Anyone else feel aggrieved by the Child-free movement?

[beatie]

Mostly my feelings have surfaced in response to this article

in The Observer and the responses of support it provoked the following week. (Can't find them online but they are the usual)

I?m pretty sick of smug journalists writing articles about being child-free and how they feel so hard done by because the rest of society is having children. I?m as sick of their articles vilifying parents as I am sick of reading articles about parenting.

Must there be such a polarisation of child-free Vs parents within society? Can the two camps not co-exist and appreciate what all have to offer society?

And what about some of the terminology that is used by the Child-free, by men and women?. Some of it smacks of misogyny. Child-rearers? Breeders? What vile phrases for women to use against their fellow womankind.

I don?t give two hoots if women make a choice not to have children but I mind very much that they have a problem with those who do. Whilst their act of not having children is no more selfish than my desire to have children, they do show themselves up to being selfish people when they start complaining about their taxes being spent on things which benefit children - like education, nursery places maternity benefits etc? Are they that small-minded not to realise that we ALL pay taxes into a pot from which we do not take out an even amount? I don?t begrudge paying for day centres for the mentally ill, drug rehabilitation units, incapacity benefit, unemployment benefits, new roads, regeneration projects (the list could go on) or many things which I rarely use or hope never to use. Why are parents being singled out?

Have they forgotten that sometime in the past, someone?s taxes paid for their maternity ward, their children?s library, their education?

One the one hand they complain that they come last in the queue to be allowed to take holidays during school holiday time whilst on the other hand gloat that they can take several long-haul (term-time) holidays per year (in fact cite this as a huge plus reason not to have children)

I wholeheartedly agree that ALL employees (not just parents) should be entitled to flexible working and should be able to establish a good work/life balance but often it is non-parents who set the precedence for working excessive hours over and above what is contracted. Also, why moan to us? Parents and parenting groups have spent decades fighting for flexible working rights (it?s not like we even really have it - only the right to request it). If other groups want it, then they can fight for it too.

Pre-children I worked in two different places of work which offered flexi-time to all. My BIL has no children and is allowed to take a 3 month sabbatical every two years (he uses it to travel). Another friend of mine is child-free and she has been allowed to compact her hours into 4 days. Such flexible jobs do exist for non-parents. And there are plenty of part-time jobs out there? many, many part time jobs. They are typically low paid and lowly rewarded but nothing is stopping non-parents from applying for these jobs.

Do child-free women really want a return to the 1960s attitude towards women of childbearing age? How would it benefit them if ALL women had to leave their careers and work-places as soon as they have a baby? It would most probably send the feminism backwards, leaving these child-free women working in an even more male-dominated workplace, perhaps having to put up with sexist comments from the men wondering when the said child-free woman was going to leave and have babies.

Grrrr - can you tell I get a bit hot under the collar about this?!

Our local newspaper just did a big 2 page spread about the 'phenomenon' of childless women. There were a couple in there basically whinging about maternity benefit & how they should be entitled to 6 mths 'sabbatical' as well.

Hello!!! I wrote a long letter back saying, yes - everyone should be able to have a work-life balance etc etc but comparing maternity leave to a sabbatical!! What a joke. 6 mths maternity leave and flexible working is a small price to pay for that child's 30-40 yrs of tax contributions along with the contribution they make employment-wise. I recommended they contemplate an old age without anyone to fix their taps or wipe their bottoms.

Like others, the thing that pees me off the most is the vitriol with which the views are expressed. Also, in common with others I am just toooo knackered to care. (though managed to scrape enough energy together to write a letter this time!)

I love the OFM. I was tempted to steal MIL's.

Anything wrong witht he Guardian? About once a month I read half of a Sat paper - its all I can manage of National events!!!

Whats OFM?

Observer Food Magazine, Becky. Published occasionally with the paper and really good.

Oh come on I can tell you all read News of the Screws

OK Fio, I confess. I love The Daily Star and I steal dh's copy of Zoo to read as well .

The Music supplement isn't bad either. And still like Babs Ellen

I can see another side to this. I used to feel like this when dh wasn't ready to have a family and I was desperate to have children. People with families used to say to me "you wouldn't understand because you don't have children" all the time and my blood used to boil. I promised myself I would never say that to someone. Also people would say "why don't you want children, life is just not complete without them". I never had annual leave in the summer because it was reserved for those with families, ditto for christmas day ( as if I didn't deserve to ever have a christmas off to spend with my folks and dh). The last straw was when someone kept going on about how fortunate I was that I was going on holiday to Australia and Fiji, saying "You're so lucky, I can't do that because I have children", when I would have happily swapped everything I had for a child. Maybe this author is longing for a child too, and it is the bitterness coming through.

I like the Observer Food Magazine too - probably so I can feel smug about eating healthily Well, we all have to feel smug about something don't we.

I am starting to like the Independent on Sunday now, so, in light of not getting my knickers in a twist over parenting/non-parenting articles in future - I think I'll instruct DH to buy that most weeks.

hatsoff, now that 's funny...I saw the same article and thought, hmmm... I think they saw that on Mumsnet! Really, there was a thread on this very site asking if people felt like married single parents.
I also feel uncomfortable about the wars between women - mothers v child-free, working mothers v sahms, mothers who like designer clothes on kids v.....
It is all such a waste of energy and so depressing.
I do pity people without children though!

