r/childfree

These are the ones I got lately. Usually it’s “you’ll regret it” or “No one is going to take care of your old self”.

These are coming from a friend who is about to have a baby. They are expecting me to help with their house when child birth, and running errands. These are so out of nowhere that I’m at a loss at what to reply. I didn’t even do this for my sister’s daughter.

my silly/ 'immature' reasons are :

A) i honestly dont want to have to decide when and to what extent i give my kids the s*x talk.. puberty is fine but s*x is a bit sticky especially since i also have to worry about my kids teaching other kids early on too... ( more seriously i feel like s*x ed is SUPER important and pretty limited in the U.S., where i live, and i know that if i were to have kids the pressure would fall on me to teach them.. but i dont want them to be ashamed of it bc of how purity culture effected me but i also dont want to teach them TOO much if that makes sense and i dont know what would be too much or too little)

B) I HATE being sick. i dont want to be sick all the time bc my kids or other kids are always getting sick.

C) more like B part 2 but i dont want to deal with lice at all (obviously id do my best to care for my kids hair if i had them but i dont know how contagious(? is that the word) lice is)

D) i dont want to have to teach a kid life skills like cooking cleaning, etc and have to clean up after them during the trial and error. it definitely wouldnt be their fault but i really dont wanna :D.

E) dont want to have battles to get my kids to shower.

F) pretty serious but i dont want to worry about whether or not my kid is getting taken advantage of by a pedo or bullied.

G) i dont want my body to change drastically... (also dont want to have my child be negatively emotionally effected by potential post partum. so if i DO have kids EVER, which i probably wont, im adopting)

H) i dont like being sticky

I) I have very little patience, even if i know i probably COULD be more patient for my own. i dont want to find out.

J)backwash D:

K) poo/pee D:

L) puke D:

M) i like sleeping in. if im off work i wanna be able to.

edit:

N) if you watcht the girl with the list you may already know but your face can literally go numb as a side effect (forgot the scientific name) i can barely handle my mouth being numb at the dentist

O:i never want to have to go through their search history and/or talk to them about what i might find...

P: dont want to have a boy that somehow becomes a misogynist (UNDER MY WATCH??? NAH) like i can see my brother and cousins having slightly problematic tendencies (nothing super bad but enough for me to be like, "wait a dang sec")

Q: i dont like my dad and i know he wants me to have them (another more serious one is im scared to become like my parents and pass their tendencies to my kid... my mom is better than my dad but still sucks at times, i think it may be the stress of being a married single mom though so i try not to hold it against her)

R: WHAT IF THEY DEVELOP AN ALLERGY TO A PET (i dont have pets rn bc i dont fully know how much goes into taking care of them and i dont want to abuse an animal just bc i want an animal companion so bad. also i feel this applies to kids too, i have less baby fever than pet fever but i firmly believe baby fever is nowhere near enough to decide you want a kid.)

S) (more like R pt 2) i dont want to worry about my pet hurting my kid and vice versa.

T) kids can be violent asf

U) i know packing for a kid would stress me tf out

V) i hate the smell of ketchup it makes me nauseous, also seeing it used as anything other than a dip or on a sandwich icks me out. (weird ik ) anyway my brother likes to lick leftover on a plate by running his finger through it and it makes me nauseous i couldnt handle it with a whole kid.

W) I HATE THE IDEA OF MILK COMING OUT OF MY TA TAS also apparently it can come out of more than your titties TT^TT diagram of all the places

EDIT 2 from a singular demand.....

X: i dont want to have to vet other parents OR ban a kid from having a sleepover....

Y: i dont want to ever deal with allergy tests (i dont remember how i figured out my pollen allergy, but ive seen like one pic of a test online and it freaks me out.)

Z:Having to make friends with their friends parents or at least be cordial enough even if the parent sucks.

I've been seeing this take more and more from the blowout cleanup crew, usually pointed towards progressive/left leaning people as a way to say that they are misogynistic– literally what gives? What world are they possibly living in to think that children are *the* most opressed? Because they have to listen to their parents? Because 5-year-olds don't vote for the president? Because childfree people dare to not want to deal with children 24/7?

This mindset is usually accompanied by a defense of "women are primary caregivers" or "most women are being forcefully impregnanted, so excluding them from certain places is as bad as excluding people based on race" (which is a whole can of worms for these first-world citizens), but I just can't help but think that childfree people paying extra to live in childfree neighborhoods or take childfree flights is not the pièce de résistance of opression that they are claiming it is.

