to find childfree comments on parenting forums insensitive?

[HazelMember]

I’ve noticed this a lot lately. Someone will post saying they’re struggling with their DC. Maybe they’re exhausted, dealing with behaviour, feeling overwhelmed, trying to keep them entertained with school holidays. childcare stuff.

Someone pops up with “this is why I’m childfree” or “so glad I dodged that bullet”

I just don’t get the need to say it. Nobody is asking you to justify your life choices. It’s not a debate about whether having children is worth it.

It would be like me going onto a forum for people who can’t have children and saying “well I’ve got three and it’s amazing”, it is just completely insensitive to the situation and adds nothing.

I’m not saying people can’t be childfree or be happy about it, obviously. But there’s a time and place. When someone is clearly struggling, it comes across a bit smug and lacking in empathy.

Just as a heads up, the board is for MN without children, so that's the CF like me but also for people who wanted children but never had any.

I had it done to me on a thread on the parenting board where I was struggling with my newborn baby and a childfree person said it had reminded them to get sterilised.

Do I think though that post is representative of all childfree people? Of course I don't. But some childfree people will post on parenting threads when a person is struggling to say it makes them glad they don't have children. Just as some people with children for some reason go on threads about children to wax lyrical about true love, about their children paying these peoples pensions etc etc.

Both are arsehole things to and it's important to recognise like life there will always be arseholes and people who act like it on both sides of the fence rather than this turn into some childfree vs mums debate and both sides going on the defensive.

I can't get worked up about who posts on here. This board isn't a dictatorship and people should feel free to post whether they have kids or not. There's lots of topics such as mental health, elderly parents etc that people without kids male very valuable contributions to.

Genuinely curious as to what drew you to a site called mumsnet if you’re childfree?

(If you have at some point been trying for children I could understand it).

There are plenty of interesting topics to discuss. I've been here for years. I've never had children and never had any intention to do so.

I’m honestly having flashbacks to that awful thread we had when we were discussing with MNHQ setting up a MNers without children board. Just like this, it was taken over by the scolding parents who weren’t at all listening to the perfectly sensible arguments for including it and instead ranting on about how Mumsnet was for mums and couldn’t we go somewhere else, totally ignoring that only a fraction of the site is now actually about parenting. It seems we will always be interlopers here.

I am minded to stop offering advice about any of the areas in which I have professional knowledge and expertise or personal experience until I’ve checked if the person to whom I’m offering it is happy to receive advice on these totally non-parenting topics from a person who isn’t a parent. Because for many, it seems being a parent is apparently the only qualification needed for knowing about menopause, architecture, cooking and the planning system.

Not this faux-naive shite again.

I see a lot more vitriolic and rude comments from childfree women aimed at mothers, than I do the other way around.

You are 100% correct that anyone doing that is being insensitive. That’s not to say people are not insensitive in many other ways on many other topics as they absolutely are.
It also would be a fair criticism that child free by choice women tend towards being smug about issues parents are facing/say they should have planned better and resentful about “their”money being spent on other people’s offspring or that mothers tend towards being smug about their kids being the most important thing they’ve ever achieved and dismissing the worth of the contributions those who are child free make. Not all women (child free or not) are like that by any means but certainly enough are that it’s a common response to be an arse to
someone different. See also breastfed vs not, SAHM vs working one. Then you have the whole high earners/benefit claimants clashes, left vs right political views etc. I’m depressing myself a bit coming to the conclusion that actually quite a lot of people can be awful about at least some topics. That said most of us are a bit more considerate than the various bad examples in the thread most of the time.

Oh my days, what a nasty thread.

Thank you @AprilMizzel I am sorry you had to tolerate this ridiculous and insulting behaviour. Apart from this so-called friend I mentioned, I also got patronising remarks and comments from other people too. A couple of midwives and health visitors and a GP. (ALL women.) I was in my 30s, and they acted like I didn't know which part of my daughter the fecking nappy went on, and like I would probably put it on back to front.

My 'friend' was the worst though, talking down to me like I was a bloody simpleton, about how I should be looking after my OWN newborn baby, when she hadn't ever had children. Thought she was an expert because she babysat her nieces and nephew sometimes. FFS!

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It’s not faux-naive, I genuinely would like to know. For example, I’d never visit a site called teachersnet or footballersnet because I’m not a teacher and I have no interest in football. I honestly don’t know what would make someone visit mumsnet in the first instance if they weren’t a parent or trying to become one.

MN is advertised everywhere. You see an interesting thread title on X or in the press, you read it, realise there’s threads on all sorts of topics and that the name isn’t a reflection on the site and you stay. Is it that tricky to comprehend? If you went on footballers.net once and realised there were a host of threads that interested you and weren’t about football would you not think you’d be welcome to stay?

