Be honest: Do you think single and childfree people are less than?

[Sonervousimgonnathrowup]

I am that person.
It suits me.
But fucking hell do I get comments, questions and often it seems like I’m treated like a second-class citizen.

Do people still today look down on single / childfree people?

I have never understood "used to be childfree". If you planned to have children, you were not childfree.

Absolutely not.

But sadly society places such an emphasis on couples and families to be anything else automatically places you on the fringes of society/not the norm.

@EmmaAgain22 I totally agree. If we used that definition everyone is childfree. No one is born with children.
I think childfree kicks in as an external label when it is clear to everyone you are not ever going to have children.

God no. I'm madly jealous of my childless DB and his long term partner - they travel, read long literary novels, drink vintage wines with cheese (not Dairylea!!), Don't have to child proof anything and NEVER EVER have to watch Peppa Pig. Lucky sods.

Why would anyone look down on a childfree or single person?

Not everyone wants kids or can have them.

If someone is single, I assume they're happy being single or that they haven't found someone to be with. It's not something to look down on.

I do know some people who are single and would like to be in a relationship, but quite honestly, I can see why they're single. I still wouldn't look down on them.

Yeah, yeah, I know why you're upset, but one of my kids pushed my other kid down the stairs this morning, I was late for work and I'm wondering how I'm going to pay my gas bill this month. It's difficult for me to fully engage with this kind of existential angst. Like I said, I'm a grumpy, tired parent 😂But, what do you expect parents to say to you when you tell them that you don't want kids? 'Oh, good for you! I really wish I'd never had mine!'? It's a bit like turning up at a steak restaurant and wondering why people aren't very supportive of your vegetarianism. I think what's difficult for single or childless people (by choice of otherwise) is that when their friends have children they tend to bond with other parents and have less in common with them. It's a difficult time of life. Things will get easier as the kids grow older and they want their life back.

Yeah, the other side of the coin is the patronising "I envy you!"

Not enough not to have several children, apparently.

The happiest people are those who choose to be childfree and single. I have a friend like this. She is very confident, and self-assured and knows what she wants from life. I am not confident enough to live her life and I know I would be unhappy. I need more support in everyday life than she needs.

Yes, apparently I am selfish for not having given birth, I have loads of disposable income, and now single am about to snatch any married man.

I can't find the link now but a few years ago they did a global study and found the happiest people tended to be those with adult children. Which makes sense to me.

I agree too.

I think of myself as childfree now even though I originally wanted children but couldn’t have them. I’m as much at peace with it as I would be if I had chosen it and I make the most of it.

No. I'm 33, childfree by choice but have a boyfriend at the moment (he doesn't want kids either), before that I was single save for a few short flings for about a decade. I've never felt less than or judged because of it. I can count on one hand the amount of people who've asked me why I don't want kids/said I'll change my mind/couldn't wrap their heads around it – and it was all men!

The only people who've ever questioned my reproductive choices were men I went on dates with, and needless to say, I didn't see them again. The only time a woman has ever questioned or probed is a colleague who said she felt like me (vehemently didn't want kids) until she was 35, then much to her surprise changed her mind, but that wasn't even really questioning or saying the same would happen for me, she was just adding her own anecdote.

Maybe people have judged me but I'm oblivious. I decided to stop caring what people thought of me in my 20s which apparently is sooner than a lot of people learn to do that. It helps that most of my friends are single, childfree women, and even if/when some of them have got a partner it hasn't changed the friendship, we all still make an effort to hang out without our partners.

I also find the 'omg you're so brave living life on your own terms' thing weird. It wasn't an active choice. I just knew on a very fundamental, visceral level since I was a child that I didn't want kids, so I'm not sure why following my instincts is considered brave. I'd tell people on the first date that I didn't want kids, because if they did, it wasn't worth dating. Going down a path that led to motherhood would have felt like forcing myself to go against everything I knew about myself and I can't imagine a world in which I'd have done that, so I don't really see my childfree-ness as a choice, more just an unchangeable instinct within me.

