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?" 😮

I know that people post on SM stuff they wouldn't dream of saying in RL, but I wonder if people who post a comment like that ever re-read before they press 'Post' or regret in retrospect saying something that callous to another human being?

I'm not surprised, though. I've read some very nasty stuff about the old and the childfree on here and as someone approaching what I euphemistically call late middle age AND childfree AND being a pensioner sometimes it can be hard not to be affected by it. Usually my signal to step away.

i have three very close together and i was in clarks once buying shoes.The lady who was measuring asked me their ages and declared " ooh double irish twins i bet you regret it now" while i was trying to think of a good reply and keep one foot on the measuring machine my eldest piped up with were mummy's sunshine.

That's interesting 🙄not sure how it's relevant though.

@changedusername190 Think you posted this on the wrong thread?

That's awful, OP!

Worst, as in most idiotic, comment I remember was someone saying "But don't you want baybeees??" when I told her I was single and not interested in any available man. I was 47 at the time and although I look younger than my age, I didn't look that much younger! I used my favourite phrase for that situation on her - "The child I have will be the next King of France or I'm not having it." Never failed to shut that sort up.

Bloody hell!

Makes me think "Just as well I don't want to reproduce then, isn't it?"

My eyes rolled right out of my head then!

I love your response!

That's horrible, I'm so sorry. Even aside from the "you're not a mum" aspect, the "only a dog/cat" makes me stabby.

Are you lost?

Not a specific comment but DP's have insinuated their belief that people without children (not us, other people without children) are basically pedophiles.

Makes absolutely zero sense.

I've been told on mumsnet that aunts and uncles who don't have children but who keep toys in the house for their neices and nephews must be trying to groom them because why else would they have toys?

Also that neighbours who are willing to babysit when they don't have children must be pedophiles

And women (and men) without children are much more likely to be a kidnapper or looking to groom a child than men (and women) with children

There is a very definite consistent theme that adults without children are dodgy. Its why it does my nut when people complain of the lack of a "village" or berate women without children for not being a parents "village". We havent really moved on that far from childless women being accused of being witches with some of these comments so I have no interest in being moaned at for not being in a village i was thrown out of a long time ago.

In real life however I not only have toys in the house for my nieces and nephews I also babysit frequently for my neighbour, all without ever having an urge to groom or kidnap a child 🙄

I can believe it (that they insinuated it). Back in the late 80s/early 90s before the term childfree had been coined, there was an organisation called the British Organisation of Non Parents. This was when it was still considered at best weird and at worst deviant to not want children. I did hear and see comments to the effect that they must be a bit dodgy. As though anyone not interested in parenting children must have some other more sinister interest in them.

I got rinsed on here for suggesting that MN feminism is essentially about mothers, not women, but I really do believe it's true.

I once pointed out that if we're talking about womens' rights in the workplace, then the right of a woman not to have to be overworked/last on the priority list for leave etc. because of her lack of parental status, is completely relevant. I was promptly told that women without kids don't need annual leave anyway as we have weekends.

This place can be bonkers.

I walked in on my inlaws begging my husband to ‘convince’ me to have a child, and suggesting there was ‘no point’ to our marriage if I didn’t bear children. They said there was clearly something wrong with me. They’re not my biggest fans anyway. The feeling is mutual.

@fitzwilliamdarcy I completely agree. Its great that women including single parents are getting/have got more rights in the workplace but it can be detrimental to child free women.

If the parent needs time off and the father of the child cant/wont take the time off either this can fall to child free colleugues which then means they are expected to take more responsibility than the childs OWN FATHER.

Yes, I had the odd snide comment from the IL's about my seeming reluctance to provide them with grandchildren. My 'it's none of your business, so stick your snide comments up your hoop' reply led to quite a frosty afternoon, but it did the trick because neither of them ever mentioned the subject again.

I can't quite remember the details because the comment wasn't made to me (I was childfree at the time but young, so not getting the pressure to have children) but someone in the office made some ridiculous comment like: "Christmas without children is just a bit pointless really, isn't it?" From memory, I was outraged for myself too just from a general perspective because I love Christmas but I imagine the actual recipient of the comment was very upset!

