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!!

It’s a parenting forum so why aren’t dads welcome?

It’s a parenting forum so why aren’t dads welcome?

It's become one of the rare predominantly female discussion spaces online. That is valuable and what draws all women to it, even the dreaded child free ones.

Okay… I really want to be polite but your initial question was frustratingly divisive, insensitive and ignorant. As you now know there are so many reasons people are on here. Some were pregnant when they joined but sadly miscarried and stayed; others joined by chance and stayed for some of the interesting and funny posts etc etc. Most of us live in a world with children in it. Do you get it now? MN is for all women and it is absolutely brilliant.

This thread reminds me of a time when colleagues at work were talking about their children going through a particular phase. I am very close to my nephews and nieces and chimed in about them and was cold shouldered by one person in particular who, because I wasn’t a mother, saw my views as invalid. It was awful to be so deliberately excluded. Interestingly it was a man who did this. The women were all much kinder and inclusive.

You’re not a man are you, OP? (Apologies to any lovely men who I may offend)

I have witnessed it at a very vulnerable time in my life and I can see how someone without kids might not notice and pick up on it, because it doesn’t affect them, it doesn’t sting, it doesn’t smart.

There seem to be posters on this thread claiming “I don’t have kids and don’t go on the parenting threads’ on the one hand, while saying “Parents claiming that people without kids, slag them off on parenting threads, are making it up”. Are you on the parenting threads or not? If you are on them, then you will see it.

Indeed. Obviously the posters who don’t have kids or are not TTC who are really aggressive about their sense of entitlement to be here on equal terms with parents, kind of drown out all the sensible, mild posters, without kids, who get the fact that sometimes their input might not be welcoming on the parenting threads.

It does seem to be a hobby for some aggressive ones to see how many times they can call parents ‘vile’ in any given week on a parenting forum. It’s only natural to wonder why they choose to come here, why they choose parents, mums in particular, to vent at.

I would like MN to confirm whether posters starting these or any "it will be divisive blah, but I am new" threads are actually new.
Because I don't believe that line at all

If you say nasty things you should accept that you may get nasty responses back.

Not everyone will turn the other cheek.

Surely though, if you looked around and saw the different topics it would be obvious that there's everything as well as the kitchen sink on here?

Home & Garden, Feminism, Slimming, TV and Film, Money, Pets, Travel... And you're ON AIBU!

Not rocket science (new Topic idea there MN!)

Looks like she’s had a name change failure already.

Weird that they know how to name change but not search a topic. A quick search would have brought up dozens of threads shaming childless MN users.

I don’t think op said anything nasty at all.

She thinks only mums would he interested in those topics. Bizarre.

I don’t think people can actually change names on the same thread anymore to avoid sock puppets.

And yet no one will link to any example threads of child free people slagging off parents.

Because they don’t exist.

No, but you only need two email addresses to have two accounts, and it’s been pretty obvious to me when that happens on some trolling threads.

can you point to any specific threads? It's just not something I've personally noticed, non-parents striding onto parenting threads and being obnoxious.

Did you have a look through AIBU before you posted this often-asked question on this particular forum? Because if you did, you'd have noticed that the majority of threads on AIBUY have nothing to do with children.

You can still name change on a thread.

I haven't changed my name and I am new here (and I am not a man, lol). I think you're referring to another poster who said she had to change her name after being "lynched" for asking a similar question.

I feel like this is turning into a witch hunt and I've been getting some threatening personal messages now, which was unexpected because I've looked back at all my comments and there's nothing nasty there, and nothing I wouldn't say to someones face. Sometimes people forget there is a real person behind the anonymity. I've never been on the recieving end of a forum pile up and it's really made me think about group behaviour and how easy mob mentality can be online, because many of the messages are not related to what I actually said at all. So, thank you for this.

People often join when they're considering having children and then stay when they decide not to or aren't able to.

It might be called MumsNet but really it's just a massive, well known forum for primarily adult women. And most of the topics are nothing to do with kids.

I really cba. I remember a while back there were a lot of threads on chat by teachers, saying essentially ‘I don’t have any kids, but fellow teachers, what is it that parents do that piss you off the most?’.

As a parent you can completely empathise with another parent’s difficulties and anxieties and many of the ‘annoying’ things parents were said to do were clearly just parents at the end of their tether, possibly with kids with undiagnosed SEN.

This is the thing, you want me to trawl through upsetting things to present you with compelling evidence, before you’ll contemplate that maybe there is something in what I am saying. Seriously, you clearly couldn’t give a shiny one about me, so why expect this from me?

Excuse me if I'm finding it hard to believe that childfree people are bombarding you with threatening personal messages. It's a good way to make them look bad without having to do anything to prove it though.

On the plus side its an unexpected bonus for you OP. Because if childfree people are sending you threatening messages you can report them to MN and get them banned thereby ridding the forum of some of the people you think don't belong here.

Of course no one should be sending unsolicited or threatening PMs to anyone.

Report the PMs to MN, OP, they have the facility to look at PM inboxes and can deal with the transgressors accordingly.

There is a very common pattern playing out here though, which you might want to reflect on. MN gets a LOT of “wide eyed ingenue with a faux-innocent and obviously controversial question, who then claims to be the victim of a bullying pile-on when people disagree” threads, so there is inevitably a certain amount of world-weariness / sharpness when we see it happen yet again. This can be a hugely supportive place but it’s also a place where women don’t have to take any shit or police their tone to be “nice” (so long as we stay within TGs) so there is an element of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

OP, hold on to the fact that there are loads of nice posters on this thread both with and without children, taking what you said in good faith, understanding that you meant no harm. I have often wondered about it too. Your op certainly kicked the hornets’ nest though. 😬 Yikes.

Are you seriously suggesting that child free teachers have no right to comment on parents' behaviour if it impacts on their ability to do their jobs?