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

I know a couple of child-free guys, who are so kind to friends children & brilliant with them. When people say “oh, you would be a great dad” I feel their pain. I know men can still be dads… But it’s not what happened in their relationships.
People used to say “you’d be a brilliant mum” to me. They stopped saying it when I got to a certain age… Then I had a surprise baby at 44. Which threw them completely! Honestly, the assumptions folk make. I’ve experienced both sides now.

I just read the thread that's on - at least posters there were saying it's a hell of a reach!

But oh, sighing once when a toddler's touching your stuff on a train, and not making eye contact with his mother, makes you a child hater, apparently. 🙄

I saw it. The poster is memorable...

I am a childfree immigrant😁 Where do I stand

You probably just implode or something

And a right wing loony who hates immigrants!

I think some people are beyond reasoning with.

I tend to avoid those threads now because I know it's just going to be used as a place for them to concoct some wild and ridiculous fantasies that the child-free are spending their abundance of free time choking on our bitterness at not having kids and writhing around in our hatred of all children. I imagine some have even painted us with the pointy noses with the boil on the end, and the pointed hat for good measure.

The reality is that most child-free people couldn't give a toss about them or their children and don't spare them a second thought.

The other reality is that no one hates children more than people who have had children. I'd bet if many of these posters were honest-they only love/care about their own children and loathe other kids. How many threads have been started by parents complaining about other people's kids? Loads.

I often think a lot of the nasty comments from parents to CF people come from people who are deeply unhappy with their choices. I wonder if they see in us a life they could have had if they'd made a different choice but instead of acknowledging that, they'd rather shit on us to try and prove to themselves that their choice was the best choice, really.

I just don't see a lot of genuinely happy parents who are fulfilled in their choices making these kinds of nasty comments to people who have made a different choice to them.

There's also the fact that some people really can't wrap their head around people living a different life to them and making different choices. They have a very rigid view of what a "successful and happy" life is and when someone else deviates from that path, they take it as an affront to them and their beliefs and ultimately their choices.

I know it's just going to be used as a place for them to concoct some wild and ridiculous fantasies that the child-free are spending their abundance of free time choking on our bitterness at not having kids

Still can't get my head around the idiocy of the people who think I'm bitter at not having the thing I never wanted anyway. But 'you're just bitter and jealous' seems to be the standard line on here when anyone doesn't have anything to add to a thread but feels the need to say something.

Some people simply refuse to believe that anyone is genuinely childfree by choice. There was a recent thread where someone said they felt sorry for childfree women and were not convinced by them insisting that they were happy.

I had opportunities to have a child. Why I’d be insisting to myself I didn’t want one if I did makes no sense except in the heads of these people.

Similarly, I used to work with a woman who didn’t believe in lesbians. She wasn’t one so she simply didn’t accept it was a real thing and treated women who were in relationships with other women with a sort of amused indulgence.

Some people simply refuse to believe that anyone is genuinely childfree by choice. There was a recent thread where someone said they felt sorry for childfree women and were not convinced by them insisting that they were happy.

And they absolutely refuse to believe that anyone can be happy without children if they originally wanted them but couldn’t have them.

Some people simply refuse to believe that anyone is genuinely childfree by choice

A while back there was one poster who'd come on every thread about being single and insist (at great length - I counted one and it was nine paras) that the women who said they are very happy single are just deluding themselves and that all the surveys saying that single women were the happiest were just propaganda and she was very happily married THANK YOU and she felt so sorry for us.

It was quite entertaining read objectively. The ones who can't believe in any sort of life apart from the ones they have with children are the same.

I know it’s completely unreasonable that when I see people with kids, my first reaction is sympathy. And I’d never actually say that to them.

One of the great things about being 48 is that people have stopped trying to tell me that I'm wrong about bring childfree and that I'll regret it when I'm older.

Why on earth do people think I don't know ow my own mind? Apparently I'm allowed to choose my career, my partner, my house, clothes, holiday destinations, hobbies etc but not my wish to be childfree.

Especially the screaming/being naughty ones.

Which seems to be a lot of them!

One of the great things about being 48 is that people have stopped trying to tell me that I'm wrong about bring childfree and that I'll regret it when I'm older

If only. When I was well into my 50s one colleague would harangue me about my childfree status. What he thought I was going to do about it at that age was anyone's guess.

I still had the occasional random idiot pulling the "but don't you want baybeeees?" line when I was pushing 50!

Oh, adopt. I’ve had that line a thousand times, usually because I’ve tried “actually I can’t have them” as a last chance at making them leave me alone.

I think that at my age (60s) all of that disappears but what remains -forever, it feels like - is that as a woman with a very successful career, you’ve somehow “cheated.” That you’re only so successful because you “chose” not to have children.

Of course, of course, it is really tough for women in absorbing careers who have DC. Almost any thread on MN Will demonstrate that. But the sacrifices I’ve made are far more invisible in one sense , and very visible in another - the visibility of a woman who’s never had children never quite goes away.

And according to one thread on MN with some quite deranged posts- being slightly irritated by small children who intrude on your space is “hatred” and “vitriolic.”

You have to wonder what part of 'actually, I don't want children at all' is so difficult to grasp.

That, or 'get a dog.'

I’ve said “I’d rather have kittens” on occasion (as in, give birth to a litter) to pestering idiots. (As an aside, “she’s having kittens” as a term for being very distressed/angry never worked for me … any historical context aside, it didn’t sound bad at all!)

Side note, I am mega kitten broody at the moment. Not sure my 3 would be happy if I brought another home tho. I'm hoping the universal cat distribution system works in my favour and I just find one on the street.

It is true though....

yeah my mother is one who used to say 'Oh so and so does not have children, She's too selfish'.

Even as a child I wanted to point out that my mother had no business dissing someone else. She was a violent alcoholic who used to beat me and my siblings up and threaten us with knives. We'd be taken off her in a heartbeat nowadays I'd hope. But no- deciding she was somehow virtuous just because she reproduced was just another part of her bullshit.

Slow hand clap

You have experienced every form of illness, insomnia and nursed people through every form of illness then in order to be able to make that judgement?

That any baby even a good sleeper is more tiring than for example my friend nursing her mother through spinal cancer which was horrific at the end where she was just screaming in agony.

Because my friend had four children and she would adamantly disagree with you.

What was your experience of nursing someone through spinal cancer?

And you came onto the childfree board and scrolled back 2 months worth of this post just to make your point. Cheers.