"But you'd be a great mum!"

[Kullis]

You know those horrific news stories of a woman taking her own life along with her child/children?

That would be me.

I get the title comment ALL the time from other women (and men) - yes I love kids, I'm great with them, when I can hand them back and go back to my clean, tidy, quiet home where I'm guaranteed an 8 hour uninterrupted sleep.

Hats off to parents. The stress and sleep deprivation would literally kill me.

No, I would not be a great mum. I'd end up as a Metro headline.

Thanks no thanks.

I love being a mum, it’s all I ever wanted in life. But it’s completely my choice and no one else’s.

People need to learn to shut up and not make stupid comments like this. If you do want kids great, if you don’t want kids great. But stop
projecting onto other people. People are allowed to like different things, we can’t all be great at everything.

I feel about dogs and pets in general how you feel about children

I have a toddler and I am SO tired. I always say to people don't do it unless you want to dedicate every waking hour (including lots that should usually be sleeping hour) to being a little person's PA

Most people only see the 'presentable' side of others - the helpful work colleague, pleasant neighbour, kind friend. They don't see what people are like behind closed doors; that they might live in all kinds of ways that wouldn't be a good fit with having children.

Expanding on this legitimate point:

I have an interesting life outside of work but with very few exceptions (e.g. when I'm playing a gig) I can cancel an engagement if I'm overwhelmed. You can't cancel kids. It's not a disaster if I miss a jam session or a rehearsal. It would be a disaster if I had kids and was too overwhelmed to feed them and shower them and put them to bed.

They don't see the mess my house is, for starters...

You know those horrific news stories of a woman taking her own life along with her child/children?

That would be me.

I'm fully in favour of the Childfree section and child free people on MN. Fill your boots. If I hadn't met DH, I would have happily been one of you.

However joking (?) about child murder and suicide on MN is not OK. If you are serious and really think you would murder children, you need to seek help.

Apologies—let me rephrase—

“Very true. I do wonder how many mothers encourage other women to have children as a way of affirming their life choices too.”

I (for one) have never tried to encourage my child free friends to have kids. I respect their choices in life.

Point taken. I shall leave and never darken your door again. I read the op without properly paying attention to its location. Apologies!
That said, I would never try to encourage anyone who is child free to have kids. I respect everyone’s choices are their own to make and I don’t need to affirm my own life choices to anyone.

I feel the opposite. Most people assume I don’t have kids because I live a “fulfilled” enough life - have a career, travel enough, appear happy enough. I’m not the motherly type at face value - I’m TERRIBLE with other people’s kids - I’m the last person to offer babysitting - but I enjoy being a mum and have been since I was 19 (unplanned but that’s another story)- but I take my kids everywhere.

I say this to say that you cannot speculate for anyone. The choice to not have children or to have children is up to you. And also, you never know how strong (or weak) you really are until something in life challenges you.

I have a childfree friend that is AMAZING with children! She’s just a natural but isn’t in a hurry to have her own. I constantly tell her that she’s good with kids (because she is). I hope it doesn’t come across negative as you’ve pointed out - but she makes it super easy to hang out when I can’t get a last minute babysitter.

I need to seek help for what exactly?

For the good of the children I don't have?!

She's not joking, read what she is saying properly, she doesn't need help but she would if she went ahead and had children ,that's the whole point of the post!

She's not joking. Read posts properly because getting all judgemental. She doesn't need help. She is an example of a woman with self insight, who has made life choices accordingly.

I'm a mother and agree with this. I do think some mothers are jealous of the freedom of non mothers. I have been!

pp have already made the point about the intent of the op and discussion so i'm not going to echo that.

but the tone of what you said about having this section of mn really grated on me, and i'm not sure why. i don't think it was your intention, but it came across - to me anyway - as pretty patronising. not just your implied blessing that you're happy to accept that this board exists, but also the implication that you would have happily not had kids...but you met the right person so you did. but it's totally fine because if you hadn't met the man you did, then you would have totally been 'one of us'!

is it really surprising that a popular forum for women, where they can speak freely, is going to go beyond parenting? there are so many boards on mn already that have little or nothing to do with parenting. as for the changing your mind when you meet the right person.... i'm sure it's been true for some women who didn't want kids, until they did. but it's equally true that lots of childfree women don't want kids regardless of their partner's qualities. it's a classic trope for childfree women and repetition doesn't make it any less irritating.

