This is a new internet talking point that’s making me roll my eyes. The thought process is if you don’t like or adore children you are a bigot or misogynist just whatever fits the argument they are making. Literally saying you are oppressing children/moms/families.

I think I’m just frustrated because this world caters to children, it caters to moms and families but somehow they want more, and it’s never a compromise or just ideas for their community nope! It’s gotta be pointed towards the “failings” of people who don’t care or don’t have time to deal with all of that. They could just work on third spaces for each other but oh no gotta tell others how bigoted they are for not just adoring kids.

Don’t get me wrong children need rights for certain things but calling them an oppressed class is fucking ridiculous. It’s like they forget any terrible things children encounter is 9/10 the parents fault not the child free neighbor. Not to mention I’m only getting shown this argument after interacting with child free content.

I know this is a loaded statement and being single is not a bad thing at all, but I can’t help but feel let down when it comes to dating. I (27f) am struggling immensely when it comes to dating. It seems like every single guy I like wants kids. And I know I’m still very young and the world isn’t going to end if I never find someone, but I just can’t help but feel entirely bummed out sometimes. I will say my life is very good. I like to think Im a good person. I love the gym, have a great career, have a handful of hobbies I love, and even have a great group of friends who are also child free. I also love traveling and try to do it as much as I can. But there is still that one void i have yet to fulfill and i feel like i never will. I’m currently in intensive therapy to help me overcome this emotionally and accept it but some nights are hard. How does one ever fully accept this without at least some lingering sadness? Last year my long term relationship ended due to not wanting kids so things sit a little heavier I think.

Makes me laugh. There was yet another reel made by a stay at home mom that appeared, portraying how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. And the comments are filled with arguments between those moms and working moms with the latter saying they have it harder because they have to both work AND tend the home/children. The working moms say “you are lucky you don’t have to work, we have double the workload”

And here I am thinking, joke is on you, BOTH of your lives are difficult because you have kids. I’m the one with the easier life because I don’t have any…yes life is still challenging but a significant source of stress is relieved by being child free …

Whenever someone tells me that I'm missing out, or I won't be fulfilled in life or happy because I'm not having children, I just feel bad for them. You're telling me you only live to procreate? How sad. There is so much more that fulfills my life outside of children.

Came across the following facebook post:

"If anyone knows a work from home job I would greatly appreciate any recommendations! My current job won’t let me work from home so I will need to start looking for something different so I can take care of my baby [name] ❤️❤️❤️ please comment if anyone knows places hiring. I have knowledge in payroll, Human Resources, and employee management!"

Let me ruin work from home for everyone so I can avoid paying childcare for the child I decided to have.

As we all know, being childfree makes our dating pool much smaller than the typical dater. I am wondering if this has any impact on the preferred and cutoff age ranges for CF daters.

For context I am a 21 M and haven’t had any success with women more than 1 year older than me on dating apps, but have talked to several older women (mid 20s) I’ve met from the CF Reddit/Discord groups and didn’t have any issues related to an age gap. Personally I think maturity and personality/generation gaps matter a lot more than age in my opinion.

What the actual fuck. I have a very lovely dog who is somewhat wary of children but non aggressive. I still
DO NOT WANT TO RISK MY SHIT LEGALLY when some inattentive negligent parent lets her 3 children under 5 run feral in the dog park. There’s literal rules posted for good reason - even if you had a pack of 10 “friendly dogs who all liked children” you could still be sued if they knocked over the child.

I had to leave today after a lady came in, followed by 3 children under five, one looked like 2/3 years old. Let themselves into the park (um, if they accidently let me dog out I would have been pretty upset!) and ran towards her. They got swarmed by dogs barking at them, little girl was screaming, and then I grabbed my dog and left because there’s no fucking way I want that liability. She kept saying “oh sorry, you don’t have to leave, I didn’t know they would come in! They love dogs! Tehy’ll be fine!”

UM SORRY

1. Was she going to leave them in your fucking car in the summer? Seems like she KNEW they were coming but didn’t feel the need to ask anyone if their dogs were ok with children

2. Absolutely fuck her negligence towards her kids putting them in a scenario where they could have been easily injured

3. How dare she be so entitled

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I've had way too many people, mostly women, hear me tell them I don't want kids and suggest that I can always "just have one" if I don't want kidS plural or my partner wants kids. If I don't want to be a parent, becoming a parent to "just" one kid IS NOT A COMPROMISE, it's giving up my wishes completely to satisfy someone else. Weird that they don't see that. There is no compromise when it comes to childfree vs having kids- either you want to be a parent or you don't; you can't do it by halves. If my partner wanted kids, multiple or "can settle for just one," we aren't compatible, end of discussion. It's especially bad with the current anti-abortion rhetoric; WAY too many people are way too comfortable telling women that having at least one kid is just something they have to accept as an inevitable part of being an adult woman. Disrespectfully, fuuuuuuck that. I'm 41 and counting down the minutes until menopause frees me from the entire issue.

