Poss sens... For those who choose not to have children

Boop, that actually really pisses me off. You and Mr Boop are one of the coolest couples I know and your friends are losing out hugely. <plans dinner party with child-free friends> ?

Sounds great, can I come please? ?

Boop, I suspect that it's because they're wrapped up in their own lives. I like you, not that I've met you, but I mean from Hitched - you seem like a lovely, caring sort of person.

? I'm probably about to offend you now but here goes...

I've always thought of you as someone who wouldn't like children, more to do with some of your style of posting I guess. I'm struggling to see you playing kids-stuff.

(although I am starting to 'see' you jumping into an imaginery TARDIS while shooting at Daleks!)?

Boop I am so shocked by your post, I cannot imagine that your friends don't/never really liked you. It just seems so unlikely.
I wonder if Doughnut is right - people get so wrapped up in their own lives that they don't stop a minute to consider other people sometimes. It is terrible that you feel this way, there are a squillion people on here (including myself and H) that would be friends with you in a heartbeat. I do't tend to push friendships on here as I don't want to seem weirdly stalkerish *

L
xx
*(except with you, Pooch, now where's my gun...)

What Lois said re Boop - I would be shocked if your friends didn't love you to bits. You're fab. Bet they've just got totally wrapped up in themselves and would be gutted to hear you felt like this. If not, they're idiots...

I can answer from both sides of the equation - when we were struggling to have kids, to all intents and purposes we looked like we were child free by choice - mid thirties, been married for 6 years, no sign of kids, never talked about them. We got constant quizzing about babies, particularly by my inlaws but from randoms and work colleagues etc too. I always found it so rude, probs because I'd never dream of asking such a personal q of someone else, maybe also because my mum couldn't have kids and so it was kind of ingrained into me not to pry.

As a mother now - we find we don't get invited anywhere, or not really anything definite, by most of our 'child free' friends. ? We invited ourselves to my BIL's house recently for a sleepover and it went really well from our perspective but we had to pretty much ask ourselves!!

As far as taking chlidren to others' houses, I would be more than happy. Either through nature or nurture we have a very well behaved (currently) 2 year old and a very sunny 5 month old who are no trouble at all.

With both of my children we've gone and stayed with my parents overnight from an early age. even with not doing bottles we've managed to sneak out in between feeds so breastfeeding isn't always the barrier it's sometimes thought to be. We are lucky that we have my parents close by, although we did choose to move out of London in order specifically to have family support

I wish we'd get invited out more; tbh the reason I don't socialise too much any more is we are skint through me not working at the mo.

Oh and to sound quite perverse, I don't hold those who have children that fit into the parents' lifestyle admirable as a general rule. It's something I thought I'd aspire to or be envious of, but the ones I've encountered who seem proud of this are not role models for me - many of them tend to choose not to spend much time with their children. (we're talking those who choose to have children and then don't seem to want to alter their leisure time etc to be with them) What's the point of having them then?

I know that sounds judgemental - and it is, I suppose - but I think it's a shame to have really little children and not to prioritise family time. They grow up so fast, you get quite a bit of freedom back when they hate you and are ashamed of you and want to do their own thing ?

It's about a balance of course - the parents do need time to be with adults only. I know I crave and cherish the time I get when I'm away, but I wouldn't want to spend the majority of my post children life as if I was still pre children. I'll get 'me time' when my children are older and don't need me as much

I'm going to come at this from a different angle again. I'm 30 and have 20mnth old baby and work three days a week. Money is comfortable but we do have to budget and I often take my daughter with me to stay with friends - i put her in her pjs, pack the travel cot, leave at bed time and then put her straight to bed when we get there, it really is a doddle most of the time.

I have just returned from a weeks SCUBA diving in the Maldives with my old diving club - I knew all of the other divers and have done for years. Diving was my passion before I had my daughter and its what I did every weekend before I fell pregnant. The diving was brilliant and clicked straight back in to place however I found myself struggling a bit to fit in with the culture of the other divers and my old friends, for a start I was the second youngest on a boat and that had only 2 other Mums on it that had older children. The other divers have diving holidays 2 or 3 times a year and have totally different lifestyles to myself i.e. they use expensive moisturisers (ok I use clarins but only when we can afford it), expensive hair car products, expensive gym memberships, duty free shopping and nice cars. For the most part I don't think many of them realised how privileged I am to be able to go on one £1600 holiday a year let alone the fact that I may not want to leave her for more than a week. I can't have £200 hair cuts anymore, I'm struggling to lose my baby weight, find buying clothes that I would like to wear a nightmare and for as much money as get paid a lot of it goes on childcare, I guess I really have let myself go in there eyes. The concept of "me time" does exist in our house but of course its limited, I can't go to the gym if she sick and nights out with the girls happen but always after bedtime when all babies are in bed and with there Dads or grand parents. And on another note even if did more diving and lived a more expensive lifestyle I have to question what kind of Mum I would be after all its been my patents and perseverance that taught her how to feed herself, use a cup, use a knife and fork. I was there to her roll over the first time, see her crawl and take her first steps and I also heard her first words. In all honesty the other divers have fantastic lifestyles and for the most part come over and as very contented non-child hating people BUT they struggle to understand how tough life can be on a day to day basies for me and where my prorities lie.

