To feel like my child free friends want me to dislike having a child?

[doggydoggle]

Growing up, I observed that amongst my parents generation, there was a lot of jokes about husbands and wives disliking each other. This is often referred to as "boomer humour".

"The old ball and chain."

Jokes about his bald head and her fat bum.

It was all over birthday cards. It was all over tv and was generally part of every day conversation. Not to say that everyone actually felt that way but it felt like it was expected that they'd talk about each other that way.

I feel like my generation's (I'm in my 30s) equivalent to that is people joking about not liking their children. Parents often "jokingly" warn you "don't have kids". They do a sort of (either faux or real) jealousy when they hear about child free people going out to drinks as they have to be at home with a child. They constantly talk about needing wine to cope.

People without children often refer to children as smelly or gross or openly talk about how they could never cope with not having freedom.

I was child free for many years and I think it's great for people to be able to choose not to have children. I definitely don't think everyone should and it's obviously not the right thing for everyone. I believe people can be perfectly happy without children.

However I feel like a lot of people now seem to pity me for having a child and not being able to stay out late or make impromptu plans or "do whatever I want". Generally they talk about parenthood as being completely negative.

I confess that I felt this way before I had children. I definitely felt sorry for parents - thought they always looked stressed. Their lives didn't sound as fun. I thought mine seemed more fun - getting up when I want, not having responsibilities, being able to just think of myself.

The difference is that I didn't actually say this out loud to people with children!! As I knew it would be offensive to speak about their actual child who they loved as this horrible negative thing.

I've completely changed since having a child. I know that a lot of people will think it's for the worst but to me it feels like life is so much better now. Having a child is obviously hard sometimes but I love having him and I feel this complete and utter contentment and inner peace that I've craved my whole life. I have never been so at peace and happy ever before. I absolutely love being a mum and if I could go back in time I'd do it sooner and start sorting my life and finances out sooner so I could have had more.

I don't expect people to love or care about my child but I feel increasingly like having a child has almost become "uncool" amongst my (mostly childfree) peers. I'm constantly inundated with picture of peoples dogs. Everyone wants to meet these new dogs or see pictures or talk about and fuss over them. Sometimes they insist they love them as much as a parent loves their child (not in a joking 'fur baby' way either)

Any even mention of my child is at best smiled politely at before immediately changing the subject or worst I am told how they don't like children and sometimes they're called things like "crotch goblins". This is not in a loving jokey way.

Again I know nobody else owes me anything and has no reason to be interested in my child. I just feel it's weird that I'm expected to constantly talk about and look at pictures of dogs but if when giving an update about what's been happening with me I mention that my child learned to walk or talk or cartwheel, its boring and not an acceptable conversation.

When people find out I have a child they seem to feel sorry for me and want to brag about how they don't have one and their life is so easy.

I've tried making friends with mums at groups but I don't seem to have a lot in common with ones I've met and now I am back to working full time it is harder. A lot of people I meet through work, my interests etc tend to be childfree for whatever reason.

Such an insightful post! Yes, you are right about the shift from hating your partner to your children! And the weird dog thing! Yes!

I also dislike the needing wine thing.

I had a friend who after I had a baby kept repeatedly saying how awful it seemed and how she was so relieved she never had kids. It was just fucking rude. You wouldn’t be like that for any other event in someone’s life.

Children are less interesting (to me) than adults so I like their company less. If I'm totally honest I'd love if they were born 18. Maybe 21. It's ok to dislike children (yes, all children). It's not ok to make them or their parents feel bad about your dislike (unless they're listening to paw patrol without headphones in the quiet carriage).

I have read many things that have shocked me over the years on mumsnet but this is one of the most outrageously hurtful, patronising and narrow minded posts.

You might think the old people you know are special and unique but it's same old to some of us.

You might think the disabled people you know are special and unique but it's same old to some of us.

You might think the... Etc etc.

Every reason given for disliking children as an entire group can be applied to other groups based on characteristics they have no control over, and it suddenly becomes something very insulting and oftentimes, unacceptable to say. Yet somehow, people think it's ok to say it about children as if they are one homogenous group.

Sarah Ockwell-Smith has written fantastically on this, her book is called "Because I Said So" but there are lots of her thoughts on childism online too.

Are they? In your opinion they might be but lots of people would see old people as being pretty homogenous too. I mean they might think they are special and unique but it's the same old to some of us.

^^that reads as pretty nasty doesn't it? I understand that you won't see it but it really is the same thing and we really shouldn't see either as acceptable.

A lot of that can be time factors.
Women who have worked full-time while raising kids and are often helping raise their grandkids in their retirement very often haven't had much time left for hobbies.

It's a complete and utter myth that all women stopped work when they had kids. My mums was a latch key kid back in the 1950s.

