Parents: if you had one day of your pre children life back, how would you spend it? Please keep it lighthearted

I can understand your perspectives op. I guess a nice cafe afternoon

Mmm,I would travel around China and India

Have some cocktails in a beer garden then go play some pool without having to worry about being jumped on at 6 am by my little people

Oh enjoy this while you can. Belive me, you will look back and miss this time.

I'd like a week. To go to Singapour and Hong Kong and not worry about the kids.

In reality there's no one to leave them with so looking at prohibitive costs and take them. But if I had someone who would take them I'd be off.

DH and I would go on an really long hike, then come home and relax with a nice meal and a film.

DD1 is 4 and a good walker but obviously can't do huge distances, and DD2 is 13 months so at the moment our walking is restricted to pram suitable routes.

Because people who are child free have nothing to do except lie in the bath and write novels. Obviously.

I'd like to devote it to a day of doing my hobbies. In reality I'd probably not bother getting out of bed and catch up on sleep 😂

Or maybe we do realise how great being childfree is but don’t get a chance to tell you because you’re too busy telling us how wonderful your children and how you have no time/money/energy 🤷🏻‍♀️

😆😆😆😆

I treat the time my kids are with their dad like this. About 1 weekend a month. I race around and tidy as soon as they've gone or before if possible so I can enjoy the house and then use it to see friends or go the cinema or just sit in silence with a book. My brother and SIL are childfree by choice and I do get a bit very envious of their autonomy. They go to a hobby activity, leisurely brunches etc.

My job pre-kids was multi-published bestselling author so yeah, before I had kids I had "nothing to do except" my job. Which according to my reviews was a worthwhile use of my time not the frivolous waste you're implying. Aside from giving up my kids I'd give anything to get that back but 4 years of severe PND has blasted any ability to finish a book.

Anyway on a thread of things people would love a childfree day to do, literally no one is going to say "finish last year's tax return".

Oooh what a joy that would be!

I’d go out for every meal of the day, stay up late drinking and dancing with my DH and have a lie in the next morning.

Just a whole day dawn till dusk with no crying would be great

Its not wasted on them as a fair amount actively choose to remain childfree for reasons such as you've listed, a considered decision just as you made to have children. Of course I feel sad for those for whom the decision is out of their hands, but it's bizarre when people make posts like this.

It's not wasted on the childfree; I'm happy every day with my freedom and spare cash. 😀

Yes because obviously that comment was aimed specifically at you and your “multi-published bestselling author job” that you had before children 🙄

It couldn’t possibly be a more general response to the OP’s post suggesting that childfree people use their free time to write novels…

There'll be plenty of time for that sort of stuff when they're grown. I've never understood the attitude that raising children is the entirety of your existence from birth on. Disabilities aside, it's a couple of decades.

You must have missed out on the Diploma in Performative Martyrdom that some view as an essential prerequisite for childbirth.

The title of this thread isn’t great tbh. You can ask what mothers and fathers miss about their earlier years without implying that childfree folks don’t know how good they have it.

OP is clearly being lighthearted, and talks about she personally didn't realise how much time she had.

It's like when people say "youth is wasted on the young". They don't mean "literally no young person realises and appreciates their youth". It's just a version of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone".

You can say it about any change in your life - I didn't appreciate how much free time I had at uni before I got a full time job. I'm starting a professional qualification alongside my job in a couple of months and I'm sure then I'll think that I definitely didn't appreciate the extra time I had when I wasn't studying!

"Youth is wasted on the young" is equality as patronising as OP's title.

A friend and I were talking about this recently and both concurred that we "squandered" our child free time and didn't appreciate what we had (lie ins, the ability to walk out of the house on a whim at a moments notice, easy mealtimes)! (But that's true of most things in life...)

Then the title of the post should be “to think that childfree life was wasted on me” and not being childfree people into it.

It’s clearly a thread intended for parents to pat themselves on the backs about how busy they are and how frivolous and empty the lives of childfree people are.

No, they waste it on MN like the rest of us…😳😂

My Dd is grown up and I can do whatever and I'm still only mid 40's.
I travelled for two years before I had her too.