r/AskWomenAbove40

Husband and I are shopping for a country club. We are generally unpretentious people but his love affair with golf actually puts us in a place where country club membership might make sense. So we’re shopping.

I just walked off a tour experience that left me floored at how I was treated - I hadn’t been treated this way in well over two decades!

For context, we are a dual income household and there is relative parity in our earnings. He’s your typical present, carries his own weight millennial dad in terms of parenting and partner duties. He just loves golf a lot. Neither of us have grown up with golf nor country club culture so we are experiencing this era of our life together.

We had already toured a lower-mid level club and liked it but wanted to see what the local “nicer” club had to offer. And the nicer club had a LOT to offer in both programming and amenities! But about the tour:

-The membership director only addressed my husband about 75% of the time
-The men’s lounge apparently has a bar and tv along with locker rooms and he seemed visibly eager to impress my husband and show him around
-the ladies lounge was literally just a nice locker room with roses. And plush seating.
-upon exiting checking out the women’s facilities, he didn’t even ASK what I thought of it
-the only times the membership director directly addressed me was regarding programming/facilities regarding the children!

While we have an adorable 3 and 5 year old, I’m left completely bewildered at how I was treated and even practically - even if the club does have old world misogyny, he couldn’t have FAKED treating me like a prospect that is considering spending tens of thousands with them? Am I in hell? Am I signing up for hell?

We definitely aren’t going with this country club but is this a normal, standard subculture thing ?

Hey Ladies .. 40 F here and I always feel kind of air hungry before my periods ( where I feel the need to take deep breaths to feel satisfied in breathing ) but this month I feel horrible — I have couple more days for my period to arrive but this need to take constant deep breaths is making entire my upper body go crazy and I really want to understand if any one else faces this and if so what helped 🙄🙄🙄.. Thankyou

I've always known I don't want kids. I'm 20 now, so I'm sure a lot of people would still believe I'm probably going to change my mind, but I know I'm not for numerous reasons.

I remember when I was a kid, I used to dread the idea of hitting my 20s because I knew people would start expecting me to have kids, and I didn't like the idea of that. I don't need to go into the details of why I don't want children, but I know deeply that I don't.

Motherhood is not something I've ever found appealing. I've always wanted to be the rich auntie. I want my life for myself. I don't like the idea of having to dedicate years of my life to raising children when I don't even want it.

And then number two, I just think that the world is a horrible place, and I understand it's always been a horrible place, and this is probably the easiest it's ever been.

And we have a privilege being born in the 21st century because the world has been a lot worse, but regardless, especially as a woman of colour, I refuse to bring a consciousness into this world knowing what they're going to experience and the kind of discrimination they'll face, etc.

So even if I ever change my mind in the future and I did want children, at most I would adopt. But again, my entire life, I've always known I never wanted children, and I always dreaded getting older until I realised I can actually decide not to have kids, and now I don't fear it.

Until today, when this woman was posting about what she does as a 35-year-old with no kids, and a lot of people in the comments section were saying that that kind of lifestyle gets boring and really lonely.
And I saw this girl comment that people who don't want kids are in for a rude awakening because as they age, their peers are gonna go off and have children while you're still out partying at clubs and spending your days at cafes.

And you're gonna get older and older, and the people you'll be around will get younger and younger than you. And you wouldn't have a form of structure because kids give life purpose and structure, and you wouldn't be able to relate to most of your peers.

So I always thought about that, and my comeback is I don't want to be friends with women who have kids. I really don't like children in general, and I don't want to have friends when I'm like 30, 40 who are constantly talking about being mum, being a kid, because I hate that whole lifestyle together to the point I don't even wanna hear it with other people. I would love to just be friends with other middle-aged women who have the exact same dreams and aspirations as me.

They wanna live life being single and child-free, the rich auntie lifestyle, basically. But I guess I can't really predict how things are gonna go for sure, and now I'm really worried that I might as well end up lonely no matter how much I try to avoid that. The thing is, is I really don't wanna have children just out of fear. I feel like that's something that a lot of people do, and I find that to be incredibly selfish.
I feel like children deserve to have a parent that truly wants them, and I know that isn't the case, and I refuse to be one of those people that just has children out of fear of loneliness because there's many parents who literally end up... In old age alone, because their kids are across the other side of the world, it's not always guaranteed that you're gonna avoid loneliness just by having kids, you know?

I was always thinking as well, in my older age, I could probably just live with my child-free friends, or we could live in the same neighbourhood, so I'm not lonely and if I need people to talk to, I just walk over to their house, which is why I'm gonna make it my mission to find women who are having very similar life goals to me.
Or if my sister decides not to have kids too, then I plan in old age, we live together.

But I also do love living on my own right now. I don't really ever feel lonely, but my mum said that that changes with age. So that's why I'm here. I'd like to ask any child-free women how has child-free life been for you, for your other child-free friends that you know? Do you really think it's that hard to avoid loneliness, or is it just something that you have to accept?