Do people judge women who are childless after a certain age?

[LiliCo334]

What do you think? Just wanted some opinions. In 2026 I still fell like peopel act like if a women never has children then she got no life.

I think it’s a massive stretch to assume nobody mourns someone because they have no children to mourn them.

I'm 65 and don't have children - not through choice. Many people over the years have asked me why I don't have kids. So yes, I have often felt judged for something I haven't chosen.

Perhaps Doris was a mega bitch and her 3 children were no contact with her!

When I was 25 I got asked at work “don’t you think you’d better start soon?” aka have a baby with the boyfriend I’d been seeing a month. I just said “Nah, don’t feel the urge and besides, my mum had me at 36, there’s no rush” and the woman was actually a bit speechless, as if having a baby at that age was unspeakably freakish. I can trump that now, my current boss had a baby at 50!

38 now and still not felt the urge. This actually came up in convo at xmas with an old male school friend (married with 2) I’d not heard from in 15 years, he asked if I had kids and I said “Nah, don’t want them”. He paused and then said “Well, don’t leave it too late”. I wish I’d called him out on that to make him squirm but didn’t. Sigh!

Only two times it’s ever not been just accepted and the convo moved on. Loads of people and couples I know don’t have them, it’s normal really.

2/3 of my cousins don’t have them. I’m lucky my parents accepted it - my cousin’s mum really didn’t. She literally would stop her friends from talking about their grandkids in her presence. The one thing pots of money can’t buy.

The church might have been packed to the rafters with Doris's friends.

It doesn’t cross my mind to even think about it.
I have plenty of friends who don’t have children and plenty who do. It’s nothing to do with me.

Not in my experience. I’m very happily childfree by choice, though, and make no secret of the fact. Nor do I give a toss what anyone else thinks about it. People will think what they want to think. I can’t control that, so why waste my time worrying about it?

I would also draw a clear distinction between the attitudes of men & women. Many men have told me that they were ambivalent at best about having children and only agreed to do so because their wives desperately wanted to be mothers. No woman has ever said the same.

Oh I answered before reading the question properly. I'm not sure what society thinks, I know I don't judge women based on them having children or not.

@Zov it reads like you had all that bottled up are you glad you got it out 😀

Why would Doris have no-one to mourn her?

At 95, Doris would have many friends and neighbours and people who knew her.

Just because someone had no children, that doesn't mean no-one will be at the funeral!

The obituary said 'only daughter.'

Even so, it's batshit to say that someone who had no children would have no-one at the funeral LOL!

I do feel lighter somehow. 😆

HA !

I've felt judged a couple of times. Once at work where I felt like a strange laboratory specimen by a group of women who just couldn't get their heads round it. It was the only commonality they had
Second time was at a wedding. This woman i didn't know asked if I had children. When I said no she had a look of absolute panic on her face. I felt sorry for her as she obviously felt she had nothing to talk about with me other than children.
Im surrounded by lots of child free women now.

Only daughter means only child though not childless doesn’t it? I’ve been to funerals where there are children who are not mentioned (even one where the children were there)

Of course, yes, sorry!

I have to say that is not my experience. Most couples I know who have children wanted them equally. In some cases, the man wanted them before the woman did. And it took her 2-3 years to catch up.

My brother, my DH, my DH's brother, my 2 BFF's husbands, my 2 male cousins to name but a few wanted children before their wife did. (Or at the same time roughly...) The men were ecstatic when they discovered they were going to be a dad! I couldn't stop DH grinning when I told him the news. It was like he had a coathanger in his mouth! He was over the moon.

Several couples I know split up because he wanted a child and she didn't.

It's a myth that 'men only have children because the wife wants them.' This may be true in some cases, but certainly not all. I think this is a thing that some child free women want to believe, and some child free men.... (Not all of course.)

Not sure why married men are going around telling random childfree women that they didn't want children and only had them because the missus wanted them. Why on earth are 'many men' telling you this?

It's OK to be child free. No need to try and point score by claiming 'men don't want them, it's only women who do' because that's simply not true. Not in all cases.

.

Where did OP go?

It might just be me, but your post does read as though you do judge "Doris".

The only place I’ve ever been judged for not having kids is Mumsnet.

I genuinely don’t care, random strangers can judge away. And I hope Doris had loads of fun spending all her money without worrying about leaving an inheritance and had a life lived on her own terms.

Why on earth would you feel sorry for Doris just because she didn’t have a husband and kids?!

She might have had an absolute whale of a time and an amazing career. She might have travelled the world and shagged men on every continent for all you know. She might have been a lesbian who lived with another woman for 50 years.

And why would nobody mourn her? Extended family? Friends? Neighbours?

Genuinely astonishing that someone can look at an obituary of a woman of 95 and instead of thinking “Wow, 95 - she must have seen so many changes and witnessed some amazing things, I wonder what she was like?” just thinks “Aw, how sad that never married”.

I love the sound of Doris.

I bet in the late 1940s she wore chic androgynous trousers and a beret, smoked French cigarettes in a cigarette holder and went to jazz clubs in Soho.

😆

Doris was a babe! 😍

I agree also, that it's crazy to think 'awww poor lamb little Doris, never had a hubby or children! Clearly not gonna be anyone at her funeral...'

Lkie whaaaaaaaaaa?