Hi all - I'm a 39 (f) and have been with me fiance for almost 10 years now, also female. I've lost count of how many times her mother has tried to make us feel guilty about being child-free. It's a constant topic when we see them, and quiet frankly, it's just making me dislike her more and more. I don't want to dislike this woman; she can be very lovely but is also Maltese haha iykyk! I've known since I was 8 years old that I never wanted children and I never wanted to be a mother. Why is that soooo hard for people to accept?? My fiancé also doesn't want children (thank god). This was a topic we spoke about when we first started seeing each other, as I'm 6 years older than her and it's always good to get that kind of stuff out in the open before the relationship progresses. I never let anyone get under my skin about this topic, but when it's your future MIL, it just makes me not want to go over to their house for dinner, and i just dont want them in our house. My own mother accepts us wanting to be childfree and respects our choice, but why do some people want to try and make you feel guilty and try to change your mind?? Mind you, the words that come out of this woman's mouth are 'Just give me one. One grandchild' The key word here... ME. It's about her and what she wants. I now start to laugh and tell her she has two grandchildren out in the backyard, two AM Staffs, hahaha. How do guys deal with relentless pests who make it their God-given right to try and change your mind?

i’m a couple days late for pride month, but i just remembered this shitty argument my ex-stepmom always made when the topic of my childfreedom came up.

i’m a lesbian, which is part of why i’m childfree. yes, a lesbian couple can absolutely get pregnant without ivf if one of the partners is a trans woman (and i’d be open to dating a trans woman), but i’m averse to participating in penetrative sex for sensory and pain reasons.

whenever stepmom brought the “stop being cf” argument up and i cited my wuhluhwuh, she said something like “but ivf is an option! lesbians can have babies too!”

i guess my question is just… why are you this hellbent on me having a kid? why do you want me to blow thousands of dollars on something i don’t want, that’ll hurt either me or my partner, to placate you?

i imagine that other lesbians, gay men, asexual/aromantic folks, trans folks, and other non-cishet childfree people have had similar arguments made at them to invalidate them. it won’t be the same for every type of queerness (like cis gay male couples might be expected to foster/adopt, for example), but it’s a possible pattern nonetheless. someone’s queerness should not be used as ammo for a pronatalist, a likely cishet person, to invalidate or workaround what they want.

I dont know if the question is clear. Basically i had to take care of younger siblings when i was still a kid myself. I grew up as a very behave, proper kid that i dislike and despise roudy, messy kids

Basically in a few weeks my sister is having a baby shower in our home city. I was going to go sans husband (he wants to save PTO because we are in the process of buying a house) and stay at my parents house which is very large and accommodating. Normally it’s just my parents and my aunt living there. Well turns out my brother and his family are coming in and so are a family of my sisters friends — all staying at the house, with a multitude of kids. Where I will stay now hasn’t been taken into consideration even though I already bought plane ticket. I am tempted to be petty and be like “Oh well guess there’s no
room for me and my child free self at the inn, guess I’ll cancel my plane ticket then” and send my sister a gift in the mail. I could pay for three nights at a hotel but the aforementioned house buying has made everything expensive and I’m not super keen to spend money on that.

This also isn’t the first time my brother has swooped in with his wife and four kids and uprooted my spot and made it so I had to go and sleep on a couch or an armchair or something. Im 35 and just over it.

Has anyone read this news lately? It is absolutely heartbreaking. The poor woman has given birth at least 21 times in her short life. The oldest kid is 18 years old but cannot even spell her name.

Hello, wanted to share some thoughts.

Why is the default life starting a family and having kids? Biological drives? A feeling or urge based on hormones, motivation, and neurobiology in your brain? Neurochemicals like dopamine, caring for others releases oxytocin, etc. What makes that different than yearning for anything else or taking care of pets? What part of the body makes you want to pass on your genes for human survival? Sexual drive?

I feel like the human body has neurochemical and hormonal reasons for wanting kids, and there are social aspects to having kids, but I also feel like we are intelligent enough to be able to decide for ourselves what we want to do with our lives.

I'm happy living life with my fiance and dog and doing what I want to do all day. Enjoying your life should be default.

I am childfree but have been around parents/children all of my life, and still am to this day into my adulthood. I know this kind of thing varies across cultures and traditions amongst people so I’m welcoming all opinions. From my understanding, parents typically get a baby shower for their first baby. That’s standard and normal and expected. If the second baby is the same gender, then it’s frowned upon and tacky to expect family/friends to throw you another baby shower because it becomes assumed you use your hand-me downs instead.

