The official Childfree on MN bingo card

[ItsNotRocketSalad]

We have 24 squares to fill. What lines get trotted out on every thread that discusses the child free?

My suggestions:

1. You'll need my children to be your carers when you're old
2. Only parents understand real love
3. Childfree people shouldn't take annual leave in school holidays

Tbf he is from ME and while they are allmodern now with everyone working and doing their parts, the having kida is still much expected

My husband usually gets told he’s made the right choice by both sexes. Sometimes men have asked him how he’s ‘managed to swing that one’ or how he’s ‘talked the wife into that’ and told him how lucky he is. Women usually tell him to ‘watch out’ because I’ll change my mind or asked if he’s ok with that because he still has time to find someone who would ‘give him children’. But he’s never got any negativity directed at him.

Men are assumed broadly speaking to not want children, which meant that whilst I got sympathy for my infertility my DH was treated with "well you are probably relieved anyway". He wasn't relieved he wanted children more than I did, so the lack of sympathy/support etc for him was not great.

I do think there's something around men not "being real men" if it's male infertility though. There's certainly something around the expectation that men have strong manly sperm that can do the job properly and not having that is seen as unmasculine in some way.

But I think childfree men are seen as men who managed to persuade women to not have kids and are therefore "winning" at life to a certain extent by some people

So common or garden misogyny then. It's a day ending in Y.

I’m really sorry to hear about what your daughters ‘friend’ has said to her, that’s awful, some people are just hideous. I hope your daughter is able to move on from it soon ❤️

Most of the anti-childfree nonsense comes from misogyny.

And from women who cannot believe that other women have made a decision not to have children.

@Florissante I agree sadly. I’ve only ever had the comments on this thread from other women, never men.

@Floralcarvings thank you. I know this isn't the place to talk about my children - I'm here to try and understand more about being childfree as they will be and my sister is...but it really knocked her for six. She's had a decade of being told that she will never be attractive to men because she doesn't look like a woman and, of course at such a dangerously low weight she had a lot of hair on her body at one tim, so this took her back to that time.

She also got the whole "your mum is lovely and would make a great grandmother" from this friend too....so she then felt even more guilty for depriving me of grandchildren, which I actually, genuinely do not and never have wanted.

I really feel for her, I don’t know why some people have to be so cruel. I’m sorry to say that she will get lots of comments throughout her life but I’m glad to say having childfree/supportive family members more than makes up for it! My mum supports my decision to childfree and I have lots of childfree relatives and no amount of small minded people can take that away. I hope she can find some friends who are supportive as well.

What a floof! What's her name?

The tiredness thing boils my piss. One of the reasons I don’t want children is BECAUSE I deal very badly with tiredness - I’ve broken down crying in the past over missing 1-2 nights sleep (though it turns out I have underactive thyroid and now on meds I feel way better - what a revelation!). I couldn’t get to the level of tiredness of your average moaning mum without probably having a psychiatric breakdown, just like I can’t drink as much alcohol as my husband without throwing up. So why is it like a stick to beat us with? I hate being tired, I don’t want to be MORE tired than now as I don’t cope well with it.

Whatever martyr posted upthread about how tired they were and they did it twice - well that was your choice. Can’t be that bad if you chose to do it again. Whereas I don’t choose to have a medical condition that means I feel knackered even after getting 8 hours!

She's Chip. Our niece chose her name 🙂

She looks a sweetie, what's she like? I know very little about hens except how much people who own them love them.

We have 5 others as well. They're great, really entertaining, and each one has a definite personality. And the fresh eggs are delish!

Although they're not cute and fluffy like they are often portrayed, they will happily fly at you and land on your back/shoulder/head if they think you have a treat for them. 🤣

My OH and I call them 'the attack birds'.

Can I add "But what do you do with your time?" to the bingo card? Double points if it's accompanied by a wide-eyed stare of miscomprehension.

