Worst comment you've had as a child free woman

[derekdied]

I'll start. Someone I had literally met about fifteen minutes previously. One of her first questions "do you have kids?" Me "no.." her "oh could you just not be bothered with the responsibility?" 😮

Fucking hell people are horrible. Sorry someone said that to you.

Some poor souls could be tremendously triggered by an irrational, cruel comment like that.

The next question to ask her would be

Has communication always been difficult for you? Do you struggle to relate to normal human beings?

She could be jealous, bitter and twisted.

Not the worst thing said to me but i did find it a bit off putting.
I got told i will be a lonely old woman with knitting pins.

Not really comments (they’ve stopped since I turned 40 although still the odd one) but does anyone just get a funny vibe of other women sometimes almost like they don’t know what box to put you in? Sometimes it really bothers me, they expect me to be cold high flyer or have dogs I call my babies and because I’m not any of those they find me odd? Does anyone know what I mean?

Yes! I retired extremely early and volunteer for something involving children which is apparently very surprising to people. As is the fact I don’t have pets. Someone once asked me if I have children and I said no she asked me when I was going to have children I said I didn’t want any and she asked if I have a dog and when I said no she said oh so you’re actually childfree I asked what she meant and she said she knew people who said they were childfree but they had dogs so they were obviously childless but said they were childfree to hide it. Very odd conversation all round really.

So yes, volunteering for something involving children, not wanting children, not having a career and not having pets marks me out as very odd to some.

Thanks @Ridesabike I know what you mean, I can’t say without outing but recently part of my job was related to babies and I had some funny comments about me liking it. I guess they mean why would I having no kids.

Sounds a bit like I’m being paranoid but you do pick up on this subtle stuff. Ugh it really bothers me sometimes because I think if you don’t give a tale of woe sometimes other women can be a bit funny. I’m fine with my decision but I don’t want to have to tell everyone I didn’t have kids because I carry an awful genetic condition.

I know what you mean, I had a similar comment about dogs!

Sorry this has turned a bit ranty! I don’t get many chances to talk about this and so I’m blathering!!

I always think I'm at an age where this has all died off but quite recently I met someone who proved me wrong. I wasn't really comfortable with them, they were a very full on sort of personality, but my problem was solved- they pulled their mobile out and wanted to see everyone's photos of their adult DC and DGC- when I said I had no photos, I'd never wanted DC, they just shut down as if a switch had been pressed. She sat opposite me at dinner and said about three sentences to me for the rest of the evening. I was 50% well that's a relief and 50% what the fuck?

Some people are so odd about it. I’ve had the same funny reaction. Maybe they take it as an insult to their life choices? Even though I have no judgement except on my own life hence not having any after weighing it up.

I’m at an age when I think I would have made a big deal about her bad behaviour @Daleksatemyshed. That’s an awful thing for her to do.

Ugh. She sounds too dull to be capable of (or possibly just can't be bothered) conversing with people whose lives are different to her own. What a saddo.

This was absolutely awful of her. I hope there was no one present who’d been unable to have children.

@KimberleyClark the group all have adult children accept me. There was an awkward pause then my friends changed the subject. Hopefully she won't appear in future, if she does I'll be sitting well away from her.

It reminds me of when I went to a posh dinner for professionals in my area and was seated on a table with a bunch of women much more senior/qualified than me. I was so excited to hear about their experiences etc. but they only wanted to discuss their kids, and once they found out I had none, they totally zoned me out (to the point where they formed a weird semi-circle with the one closest to me actually turned away from me).

There were a couple of men there but I had been hoping to talk to women (because gender parity is still an issue at senior levels) and in any event they were engrossed in a conversation about golf.

I didn't say more than 5 words, "No, I don't have kids", for the entire dinner.

People who say that nobody cares about this, or that when they were 25 and childless nobody made a big deal out of it, really don't get it.

I hate to say it’s a stigma but I do feel like if you don’t tick any of the boxes people are a bit off, like if you choose to not have kids but you’re not a high flyer. Or you don’t have pets. It really bothers me as it’s hard to make new friends especially at work or moving house/new area. It’s got worse as I got to late 30s.