Because you might Google a topic and a Mumsnet thread comes up in the results? Is that so hard for you to imagine?

If you Google any one of a number of non-parenting subjects, a Mumsnet thread will be at or near the top. Attached is a screenshot of the top threads in Active right now - there are eight threads before you reach anything in any way connected to parenting. After a break of many years I only came back because I googled removing a particular stain from carpet, and a Mumsnet thread offered good advice. You can find good advice here on so many subjects, and some of the specialist boards offer a supportive community to people going through a lot, from cancer to menopause, redundancy to eviction. Why does not being a parent exclude you from that community?

Tbh, I see a lot more unkind comments from mothers towards other mothers than I do from childfree women.

I do too. Possibly because I am child free and those are the comments that I remember. I also think ‘phew, grateful I don’t have children’ is nowhere near as awful as ‘you’ll never experience real love’ but again that might be because of where I am with it all.

I also think ‘phew, grateful I don’t have children’ is nowhere near as awful as ‘you’ll never experience real love’ but again that might be because of where I am with it all.

I think the phew greatful I don't have kids in fine in many contexts and a perfectly resonable stance for many women/men - it's not a million miles from glad we don't have babies at our age which TBH DH and I both feel and say to each other not wider than that- it's fine for others but we're glad we had them much earlier and now have teens.

It only becomes a nasty phrase when it's in reponse to a mother talking about having a bad day with their kids -and someone says that in response - which was the OP original point. It's putting the boot into someone already on the floor - it's not helpful to anyone and is being said to hurt.

It's hard to think of a context where you'll never experince real love is not a really twatty comment meant to hurt someone.

I did end up on MN having googled and seen an answer on this site listed, I'd thought MN would be all feeding schedules and school choices so pleasantly surprised how much this site covers. The really nasty answers seem to come from the women who are DM, they think unless you find motherhood endlessly rewarding you're a bad parent and shouldn't have had a baby

Now this is an actual helpful response, thank you.

Not hard for me to imagine, but hadn’t occurred to me.
Thanks for actually answering the question, no need to be so pass-agg about it though.

I'm CF but had come across Mumsnet when I was planning my wedding; some of the first links that came up when I googled wedding planning questions, or help with some of the interpersonal/family dynamics surrounding wedding planning, were all to Mumsnet chats.

Then my husband and I were considering adoption, so there were helpful threads on that as well.

Mostly I stick around for AIBU and the Mumsnetters without Children boards, as the CF threads on Reddit tend to be pretty nasty towards mothers and I don't like that. I love being an aunt and godmother, and though I certainly don't comment, it's helpful reading the parenting boards because it gives insight into what my friends and family members may be experiencing. The majority of my close friends and women in my family are all mothers and getting a better (and unfiltered) perspective on motherhood helps me be a better friend and a better aunt.

Just a little bit on how some CF women end up here and why we stay.

Because if you google anything and search forums then mumsnet comes up. There are loads of threads and boards where children aren't mentioned or critical to the conversation. There are boards about books, tv, elderly parents, style and beauty, spirituality, relationships, politics and so on. I don't really look at the specific parenting boards. I'm pretty sure Mumsnet is one of the largest forums in the world now and is no longer just about parenting. I suppose as a woman I do appreciate that its a site with more women than men as far as I know so if feels like a safer space.

I'm really confused by this. I'm not sure if you're being naive or deliberately obtuse. It's plainly not a site just for "mums". I suspect it was originally but became hugely commercially successful (you only have to see the sponsored posts) so has expanded massively beyond its original remit. But the brand name remains "Mumsnet" so it's staying that. But, at this point it is surely operating similarly a brand name like "Dyson" (which has moved on from making just vacuum cleaners). It's evident by how there's sections dedicated to shopping, pets, relationships etc. I don't think gatekeeping works, it provides a forum for lots of people.

I am childfree, and I wouldn't post pointless comments on a thread about parenting issues, just as I wouldn't post a 'I'm so glad I don't have a ...." on any thread where someone was complaining about something I've chosen not to have in my life.

But some people do, just as some parents will come onto childfree threads to wax lyrical about how wonderful their children are.

It boils down, I suppose, to a human desire to validate one's choices, and gain validation from others. I don't think this behaviour is peculiar to the childfree.

No, it’s just a thread for people who know they weren’t cut out to be mothers. Fortunately for all concerned they did not bow down to pressure to have kids anyway. No harm done.

Also I would point out a few posters went into the thread to troll it with endless “you’ll never know real love” posts anyway so it’s not like their “I’m happy child free” view wasn’t challenged