It is likely that we will also remain child-free (although I'm still in the position where I am aware it may change) and I've started wondering much the same - we are just at the age where friends are starting to have families, and I fully expect my relationships to change with them - some more than others though (I expect for pure practicality those living nearest will be easiest to maintain a friendship similar to now). That said, even if we did chose to have children, we would probably not consider them for 5+ years down the line, so the age difference between the children would make friendships change again. It has made us question whether it is just the "lifestyle" is the reason we don't want children, and if our lifestyle changes because everyone else has children, will that be enough reason to have them (if that makes sense, without being too flippant).

I think, that whilst children are all encompassing and slightly different to other life changes, people stay in touch because of who they are, and how much you still have in common; a lot of our friends have moved abroad, and I still talk to them as much as some friends here, yet our relationship has obviously changed. I can imagine one of my friends who's due shortly will be very unavailable for a while, because it strikes me that she's quite clingy, others I've seen as much since having children as before. It's therefore the person, not the situation.

WRT to people asking about children, my MIL and BIL were horrific - and kept asking about it. Not about when we were going to have children, but when they were going to be an uncle/grandmother. I ended up having an argument with my BIL about it and my mother told my MIL in no uncertain terms not to pressure us when she raised it with her (and my mum doesnt do standing up to people). On the other side of the coin, my parents were married 7 years before having children, so there has been no pressure from that side of the family (although my dad has started to ask my mum if she thinks we will...) and FIL and his wife just assumed we didnt having been married a few years with no sign.

And Boop, I still think you're fabulous. ?

We dont know if we can have kids, hubby had a vasectomy a couple of years back! He seriously regrets it now! Bt £2000 is a lot of money to have it reversed, so if we cant do it, then we can deal with that when we get to it.

We would love to have kids, but there is no point in getting our hopes up! ~I just play with my friends kids

As a mum of two small children, I would love to spend more time with adults (and not really talk about kids), but it is really difficult. We have no family nearby, so it's very difficult to leave them in the evening and I find that my friends without children seem reluctant to meet up in the day with the kids. I also find that I seem to be asking them all the time, rather than them suggesting something and hence I feel like they would prefer to be doing something else. I suppose it's down to the people that you know whether your relationship comes to an end, I think it'll probably have to change, but hopefully if they are good friends you can still see each other.

I also think that in terms of children being sociable, etc that my daughter has been to nursery part time since she was 6 months, but she is much more shy than other children I know of her age (2.5) and I hope that this is a nature thing, rather than because she was at nursery so young.

Boop - i think your friends are very rude but I also think that a lot of it is probably to do with how you feel - I know because I went through a similar phase and 18 months of counselling really helped put me right. (I was getting panic attacks before social events and I know some of it was linked to my "lifestyle" choices and the "light hearted" teasing I would get at not being married and not having children

In general I can see this from both sides. We were never planning on having children but I really like other people's and interacting with them and there were lots of of course you'll have them don't be so silly comments. However we haven't lost touch with lots of friends but we are the ones who travel and see our friends on their terms.

Last year we got very drunk and got pregnant l(ike teenagers not people that are nearly 40 ? and it made us realise it wouldn't be so bad, Some of the friends that I thought we had lost touch with have been the most supportive because we are back on common ground... we haven't managed to make a whole baby yet but I am sure that when we do our friendships will change again, and I actually think that we may not see some of our friends with children so much as we can't put in the effort..... The whole not being able to make a whole one issue has also made people uncomfortable and ironically they are now making more effort to see us sans their children as if suddenly we will be unable to interact with them!

Basically friendships change and develop over time you lose some you gain some.... I felt the same when everyone was coupled up and I was still single....