Every single time I see one of those memes about "you don't know true love until you're a parent" I immediately realise that whoever posted it is someone I don't want to be friends with. I'm pleased to say that one hasn't popped up on my Facebook for YEARS.

@fitzwilliamdarcy

I worked in a communal office with core hours of 9am-4pm, were every single day the mothers would get up en masse and leave at 4pm bang on the dot. Theoretically no issue, because they'd done their core hours, however, it was just assumed that the non-parents would remain behind to man the office, service customers, answer phones etc until the official close of business at 5pm.

Same thing used to happen at lunch, and I got so sick and tired of bringing it up with their manager to no avail that I instructed my own staff to completely ignore the phones ringing off the hook over lunch and post-4pm. That got the issue addressed pretty quickly, but the sense of indignance coming out of the mothers in that department afterwards was palpable. How dare they be expected to discharge the basic functions of their department!. After all, they have children, and there were non-parents around.

Eh... no. They don't become your crutch by default just because you can't make adequate childcare arrangements.

I used to work at a company that meant a long commute (think three trains and a forty mile a day round trip), and after a while asked could I have a shorter lunch hour and leave earlier? nope, management couldn't be sure that I'd worked my lunch hour (I might point out that I had dragged this dept out of the hole into which my predecessor had dumped them thanks to the same management who weren't the slightest bit bothered about how or if I did the work, so I considered myself trustworthy; and that working Saturdays to do that was apparently no problem). OK, fine, worth a try.

Colleague with toddler - can I work from home in the afternoons to do the school run? sure, no problem.

That was the start of a spiral downwards at that job.

The issue here is about office culture and I agree, it's outrageous.

I had a colleague who asked for flexible working as he was training for an ironman competition as part of a group. I think he wanted to start late and finish late one day and then start early and finish early one day. very much in line with what the parents (mostly women, but also some men with children) in the office were allowed. To be clear, we were talking 1 hour flex either side in a City environment where working hours were 8:30-1800 but lots of people did over that, including him.

He was denied it.

But to blame the parents in the office would be a mistake. The company was 100% in the wrong and I helped him find a new job a few months later!

The issue here is about office culture and I agree, it's outrageous.

Absolutely

The actual problem in my office was purely down to bad line management. Part of the LM's role is to ensure their department is staffed between 8am and 5pm, and ensure cover across lunch. I managed to do that in my department by just agreeing on an ad-hoc basis who was willing and able to do what, and I can't recall a single instance where I was not able to let someone leave early or start later. The problem on the other side of the office was entirely due to a failure to do this on my opposite number's part, and that her staff couldn't have cared less about the issues it caused when they all just did whatever the hell suited themselves.

I got thoroughly sick of watching the parents on that side of the office get up and leave at 4pm regardless of what was going on around them, repeatedly leaving the non-parents to just deal with the consequences, even on deadline days and so on, and also with no regard whatsoever for the fact that this totally denied the non-parent colleagues any flexibility over their own working hours.

The practicalities of what it meant for my own staff were what lead me to address it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also just disgusted at the entitlement and selfishness of some of the 'team'.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX the sad truth is that there are a LOT of parents, mothers especially, who do want special treatment. I remember a colleague without children once apologising to me because we'd been chatting and she said she was so tired and she felt she shouldn't have said that as I had a baby at home. I assured her being tired wasn't unique to parents!

But it is annoyingly pervasive.

Not just in the workplace either

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/woman-plane-switch-seats-mother-tiktok-b2374359.html

@GerbilsForever24 I've had a few Christmas-based comments too. Me and DP go all-out at Christmas - tonnes of presents, loads of food and drink, massive tree, whole house decorated, Christmas clothes, home-made wreath, mulled wine at every opportunity, the list goes on.
Lots of people are totally baffled by this and/or assume we have a stream of guests with children in tow over the festive period. Nope. It's just me and DP.

Child-free people don't just sit in bare, un-decorated rooms sipping lemon water and nibbling on rice crackers waiting for January to roll around, you know!?

Christmas with children sounds absolutely awful and horrendous to me 😂