If you tell them all the things you do do - I have a sport at which I compete to a fairly high level, go to the gym, have a full time job, cook/bake, read, socialise etc. - then you're "filling the empty void of your childless life" (and yes, I have had that said to me).

On the flip side, I've had bechilded friends assume that a) I'm not actually doing anything with my time so I'm free to bend to their whims ("I've got a sitter tonight, let's go out drinking!" Erm, it's Tuesday and I've got an early meeting tomorrow...) or b) my life is one long round of champagne soirees and Maldivian sunloungers. But I'm not sure how you'd fit that in a bingo square.

"But what do you do with your time?"

I play pc games from 1999😂

It's not that I think people genuinely don't think childfree people have to work, but I've had so many parent friends in the past who've been baffled as to why I can't meet them for coffee during their mat leaves, at 10am on a Wednesday or whatever. Like, seriously, multiple friends have been confused when I've said I can't, because I'm at work, and responded with "oh, I thought you'd be available because you don't have kids, not like Helen and Stacey and Rebecca" (names changed to protect anonymity).

I think there's a weird cognitive dissonance whereby absence of kids somehow gets translated into absence of all responsibility whatsoever. It's weird.

On the "what do you do with your time", my career, which took seven years of higher education and on the job training to qualify for, was dismissed as not important by my PILs because it was just "something that keeps you busy because you don't have children". This was the explanation for them kicking off because I couldn't just drop everything and do as I was told because I HAD TO WORK. The same demands were not made of my DH because of course his career is the one that pays the bills because he's the man. Women are entirely for child rearing as far as they're concerned and they're still clearly miffed that I defied them in not providing them with grandchildren.

I think there's a weird cognitive dissonance whereby absence of kids somehow gets translated into absence of all responsibility whatsoever. It's weird

A corollary of that is the belief that single people don't have to pay bills. A minor gripe of mine is the way media headlines stuff as 'Families feel the pinch,' 'families going to pay more' etc etc. Er hello - I have bills too, you know.

I remember you mentioning an argument you had on here about that, @fitzwilliamdarcy - that people think if you're single/childfree ALL your salary is mad money to spend as you want.

Same. It really upsets me. The reason I can't have kids is because I have multiple health issues that cause chronic fatigue, can only work part time and have to go to bed for 3 hours every afternoon, go to bed at 8.30 every night, can't do any exercise, a lot of social activities, holidays etc. I definitely know what bloody tiredness is.

This really annoys me too. I still have a mortgage and bills to pay, and no married person tax credits to help me.

A corollary of that is the belief that single people don't have to pay bills. A minor gripe of mine is the way media headlines stuff as 'Families feel the pinch,' 'families going to pay more' etc etc. Er hello - I have bills too, you know.

And if you're both single and childless, bills & mortgages can be quite tough on a single income. I refuse to live in a dogbox of a flat or house, so end up living in houses which are "for families" - and I pay for it.

It's all very well telling me that it's a pity I bought the house I live in now as it would have been a good family house, and that it's my choice, so I shouldn't complain about the mortgage, but --- small houses have small rooms. If they build houses with rooms the normal size, just fewer of, them that might change my opinion, but until then, I'll live in a house with proper size rooms, thank you!

I remember you mentioning an argument you had on here about that, @fitzwilliamdarcy- that people think if you're single/childfree ALL your salary is mad money to spend as you want.

I did - 3 separate people argued with my statement that I sometimes struggle on a single salary, as my money is apparently all for me. I know logically that they can't possibly think that I don't have to pay for things, but they said that if they didn't have kids they'd be "minted", and therefore by extension all childless people are minted. Just a bizarre way of thinking, and really annoying to boot, because the wealthiest people I know are the parents!

Speaking of summer holidays upthread, I have just had an operation date moved (due to strikes) and will now be off work for 2 weeks in the summer. Got asked by my manager if I could change my operation date to September because a lot of people with children have August holidays. I laughed.

For context, I have never taken time off during school holidays in my entire working life.