority of people who don't have children, but I do agree, unlike most posters on this thread, that it is a 'thing'.

Stupid phone cut the end off. I was going to say there would have been horror that I’d somehow suggested her children should never have been born.

I don't think this behaviour is specific to women who don't want children. In every demographic, you will find people who make a song and dance about how wonderful their life choices are - whether it's to have no children, one child or 20 children, have a dog, not have a dog, live in the country, live in the city, run their own startup, go on frequent holidays, aim for a carbon neutral lifestyle, become a SAHP, balance 6 kids with working 20 hours a day, homeschool, grow their own vegetables, make their kids do 20 extracurricular activities a week, make them do nothing, let their kids run "feral" or be "freerange"...

I think we are programmed to believe in the validity of our own choices and unfortunately some of us can't shut up about this.

I agree that there is a lot of misogyny in this (but again, I think it's a tiny minority who do it) - lots of stuff about ruined bodies and assumptions that you can't be a mother and an intelligent human being - in the same vein as lots of other 'I'm not like those OTHER girls' posturing.

Not my experience. And it’s child free, not child less. Nothing lacking in my life!

Errrr nope.

It’s childfree not childless. I suspect the amount of talk about not wanting them is significantly less than the amount of talking women do about the kids they have!

I'm sure it is, and as I said every childfree woman I know in real life just lives their life, but I find the comments like this a bit weird - of course they talk less about it, it would be bizarre if they did say as much about not wanting children as people with children say about this part of their life. If I talked as much about not having a dog as dog owners talk about their dogs then people would think I was nuts.

YABVU.

As someone who doesn’t want kids, I can tell you that I generally only mention it if someone starts suggesting I do, will or should want them. I then tend to end up having to defend myself because they simply will not have it that I don’t want them and I find it annoying and patronising when they say I’ll change my mind or I haven’t met the right person yet or whatever.

I’m knocking on 40. I know my own mind.

One of my best friends is childfree.

No she doesn't go on about it. At all.

It rarely comes up. I often envy her freedom and her lifestyle.

I used to work with a woman who CONSTANTLY talked about her son at work. None stop. Every conversation was brought back to her son. It was very boring. That is what I mean, it’s relatable that there are probably some childfree women who bang on about it, just like there are many mothers who talk way to much about their kids to people who generally don’t give a fuck.

OP: <some bullshit>
Others: That's bullshit
OP: Oooh I hit a nerve lol! 😜🤪🤣

Transparent cope.

I have never met anyone who banged on about not wanting kids and it would appear many other posters haven't either.

if this is something you encounter a lot, @DeadPumpkins , perhaps you need to look at the way YOU'RE interacting with childfree/less women that might be prompting such an unusual response?

It's all the repeated tedious use of the 😅 giving it away.

A £ for every bingo word thrown my way, as I apparently am incapable of agency on my own decisions, would allow me to turn my heating up to 11 all-day-every-day and not worry about energy bills.

Never try a drinking game. You will be dead from alcohol poisoning within 5 minutes.

I have quite a few childfree friends and relatives, all past child bearing age, and not one of them goes on about it.

Tbf though there are plenty of people on this forum who get annoyed at mums who try to include child free friends in child-centric things. Maybe your friends with children just don't want to bore you - you should tell them you'd like to go with them! They will probably be thrilled.

All my best friends have no children as we're all quite young still. I'd love it if one of them told me they'd like to come on a day out to some soft play or similar thing with me! But I'd never think to invite them as I would assume they're not interested, and I'd be scared to annoy them. That's basically the only reason I've tried to make mum friends - it's not that I don't want to spend time with my old friends anymore, I just don't want to bore them with baby stuff!