I think people have put it a lot better than me and I've thought about it overnight and really for me it's about not putting barriers in the way. It's about making things work. When I've said about friends who I admire they don't put themselves first but they find a way to keep doing the things they enjoy. So rather than think "I'd love to go on that hen weekend but I can't because I have a child" they think "Ooooh I really want to go, now how can that happen". So they look at the barriers that are naturally there and see how to work around them.

There's a line that has cropped up a few times on here and not just on this thread but in the past and that's "we won't have as much in common" or "we don't have as much in common" , why does it change when you have children? Surely you had lots in common with those friends before so what happens? I'm just interested really, it's not a loaded question, I can't make sense of it in my head ? There are friends who have made dramatic changes in their lives, not just having children but moving abroad, changing careers, finding religion and I still have lots in common with them. We talk about TV shows, nail varnish, food, all sorts and anything. Surely if you want to keep a friendship you look for the common ground not all the things you no longer have in common?

Boop - I think that says a lot more about your "friends" than it does about you. I know we have spoken a fair bit online and only met once but I found you very warm and funny. Great company to be in and I didn't notice you being a drunken lush (well no more than all of us). I think it's awful that it's making me feel so awful about yourself when nothing is further from the truth ?

Pooch, I don't know how it does happen, but I've found that I have less in common in some ways with my child-free friends. I think that it's because our day to day lives are so different and partly it's a consciousness on my part that I'm now poorer, fatter, provincial and have nothing in my day to day life that is interesting to anyone else ? (that's not meant to sound "poor me" but it's how it is)

I feel inadequate next to my smart metropolitan mates, whereas when I was out working full time I had the money to go out drinking or clubbing, the energy to stay up beyond 9pm and something to talk about! Weirdly, those days were when I was a lone parent of one child, but I had lots more going on in my life. Now, it just seems so different.

I keep thinking "ooh, I must see x and y" then wussing out of organising anything because I think they'll be bored by us.

but thats all about the individuals. i have mates with children who are exactly the same as before. they talk about them if the context is there but thats it. i have other mates (who i see less of) because since they had children they cannot talk about anything else AT ALL. every conversation is pulled back to the subject of children, and that gets bloody boring pretty quickly. We went to a party a couple of years ago in the summer, and this girl ended up seated next to madam, and talk of nothing else but children. she tried to steer the conversation elsewhere but the girl always brought it back. she is pretty mild mannered and accepting most of the time but in the end she got so pissed off she said to her "look, there are other things in life to talk about apart from children you know" and the girl had a big strop and left ?

I see what you mean re your mates not letting their children decimate their lives pooch. It's different from what I'm talking about I think. I know a few people who trumpet how their children have fitted into their lives but I've found them all to be selfish, tbh, and I can't help but think their children lose out. (this is not what you were saying, I see)

PL I feel the same way. I don't feel I have much to offer socially any more. My sphere of reference is mainly child related as that's currently what I do all day. Even when I' mworking I just work then rush home, because I feel that pull home.

I fear I'll bore people as I have nothing amusing or witty to say. mind you I've always felt like that, even before my day became about entertaining children!

but thats part of the issue here. you have loads to offer socially, and youre great company, you just dont think you are. so if you think that, and dont try to make arrangements with mates, then eventually, they will tire of asking you and wont bother, so its a self fulfilling prophecy

i only said that so i could get "self fulfilling prophecy" in there. i like that phrase ?

Interesting thread and one I can relate to.

I am 29 and my OH is 30, and I don't think that we want children (we've been together for nearly nine years so had time to think about this). I'm not maternal and babies leave me cold. I don't want to be pregnant or give birth. I like my life and the freedom I have to do random things like read a book in peace or go to the gym whenever I fancy. That said, I do like older children (school age upwards), and enjoy their daft ways, but I don't think this is enough to push me towards motherhood. I sometimes worry (normally after a drink) that I will die old and lonely, but those feelings generally go. Like others on this thread, I am sick to the back teeth of people questioning our lifestyle choices - I would never be so rude to challenge a friend's choice to have children, and I don't think it's right to be considered fair game when the situation is reversed.

We're lucky that because most of our friends don't have children either, some of the dilemmas that are mentioned here are really non-issues for us. Some friends with children I have drifted away from because the friendship had become one-sided and monotonous. With others nothing has changed, as they're the same people they were before, but with an additional 'role' as parent. I really hate it when people want me to hold their babies and coo over them, though!!! Have you seen that Katie Brand sketch? That's me ?

Thanks Jester, that's made my day.

