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

Perhaps, that particular post in isolation.

My comment was more based on the fact this gets peddled out all the time. The faux outrage that "Sue" whilst waiting for a lift, makes small talk and has commented that she's tired, to "Jane" an acquaintance who happens to have kids. Now, the reality is, Jane doesn't really care, it's just small talk, and makes a throwaway comment like "Ugh, don't. You should try a toddler and a teething baby who wakes up every hour, ha ha." Jane isn't in competition. It's just a turn of phrase. Jane is doing that typically British thing of agreeing with a moan, by applying her own circumstance. And Sue knows this really.

But. Sue can't miss the opportunity to try and twist this into "oh such an obvious derogatory comment to the child free, like myself." It's all so deliberate.

I think in general, child free women get a raw deal. People who can not fathom their choices, belittle their choices, and that's so wrong. But it doesn't help when a minority try and twist absolutely anything into an attack on them. It just dilutes the credibility of the group they represent.

Well if this hasn't summed up what I was alluding to rather nicely.

I do indeed remember that thread. At no point did the poster "dismiss people with chronic illnesses."

However, several posters kept deliberately pretending that she was, even though it was literally in black and white that she wasn't. Because that was the only way, they could maintain they were victims.

They kept quoting the first few words of a sentence, for example. Quite deliberately omitting the rest of the sentence which completely changed the context of the small section they had quoted. And would announce "See!"

It was tedious.

I really feel for the child free community and the crap they have to put up with. But that thread, with a small minority, does the rest of them a huge disservice.

@InceyWinceySpidy Nevermind. I know who you are now lol. You're the mother of twins who spent a whole thread defending your position that childless women can't know what tiredness is unlike women who have had children because they were once childless and therefore can actually compare the difference and that the experiences of disabled people and carers are irrelevant because millennia of mothers say they had the same experience. Something like that.

You were told then too by plenty of posters that "you don't know what tiredness is" is patronising and minimises other people's experiences. But I see you are still insisting that it is fine to say that.

At no point did the poster "dismiss people with chronic illnesses."

Your words were "Another medical condition then..." You excluded the people with medical conditions because it didn't fit with the narrative that only mothers know real tiredness. Anyway, I'm done with you.

I can see now why you took such exception to my comment on this thread.

InceyWinceySpidy This is a topic and thread for childfree people. Please post elsewhere.

But... That's a lie as well isn't it.

Unless you are hard of reading, you can see quite clearly on this thread, I actually have said the opposite.

Many, many people repeated the same, to you. It makes no difference. You literally make up what people have said, when they've said nothing of the sort. It's very bizarre.

But, you will forever be the victim in your eyes, and that's ok, but it's very transparent.

And there's the quoting only half a sentence, to remove all context, because the actual sentence and context don't paint you as a victim.

I do thank you for your stellar efforts, demonstrating the exact thing I'm describing.

Oh yes. Add to the Bingo card "childfree women need to stop being victims".

To be fair, you'll add anything to the card.

Child-free until a surprise at 44.
I don’t think life has changed utterly.
It’s exactly the same with a child in tow.
I was happy before & after, actually.

I don’t love being a “mum” gotta say.
Precisely because of all the opinions!
Same when I was “single” or “barren”.
I hate societal norms / expectations.

Ahhh @InceyWinceySpidy - you’re the poster who insisted that it was fact that the most tired a woman can be is after having kids, because a millennia of women say so, and anyone without kids who claimed to have been tired was promptly dismissed as being an “extreme” example.

It was your dismissal of all medical conditions, caring responsibilities and adverse human experiences as “extreme” that was dismissive. As if they’re a tiny subset of the population, outliers who could maybe compete with 1000 years of true tiredness queens if they weren’t so few and exceptional.

And if you think of them that way then of course you think it’d be ridiculous for a mum to have to show compassion when engaging in small talk, rather than considering that a fair portion of the population does actually know what being tired is despite not having kids, and could use a bit of empathy every once in a while.

Sorry for being a victim though.

‘Unnatural’ can go on there if there any squares left.

This bingo card will be enormous! 😄

People don't always look what board it is on in active and just post, I have done it myself and posted on the conception board in error. People probably just think it is AIBU or chat if they don't look properly

Ah yes. I was one of the posters thus dismissed after talking about caring for my mother who had dementia, with those words "another medical condition then".

Ah I remember that thread and poster… bear ignored from here onward, I think!

*Best, not bear. My kingdom for an edit button!

On the tiredness subject my addition to childfree bingo is..
"You just manage"
In response to me trying to explain why all my health problems have meant I haven't been able to have children.
It's so upsetting because it's that sense of 'Well you could have had them if you had wanted it enough...' I really did want it but parenting is totally incompatible with someone who needs to spend so much time lying down/asleep/managing chronic illness. I can only work v part time from home as it is and is really struggling to hold onto that job. I have no family nearby. Like how would I have managed? It ignores the fact that plenty of parents don't manage well at all and their kids suffer as a result, and that there is v v little support for disabled parents.

I think "if you'd really wanted children you'd have adopted" needs to go on the card too.

I really do hate the way adoption is thrown out as a suggestion, (I've had "Well if you change your mind you could always adopt!")

Always said by mothers who have had no fertility issues to have their children and never, ever considered adoption themselves.

Like adoption is a plan B that's 1) easy but 2) for other people.

The competitive tiredness thing is also bizarre, because people do not choose to have a chronic illness or sick relatives, but they do choose to have children (except if the pregnancy results from rape, in which case the mother has my total sympathy).

I get why people want to let off steam - my career was my choice, but I still moan about my job. But the constant oppression Olympics from some parents is a little wearing.

This is exactly the problem we have on the black mumsnetters board

Yes, it's like being approved to adopt a child is just a formality, fill in some forms, short interview and that's it. Whereas the reality it's gruelling and intrusive, as it needs to be to weed out anyone who is in any way half hearted about it.

Again, no.

Not what me, and many others said.

But if that's all you will insist on hearing despite what is repeatedly said, there's very little anyone can do about that.

This is exactly the problem we have on the black mumsnetters board

I've visited and read a few posts on Black Mumsnetters but haven't ever posted anything because it's not meant for me and the experiences on there aren't mine. And yet here we are, throughout this entire thread, having to defend a decision that most if not all of us have taken after a great deal of thought. And the people doing that don't just say oops, wrong board, they carry on arguing long after they've been told we're not interested in hearing it. Is it arrogance or can people just not hear themselves and cop on?

I think I might go and post on Conception or Teenagers and give them the benefit of my wisdom.