Childfree Mumsnetters' Board?

[musixa]

There's been some discussion on this thread about the idea of a childfree/life without children board, so I thought I would raise the suggestion on Site Stuff

[[https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4811166-to-ask-why-so-many-child-free-people-are-on-mumsnet?reply=126404125

My thinking is that the board would be a safe space for Mumsnetters who, for whether by choice or making the best of the hand they've been dealt, are embracing the childfree life, to discuss the issues that uniquely affect us - some examples I can think of are discrimination when it comes to workplace holidays; planning for old age and inheritance issues, how to cope when your friendship group only want to meet in child-friendly venues; family pressure to have children.

I would also hope it might stop so many threads like the linked one popping up, which often attract goady posters.

I hope you don't feel this is a step too far as a board suggestion and will give it serious consideration.

@fitzwilliamdarcy That's a good example of the mix working then, and not affecting the site's wellbeing. Is it still going, and what's it called can I ask?

It's no longer going. It was on a very popular journaling social media type site back in the early 2010s.

@BodegaSushi I have understood that mn discusses many topics unrelated to children, that it welcomes contributions from all, and that non-motherhood is a minority population. Even so, I am sure mn has all sorts of issues to consider around audience, user engagement and trust and marketing. That's why I wondered if there was a precedent re: childfree forums. Might help to see that it works fine.

@fitzwilliamdarcy Thank you. Anyway, I hope it works out well and the board can be tried here.

I chose to ignore this question because honestly it felt like all the sex and gender stuff, all over again. “What is a woman? What is a mother?” We don’t have any difficulty defining men or fathers or who would participate in the childless/childfree board so use the same definition in reverse.

Okay so it should be easy to answer then.

Is someone who gave birth but the child (at any age) has died a mum?

Of course, who said they aren’t? Certainly not me.

Every single person who pipes up that childless people shouldn't be on mumsnet whilst ignoring the fact that many women going through infertility will have had miscarriages and stillbirths.

On this thread the poster who told me I should only still be here if I was still actively trying to conceive another child.

So apparently who is a mum and who is allowed to belong here is not black and white.

Which makes a board where I don't have to explain that my baby is dead every time I want to post somethings pecifically relating to my life without children, such as my coil example I mentioned earlier, a much kinder place to post.

There is a bereavement board, a child loss board, a stillbirth board, a pregnancy loss board… I personally don’t post there because it’s too painful but sometimes I go and scroll through the conversations. The reason they are on their own boards is because it can be quite triggering if you’re not expecting it. People who have lost children already have topics for support. The childless/childfree board would be for people who chose not to have children or didn’t have an opportunity or struggled with fertility.

You are also choosing the miss the point I was making. If childless women who have had a stillbirth are, in your eyes, mums, why can we not have a board that isn't soley focused on our loss but also our life? and if we are happy to welcome childfree people in because quite frankly they understand our lives and issues better why are the parents with live childrens opinions more relevant on this than those of us who have had miscarriages and stillbirths?

Because most posters opinions are that we are not parents. That there is a time cut off before which a baby is not a baby. But no one can articulate what that cut off is because they know its distasteful. And so we cannot have the board because all of us are not parents.

But if your opinion is that infertile women who have had miscarriages etc are parents then what I am proposing is a board for women like me, where I also suggest inviting in the childfree women because they are very suportive. If that happens to also give them their own space then so much the better because I personally dont see why you have to be a parent to be here.

So if you are still saying no then what you are saying is that some of us are parents, from your definition, but not the right kind of parents to have our own board that focuses on life not death.

I don't mean any of the above to mean that childfree have any less right to, or to request a board.

Im just very very tired of people thinking they have a right to define whether I belong on mumsnet or not but who dont have the guts to own their decision on how long a baby/child has to live in order to make that decision.

They are always very certain whether I am or am not supposed to be on here. But they shy away from defining why because they know if they actually voice the reason why they think that out loud it will throw light on how distasteful that opinion really is.

There is the noun parent, which refers to the biological inheritance of genes. There is also the verb parent, which refers to the action of raising children. People are confused between the two. Anyone who has lost a child is a parent, even if they no longer parent their children.

But the death/loss/grief of losing a child is not the focus. Life beyond that is the focus. People want somewhere to talk where their lack of children isn't what defines. They just want to talk about aspects of their lives which are different because they don't have children with other people who understand it.

I remember being on a thread about Mothers' Day where a significant number of posters told a person who'd had a miscarriage that she was not a mother, and that only those who'd given birth (regardless of whether or not the baby then lived) could be called mums.

It was in the context of whether it was diluting the special day for mothers for the net to be cast too widely (in the OP's case, pregnancy, but naturally the thread developed and discussed those who've lost babies and at what stage). It was absolutely grotesque. Gatekeeping of this kind does happen on here.

Absolutely this is the type of opinions I am referring to.

This is why I get particularly frustrated when people have made comments on here about childfree people saying nasty things about children, not being decent human beings etc.

Because generally speaking on a thread where some sensitivity is required women who are infertile, it's a always a parent who has made the insensitive comment. Thats not to say some parents arent lovely, lots are, some of them are on here. But so are the childfree women and Im not sure ive ever had an insensitive comment from a childfree person on this subject.

I am a parent and don't see a problem with this.

It's because for some people the world stops at the end of their nose.

Thanks for the update @HebeMumsnet 😀

As someone who is childless by circumstance I would be very happy for such a topic to welcome posters who have very sadly lost children.

I wouldn't be at all happy if dickheads posting about crotch goblins etc turned up. Some of the people I love most in the world are crotch goblins, dammit, and some of the things I'd actually like to discuss on such a board would be related to being a childless aunt and godmother.

Absolutely @JoanOgden - the focus would be on living a life without children in it, however people arrived in that situation, whether they used to have children in their lives or not.

Goady people wanting to rant about 'crotch goblins' would not be relevant or welcome.

It would be easy to report and get rid of any comments like that, surely, as “not in the spirit”. So no issue there, even if idiots do descend now and again.

I'm confident those types of thread are started by are trolls, so they'll post in AIBU (exactly as they do now) for the maximum traffic.

Personally, I really value the breadth of perspectives on here and am more than happy to read the contributions of posters who don't have children. The fact that someone happens to be a parent doesn't make their ideas any more relevant or interesting to me.

Half the time I wouldn't know whether someone had children or not and that's kind of how it should be...in 2023. Women's opinions are all valid regardless of their reproductive status.

Tbh, I'm really shocked at the level of vitriol that this thread seems to have inspired for what strikes me as a pretty innocuous request. For me, that just does more to underline the need for a dedicated childfree board for people to discuss certain issues without the weird, smug nastiness that is clearly aimed at them by some parents.

I'm not. I've seen my childless sister experience this for many years. She's even had people tell her that she shouldn't be allowed to be a CP social worker because she hasn't got her own children - these were colleagues, not randoms.

I’m sure however I articulate this it will be taken the wrong way but… I guess what I’m a bit frustrated by in this thread is… what’s wrong in principle with the idea of a space that’s for mums?

But why do you need it? What's so special about being a mum that you can only converse online with other mums?
It is insane and discriminatory.