Best part of being childfree

[Mintgum]

Whats the best part of being childfree.
I chose not to have children knew from an early age i never wanted them.
But i have been ask why not whats so good not having them my reply was whats good with having them.
I like my life i like doing what i like i love my freedom.
I have no intrerest in schools finger painting teen dramas i also like sleep.
I dont have the stomach to be around them when they are eating either.
My sister didnt like my reply.
And told me im missing out on what love really feels like.
I replied with.
I'm really not missing out on anything.
You're the one that had kids in your late 40s and all you want is help.
And now im in the doghouse because i was rude.
My family all know dont ask me to baby sit because it won't happen.

In an attempt to get the thread back on the rails I would say other benefits of being child free is being able to watch adult themed tv at any time. Also being able to swear like a trooper if you bark your shins on the coffee table or the ring pull comes off a tin of tomatoes.

Well this blew up into usual having to explain ourself...

Pp who said travel freedom. Totally! Last minute bookings, amazing. We did short weekends in Europe like that REALLY cheaply.

Re active showing. Even black mumsnetters are

Oh yes travel freedom. Weekends away whenever, on the spur of the moment. Seeing a stunning location on a TV programmed, thinking "let's go there" and just booking it.

My feelings are similar, but I've always described it in generic terms rather than specific things I can or can not do.

I've always felt that with children on the scene you have to moderate your behaviour and language somewhat, and if you are the responsible adult, you have to devote full attention to the kids, and be happy sacrificing any notion of doing anything for yourself in favour of putting the children first.

Every single part of that is a dealbreaker for me.

I want to be able to curse and swear with total impunity. I want to be able to leave adult things lying around in my own home. I want to be able to leave sharp implements teetering on the edge of surfaces. I want to be able leave medicines and washing tablets within easy reach. I want to have the option to get blind drunk whenever I choose and not be able to get out of bed the next day. I want to be able to bring random adults back to my home. I want to be able to book time off and go on city breaks whenever I get the urge, not just squeeze in holidays around term times. I want a clean home. I don't want to have to be on constant patrol closing doors and switching lights and appliances off because someone else hasn't bothered. When I'm playing a PC game I don't want to hand every second go to grubby little mitts, and no, I don't want to play games aimed at 7 year olds, so tough shit. I don't want to be chained to a washing machine and a cooker doing endless washes and cooking endless meals. I want to be able to eat food that burns on the way in and the way out without whiny little voices complaining they don't like it. It don't want grubby little fingers touching my personal possessions, I don't want the perma-colds and shitting/vomiting bugs that every parent I know seems to be constantly ill with. Plus a million, billion other things I want to be free to do that I couldn't with children on the scene.

Funny but I was thinking that a psychiatrist could make a whole conference out of you.

I found it interesting before it got invaded, @Mintgum, thanks for starting the thread.

Loud sex for me

I have absolutely nobody. No children, no nieces or nephews. Don't have a clue what I will do.

Same, @Starfish89 . I do have a nephew and niece, but like their parents, they are selfish and grabby. If I left it to them to support my old age, they would take the money and run, and I'd be lucky if they threw a Pot Noodle through the bars of my cage once a week...

But I know so many old parents who are alone - kids abroad, or have had a schism... And having children just to look after you in old age feels like... farming to me - laying down a resource to sustain you later. And as I say, that crop could fail...

So, to haul this back to positivity, at least I've lived my life on my own terms, travelled the world, pursued an artistic career... Recent illness has reminded me it could all be taken away tomorrow, so we may as well have an enjoyable, fulfilling life on our own terms while we can!

Another one! I don't have to make someone else eat. I don't have to spoon every mouthful in, or have to convince or wheedle them to try just one bite more, or to eat something green without having a screaming fit as if I'm poisoning them, and then to worry if I've given them a complex about food... I don't have to remember if someone's vegan this week, or spend hours thinking about and making meals only to have them rejected and criticised. I'm just 'Meh, eat or don't eat, it's your body.'

My niece and my cousins who are a bit younger than I am live a couple of hours' drive away. My mother lived independently until her early 90s and I'm hoping to do the same.

One of the benefits of not having to worry about children is getting up when I like. My cats are well trained. Oh and there was mention of germs above. My friends with grandchildren never seem to be free of bugs and colds. They're forever supporting the family when their daughter and son in law are ill. Apart from the dose of mild covid I had during the pandemic I haven't had a cold in years.

I am childless by circumstance but have been on mumsnet for 10+ yrs. when I first joined I expected to have children in the future. I recall I once attended a mumsnet careers event in London that was themed around being a working mother. I went because I was at a career crossroad and there were some great speakers. In one session the woman I was chatting to sussed that I didn’t have children and I was a bit sheepish. She was like, ‘you’re more than welcome here. You’re a potential mother and I think you’re so smart for thinking about work before you’ve had children’. Since then, I’ve read all kinds of women’s stories about the highs and lows of child raising. I’ve been through a period of grieving that I won’t have my own and can appreciate the upsides of not having them, but also feel I have good insight into what women with children experience. These days. I think maternal status is a feminist issue full stop It affects all women one way or another and is fairly fraught with politics.

I meant to quote whoever it was that was demanding to know why childless / childfree women have the audacity to be on mumsnet.

Demonstrates how pervasive motherhood is for women the a website that has emerged as the most intelligent woman focussed debate site stems from the shared experience of being a mother - why should that not include those women that aren’t mothers that would mean they are siloed away from general conversation.

My not being a mother doesn't prevent me from engaging in general conversation on the site. There are plenty of threads and topics where my parental status isn't relevant.

I don't like children and don't want to spend any time with them, regardless of whether they are family or not.

This is t for me too. Didn't like them when I was a child myself but couldn't escape. Now I can so bliss.

Me too.

Morning all! How is everyone? I’m about to make a sausage sandwich

Surely the key issue is the fact it's family rather than children.

Nope. Don't care about family children anymore than some random in a street

Fnar

Back for round 2 are we.
Go fuck off when you get there fuck off some more.
You have a child to take care of.

I DON'T WANT A SAUSAGE SANDWICH! I WANT A BACON SANDWICH! BUT I DON'T WANT BUTTER ON IT AND I WANT THE LETTUCE NOT TO TOUCH THE TOMATO! YOU SUCK YOU SUCK I HATE YOU! WHY DON'T YOU LET ME DO ANYTHING I WANT ALL MY FRIENDS MOTHERS ARE REALLY COOL YOU'RE STUPID!!!

What is that all about.
LOL i get it now.

lastly, to clarify I don’t think someone with autism has something wrong with them, unlike you.

I just want to clarify that I absolutely do not think someone with autism has something wrong with them. That’s why I used scare quotes around “wrong”. I don’t think your question was genuinely aimed at improving your own understanding of childless people, I think it was designed to ‘other’ those who have certain responses to children. Hence why MN deleted it.

I genuinely cannot understand why some parents cannot leave us alone. If we were all over a thread called “benefits of being a parent”, going on and on about how those benefits are a stupid reason to have kids, how we can have those benefits without having kids, how wanting your own kids is a bit weird when you can just enjoy the ones in your family or friendship circle, or that there’s no point in having kids as you’ll likely be lonely in old age anyway… we’d be absolutely and rightly torn to bits. Yet parents come on to all of our threads, say whatever they like to us, and nothing happens until the next thread appears and back they come.

I’m sorry to say it but I think this board is doing more harm than good (which is presumably the outcome said parents want).