What is your background/culture and your families reaction to being child free

[Ineedwinenow]

Hi All, a poster touched on their culture in one of the others posts on here and it got me thinking about my own background

I married into a south Asian family and their culture is all about family, the elder members of the family move in with the younger generation and they all live happily ever after and children are cherished and looked after and encouraged where as I am white British and my family can’t seem to move past me not having kids.

My Asian side of the family have been really supportive and love that our nephew gets spoilt by us and is an only child ( my sister in law has 4 other siblings and that is normal in her culture - well was, I do believe the tide is changing with this new generation)

Whereas my own family haven’t taken it well, we have lots of childfree members of my side of the family and my dad is great and feels it’s my choice and I think he’s relieved but my mum is really disappointed in me, all she’s ever wanted to be is a grandma ( to be fair she’s always been very maternal and she is a fabulous mum, even now) my aunts and grandparents didn’t taken it well either! ( my grandparents have now all died but they really had it in for my decision when they were alive)

No one knows if I have a medical problem or just don’t want them ( it’s not their business) but they really are disappointed I haven’t had a baby! And it still really bothers me even now I’m in my 40s, I feel like I’m judged as a failure despite all my accomplishments and achievements but breeding is apparently shown as the pinnacle of success in my family therefore I feel like they aren’t proud of me.

I know a lot of cultures such as Asian/Caribbean/some European expects large families so what is your culture and how have they reacted to the news you won’t be giving them kids!

UK/Scandi. Only child.

Never heard a word out of my parents about it even though I know they would have loved to be grandparents.

Used to hear a bit from DH's parents about how wonderful their grandchildren were, to the extent it got on DH's nerves as it was like they had forgotten their actual children existed.

Thinking about, why didn't anyone want us to reproduce? Do we give off a 'bad parent' vibe? Quite miffed now.

Thank you to the new posters who have shared your families feelings on the matter.

I’m actually quite surprised that reading these posts it tends to be us white brits that seem to get the grief more than other cultures.

I find the white brit unsupportive families interesting as a lot of other cultures have a long history of family first and everything else after and yet in British families we have encouragement from a young age to be independent , live away from family, study and follow your dreams, our society is geared towards business, working long hours and paying tax , so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that we remain childfree, yet to our families we are failures

Obviously there are people other posters on here from different backgrounds who also have grief but I am finding the culture differences really interesting so thank you once again for sharing your culture and your experiences in your family about your decision.

All of you who have supportive non judgemental families , count your blessings and can we swap

I’m white British, from a non religious family and my family couldn’t be happier for me that I’m happy but I have a lot of childfree relatives and a couple of childless relatives, and it’s normal in my family to say to younger people ‘if you have kids’ rather than ‘when you have kids’, so from a child I knew that not everyone grew up and had children. My parents are really positive about parenting and gave us an amazing childhood and loved every second, they’re fantastic grandparents to all my siblings children but they are also honest that it’s very hard work to parent and it’s not something that you go into without thinking about it and the child you’re bringing into the world.

However my friend is also white British from a non religious family, she lived a few doors down when we were growing up so basically exactly the same culture and her parents told her when she was 30 and still saying she didn’t want children to not contact them until she changed her mind. They haven’t had anything to do with her for over 20 years now, they will literally cross the street so they don’t have to walk past her.

Same culture where children are the norm. My dad once made the comment to me "now we're old and we have nothing to do in our retirement because you don't have children". I was like wtaf. I think my dad thought they'd be practically raising my kids like some of their friends. Irony of course, it would've been my mum anyway, because he's not that kind of hands on Dad! Has never changed a nappy or made a meal in his life! Clearly delusional 🙄

White NZer. My parents never once mentioned my childfree state. I don't think it bothered my DM, I'm sure my DF would have loved grandchildren but he stayed quiet on the subject. I'm an only child btw.

I'm from north east England. My mum comes from a big family in an area where family is everything. When I was growing up she used to talk about me not getting left on the shelf and becoming a spinster, and 'when you have your children...' etc. When younger me told her I didn't want them, she said I'd change my mind.

I wasn't really in contact with her for a long time but in recent years we've had sporadic contact. She seems to accept I don't want them and has never really mentioned it. My only sibling doesn't want them either, so it's the end of the line. She does have a couple of Grandpets at least.

White British. DH had a vasectomy when he was 29 and I was 32. We told my parents and my mum said she didn't blame us. Both my siblings have since had children.

We never told DH's parents but they never made any comments about us being childfree. His sister also chose to be childfree