Childfree people ranting about parents

[the7Vabo]

Came across a thread on another site full of people ranting about children entitled “parents not everything is about you.” I get it to a point, as a parent I think society has become somewhat a overly child-centred. I assume however that the odd stories you see about parents demanding people give up train seats for ten year olds are just that, the odd story of unreasonable behaviour that people in all groups can be guilty of.

The extent of the comments on that thread baffled me. Full of I’m so glad I don’t have children because X, Y. It’s one thing to want to be child free which to me is a perfectly valid life choice, but I’m baffled by the level of bitching about parents & children. If someone wants to be child free why can’t they simply be child free & accept that others didn’t make that choice instead of ranting about how parents are always on at them about how fulfilled they are while at the same time ranting about how terrible it would be to have kids.

@JorisBonson most people live in the here and now, they react to their current circumstances (see @BadNomad) rather than thinking in the long-term. Do you think most people go through their lives thinking 'i must be more tolerant of children/parents because I may have them one day' no, if something pisses you off at the time, it pisses you off. Also you never know whether you are going to have children until you actually have them in your arms, so you don't choose that you are going to have them in the future, you just live your life the same as a child free choice person... until life throws you a set of circumstances that you then evaluate and then go 'actually I wouldn't mind trying for a child'...no guarantees then though either.

Having spent time in Europe I think this anti parents thing is much more a problem in the UK as opposed to other countries that tend to embrace children and families.

Ive not really seen childfree people getting abuse for their choices, what I have experienced is childfree people being inflexible with parents. For example, taking school holidays as annual leave when they have no plans but request the time off because should Susie have it off just because she is a breeder. Petty and ugly behaviour.

Have you told your children that is what you expect from them? That they're not allowed to make any decisions in life that will take them away from you because you had them to nurse you in your old age.

Good luck with that lol.

BadNomad, that society needs people to have children and the reasons that motivated people to have them are two different arguments.

I think there is a lack of understanding from some people on both sides. Child free people don't always get how all consuming parenthood is in the early years. Parents don't always understand that other people can be perfectly happy and content without having their own children. A bit more tact could be applied in the way we talk about other people and their reproductive decisions.

I'm expecting robots to do it for me personally (I'm being slightly flipant)

I find it difficult to understand how we close the gap between the two narratives in the press:

Automation, AI and robotics are going to take all our jobs

Dropping child rates will mean a shortage of care staff in the future

I think personally it will go one of two ways

Automation etc will free up society to do more caring roles that are better with a human touch

Or

Automation will mean thinks like carers are replaced with robots

Either way the conditions that make me unable to have children also make me unlikely to reach retirement age. So I am not going to meekly take a lifetime of being told I am less worthy one the very slim off chance someone needs to wipe my bum in the future

I've spent a lot of years volunteering with children, I babysit them etc I don't make like harder for parents. But I sure as hell love my pets more than people kids and I'm not going to apologise for that, it's perfectly natural

Exactly. So why are people using "benefit to society" as justification for why they had children? Why don't people just say "I had them because I wanted them". Why is that not a good enough reason?

Why shouldn't I have time off in the summer just because? Why should I work for 40-50 years never having time off from mid July to September?

Why is it not okay for me to suddenly decide one year that I fancy spending some time in the garden in the best weather?

I had a week off in August last year to complete my dissertation and its the first time since leaving school that I have had time off in the summer holidays when i wasn't taking other people's children camping. And honestly I was pissed off at myself for how uncomfortable I felt because of how it's been drummed into me that I am not worthy of summer breaks

This. It’s the same as those who say “I know what it’s like to be childless - I was childless once”. No. You don’t know what it’s like to live your whole life without children.

Yabu

To judge a whole group by the few comments online is just bonkers

@BadNomad when I said nurse you in old age...I literally meant nurse you, not me...although they may do something else that you might appreciate them for

I'm childfree and I've never slagged off parents (well, I have, but for being dickheads - not for being parents)
I have lots of friends in both camps and there's no hate or rivalry 🤷‍♀️

You need to surround yourself with better people. I've never come across anything like this

I used to be childless and now I have DC. Never got any comments before having DC and TBF I don't think people care about whether others have children as much as the childless seem to think they do. I'd like them to stop harping on about not having children, who cares?

Who cares what others say really, I'm secure in my choice to have a child (don't worry i don't feel the need to preach about how great it is) and if others choose to speak about their choice to be child free, remembering no one should have to justify their choice either way, then good for them!

There are some very entitled parents out there though.

Right because its my fault.... 🙄

I get men frequently tell me they've never seen the sexist behaviour me and my female colleagues talk about. Doesn't mean that never happens either

But like I said most of this is from posters on MN

I've noticed nobody has actually acknowledged the facts that I stated which paints the picture of a majority being childfree so where is all this hate coming from and all these entitled parents on mass, the figures simply don't back this up. Some areas in the UK like Norfolk have a huge elderly population so it is unlikely that these entitled sprogs never run a mock in these places, they are hardly ever seen.

So glad you decided to have children to do these jobs and are currently training them to be care home nurses to ensure they fulfil the reason you had them. Or did you have kids because you just wanted them?

I'm child free by choice as there are simply too many humans already. that also includes my choice not to have to rely on care when I'm older and my opinion that to reduce the population we need to be more open to human migration and making sacrifices about the services and availability of products we are used to. Including being kept alive as long as possible.

I don't expect your kids to do anything for me. On the contrary I am a net contributor to society through my taxes that pays for schools, family/child benefits and pregnancy/child healthcare.

We can't keep tripping out the same old tropes about 'who will look after you when you are older' to justify child bearing when climate change has already gone past a tipping point due to excess global population. At this rate your children won't have a liveable habitat to even see that age if populations and consumption doesn't reduce by a huge amount. Harsh but a simple fact.

Like I said. Thank you for having children for me. I picked up my dog's shit for you so your pavement is always clean.

Likely not 'unlikely'.

And off course you know all the personal circumstances of your colleagues? The fact that they might have a partner who is a teacher? They might have a family member they've agreed to help with child care? The reason they request time off is absolutely none of your business. My husband used to request time off in school holidays because I worked as a teacher. We didn't always have plans. He was as entitled to that time off as his colleague with two kids

@BadNomad unlucky! I trained my DC to use a toilet so you didn't have to step in theirs 😂

I’m not talking about summer where there’s multiple weeks that can be spread equally between all the team. I’m talking about feb and oct when it’s one week and the childfree member of staff takes it for no other reason than to be petty towards the other member with a child.

Pesky petty childfree women, organising a week of doing nothing around the precious half term! I imagine she spent all week peeping round her curtain, shaking a fist at any child that dared to walk past.

This isn't what happened. That person had plans. School holidays don't trump those plans just because they concern children.

I wasn’t judging a whole group of people online, I was in fact commenting on what I felt was a whole group of people being judged (and it transpires there was a reason for the thread title I saw that I wasn’t aware of). I jumped to a conclusion and so have you which is part of problem I guess.