t the moment, I’m a child-free woman. Child-free meaning I don’t have a child and right now, I don’t want one. This may change, it may not change but that’s where I am.
As a person who writes things on the internet and shares stuff about my life I get a lot of crap from parents. I mean a lot of crap. If I mention sleeping in, inevitably there’s going to be a parent who says ‘Sleep in??? What’s a sleep in? You clearly don’t have kids. LOL!’. If I write an article about deep conditioning my hair there will be a comment of ‘Snort! Some of us can’t deep condition our hair with three kids under three running around the house!’.
A mate of mine is a rather wealthy entrepreneur and he owns two Lamborghinis. His brother continuously comments that he wishes he could afford two Lamborghinis and it really pisses my mate off. It costs about $500,000 to raise a child from birth to nest-fleeing time. The other brother has two kids. That’s two Lamborghinis. Each brother made a choice in life and it seems that one brother has to continually justify his choice and constantly apologise for leading a child-free life, a life that was a viable option for both brothers.
I don’t want to have to defend my choice for the rest of my life if I choose to never have children. I know how hard it is to have children. I’m not saying that flippantly. I know how hard it is because I have eyes and I can see that it’s hard. I also have the internet and as a result any rose-coloured glasses I may have had about being a parent have been smashed to smithereens. I am told daily, often hourly how incredibly difficult it is to be a parent. My Facebook feed is littered with updates from parents that are stressed, tired, worried and totally at their wits end. Parenting is really fucking hard. Believe me, I am under no delusions about that.
It’s okay for parents to vent, I’d just appreciate it if their frustration wasn’t aimed at people without children. It’s like saying to someone ‘You have NO idea how hard it is to go to work everyday!’ to someone who is unemployed. It would be just as inappropriate for me to say to parents ‘You’re idiots for having kids.’ It’s rude. As a child-free person, it’s not my fault if a parent had a bad night’s sleep last night. Me not having children has nothing to do with anyone else’s parental struggles. I’m a top-notch listener and I actually really love kids. Everyone is welcome to come at me with their parenting woes but the second someone starts hating on me for my personal life choices that have nothing to do with them, I’m done. I also feel terrible for people who are child-less (people who wanted children and couldn’t have them) and experience the same weird vitriol from parents. It pisses me off but it must absolutely break their hearts, which is so much worse.
Bottom line? Please stop telling me that I have no idea how hard it is to have children. I’ve been told. I’m totally aware. The reason why I don’t have children is because I know it’s hard.
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Are you child-free or child-less? Have you ever experienced this strange behaviour from parents?
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P.S Did you know there’s a Smaggle weekly newsletter? And a Smaggle Facebook page? You should get all up in both their faces. It’s totally worth it, I promise.