They ARE homogenous. They cry. They suck attention. Hit when they're frustrated. Being around them is really unpleasant for some people. I'm fascinated by what makes us different - what is it like in the head of someone not stressed and distressed by them? But I absolutely believe that some people love them (yes, as a homogenous group) so why can't they extend the same courtesy of empathetic imagining??

😆😆😆

I just do it to my cats, who don't care!

I also dislike the needing wine thing.

Well yes it wasn’t a childfree person who wrote “Why Mummy Drinks” was it.

One of the things I find oddest about being childfree but not by choice is how much my friends with children want to moan about their kids to me. I'm not sure whether they think I won't judge them and they can't get these things off their chests to other friends who are parents, or whether they met think that this is somehow what I want because I can't have kids, or whether they are just moany in general. I see the same friends having a lovely time with their kids and posting good times on Facebook etc, but if I only went by what they tell me, I would think that having kids is awful.

I actually find it quite hard because they moan constantly about the one thing that I have wanted all my life and can't have, and there's no way to address it without making an unnecessary drama out of it.

@PearlKoala this is a really good point. All those people who hate children, would they turn a blind eye to abuse of a child?

The hatred for children is such an immature attitude. There's nothing wrong with deciding not to have children or thinking someone's a bore because all they talk about is their child, but to openly hate children shows immaturity and an intolerant nature in itself.
Almost as if they'd never been a vulnerable child themselves.

Is it OK to dislike old people, yes all old people and to normalise that dislike within society? So long as you just ignore old people and don't make them feel bad for being old of course. But would it be OK for me and a group of friends to sit down call them disparaging names, talk about how much they smell, how we hate how they move or the noises they make or how they inconvenience our lives so long as they never know about it?

It is a huge decision not to have children and not one people take lightly. There is an expectation that people will have children so there is pressure to justify the decision not to. For quite a few people it isn’t straightforward either. Some haven’t found a partner they want to commit to, some are with someone who doesn’t want children and some aren’t in a relationship at all. Some people struggle to conceive and then decide to stop trying. Quite a few friends and colleagues have agonised privately with me over the decision not to have children but speak about children quite negatively in front of others. Dogs are neutral, easy to get if you want one and there are no societal expectations to have one so they are easy to talk about.

Lots of my close friends are child-free by choice and all of them adore my kids. They have a whole heap of "aunties and uncles" who play with them/buy them loud toys etc. They also ask me how they're doing. Our lives are in drastically different positions and I really appreciate how much effort they've gone to to still include me.

I think your friends are just being a bit mean tbh.

I though the same thing when I read that person's reply.

It's not hard not to be polite to people and doubly so when it's your friends!

Your friends are being really rude OP. If they've been good friends up to now, I would try talking to them about it and let them know it's upsetting you.

Hopefully they are just being thoughtless rather than nasty.

Yes of course humans are more important but why can't someone have an overwhelming love for their dog or cat. Who has the right to judge them. The animals may be their only companions. To be fair I've met plenty of people who I would put animals way above !!

@HoHoHoliday

Your post title suggests you want a thread to bash childfree people which is pretty crappy of you.

Presumably you don't need pointing to the childfree board.

I don't think anyone is likely to turn a blind eye to a crime but it is fair to say I don't experience the viral visceral fury that many feel when they learn of a crime against a child. All crime is bad.

When I was a child I didn't like children either so "you were a child once" makes no sense to me.

I guess if you want to?

I don't think anyone has said people can't have an overwhelming love for their dog/cat/hamster but comparing it to the love a parent feels for their child is a bit ridiculous quite honestly.
As I said before, how does the child free person know they are feeling the same love for their pet as they would for a child? It is absolutely impossible to know as they have never had their own children!
There was a news segment on a few weeks ago about introducing 'pet'ernity leave as this generation feels hard done by because their mother's had time off work to have them and they feel they are missing out....words failed me on that one.

Didn't take long for the "you don't care about child abuse" nonsense to appear, did it?

Also all these child haters were themselves once children and must have memories of that? So they hate themselves at a different life stage? Sorry but it’s very weird.

Wow, what a nasty post. This is really what you took away from the OP? She doesn’t expect her child to be celebrated, she expects her friends to accept them and show at least the same amount of interest as they do to each other’s dogs. It’s not a big ask.

And of course carrying a baby inside you, birthing it and then raising it for 18 years is not the same as having a dog. Ffs.

Saying someone hates younger themselves is quite a stretch. I wouldn't want to socialise with toddler or preteen me, and most certainly not with any of the kids at my schools. People here are talking like it's a crime to simply have no interest in children and want to stay away from them.

People could say the exact same about elderly people.

I'm not telling you that you have to like children, what I'm saying is that sweeping generalisations about any group of people is wrong. It seems especially wrong when people try to defend those sweeping generalisations, and then even more wrong when the group having those generalisations made against them is vulnerable.