Are parents missing out? MN without children

[Sequinppigeon]

Inspired by another thread, but really not meant with malice... Do you think parents are missing out by having children?

Do they remove themselves from
opportunities or experiences for example?

Although they experienced child free life before having them, one you have them you don't get childfree life again. Especially not initially, and you're always a parent.

Can they really know what it would be like to have children and therefore what they are committing themselves to?

Just wondering how child free people feel as a counter to this well worn idea that we are some how missing out or lacking.

Yeah absolutely, I can see the benefits to be able to differentiate.

Thing is...parents haven't "hijacked" the word. No one has. It just means different things to different folks. Neither is right or wrong.

Exactly like skint. It's subjective.

NonParents is just daft and goady but perhaps tongue in cheek...

Jeez. No one said you had to adopt a version of anything. Are you always this angry.

You can't declare you own a word that is subjective and get shitty with anyone who doesn't agree with your terms. No one can. You should respect people's own interpretation. I can respect yours. Evidently you can't reciprocate. Ah well.

As far as I can see, your interpretation of childfree just means parents have free rein to come onto the CF board and tell us all about their CF lives when that's not what it was set up for.

Well if that's your rather spectacular deliberateinterpretation, when nothing of the sort has been written, that's down to you. Strangely the other poster to respond managed to grasp what was actually being said. I wonder why you couldn't...

NonParents is just daft and goady but perhaps tongue in cheek...

What's goady about it? if CF - sorry, that's parents on a break, isn't it? - people without children want to call themselves non-parents, why can't they?

And is there some reason you're on a board for the people without children laying down the law about what they can call themselves?

Do you describe all discussions as "laying down the law"

And do this faux naivety as if you can't possibly understand what's clearly being said?

Call yourself what you like. No odds to me. I don't get to choose that. And ditto.

If we went to a shop, and I said, "I like that green dress" and you said "it's not green, it's teal" and I replied, "oh, it's green to me" would you then, on this same basis say I was telling you you had to call it green and laying down the law?

@WillYouPutYourCoatOn you can have a childfree weekend, but you are not childfree. You have children. Dictionary definition -

adjective
adjective: childfree
not having any children, especially by choice.
"a child-free woman who likes to travel"
denoting an environment, event, etc. from which children are excluded or absent.
"a child-free pool

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain is correct and you're being quite rude. Why would 'non-parents' be daft or goady? It is factual. I don't particularly like that term as it makes me sound like I'm missing something

Especially people who become parents later in life.

I’d still like to know why you think the term non-parent is goady.

Couple of reasons. First, as PP says:

I don't particularly like that term as it makes me sound like I'm missing something

And secondly it sounds like you make parent the default, so you just describe yourself in accordance to a default. Like deliberately mentioning the thing you're "non". I'm not a "non-child" I'm an adult. I'm not a "non-man" I'm a woman.

I think the pretence at how this could be seen as ever being goady, why, it's nothing more than a mere description, is tedious.

Then what term would you suggest for a board composed of people who have never had children and never intend to, which cannot be co-opted to include parents?
Because that phrase is far too long-winded.

Then what term would you suggest for a board composed of people who have never had children and never intend to, which cannot be co-opted to include parents?

Frankly, who cares what they'd suggest? I'm not bothered about some random parent coming here and telling me it's 'goady' or 'tedious'; because how those of us without children choose to describe ourselves is nothing to do with them.

Well I also don't like it because it does sound like we are missing something. But childfree means nothing 🤷
However, I disagree it makes parents a default. They ARE the default. Not being a mother, or worse not wanting to, is unnutural according to many, outcas, weirdo.

But as a a woman without children, or want for them, I will ask, how dare you to come on here and tell me I am goady with "nonparent" after you explained that childfree is basically anything anyone even someone with kids who are at the moment not at home.

So what do you suggest people who didn't, don't and will not have children call themselves?

Goady😂 Fucking hell

And let's face it, parents who want to come on here and give us the benefit of their opinions regardless of how well that's received will do it anyway, whatever the board's called.

I love being a parent and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything 😊

Mumsplaining

As we have seen.

But I do wonder if some parents really were aware of exactly what they were signing up for.
For me it was way much better than I was expecting.
I can't think of anything I've missed out on.
Me and Dh went out as a couple most weeks throughout the children's childhoods. We still had friends around. We had plenty of holidays. I went away with my friends or by myself and we also had the beach hols with the boys. Apart from up to the first year with each of them we didn't miss out on sleep.
We had great times. My favourite was the teen years where we could go on proper adventures but even when they were 8 or so we could ski as a family. It felt more of a gang than something to be endured.
I thought I'd signed up for a bumpy ride. It turned out to be fabulous fun.

I'm really sorry, I thought I was on a general chat board and I was just responding to the questions. I didn't realise until posted it was primarily for mn without children.

So what do you suggest people who didn't, don't and will not have children call themselves?

(If female) A woman? Their name?

Until I became an accountant, I didn't go round telling everyone I was a non-accountant. I was just the same as everyone else in the population who wasn't an accountant.

I guess if you're whole identity is wrapped up in the fact you chose to not have children, then you feel a strong desire to have a protected name for that.

I don't define myself as "parent". Before I had children, and the first was a total accident, I hadn't decided if I wanted them or not, I simply "didn't have kids." I also didn't have a cat. Or a mortgage. But the things I didn't have were irrelevant. I could list a thousand of those.Which is why it seems so strange to actively identify as something you don't have/want.

My choice, was having children. Another's choice is not to be. What's the big deal? I don't care about your choice as little as you care about mine? I'm happy with my choice. You're happy with yours. Where's the problem?

Never had or will have children. I look at my siblings and when their kids were younger they missed out on a lot of the things I was able to do, and they said as much to me. Such as great trips abroad during school terms, at great prices too. Being able to go anywhere (within reason) at the drop of a hat, and never having to WORRY about the kids, which really lasts forever.

They don't regret having kids but envy my lifestyle I think.

Until I became an accountant, I didn't go round telling everyone I was a non-accountant. I was just the same as everyone else in the population who wasn't an accountant.

The majority of people become parents. The vast majority of people do not become accountants. What a thoroughly stupid comparison.

That's kind of the point. I picked one example of thousands of things I'm not. As will apply to everyone.

I've never understood people who make an identify out of not having something. Only women who don't have children seem to do this. You don't see people making sub boards on internet forums to discuss not having Harley Davidsons. Or for not being interested in travelling.

They don't regret having kids but envy my lifestyle I think.

Yeah, I think that's probably it in a nutshell

We can’t call the board ‘a woman’ or our names though. We need a short name that sums up what we will be discussing so non-parents/childfree etc. That’s how the conversation started because someone said they could post here as they are without children/childfree as their child(ren) had moved out and someone said we should call it ‘non-parents’ or something.