Yes definitely. I grew up assuming I would get married and have children, and never questioned it. Until my late 20s. I haven't done either of those things (I have had two miscarriages but the relationship was toxic so maybe that was for the best). Now I cannot ever imagine myself as a mother at all and I'm glad I have the life I have. If I'd met the right guy though maybe I would think differently.

I agree. You are entirely right to conclude that having children would have been the wrong choice for you, and likely to have made you deeply unhappy, but joking about family annihilation isn’t funny, and in fact it’s highly unlikely you’d have done any such thing — you’d just have been unhappy. As are some parents who’ve found parenthood very difficult.

Mothers who kill their children generally do so because they are (1) for example suicidal and can’t bear to leave their child, and think killing them is in the child’s best interest, (2) think the world is so evil/dangerous they are taking the child to a better place (3) psychotic and kill them without any motive, while hallucinating (4) kill a newborn to cover up its existence after concealing a crisis pregnancy, or if they have untreated PNP (5) kill cumulatively by neglect/abuse (6) very rarely, to take revenge on the child’s other parent.

I think it's pretty shit to pick apart the OPs post and tell her what she would or wouldn't do. It's not a joke ,she's expressing the seriousness of her feelings about having children.

This is the MNers without children board, in case you hadn’t noticed. And there is plenty of blanket judgement of childfree/less women elsewhere on the site.

but the tone of what you said about having this section of mn really grated on me, and i'm not sure why. i don't think it was your intention, but it came across - to me anyway - as pretty patronising. not just your implied blessing that you're happy to accept that this board exists, but also the implication that you would have happily not had kids...but you met the right person so you did. but it's totally fine because if you hadn't met the man you did, then you would have totally been 'one of us'!

I can see how it came across like that @MidnightBlossom and for the sake of brevity I didn't give the explanation. But since I implied a lot of things; I didn't want children, didn't consider them in my first marriage, got well into my 30s, still didn't want them. Met DH, told him I didn't want them. He eventually talked me round. But I had a rich, full life without them. It wasn't the case that I met the 'right man' but that I compromised.

The very long time I spent dealing with the judgement about not wanting children isn't wiped out by having them. I still lived many years hearing about that.

And it's not my 'blessing' on this section, it's just a caveat that I know people with kids come on here and just object to everything because they don't think this section should be here. I was clarifying that the section isn't the issue. Cavalierly dropping child murder into a post is an issue.

@MrsTerryPratchett don't worry, my non-existent children are perfectly safe 😂

It's almost as though you're trying to gatekeep what I'm allowed to feel /describe? Odd.

Because you can't. I know it would have made me miserable to be a parent, and I'd end up as a headline.

There was no joke or punchline.

I have seen many, many, MANY worse things posted on here by mums at the end of their tether. Truly stomach-turning confessions about actual children.

Anyone who posted on those threads saying anything that wasn't supportive was invariably told that they were shaming, that mums should be able to discuss these things without fear, and that they were judgemental and rude.

And I agree, wholeheartedly, with that.

But this is the second or third time in a month where the way in which a childfree person talks about children who do not exist has been scolded for the way in which they describe their feelings about said non-existent children. A week ago it was "using the term childfree contributes to a world in which child abuse flourishes", and now we're somehow undermining the seriousness of child murder. .

There are people, every single day, who are actually harming children. Please go and take your considerable energy, and fight that battle. Not people who are just talking openly about why they chose not to have children.

that makes sense, appreciate the clarity.

i didn't read the op as being a joke or cavalier though. it reads to me as being a way of discussing the wider issue of how important it is to think through having children, because being a parent is hard. and the 'you'd be great...' comment is thrown about all the time when in some cases it's demonstrably not true.

this might be another example of how interpretation changes dependent on perspective and position? i don't have kids so it didn't read to me as being disrespectful or inappropriate, maybe the view is different for someone reading who has children?

Excellent post. Thank you.

this might be another example of how interpretation changes dependent on perspective and position? i don't have kids so it didn't read to me as being disrespectful or inappropriate, maybe the view is different for someone reading who has children?

@MidnightBlossom it really does. Thanks for chatting about this. I really do appreciate the different perspectives!