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

OP, don’t worry, childfreeness isn’t wasted on us purposefully child free 😄

I have a fucking epic life - I’ve written a novel and I do lounge about reading in coffee shops. Not a bath person but I do keep meaning to learn how to play the flute. I appreciate each and every part of my child free existence and wouldn’t change it for the world!

It’s not in any way wasted on me, I’m eternally grateful for my lifestyle!

yabu for your unnecessary put down of child free people, how do you know how they’re spending their time? why is it wasted on them?

One child free friend has taken a scuba holiday, horse riding lessons and german lessons in the last year, whilst having an incredibly demanding job in the city, another has been travelling south america, another moved to a different country and has completed two masters out there and is now finalising her novel,and the other has been travelling the uk with a play she’s directed.

I get this is a light hearted thread or intended to be but it’s very weird phrasing, sorry!

Ah yes, us childfree live carefree days of taking long baths, reading and lounging around in coffee shops.
You have no idea how stressful and chaotic some people’s childfree lives are, to the point that some may have chosen not to have them because they don’t know how they’d fit it all in. Some people have other responsibilities, such as caring for relatives.
I really dislike people making threads to further cement the divide between those with children and those without.

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

Hmm, will she though?

My DP and I talk about this sometimes. For us, it's not so much that we'd like to have some child-free time, it's more that we wished we'd properly appreciated what we had when we didn't know we had it... the freedom, the ability to be spontaneous, the day-long luxury and guilt-free hangovers, the minimal (in comparison) mental load, the not having that crippling weight of responsibility and anxiety (and fucking mum guilt) sitting on your shoulders all of the time.

I work part time and both of my kids are in school now so I do get a decent chunk of child-free time but I mostly spend it doing boring drudge work (I am super grateful that I can get this boring drudge work done in the days I'm off, though, rather than having to squeeze it in around work). When my children were really young and I was either with them or working, and nothing in between, I used to be overwhelmed when I found myself with half a day of freedom... do I clean, see a friend, get some admin done, sleep etc? Sometimes the overwhelm was so, well, overwhelming, that I'd just stay in my dressing gown and stare into space.

To be clear - I am devoted to my children and I adore being a mum, it is life-enhancing beyond measure... but, yes, to have the luxury of going back in time and truly revelling in the freedom I had, when I didn't know I had it, would be wonderful.

What a shame the po-faced have sucked the lightness out of the thread. Entirely predictable tho.

OP, I’ll take your question in the spirit in which it was intended.

If I had a free day I would:

Lie in, then have a leisurely shower with scented products.

Go to a nice cafe and eat a late breakfast outside, in peace.

Then I’d waft off to a museum or art gallery to catch an exhibition

Have a nice cafe/restaurant lunch in peace.

Wander by the river or in a nice park. In peace.

Have an acupuncture session.

Wander home and eat a light supper not shopped for and cooked by me, then get into my dressing gown and watch a great film or a couple of episodes of a favourite series. In peace.

The general theme being doing what I want, not catering to others’ demands and being in command of my own brain and not subject to constant chatter. Ie actually having some agency and peace and quiet.

Would I write a novel, have a day long bath, learn a new instrument, just spend all day reading in a coffee shop???

Newsflash: being childfree doesn't come with an exemption from having to go to work!

Oh God OP I hear you. Now what would I do. Spend the day with DH, go to a spa, maybe the baths in Bath, cinema, go to some nice gardens with a good book in the sunshine

I would have a lie in until 10am, then I would go shopping and try on hundreds of clothes to try and figure out what suits me now and what size I am. Then I'd have a nice dinner and some cocktails.

My children are wonderful… but I can’t believe how much I took reading for hours in the bath for granted before I had them!

Haha you made me laugh. IN PEACE 😂

I know what you mean and I agree. I had 30+ years of being child free and I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I’m now mid 40s and have a long way until I have that kind of freedom again.

Just to reassure you that it's absolutely not wasted on me. I relish every minute of sleep I get and every single solo holiday!

I dunno, the tone feels quite patronising towards people with no kids tbh. You might as well say wtf do you do with your time if you’re not spending a good proportion of your time running around after kids.
In reality, there are only a few years where it’s difficult to do other interesting stuff as parents. Once they get towards school age it’s perfectly possible to have a good social life and be career driven. It’s mainly mindset IMO (and yes I have 2 kids and DH is away a lot)
Awaits flaming!

Definitely not wasted on me, I love being childfree and I don't laze in a bath or write novels, I'm still busy but I enjoy my busy it's peaceful.

Sounds like you had an exceptionally small life before you had children, OP.

I'm childfree and I don't feel patronised. From my observations having nippers looks quite...intense. No doubt it's often intense in a lovely way, and other times more of the 'he took my barbie so I hit him with a Lego truck and now we're all crying' type of intense.

I can understand the yearning to not have to consider anyone else for 24 hours.

I would just enjoy silence. And when i was tired of silence I would put on music that I like and not care who else likes it. Thats all I ask for...

When DS was almost 2 he had a weekend with my parents and we had our first child free day since having him. We had joked often about how we genuinely couldn't remember what we used to do with our weekends. It wasn't until I picked up the scissors to snip apart the sausages that I had this sudden recollection of doing that most Saturdays. I miss our leisurely breakfasts with a pot of tea and the weekend paper.

(I do feel that threads on MN can be about the most innocuous shizz and will still be overtaken by the professionally fuming. Someone will start a thread saying that they really love toast only to be chastised by someone who accuses the OP of having little regard for coeliacs)