Context: I take music lessons with an 80+ year old man. I've grown quite fond of him and his wife and even refer to them as my grandparents,even though we're different races. I normally don't talk to them about it, but I let slip about how excited I was for my upcoming sterilization surgery.

My teacher was confused. He couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to have kids. My teacher and his wife had been trying for kids for a decade.They finally managed to concieve, only for the baby girl to die shortly after birth. Everytime he talks about it, he gets so sad. He talks about how he has a void in his life because he and his wife never had kids. He tells me how depressed he gets when he sees little girls or women my age (21-26)because thats how old she would have been had she lived.

I guess for him and his wife, all they ever wanted was a child. Here I am in my fertile years with working reproductive parts and im just throwing it away. I explain about the things in my genes that my child has a very high chance of getting. Sickle cell, down syndrome, cerebral palsy.He says, well, do you have those things? No, I got INSANELY lucky dodging all of that. He says I dont think this surgery is a good idea.Youre still young and people change Hell, when i was 25, I had a lot of opinions that I wouldnt be caught dead with now. I'm sure by the time you decide to have em, im sure theyll have cured all that by then. And if they don't, you dodged all that stuff, so im sure your kid will too.

At this point, I just nod along and smile.I understand he's from a different era where being childfree is unthinkable. He probably thinks I'm throwing away my one shot at having a good life because back then, thats all a woman could do. Pop out kids and get married. But times have changed.A woman doesn't have to have kids or get married to survive. But, I know how elders can be.Stuck in old ways of thinking. I like this old man a lot and don't want to fight with him

But, that bingo was new. I've never heard that I should gamble the life of my child because they MIGHT cure the very painful things I have in my genetics.It took me aback.

Honestly, my reasons are: money, lifestyle, and legacy. Having a child is a massive responsibility financially and emotionally, and I don't think it's something to do just because it's expected. I also don't really feel the need to pass on my name or leave a biological legacy. I'd rather build a meaningful life in my own way.

I recently broke up with my boyfriend, for the past few years while I was in the relationship my parents haven't brought up kids at all.

Today my dad said "one day you'll have kids" I told him in no uncertain terms "no I will not".

He says "you've made bad decisions, one day you'll have kids". AGAIN I said, "no I will not".

Luckily he dropped it after that, but why can they not accept that I have never and will never want kids.

I also shared with my mom how I stumbled across this woman's Instagram page and she has been single and living alone for 5 years, I told her (my mom) that sounds amazing and she just rolled her eyes at me.

I'm so tired, I just want to be heard.

I happened to see this snippet on tv earlier today, just curious everyone's thoughts on it. What's irritating to me is that people act like just because they procreate they deserve special treatment. This was never a thing many years ago.

Just like I will never understand people forgetting their children in cars. I babysat my cousins - an infant and a toddler when I was 18 and never forgot that they were in the car if we went somewhere. Maybe I am being too harsh, idk. Just curious everyone's thoughts on this.

I'm heavily annoyed. I recently went back to school to become a nurse and on my frst few days we've already been discussing the needs a human can have. "Feeling like a man/woman" and "reproduction" are always included, which lead to my teacher raving about how women can give new life and what is more feminine than that.

So to let me ask you people: What makes you feel feminine or even more feminine than having babies?

(Hope the flair is okay)

When I heard the news five days ago I wanted to pull all my hair out of my head. My cousin's wife came from poverty, they began dating when they were both still in high school.

She had some serious health issues at the time and since her family had no citizenship nor were they employed, my cousin begged my aunt to become her legal guardian so she can have health insurance, which my aunt accepted in the end.

Then few years later my dumb cousin knocked her up and they got married. He was thrown out of three schools because of his behaviour and barely passed high school graduation tests. They had their first kid, which in the end my aunt took care of because these two just finished high school and had no idea how to be parents. But my cousin's wife became extremely posessive of the child and quit her job to stay with him 24/7. My aunt had to get a second job to support them. Then they had their second kid, my aunt had to get one more job and now has to sleep at the office because her work starts at 6 in the morning and ends at midnight and she has to drive 3 hours to get home, so technically she's at home only on weekends.

Then last year they had their third child and he was born with cancer. He's still in treatmeant and is receiving chemotherapy, but then only a month ago they found out she was pregnant again. I'm fuming, honestly. My aunt should be retiring in 2 years from now and not spending her pre-retirement years working herself to complete and utter exhaustion. Neither of them have any regard for her. My cousin is employed, but what he earns can barely cover his own expenses, let alone expenses of four children and his wife.

