Hidden/unspoken societal beliefs

[EducatingArti]

Inspired by the "what is the worst thing anyone has said to you" thread and the "bunfight" on Site stuff that got deleted, where I was very patiently trying to explain how having children was a societal norm/expectation and how childfree/less people had to live in this culture when it wasn't the norm for them.

What do you think are the hidden/unspoken societal beliefs about being a parent/being childfree/less that we have to live with?

So I think these:

Being childfree/childless is not "normal".
If you are childfree/childless you must be living a second best life.
Everywhere you go, most things are presented in "family with child" shaped spaces and this can feel alien/ uncomfortable.

What do you think?

Some people give the impression that you're not a proper adult unless you've had children.

Do you think it would be possible to portray a fictional female childfree/less detective with the obligatory demons but where said demons aren't a participatory cause or effect of her childlessness?

I'm just wondering.

The only one that really bugs me is that I don’t know ‘real love.’ No, I don’t know the love a parent has for their child. There’s lots of different types of ‘real love’, love for your children is just one of them, but it’s not the only one

Me too. Mainly because of the assumption that they have the right to define what 'real love' actually is and claim sole ownership of it.

And that you lack the emotional depth of someone who has had children.

J B Fletcher 😁
Wait. I think she is demons free thpugh

Does JB Fletcher have demons?

The Eve Dallas character in JD Robb's detective novels definitely has her demons (childhood SA) but in the ones I've read her childlessness isn't raised as an issue, by her or anyone else. She rolls her eyes a bit around children when she comes into contact with them during her job, but then she rolls her eyes at a lot of people she comes into contact with.

Oh yes! I often think this is implied, even if it isn't stated directly.

I think I'd like to read these. I shall look them up

VI Warshawski, Kinsey Millhone - two childfree women detectives off the top of my head who have demons but don’t, I think, want kids.

Also, has anyone ever come across the Miss Read books about a country schoolteacher in the 1950s, who is very happily single & childfree?

Oh Kinsey Millhone is GREAT. Unapologetically and unashamedly CF.

I think on film/TV single child free woman always seem to be career woman, have no interest in kids or be slightly odd.

I was never one of these woman who felt it was very important that I had a child. I decided that if I was with the right man in a stable relationship or married I would have a child.

I think that some woman have realised that having kids is not for them for any number of reasons. They are not maternal or they don't like babies or kids. They have good jobs or careers where having kids will effect them. They can be single or with a partner and have a nice lifestyle IE can afford a home, nice holidays and go part time in the years before retirement.
Also I think years ago it was expected that woman got married or had kids. Then woman had kids that they resented having or found out that motherhood was not for them. You just have to look here to see woman who resent their kids and the damage it causes their kids even people who are now adults are trying to deal with the fall out of having a bad mother.

I know one lady who is now in her 70s and is single. She had a job, bought a house and made long term plans regarding a pension ect. She sold her 1st house in her mid 50s to move into the city to be near public transport, shops ect. She has siblings and relatives that she keeps in contact with along nieces and nephews. Over the years she built up her friendship group both inside and outside work. She meets up with them regularly. She goes on holidays also and some times it just in the UK.

I think that she is a lot happier than other woman of the same age who are dealing with husbands, adult kids and grandkids.

“Oh I can’t watch the news anymore since I’ve had children - it makes me too emotional”. This used to upset me so much - the implication that as a childless woman I had no empathy or ability to feel emotional at sad news was really cruel.

I read years ago that the "urge" women speak of to have children doesn't seem to exist in a biological sense. We have a drive to pair bond and a sex drive which for most of history took care of the getting pregnant part and then a maternal instinct that kicks in once women are pregnant and give birth.

Research showed that what women described has a deep biological urge to have a baby was in fact various societal and family pressures along with personal life circumstances which caused these feelings and nothing innate at all was at play. However many mothers and even fathers will swear blind that the urge is biological. I think this is different from the idea that a person may look at the idea of having children and think I would like to do that, I would relish that experience which is probably also true in many cases. I've also read that their is some evidence that pronatalist sentiment and cultural messaging increases where women have less children or none and have more right and freedom in general so that may account for adverts and so on showing us images of women always as mothers.