I had similar earlier this year in a work context Four of us, all women and all relatively senior in our fields were formed into a team to look after a particular project so we went out for coffee to ckick things off and get to know each other. Two went to the counter to order and I settled myself at the table with the fourth woman. I had never met her before but, as it happened, we had a mutual acquaintence so we established this straight away ("turns out you know Jane" sort of thing) and literally within seconds she asked "So how old are your kids then?" I said, "I don't actually have kids. Do you?" to which she snapped that of course she did and she assumed that being a friend of Jane meant being a "mum-friend" otherwise why would Jane even know someone like me (paraphrased but that was definitely the gist). She then got out her phone and sat with her head down, blanking me until the others got back to the table, very confused about the weird atmosphere. She spent the rest of the meeting talking only to them and ignoring me. She left the project after six months but spent most of the time there telling me she didn't know how to talk to me and also berating one of the other women who did have kids, for talking more about her dog than her children.

That’s just rude @Girlfrom15YearsAgo i mean we could turn this round and say the same but I don’t think it’s impossible to find any common ground with people!! I had that comment from a mentor that she didn’t know what to talk to me about because I didn’t have kids!!

She left the project after six months but spent most of the time there telling me she didn't know how to talk to me

This is the nub of it, I feel. Some women, during the child-rearing phase of their lives, literally seem to become incapable of talking about anything except their children and other people's. I remember having similar experiences when I was at an age where most of my peers were raising their families. It beggars belief in this day and age that people can be so narrow.

That’s just awful, and tbh I would have taken that further. I have experienced this kind of casual exclusion a lot at work, though. It got particularly bad during lockdown, when our director’s way of looking after everyone’s wellbeing was to encourage sharing of family photos and child anecdotes.

We had a series of presentations on diversity at my previous job, where the presenters each introduced themselves with a slide about stuff personal to them, to make them seem more human. Each one of the four - they had pictures of a bike, or a beach or something, but also, "this is my husband/wife, these are my lovely children..." it prompted me to contact HR to say, I understood the intention, but not every one is married, nor with children, and given it was a diversity exercise, I did feel they could have found someone not quite so heteronormatively parenting to balance things a bit, as by the last one, it was feeling very othering.

It wasn't intentional, I was being oversensitive, etc.

Yep I've had the same. Whenever someone is promoted to a senior role there's an email with a blurb and a civilian picture to make them sound more human.
It's always. "Steve has worked in our cake making division for over 15 years and is adept at beating the eggs. Steve is married to Stephanie, a goat herder and they have four lovely children Sue 12, Scott 8, Sarah 4 and newborn Steve Junior. In his spare time Steve enjoys family time skiiing and they spend every Sunday together making papier mache models of Italian landmarks and breaking land speed records."
Accompanied by a delightful picture of the whole gang grinning beatifically.

When I was promoted I was given a template
That basically said 'provide a picture of you with your family and (insert children's names and ages here and describe what you enjoy as a family). "

They got a photo of me with the dog and I left the whole section about kids blank. They looked flummoxed when I asked them what I could out in its place as I didn't have kids or a husband. Yes I included my hobbies eventually but you get the annoyance as I stood out like a massive spinster.

It's still a thing, a company wanting to promote a family image. It's the suggestion of good family values, someone you can trust, every Manager at work has introduced themselves with the good family man chat.
I do find the younger staff interesting, they talk hobbies, studying, no mention of boy or girl friends, let alone DC, their whole take on life seems quite different from my 20s. Maybe society is shifting more to the CF now?

It got particularly bad during lockdown, when our director’s way of looking after everyone’s wellbeing was to encourage sharing of family photos and child anecdotes.

This really resonated with me as my team, department and organisation became fixated on how difficult the lockdown was for parents and children, to the extent that if you didn’t have kids, you were almost viewed as if the lockdown didn’t apply to you. I lived on my own throughout, no bubble, I was catastrophically lonely and overworked because the parents on my team were all at 50% capacity, so to have to be in meetings where all I heard about was the impact on parents and the need to be family-friendly…

It was awful, truly awful.

Same here @fitzwilliamdarcy. I remember counting the days I had not been physically touched at one point, because I lived on my own and wasn’t in a bubble. Public sector, working from home and not furloughed - I’ve never worked so hard and yet felt so forgotten about.

It must have been truly horrible for single people, and that was largely ignored, in the same way as flat dwellers with no outdoor space were ignored. There was obviously a lot of crossover between those two groups as well.

This is it, exactly.