I’m confused with a friend of mine who is about to have her third child. She is starting to send me baby shower ideas. This third child will be close in age with their siblings, all will be under age 5 (oldest is 2, baby is turning 1, and she is pregnant with the third child). The gender is also unknown as of now. If the child is the same gender as its siblings, I find it tacky and frankly irritating that she is expecting a baby shower. I have no idea how to bring this up to her. I have heard if it’s a new gender for the family, then the baby shower is lenient and is thrown for the family (honestly only because of gender norms on colors for babies *cue eye roll*).

Am I an asshole for being irritated at her trying to initiate another baby shower? What is everyone else usually accustomed to hearing about these things?

I've started a new birthday tradition over the past few years. I get online and Google lakes/rivers/state parks within a 4 hour driving time. Then we rent an AirBnB cabin that's dog friendly (we have two) in the woods near water and privacy.

We leave on Wednesday, my birthday is Thursday, and stay until Sunday. This year we have our own small sandy beach and private dock, a fire pit, etc and I'm getting excited. It's near a state park for hiking, I'll do an open water swim in the lake on my birthday, and we'll eat steak and drink good wine. It's also near a dog friendly brewery overlooking the water.

The dogs get to have fun out and about, and the cats will enjoy their staycaction with no dogs lol.

What do y'all like to do on your childfree birthdays???!!!

I started a business this year and am thinking if I were to give into the subtle pressures family has wanted of me, which is having kids, having a business or runway of funds to figure things out for year 1 of my business wouldn’t be as much. I also have 2-3 different hobbies I partake in each day of the week. If I were to have kids, I still could do most of these things but the time and pressure would be a lot greater.

Anyone else feel this way?

i am so sick of this being said in response to any complaint or annoyance regarding a child's behavior (and their parent's ignorance/negligence).

no, i'm not entitled to a child-free world, but you and your child also aren't entitled to unlimited kindness and patience from everyone else. sorry. people are allowed to be irritated by your child's hypersonic screaming in the middle of the store, or them running around in the middle of aisles, getting in the way, because of your refusal to just hold them or put them in the cart. "but they don't like it!" why are you a parent if you won't give your child bare-minimum discipline?

people are allowed to be irritated by your baby screaming bloody murder for the entirety of a 12 hour flight. "oh, so are they just supposed to leave the baby at home?" "they're crying because they're in pain, are you heartless?" no, but the parents must be for bringing their infant child on a plane without doing any research or preparation for the pain/discomfort it'll cause them!

people are allowed to be irritated by your child(ren) being loud outside all day or playing in their yard or the middle of the road. literally happened yesterday... my neighbors were having a 4th of July party, and all of the kids were outside playing. nothing wrong with that, but for whatever reason, these kids were playing in our yard and driveway, throwing their fireworks right by (or even at) our cars. those same neighbors' kids have also used our trampoline without asking. i may not be entitled to a child-free world or neighborhood, but i'm at least entitled to a child-free PROPERTY, no??

i’m 16F and i’ve known for years i don’t wanna have kids.

i love my aunt a lot and we talk almost every day, and i believe our bond is stronger than mine and my mom’s. yet everytime i say i don’t want kids i always hear „we’ll see when you’re older” , „i said the same thing at your age” etc, etc.

it’s not just her saying that but it’s the strongest example in my mind. i’m tired of people saying i will change my mind one day, completely disrespecting what i’m saying, my decisions and autonomy.

how hard it is to just nod and say „i understand”? for some reason they never say „you’ll change your mind” when someone wants to have kids

here’s the original story. scroll down for the update

oops. accidentally posted this from my main account and don’t want it traced back to me so let’s try this again. so if you feel like you’re seeing this again that’s why! my bad!
i’ve been openly child free by choice for many years now. my ex lied to me. he told me he didn’t want kids. then a year into our relationship he suddenly demanded i have his children and he wasn’t okay with not having kids and actually wants a large family. i broke up with him. he kicked me out, bad mouthed me to everyone, and was just over all super horrible about the situation when it didn’t need to be what it was. we just wanted different things.

through this my best friend was by my side. she saw all the pain and betrayal. we were best friends. for years at that point. i also thought she wasn’t real fond of the idea of having kids. i also thought she likely couldn’t have biological children either. but maybe i heard her wrong.

