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Do/did you ever feel disconnected because you do/did not have children? How'd you deal with it?
Yes I did. It sucked at times but in a few years I had kids and i forgot what life was like before them. Once you have them, the comparisons don't stop, especially if your friends wives are SAHM's and yours isn't.
Though I’m happily child-free, I most definitely feel isolated. For the OP’s purposes, the real question is whether he and his wife are receptive to the idea of having children eventually – though just not yet; or, if they’ve come to regard themselves as being child-free in the proper sense. If the former, it might be possible to brush off criticism and to blunt prying intrusions, simply by saying that life’s been uncertain, and such a momentous step requires proper preparation. The psychological issue at hand, perhaps, is the feeling of being the laggard, the one who’s behind and who needs to accelerate the pace. While unnerving, it’s no particular cause for long-term worry, or reason to feel somehow segregated from one’s family or peers.
If the latter, matters are decidedly more difficult, as one has to overcome tremendous cultural barriers. Not only are the child-free a small and isolated minority, but we bear an opprobrium shared by few “unorthodox” groups today. The only sister group that comes to mind is atheists. This is twice a burden. First, because one’s views will be challenged and vilified. Second, because most adults interact with other adults via activities related to their children. Persons without children are therefore cut off from the most basic social opportunities, even if their counterparts offer no criticism or overt disinclination to interact. Neighbors don’t so much know their fellow neighbors, as parents of kids in the same youth soccer league know each other.
There really is no good solution to this, save for moving to a less conservative town.
These are important points. While gender-equality is to be extolled as an unqualified improvement, it's also meant much greater parental responsibilities for fathers. That by itself is no particular detriment, but what is detrimental is the effect on the social-lives of child-free men, who've lost connection with their male counterparts.
The people who think badly of me for not breeding, all I can say, is what they think of me, is nothing compared to what I think of them! Mostly Bible-beaters from my mis-spent youth in the South, I have little in common with them and never see any of them anymore anyway.
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"
In groups like MENSA you may find more nearly your intellectual equals, Ohio Peasant.
sometimes people with kids have no other life; it's all they talk about. Boring!
plus, I suspect they're jealous of those of us without kids. We have more freedom and flexibility, and can have outside interests because we're not catering to the rug rats.
out of the 6 siblings in my family, half had kids and the other half didn't. Those of us without got to play with and spoil the kids, then hand them back at the end of the day. Perfect world!
plus, I suspect they're jealous of those of us without kids. We have more freedom and flexibility, and can have outside interests because we're not catering to the rug rats.
Oh more of this...parents can have outside interests, despite the stereotype!
You think JLo sits around taking care of her kids? Nope. She's got nannies, chefs, housekeepers, trainers, etc. Same with any celebrity. Many highly successful people also have a spouse who can stay home and organize the help so to speak. You think Ivana sat around playing Legos with the boys? Extremely doubtful!
Lulz! I was about to say, celebrities are the absolute LAST people you should use in the kids vs. no kids argument. They parent at their convenience. The hired help does the real grunt work. Yeah, you see the cute photo op of Ivanka taking her kid to school, but the nanny was the one who got the kid up, washed, dressed and fed him breakfast. Rich people aren't doing any of that stuff.
Well that sounds like a super sensitive person over-reacting.
What I was referring to is more about when a childfree person lists all the things they supposedly do regularly simply BECAUSE they have no children.
"We go to 4 star restaurants every weekend, becasue we don't have diapers to buy!"
"We vacation in Bora Bora every winter, because we don't have to buy a minivan!"
It's a combination of the spurious logic (you spend money on vacations and restaurants because you have $ to spend generally, and you could just as easily and logically state it's also because you don't spend it on a BMW or on a boat) and the curious preponderance of exotic and cliched activities. OK, you got me, I'm probably being a bit much reading into that second thing...
Yeah, I see your point. It's one thing to say you're going home to take a hot bath and relax and it's something else when you say you're going home to take a long, hot bath while letting the other person know you can because you won't have any kids interrupting you. That is rubbing someone's nose in it and that's not something I would do to someone. Although I've been tempted once or twice.
Yet I hear parents do that all the time. "Lucky us, we don't have the kids tonight so we're going to go out and do the town!" So I guess I would have to ask why they can say stuff like that, but people without kids can't?
Quote:
Originally Posted by floridarebel
All married couples should have children. It's one of the main reasons for marriage. Be fruitful and multiply.
sometimes people with kids have no other life; it's all they talk about. Boring!
plus, I suspect they're jealous of those of us without kids. We have more freedom and flexibility, and can have outside interests because we're not catering to the rug rats.
out of the 6 siblings in my family, half had kids and the other half didn't. Those of us without got to play with and spoil the kids, then hand them back at the end of the day. Perfect world!
I'd be careful about making assumptions.
I spent 38 years without kids, my husband, 43. When we decided to have them, we were ready. We already had years and years of single, unfettered life under our belts and were ready to focus on raising a family. We aren't jealous of our friends without kids, because we don't want a life without our kids. We aren't jealous of our friends with grown kids, because we wanted to do other things with our twenties and early thirties, and did. We have far greater freedom and flexibility now than we'd have had earlier in our lives, had we had children then.
We both have lots of interests. But, yes, we are extremely interested in childrearing and child development. Never would have chosen to have kids, were that not the case.
Yet I hear parents do that all the time. "Lucky us, we don't have the kids tonight so we're going to go out and do the town!" So I guess I would have to ask why they can say stuff like that, but people without kids can't?
Well not to be too hairsplitting, but in the case like this of a parent saying it it's more about a temporary condition. Kind of like the difference between someone saying, "glad I didn't have to work OT tonight and could make the drive out to see the show," versus "glad I don't have to work for a living and could make the drive out to see the show." Nitpicky, I guess, but I experience them differently.
In September 2007, I was still the "baby" of the family, even though I was three months away from my college graduation.
Fast forward to the present. I'm married to a great woman (both 32). All our siblings and most of our friends have kids now. For reasons I won't mention in this post, my wife feels she isn't ready to take that step just yet, and I respect that.
Unfortunately, every social function we attend these days serves as a clear reminder that we don't have kids: children running around, people grilling us on when we plan to have them, and so on.
We really feel like the odd couple, as we're one of the few -- if not the only-- childfree pairs at these occasions. It makes us feel isolated and different because we can't relate to half the stuff they talk about. And I can't seem to shake off this feeling of having "fallen behind" my peers because I'm not yet a dad.
Do/did you ever feel disconnected because you do/did not have children? How'd you deal with it?
Trust me, people with children are envying you.
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Mostly Bible-beaters from my mis-spent youth in the South, I have little in common with them and never see any of them anymore anyway.