I think there are probably some people who do think you not doing it right if you don’t get married, buy a house and have kids (i.e. what they’ve done, what their parents did) but it’s such an old fashioned notion, I can’t imagine many people think like that anymore.
There are always going to be people who think that everyone should do what they’ve done with their lives but as other posters have said, you are still not getting it right in their eyes just by having kids.

It’s maybe not looked down on but my experience has been that I don’t fit into any box, and I have had negative experiences from other women about that; no kids, not married, not ‘highflying’ not made of money. No tale of woe about not having children.

I think now and then if someone really has a problem with it then it might be projection or they want validation for their own choices. I don’t really care but can’t not say there isn’t some kind of stigma because there is.

@TedMullins At 33 people still think there is time for you to change your mind. And in fairness some people do as they get older. Wait until you are 45 or 50 and see if people still treat you the same if you are childfree, but especially if you are single again and childfree.

Maybe years ago but not nowadays. I can’t imagine anyone I know saying disparaging things about a single, childless person, in fact I think they’d be secretly jealous of them.

I would never look down on anyone who doesn’t have children. Many of my friends don’t and now that my own are older it’s just not something I even think about.

However; I do find some childless couples slightly strange. Sadly, I suspect it’s those who would have dearly loved children and couldn’t.

I think the problem is that we all unconsciously assume that our friends want the same things as us (because we have so much in common otherwise - they must do, right?!!). And these things (partners, children, big house, whatever) are so 'normal', so 'easy' that it's hard to understand why someone wouldn't want that - and therefore as they haven't got what they wanted (we assume), it suddenly becomes 'oh, poor X', which is where the second class citizen feeling arises. You're not imagining it, it's definitely real.

And this whole process for most people is unconscious- they don't even realise they're doing it. It takes a big leap to understand our choices are not our friend's choices.

I had a line manager that brought me not having kids up all the time, it felt like she was secretly obsessed with me, it was weird.

And you think having children would have “normalised” them?

Can I ask why you think they are strange. I’m in a childless relationship because my partner had cancer treatment.

No I don't look down on you.

I envy you at times!

This is so true. It's not an issue so much for men, though, because it's more expected for a man not to want children and he can always change his mind when he's older. Women in their 30's are going to get questioned more because the clock is going 'tick, tick, tick' and so many women do change their mind at 11 o'clock. Nobody asks a woman of 50 if she's planning on having children because 'duh!' so it must be whole lot easier around that age.

Maybe people are secretly thinking this but nobody is saying it out loud. At least 50% of my friends don't want children either so I don't envisage I'll be the only childfree one when we reach 40s/50s. Unless they all change their minds of course!

I have no interest in the reproductive choices of other women. I've known women in every category you can imagine - and even I don't fall neatly into the "fell in love, got married and had children" box. Life often doesn't go to plan and there are many paths a person can take. None are more righteous than another.

However, if you're asking me whether being a parent changes you in ways that you can't comprehend before you had kids, then yes. I know childless people can pissy about hearing it being said, but as we're discussing the subject on this thread there's no point being less than honest.

Having children brings a dimension to your life that just can't be experienced in any other way. I've known a few woman in their 50s/60s/70s who are childless and they all have a unique selfishness, despite being very lovely people. When you have kids you have to put someone else first, no matter how annoying that might be at times. It changes you as a person and I think there are no other life experiences which are comparable. And yes, that old trope, but there's absolutely no love which comes even close to the love you have for your child. There are times when I almost regret having children because I'm now emotionally vulnerable in a way that I never was before. People say it's like a little piece of your heart is out there walking around, and that's exactly how it is. I had this conversation the other day, and a group of mums were all saying they felt the same.

But of course there is a flip side too. As a childless person you'll probably have opportunities that I'll never have. I could spend all day listing them. So you might be more rounded in other ways. You'll undoubtedly have the chance for many more exciting, fulfilling experiences that I can't even begin to comprehend.

The choices we make and the experiences we have in our life shapes who we are. And that includes having children too. It's silly to pretend that having children doesn't change you enormously, and alter your view of the world in a way that's impossible to understand unless you have kids yourself. But that doesn't make it the only valid choice - there are increasingly more young women who are deciding that their future doesn't involve motherhood, and no one should have to explain that to anyone else.