To ask why so many child-free people are on Mumsnet?

[DarlingClementine85]

I already know this is going to be divisive and I'm hesitating before I even type this. I don't mean this in a snarky or judgemental way at all. It's just a straightforward question that I've been pondering. It seems there's a lot of posters on here who are child-free by choice (I'm not talking about people dealing with infertility who would dearly love to be parents). And I was wondering why, as this is predominantly a forum for getting or giving parental advice? For questions about trying to understand their friends with kids, I absolutely get it. But I see plenty of threads about various parenting issues and there's always people saying things like "I don't have kids, but..."

TIA for not taking offence!!

No. I’m just standing up for the poster who was curious as to why people arrived here and got a pile on from people telling her she should have known from looking at the site.

No idea where you got “all non parents should vacate this space” from that.

Out of interest what age are childless women "allowed" to join? Is it just an age related thing now not a child related thing?

It's getting to be a complex set of rule

You can join if you are young and have a child
You can join if you are older and tried to have a child but failed (although plenty of users also disagree with this)
What about if you are childfree by choice but had an accidental pregnancy and a miscarriage are you allowed to join or not? Does it depend on whether you are in your 20s or 30s.

I had my miscarriage in my mid 20s and started fertility treatment not long after. I'm very glad I wasn't told I was too young to join then as a woman without a child

That what drew people to the site is to come for the parenting advice then stay for the rest.

The OP expressed surprise that people who aren’t parents at all have looked for the site in the first place and stayed, that’s all.

People have explained again and again how they found MN and, no, we were not all drawn to it for parenting advice. And, no, we did not look for the site in the first place. I had a neighbour issue and googled it - first hit was an AIBU thread that seemed to be about my exact issue. It didn’t occur to me not to click on it because I’m not a parent. I’d found useful info on the same topic on landlord forums and I’m not a landlord either. I got sucked into AIBU like thousands before me, whereas the LL site didn’t really retain my interest beyond the initial info...

Assume some posters are either not reading the replies or just too wedded to the idea that childfree posters are misfits who went searching for a parenting site for nefarious reasons to give it up.

Are they? I don't think so.

Childfree is what? A parent with adult children not at home?
Childless - a person who has chosen not to have a child or can't have one?

Nope, they are interchangeable.

The point is the site is called MUMSnet! And look above ^^ by parents for parents

Pretty clear don't you think?

This has to be a new low

To be fair there are twelve pages of replies and my response came from a response to an early post of mine which I later came back to.

But as you have read all the thread you know that don’t you?

so no, I haven’t read all the replies.

What an odd remark! If someone wanted advice on leaving an abusive relationship do you not think they could consider a specialist support group?

Maybe you can answer the question another user (and plenty of other posters have failed to answer on similar threads) didn't answer

How soon after I miscarried was I supposed to deregister?

This is becoming completely mad. I think I might take my barren womb somewhere else.

Cheers, OP! One less evil witch who dared imagine she was the equal of the sanctified mummies for you to deal with.

Have you read The Handmaid’s Tale?

There seems to be a lot of people without kids with enormous chips on their shoulders here.

Fill your boots guys. Stay. You’re welcome.

But it isnt odd that a newbie might be surprised you’re here in the first place. Dont give them a hard time for being curious.

We were all newbies once.

Tired, the fact is that most of us don’t think it was genuine curiosity. These threads (and there are many!) always go the same way. Some people answer openly, others get annoyed that the same question has been raised yet again. I didn’t have a view really until I saw op’s rather sarky responses and the fact she was wholeheartedly agreeing with another poster who seems to view the childfree as an inferior category of contributor.

I don’t like pile-ons either, but I think your sympathy here is misplaced!

I, and many others, are childfree by choice. The term childless implies a loss or something missing in your life and is something many woman on this thread have spoken about.

Again, should these women not engage in the thousands of non parenting related topics on this website? It has been explained over and over why people found, and stayed, on this site.

To repeat myself, I have never posted on a parenting related topic. I have no skin in that game. But I have found a wonderfully supportive community of women (and men) who have given me some great advice over the years on all manner of subjects. It's frankly quite upsetting to see threads that show how unwelcome women without children are here.

There seems to be a lot of people without kids with enormous chips on their shoulders here

Not at all. Just irritated at the usual pish that crops up time and time again.

Anyway, once more for the hard of thinking. If you google things, MN links often pop up near the top, you don't need to go searching for MN specifically or indeed anything parenting related for that to come up.

Also it's got a fantastic feminism section. Yes there's GC twitter as well but it's nice to have important discussions in a forum format as it's more measured and less frantic than a series of tweets.

In the past week, I've enjoyed joining in with discussions on Eurovision and the new season of Selling Sunset. Yes I could do that on reddit but I prefer the vibe here - it's more UK-centric and less young and painfully woke.

I've been on MN a long, long time and it's clear that it's evolved significantly from the original remit. And, given that we don't need to produce the birth certificate of an offpsring to register, none of you get to gatekeep who participates. Yes you can create goady posts but don't then start crying when people bite back and confabulate about abusive texts. It's dull.

It's frankly quite upsetting to see threads that show how unwelcome women without children are here.

Exactly. Having to justify your presence (which is how thread after thread on this topic reads). Finding out that many posters think you’re an oddball for being here, while others are ok with it as long as you know your place.

Yikes. That's pretty bitchy.

If people want a real-time answer to a critical situation, such as domestic abuse, it seems obvious to me that as well as accessing the resources that Women's aid might have they'd also go somewhere like MN where at any given time there are several thousand people browsing threads.

Imagine being so waspishly possessive of an internet forum.

@JorisBonson ignore them. Most of them have either been here five minutes or are deliberate shit-stirrers.

No one says you shouldn't be here but I am also asking if you could access the same support elsewhere - even a place like Women's Aid for example?

How about both? Who are you to try and ration the support available to an abused woman?
A new low indeed.

The goadyness is strong with this one 🤣

Bloody hell. This has taken some tirn feom the usual even for this type of thread😳

No one’s bought a carphone for over 25 years either. You still see an awful lot of Carphone Warehouse stores around.

No one says you shouldn't be here but I am also asking if you could access the same support elsewhere - even a place like Women's Aid for example?

Why, though? Why does it matter if she got that support here or WA? Are you concerned that there isn’t enough support for childless women or are you concerned that the denizens of MN have limited capacity to help and need to ration their resources to mummies only?

I suppose we could ask Admin why child free women are allowed on this forum. Admin?

Does anyone remember odd woman on the Apprentice, endlessly baffled by the French (“do the French love their kids? I don’t know any French people!”)

I feel like a fair number of MNetters think of childless and childfree women like that.

“Do childless women like shopping? TV? Parking threads? Politics? Being helped out of difficult situations?!?! How bizarre!!!!”

Imagine registrations.
Abusive partner? Got some birth cert to prove babies? No. Oh soz mate, here are some contacts, good luck