I think if it were more known that the "biological urge" to have have kids doesn't actually exist and that it is a complex mix of the sex drive and societal messaging that makes people feel that way then perhaps women who decided they didn't want kids wouldn't seem so "unnatural" which then feeds into them being cold, shallow and so on. Most evidence shows that we are simply smarter and better educated (sorry but that is a fact) and better able to discern our own desires, thoughts and feelings from those imposed on us from outside sources.

I'm getting some good TV reading recommendations out of this thread 🤣

That you've taken a more interesting but unusual path.

I've just been really put off reading books by a particular author who, when discussing how new book on Facebook, posted that 'obviously' there wouldn't be any child abuse in it as he's a father. Yeah, because childfree\childless people love reading about kids being abused and it's only those people who ever write about it 🙄

I think I'd like to read these. I shall look them up

They're a touch sci-fi, set in New York in the mid 21c. Starting to be a bit 🙄- heroine has a mega rich husband who is an IT genius and whenever she hits a block in the investigation he can solve that with his skills and all the information he can get access to that the police can't - but well worth reading anyway if you skip over the author using that device to unravel plot hitches.

Yes this. I remember some years ago when there was a large surge of refugees in to Europe and there was a story of the two year old boy who drowned. My friend's little boy whom I have a very close "aunty" bond with was the same age and the news was so painful and overwhelming for me but I felt that it wasn't validated in general by society because #notamother.

Sometimes I watch the TV and see the charity ads and read the news and am so enraged that I think 'Make me God. Just for a week and I'll sort this out. No kid crying, hungry, scared or hurt ever again. All I'll need is a week to sort it, I swear.' I reckon that's pretty emotional.

That we shouldn't be obsessed with our pets. That you can't replace love for a child to a pet.

I was told by a family whose daughter I was treating for sepsis that I couldn't possibly be a good nurse as I don't have children. I felt like saying 'oh ok should I stop cpr and go and find my colleagues who are busy doing other things to get them to come!?'

That all old people have an adult daughter/daughter in law who will phone round and find out about services/support, help full in forms, do shopping, help with housework, speak to doctors or social services, help with lifts

its an assumption that’s completely ubiquitous in health & social care

Didn't Theresa May attract some horrible comments in relation to being Child free, coupled with some analysis of how much some of her clothes cost?

I've read nearly all the Vera books by Ann Cleeves (they're brilliant as is the tv series) and watched a few episodes and yes I think Vera is an excellent example of a childfree later middle aged lady who has made a fulfilling life for herself. She has a job where she can use her fierce intelligent . She is portrayed also as overweight and a bit of a loner with a difficult childhood yet I don't see her as a sad sack. Yet neither has she ticked all the societal boxes for expectations . She is certainly not your average woman but that's not a bad thing. We find ourselves rooting for her all the more, and I think for her generation (I'm only early 40s so more Xennial) the societal expectations for women were even tougher then. She grew up without a mother, and was kind of a tomboy in her childhood, as the books suggest, and I do think !much of the societal expectations does come from mothers!

My mum is lovely but always wanted me and my sister to marry (I looked at her marriage which was abusive and oppressive and thought "I don't want a man") and I think she cared more about it than my father did (who would have been disappointed in me somewhat no matter what I did). I do feel a bit bad that I never did give her grandchildren but there are medical reasons anyway even had I married. Having said that I do remember my father passing a comment about his sister who is a lesbian and childfree saying it was as selfish that she didn't have kids (my aunt is great, she would have been a lovely mum) . I was raised in quite a traditional church background, Women were to submit to their husband s, domestic violence was swept under the carpet, divorce forbidden except for infidelity, if the husband and father abused the children then unless it was extreme, the wife and kids expected to get over it and not dwell on it (in other words not seek therapy or legal help). There was always a sense of that it wasn't natural . Even as a young child I had no desire for children or marriage as part of my future and my parents didn't like me ever mentioning it . It was seen as a bit of a taboo.

I go to a less conservative church denomination now, Women are equal to men in this church and seen as equal in marriage. But a few years ago I was involved in a traditional Christian movement where it was frowned upon for a woman to choose singleness (unless called to full time service to God) and for a couple to choose sterility was considered actually sinful . I left after a while but I had a deep worry that I as a failure as a Christian woman and somehow that God was displeased with me.