Nick yes I can totally see what you mean. I do think that if one continually feels one has nowt to offer and doesn't show up, then other people start to believe that as a truth. It's a tricky one though isn't it?

I guess like any relationships, with friendships you have to feed them in order to keep them alive (bit like leaven ?) and if you don't get out, then indeed you do become that dullard that you fear you are.

although I wasn't the one that didn't come to the last kleek meet [sticks tongue out, yah boo to you]?

Flissy and others, that reminds me - I do think there's a weird thing going on with parents - certain parents. they seem to want others to join their club.

Why?

Really odd, sort of almost evangelical.

I have a theory it's because they're jealous that other people get sleep ?

seriously I suppose it's a bit like, ooh this is great, everyone should do it. but why? we're all different and want different things in life. why try and force your way of doing things on others?

let them have their nice holidays, nice cars, make up, clothes, nights out in fab restaurants, spontaneity, lies ins [burbles incoherently] ?

...and then die old and lonely ?

It's telling that as a youngster, one of my fave TV characters was Diana Trent in Waiting for God ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_God_(TV_series) ).

yeah that all went pear shaped as lou's do was cancelled anyway. so instead of having two weekends away on the trot, i had none. anyway, i bet you left at 9pm you big girls blouse

She was fab, wasn't she, I remember that programme.

I am expecting to die old and lonely when my kids disown me ?

Do you think that it's maybe about validating their choices in their own minds? Same with so many things in life

Well, some of this is about manners which most people have but some people regretfully lack.

Its clearly rude for me to dominate conversations by only talking about my children (not that I have any) as it would be to only talk about my marathon training (not that I'm running one) or my PhD research in quantum mechanics (not that I'm doing one). And of course I've come across baby bores, running bores and geek bores (to name but a few) who think I must be some kind of weirdo for not personally devoting my life to their interests..

But similarly it is only polite for me to allow my friends to talk about their interests and ask polite questions about babies, marathons or their groundbreaking research whether or not it is of interest to me because regardless of my views, it is important to them. Assuming of course that I haven't recently [had a miscarriage/broken my ankle/had my funding app rejected etc] in which case I would expect them to be suitably tactful if I didn't want to linger on the subject. So in my book its generally just as rude for someone to be openly sniffy about discussing someone's kids for a polite period as it is to hog the conversation to discuss their offspring.

i definitely thing it is. we have friends who have openly siad theyre jealous of us being able to just trot off for the weekend or whatever, esp when it comes to holidays, and they in particular now gravitate to other parents with children the same age, and then they bitch about not being able to do things, not having the money etc.

I completely agree about the manners thing! Any subject is boring when talked about constantly and is of no interest to the other person.

Asbolutely WSS. I couldn't agree more.

You are right and a lot of it is to do with manners. I think this is why it is good to actually think about the common grounds you share with friends. My friends are so varied and I like talking to people for many different reasons. I am very into my dogs but I have friends who hate dogs and therefore I never really mention them to those people. Other friends I have we share that as an interest and they tend to dominate our conversations.

I do have an interest in children and being in a big family I think I have picked up quite a lot of useful information about children and parenting. I am always interested to hear from friends about their development and things that they do and problems that they have. I actually find it quite fascinating. If I'm honest one thing that does put me off seeing some friends with children is where we have to go to eat. I really don't like children en masse, so a Wacky Warehouse is my idea of hell and I don't like the food. If I friend insisted on meeting there each time then I would soon stop being available ?

I can kind of see where you are coming from. I have felt that to some degree since work has been thin on the ground. I am at home, mostly being a housewife and looking after the dogs, so I feel as though I don't have a massive amount to talk about. I can see how that could be the case for mothers if they have gone from working in an active environment to being at home all day. Like Nick said though I think you have to get past that and remember that you are funny and witty and always have been, anyone that can write about getting a table stuck is witty in my book ?

Thanks for the hugs and the kind words, people. Sorry to have been so self indulgent, yet again, on here.

As Nick said, much of my problem is also a self fulfilling prophecy and I need to do something about it.

youre an enigma boop. you are funny, clever, erudite a nd really good company. somewhere along the way you have convinced yourself otherwise and seemed to have ended up in a vortex of woe. you know that only you can deal with it, but deal with it you must if you arent to spiral further downwards. you have friends, you have lots of people who like you, but if you continue down the road youre on, over time you will cease to be good company and whilst those friends will help, and do help, there will come a time where if you come over as being ultra miserable when youre together, those friendships will begin to dissolve. please dont let that happen, do something.

I soooooo identify with this post.

Hello lovely Pika, long time no "see"!