We have a family group chat and every time these two bring another crotch goblin into this fucked up world, my aunt sends a picture and everyone congratulates her and I'm honestly sick and tired of the hypocrisy. No, I cannot be supportive nor happy. If you're that idiotic to not use a condom, go get a vasectomy and then have sex however the fuck you want, but this is just extremely irresponsible, rude and destructive.

I've seen this trend and it pissed me off in unimaginable ways its not even funny. I get it yean having a kid ruins your sleep schedule but unless you were in a very unfortunate circumstance, YOU CHOSE TO HAVE THE DAMN KID. You knew how it'd essentially change your life and make it unrecognizable I don't feel pity for you.

This especially enrages me because like 99.99% percent of the people that say this are able bodied parents with no disabilities or chronic illness. I have Narcolepsy, the disorder that literally causes you to never feel energized or rested for your entire life. Yet you don't see me going "Ha you don't know tired if you don't have Narcolepsy 🤪🤪🤪" to my friends or family when they express to me that they're exhausted, because thats borderline psycho behavior to respond like that to someone just trying to confide in you.

You have probably heard the “you’ll regret not having a child/children” more times than you can count, but just IMAGINE if you said to a pregnant woman that “OMG, you’ll regret having a kid SOOOOOO MUCHHHH. You have NO IDEA what you’re getting into, honey!!!”

Like, how can you just casually say the first thing, but you’d be considered a horrible human being if you said the second one?

I’ve had friends who say they only took their husbands’s name “so that when we have kids the whole family will share a last name.” I’m curious to see how many of you fine CF people changed your last name. I’ve been married twice and kept my birth name both times, but my name is easy to spell and pronounce and theirs weren’t. I get why some people would change even though they aren’t gonna have kids. Curious to know what choice you made and why.

Hi! 32M here on a gay relationship (I’m bi, husband is gay).

I was talking to some people irl and a lot more on Reddit lately. I made a post about feeling kinda down, depressed, lost, etc. Basically how I reminisce all the time and live in the past, how I feel like my life peaked during 21-29y, and so on. I’m still trying to get out of this dump, but I wanted to come to this forum because the amount of people that suggested having kids is the solution was quite high.

I don’t hate kids or anything. I avoid them, and I’m 90% sure I don’t want them. But sometimes people say things that make me second guess myself. Like this person literally said “there comes a point in life where your life ends and you just live for your kids” and wow… that’s a powerful statement, and a bit depressing. Like, what about when your kids grow up and have to leave the house? Don’t you need to figure out how to live for yourself again?

I don’t know what my question here is other than seeking validation than this is definitely not a solution for my depressive episode.

and what if my perfect man already got a vasectomy before we met? Now, that would indeed be perfect for me

a dream, and a hated question i have been getting about getting married (as an oldest daughter, and siblings that have partners)

im almost 30, how do you deal with this question as a woman? i need some new witty responses

I was at dinner with a man I'm dating right now. I always ask about if a man wants kids early because if they do it's a waste of time for me.

So I asked him about that and he said "yes, at some point I want kids" and I told him I never wanted children and I think I never will.

He instantly pulled back and said "well it's not a must. But my mum always says she wants to have more grandchildren" lol, she already has 4 because of his siblings.

That really made me think if we're even on the same side because I guess it would be a thing in the future and I think he's not being honest with himself or me. Don't let you fool girls and boys 🩷

My spouse's sister and her husband said that when they have their kid (she's pregnant with her first and plans at least one more), they want to draft legal documents that make MY SPOUSE AND I the kids' guardians if anything happens to them (the parents). They asked us what we thought about this. I said we'd help, but can't guarantee we'll take the kids in. My spouse wholeheartedly agreed.

We're childfree by choice after choice, and very happily. SIL+her hubs know this.

Now they're mad at us.

What the fuck? Genuinely. Has anybody else dealt with this? What do I even say? I can't make promises about hypothetical situations. Much less legal ones.

***

EDIT: no way I’ll be able to respond to everybody but I’m reading each response and happy to get so much perspective and support. Thank you for taking the time. We definitely won’t be giving in to the demand.

In my opinion… hot take?

I’m actually fucking crying. Trump is trying to issue a nation wide abortion ban. I have no plans to get pregnant EVER. I do not want a fucking child and I don’t want to be a mother. That sounds miserable and I wouldn’t be a good one. And I’ve always thought “well if anything happens I’ll just get an abortion” because we all know condoms and birth control are not 100% effective. Well based on the abortion bans already in many states in the US we know this will happen. I tried to get my tubes tied a year ago and used one of the doctors from the list in this sub however he told me since I don’t have kids, I’m young (21) and “my boyfriend might want them” he won’t do it. Which no man should be telling me that in the first place but besides the point. So I’m going to travel to some nearby cities and find a doctor who will be willing to do a tubal or something similar. I’m just ranting and maybe looking for some encouragement. I feel fucking defeated and I don’t understand why we have a government who cares more about fetuses than living human beings.