Well if she is longing for a child kerfuffle her best plan would be to steer clear of writing articles like this. Its not going to make her feel any better.

i feel very much like Tinker. At my work anyone is entitled to request part time hours. They have also introduced a facility whereby you can buy or sell a week's holiday a year. Obviously this is with the line manager's say so. So two people on my team have bought holidays. One is a single Mum of two older children who is on a 4 day week contract. One of her children has Aspergers and has a lot of appts so the extra hols make this easier for her to arrange. The other is a single bloke in his 30s who likes his exotic hols (just got back from China) and can afford to buy the extra days so he can have some time just at home. So thats fair enough to me. I didn't buy them because I can't afford and am on a 3 day week anyway. Also have people at work saying they wished they had 4 day weekends and of course I tell them to get in touch with HR about it. Have had the discussion about needing someone to pay taxes/pensions when they are old but the response is that they have sufficient private provision. But then again, its all very well having the cash to pay for your luxury private hip replacement, but if there is no doctor, nurse, anaethesist (sp), cleaner, cook, ambulance driver, laundry worker, physiotherapist etc the cash is not much use.

I'm sorry Bozza, but I disagree. This woman has a right to express her opinions as much as anyone else. I agree that when you are childless certain people do treat you as a lesser person. I have been there. I also know that when I had my first child at the age of 34 I suddenly became the woman totally encapsulated by the amazing feeling of contentment that motherhood brings. I too sometimes go on about my baby too much and I love to be involved in anything that allows me to wallow in my new found happiness. I am most definitely a smug mummy because I realise how lucky I am. I also understand that other women have different circumstances and aren't so lucky. This article smacks of a woman who has either not found mr right yet or can't have children to me. I used to say the same things. It is difficult to get enthusiastic about something you think others have and you may never have. It makes you sad to see others so happy and content. I now understand the need for a flexible system at work to fit in with having children, but I think we should take note of what she is saying about not being included in conversations etc. It is just good manners.

She doesn't have a right to express her opinions by denigrating a whole section of society though. And as for being treated as a lesser person for not having children, my experience is the opposite - motherhood has been an entrance to being treated like an idiot, a nuisance, an imposition, etc.

I just feel that her arguments are a list of petty peeves which she's presenting as a coherent philosophy. We've all got people/ situations who annoy us - but we don't make a whole ideology out of it. I've been to dinner parties with teachers who talk all evening about their classes, the government's new initiative on education, etc. etc. And yes, they have said "you must be bored with this" and gone back to talking about it. But frankly, if I choose to spend my evening with a bunch of people in the same profession, I expect them to talk about things which are of interest to them, I'm not going to think it's a conspiracy against anyone who is not in their profession. I don't really see how her dinner party situation is any different.

I think I get treated with more respect now I have children, actually. Funny how we all experience things differently.
I do think it's a bit much to expect the childless to be actively grateful that we have children though!

I've not read this thread fully but I'll stick my neck out - I liked the article. I had my children in my late 30s by which time boy oh BOY was I fed up with being lectured by smug mums (and do note that the article is about the smug ones, not all of them) about how I didn't understand life, the universe, love, exhaustion, strain because I'd not reproduced.

I did want children, which is maybe why that smugness hurt me so much. And I loathed the experience - which did happen, believe me - of being treated like a lesser person because I'd not achieved the higher plane of motherhood.

If I didn t have children I think I would agree with her: some of the parents you come across in the posher bits of London (where she no doubt hangs out) are quite insufferably smug and condescending towards people without children. And seem to think the fact they care for their child means they don t have to give a damn about anyone else.

But now I love my childfree friends. It s sometimes great to go out and have a laugh with people who want to talk about movies and holidays and politics rather than brands of pushchair and secondary schools.

And also the whole election was about "hard working families" and parties vying to out-do each other for generosity of maternity leave etc. I can imagine a hard working 20 something, struggling to get on property ladder and pay off student loans thinking, why should i fund all this with my taxes?

Maybe I was lucky, when I didn't have children, neither did my friends (despite my advanced age). Now I do, so do most of my friends. And yes, I also like having childless friends. They are often very kind and generous to my children as well as providing a different perspective on things.

Yep, VP, me too.

Incidentally, you would all hate the article I've wanted to do for years on 'born-again mothers' who lecture childless people on how they 'just don't understand'...as you can gather, it's touched a nerve.

Incidentally, I am a journalist and I can't remember when I last went to a bloody dinner party. I wish.

One of my childless friends sent me a VAST box of chocolates the other day when I was whingeing on to her. Now that's sympathy.

Some of my childless friends will get down on the carpet and play endlessly with the kids.

Some will pat them on the head and edge away from that snotty nose - I tend to see them in the evening

marina, the daily star

i thought the article didn't "hang together" very well and my own conclusions were that it was about posh smug mums, and yes, they are enough to put you off motherhood.
dh feels sorry for a child-free friend of ours (she's happily married) because he thinks she's so fabulous she ought to be a parent (to balance out the "crap" parents out there) and feels she's missing out (not in a smug sense)

i know that some of the childfree women in another dept at work feel aggrieved about how shift patterns work against them (the parents are always "let off" being on earlies because of dropping off duties - ffs, where are the dads???) and i feel some sympathy for them.

Oooh, dino, yesssss....

It's the moral superiority which hurts. And please believe me, there's a lot of it out there.