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

It's doing women a massive disservice to say that whether or not we have children is the critical factor in our lives.

Oh please. Now CF women are responsible for undermining feminism as well, are we?

For someone who keeps telling us how irrelevant being a parent is, you seem very, very invested in shutting down discussions about being CF.

It's doing women a massive disservice to say that whether or not we have children is the critical factor in our lives

Last engagement with you because it's like trying to nail jelly to the wall and life's too bloody short.

You seem not to have got the message that for a lot of us, that's exactly how other people see us, define us and refer to us, judge us and place us in society. But I'm not surprised at that, because your posts are solely focussed on you and your opinions and show a total inability to understand any other point of view but your own.

When I constantly see such awful parenting, to hear criticisms from smug parents that they are better all-round more important human beings, I'm glad to be childfree.

I think it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether something is a bingo card post or the poster’s opinion. It’s similar on the FWR board.

A lot of mothers do. Prefacing their opinions with "as a mother" - and remember Andrea Leadsom saying she'd make a better PM than Theresa May because she had children?

Childless people don't usually describe themselves as childfree unless they've made an active decision to stop wanting/trying to have children.

I don't think it's unimportant. I'm a feminist and I think that pigeonholing women by their status as parents or non-parents, and creating divides and stoking hostility between women with and without children, is a very negative, anti-feminist act which has a lot of potential to harm all women, whether they are parents, childfree by choice or not by choice.

Creating a separate board and telling women with a different perspective to "keep out" doesn't help anyone. How should a woman who wants children, but can't have them, feel like she has a place anywhere in that set-up?

Women are more than "mothers or not-mothers".

Yes, that was an utterly shit thing to say and I believe she was heavily and widely criticised for it.

@Superfood I’m not quite sure why you are so determined to undermine the lived experiences of an entire group of women. I would love to not be defined by not having children - yet the older I get, the more it happens. That’s it from me. As @MrsDanversGlidesAgain says, life’s too short.

Why not give it a rest and let people have the discussion board they want? Go start an AIBU if you want a bunfight.

You’re presumably not going into, for example, the black and Asian mumsnetters boards to tell them how they can discuss things?

And all the SM bios about the number of children people have. And the profile pics, showing the kids, not the actual account-holder. And the million and one posts about first day at school/last day at school/first day of term/last day of term/frigging World Book day etc etc etc

But, sure, it's CF women who are making our parental status central to our identities 🙄

I'm familiar with the terminology but there was a whole thread about it yesterday
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/childfree-mumsnetters/4837700-not-by-choice

As well as lots of other posts here and there.

Um. Why would I not post on the Black mumsnetters board?

'but plenty of people have made comparable comments about my choice not to drive.'

And it's annoying isn't it? But far less 'fundamental' than the choice to not have children. Most childfree women have had years of derogatory comments. I spent a lot of years fielding questions about my childfree status, being made to feel I was abnormal, not a 'proper'' woman, would change my mind etc etc - thankfully none of this from my family or closest friends.

I eventually learned to respond with a 'that's a very personal question', a basilisk stare and a quick change of subject.

It's annoying, wearying, can be upsetting depending on the questioner. I don't define myself by my childfree status - I'm many things, gardener, daughter, musician, wife, historian - but other people do

Yes, I think that defining women by whether or not they have children undermines feminism very effectively.

Most people don't define you that way. Decent people don't. Worthwhile people don't. People who like and love and respect you don't.

Fuck the others. It's they who should be ashamed and embarrassed.

You are just sealioning now, so I am also going to stop engaging.

I am sorry that some childfree women, discussing a topic that you say is unimportant, is so disturbing to you that you feel compelled to disrupt it. No doubt this Board will have constant interruptions like this, and it's probably best if we all learn to disengage.

Maybe you should ask yourself why you feel so threatened by this discussion? And, let's be honest, it's not really because you think it's a threat to feminism. IME, the parents most invested in shutting down CF discussions are the regretful ones. I'm sorry - truly - if that's your situation because I think it's a miserable one, which society pushes many women into.

Maybe because the subforum is named "Childfree Mumsnetters" even though it is supposed to be for the childfree, the childless, and anyone else without children for whatever reason. The distinction is important for a lot of people. There are plenty of women who would not like to be labelled "childfree" when they have been unable to have children because "childfree" implies it was a choice.

Women who are not childfree by choice but nevertheless do not have children have several areas of MN where they are able to 'chat' to others in similar circumstances. Perhaps the childfree board can offer them some comfort that there is a good life to be had without children.

I'm not sealioning, I don't think the topic is unimportant, I don't feel threatened by it, i don't want to shut it down, and I am not a regretful parent.

I'll leave you to it but I hope at least some people can see what I have been trying to say in these posts. Most people do not judge childfree women in the ways described here, just because some idiots make stupid comments, and the fact that some people make parenting the centre of their lives and social media (like some others make fitness, or cycling, or cooking, or travelling, or make-up) doesn't mean that everyone else does.

I don't think any of my friends who are childless not by choice would be in any way comforted or reassured to read on this board that apparently everyone thinks they're worthless, etc. Because it's bollocks.

I’m not quite sure why you are so determined to undermine the lived experiences of an entire group of women

I can think of a few reasons. One is that setting up this board wasn't popular with a lot of posters. It's a tactic seen on the Royal Family board - crash into a reasonable civilised discussion with an attempt to start an argument and get the whole thread pulled. Do it enough times and it's 'See? they can't be relied on to remain polite and reasonable.'

Either that or someone's so obtuse they can't be reasoned or argued with.

Superfood, sorry, but all your posts do is make it obvious you do have children, and that you have no idea how society views women who decide not to.

Getting back to the original topic of the post, can I nominate ”but why are you on MUMSnet” for the bingo card please?

You might get this one a lot but I always wonder why child-free by choice has become an identity, and one that’s angry.

That would take self-control, which some people are incapable of.