we started to grow apart. she started behaving kinda shitty and male centered. around a month ago i noticed she was following this ex on social media, and had unfollowed me. i confronted her about it. and how ive been feeling very hurt by her recent actions. she totally tried to flip it on me saying i refused to talk to her about the issues she has with me and “i’m not gonna be painted as the bad guy here”. i apologize to her for making her feel like i didn’t care about her. i saw at this point she took the time to block me, but she was still following my ex. so i cut off contact and told her i wouldn’t have any conversation with her while im blocked and she’s following a man who hurt me so deeply to the point i feel broken and like i don’t deserve to be a wife because i don’t want kids.

well they’re dating. and i’m so confused. i thought she was child free and didn’t want kids. i thought we shared a lot of ideas like that. so now im so lost. my ex is an extremely religious alcoholic who wants a huge family. i didnt know her to be religious, she didnt like alcohol or being around drunk people, and i thought she didnt want kids. but all it took was him being persistent for a week for her to jump ship.

i know this kinda may not fit the subreddit. i am extremely confused by her sudden flip on all of these things i thought we were aligned on. i have literally zero support in my life. i dont know where else to go. i’m not supposed to know any of this information and can’t really speak much about it. my parents, just told me to get over it and im basically being dramatic for not just wishing them well and moving on. my bf is just telling me to move on and told me to stop speaking about my ex when i opened up about what’s going on. i feel like i have zero emotional support. i feel so unseen hurt and confused.

UPDATE
well i finally have an update. this weekend my ex best friend was supposed to go hang out with my ex and his family. leading up to this, maybe a week or so ago, her situationship from back home was “sleeping on her couch” while he was in town for an event. which personally i don’t believe but that’s another story. but my ex believed her and tried to defend her to the ends of the earth.

my ex sounded like he was already in love with her. he claimed he really liked her and was really happy to be dating her and for what the future holds for them.

but they never had to have the kids talk because my ex best friend dumped my ex for HER EX. she flew all the way to see my ex, spent the night with him and picked up a car u think she bought, and then left his ass. saying life’s just so complicated right now and her and her ex are going to try again. she was supposed to stay with him all weekend and go celebrate the 4th with his family. but she left a day in for her ex. i genuinely have no words for this situation. but here’s the update for those who asked for one!

so I saw this on Instagram and I just had to rant. in between marvel rivals games I was scrolling through Instagram reels. the caption of a reel I saw was along the lines of “when someone shows me their newborn baby and I have to pretend its cute” and there were so many parents in the comments just being so hateful and nasty. Saying shit like “I hope you never have children“ and “you’ll never know real joy babies are a gift from god!”

and one comment kept popping up that I thought was so funny. It was “yeah you were a newborn once too, k? I bet your parents felt the same way about you” like yeah no shit they were a newborn once. What did you think? the woman popped out of her mom fully developed already? Get out of here bruh.

just had to rant about this cuz I found it so fucking goofy, that’s about it. See ya.

My mom works at a concession stand, and there was an incident where a child got hit on the head with a baseball. The child's head started bleeding, and the child's mom was asking for ice for their kid. My mom told them to call 911, and the child's mom thought it wasn't as big of a deal. 10 minutes after this, the child started vomiting, and 911 was called.

Normally, they would ask for ice for minor injuries, but this looked very serious. This is another example of child neglect, as this could have been fatal. I'm not sure why people don't do what is best for their kids' health.

I’m so tired of hearing this “advice” from new parents.

1. I didn’t ask.
2. Obviously I’ll wait until I’m ready, if that.
3. Why are parents so miserable omg

1 hour and 18 minutes into the movie, the main character finds out she's pregnant. Ughh, why?? This is an amazing movie by the way, of the most deeply terrifying and unsettling movies I've seen lately. Why do they always have to put in a pregnancy/child? While I understand that in the context of this story a pregnancy just adds to the already chaotic situation (and will likely allow the character to use this for leverage against the ex), there was just no need for it. Sigh. Okay, I'm done being dramatic and am going to watch the rest. Please no spoilers in the comments for anything past 1:18:22 in the movie!

I’m just asking because it seems like every child free person on the Internet doesn’t want kids because of their ambitions to travel. I’ve done some traveling in my 20’s and early 30’s, and while I’d like to travel at least a couple more times in my lifetime, it’s not a major thing for me. Usually I see the price tag of how much it costs for airfare and lodging and it’s enough to put me off. That, and I hate dealing with airports. I’d only go on a big international trip if it were gifted to me in some way or if I had tons of points saved up. (I also live close to the beach in SoCal, so I feel like I live in a vacation-y spot anyways.)

I am a cat person though, and I have a creative career I’ve been pursuing ever since I was a teenager. If there are any other CF people who aren’t big on traveling, what else do you like to dedicate your time to?