Is it normal to be angry at how society treats the childfree?

If you're childfree people tend to treat you like a child, call you a "freak", many refuse to help you in times of need if you haven't reproduced, they think you're "selfish and cold" and when you die, no one cares. The childfree are almost treated like 2nd class citizens just because they never had a baby. It makes me mad. Whether or not you become a parent shouldn't dictate your worth as a human being. You're still a living, sentient being with emotions and very real needs.

Voting Results
76% Normal
Based on 17 votes (13 yes)
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Comments ( 24 )
  • Ilovemycat24

    Totally normal to be angry when people treat you differently because you choose not to have kids. It's your choice, and that's fine! Not saying you are unfit to be a parent, but a lot of people are unfit and they reproduce anyways and create horrible nasty children that turn into horrible nasty adults... who are probably the ones that treat people who choose not to have kids with disdain and belittlement. It's totally your choice and not for everyone! Be angry and put them in their place when they say something to you!

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  • + The Advisor Not having kids isn't selfish as there is no one to be selfish towards. Selfish would be parents having kids that they clearly shouldn't have.

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    • RoseIsabella

      The height of selfishness are people who have kids, but never want to spend time with them, instead they hire babysitters so they can devote their free time to partying with other douchebag adults like themselves.

      The summer before my sixth grade year the girl next door showed my sister and I all her parents pornography and drugs while her folks were at work, it was disgusting; her folks were swingers. Eventually I stopped seeing her at school, but her nasty parents still lived next door. I heard rumors that she was living with her grandparents,but we never saw her again. Maybe someone contacted CPS or something. I wonder how many kids she showed that nasty collection of porn and drugs to besides my sister and I. We told our mom, and weren't allowed over there anymore which was fine with me, because her house gave me the creeps.

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  • RoseIsabella

    I agree with you on your point about the sexual deviants. However,I think that there are plenty of people who don't have kids, but are not selfish. I also think it's selfish when people want to have kids without getting married. It's one thing if couples end up getting divorced or if an unmarried couple ends up dealing with a crisis pregnancy, but it's very selfish if someone wants to have a baby without two parents.

    That Mtv show, I think it's called Sixteen and Pregnant, is awful!

    No one has ever died from saving him or herself for marriage, being chaste or maintaining abstinence.

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  • SkullsNRoses

    I agree OP, I hope attitudes to the childfree improve over the years as I for one never plan to pollute the world with any of my spawn.

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  • Jimbo24

    Depends on what the person achieves in his life. If he does great things, like start businesses, creating jobs and wealth, or makes discoveries, I wouldn't call his life hollow, especially if he's fulfilled by these things. It's a whole set, and having children is just a part of the picture.

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  • RoseIsabella

    I'm just curious as to where you live.

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    • South.

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      • RoseIsabella

        I live the Texas myself, and I too find it annoying when people act like those of us without children are weird or whatever. I took a Spanish class this semester and I had to do an activity with a another student, but not the student who normally sits right beside me as the instructor assigned us partners. The person with whom I had to work with was this girl who's less than half my age, which is no problem, but then she's trying to make small talk which isn't a problem either, and she asks me if I have any kids which isn't a problem yet, but...

        Well, the girl asks me why, and I'm polite, but annoyed inside. I basically just told her that it never happened for me. Well, then she has to ask me why again, and I'm thinking ¿¡WTF?! in my head!

        The truth is that my first ex-husband cheated on me, and I feel like I dodged a bullet, because I started thinking that I maybe wanted to have a child about a year before he cheated so I'm very grateful that we never had any children, because that would have made the divorce much messier and uglier. I did marry a second time, and to be honest I'm glad I didn't have a child with him, because he's a lazy, selfish, alcoholic loser. I'm very proud of myself for having left him after three months of watching him do nothing but drink beer and play video games while I continued to work a full-time job. Life is to short to waste with someone who doesn't respect me. To be completely honest the whys and hows are rather personal and I find it invasive when other women ask me about whether or not I have children with the same sort of casual and flippant attitude that I might have asking someone about a favorite flavor of ice cream.

        I truly have never felt much of a longing or deep desire for children, and I don't think that's a bad thing, but I think it's an exceedingly bad thing when other people, especially other women, project their ideas about what it means to have XX chromosomes on me or anyone else.

        I do occasionally have fleeting, ephemeral moments of regret, but I do not regret having not had any chilthdren with either of my exes. I do regret not having met my current beau much much sooner. He's open to having children and would even want to adopt, but to tell you the truth I don't want to adopt, and the likelihood of 47 year old like me having a healthy baby is not especially good.

        I think the importance of having children and fulfilling the traditional female role of wife and mother is probably dependant on the culture. It's probably more common for women to be expected to fulfill typical roles in collectivist cultures than more individualist cultures. Things could certainly be better, but they could also be so much worse in the Southern region of the United States. It might sound politically incorrect and intolerant to many a douchebag, but I'm very grateful to have not been born in a third world country that emphasizes the importance of community over the individual.

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        • The_Loitering_Creep

          Kids become creeps anyway. Why bother with the pain?

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      • MR.mr

        really what parts I live in the south too, and while I agree it's child rearing culture I've never seen any discrimination as extreme against childless couples as what you've described.

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  • CreamPuffs

    I fully agree with you, I don't really want children yet either.

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    • I am open to the idea of adoption. Bio kids aren't for me.

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      • CreamPuffs

        Same. We're overpopulated as it is at a very serious 7 billion, plus the untaken kids need parents more than non-existent ones do.

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  • Jimbo24

    A lot of people see having families and children as "doing your duty" for society. It's been the case for a long time. That's why bachelors were taxed in Puritan New England and German Pennsylvania.

    But society aside, individual people can be just jealous to be having more responsibilies, less time, and be more exhausted than the childfree folks do.

    I for one want to have children in the future, like, a lot of them. But I'll only have what I can afford to still keep the living standards high and delegate a lot of the care to the wife and others (nannies, tutors, etc), cause I don't want to be a slave for them either.

    I'm pretty eugenic-oriented, and so my view of the childfree depends on the person themselves: if I see they have good traits and could produce some good progeny through both nature and nurture then I think it's a shame they don't reproduce and usually encourage them to do it; if they're useless, uncapable, reckless, destructive, have lots of hereditary diseases, or just don't have many appealing traits, then it might be best they remain childless.

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  • BlackCatsAreAwesome

    Not having children is not what is selfish. It's having them that is. Think of it, the unborn don't experience any suffering and can't regret not being there to enjoy what little pleasure there is in life but suddenly you get born because two individuals decide to become parents and *bam* you have to suffer through 12 years of school, the competition to find a good job, mates etc and your parents didn't necessarily pass on the genes that makes you come on top of all that competition. It's a dog eat dog world and there's nothing nice about it.
    Also, it infuriates me when parents blame their children for not being what they had hoped for. You KNEW it was a genetic lottery and the outcome is unpredictable.

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    • Jimbo24

      All of that is true, but... on the one hand, yeah children didn't ask to be born, but on the other the parents also spend a lot of their time and effort for the wellbeing and success of their kids, so that kind of evens it out.

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      • BlackCatsAreAwesome

        That's their duty, I think it's the least you could ask. It doesn't even out anything.

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  • Almiscar

    Yes I agree, as a male have to fulfil the "macho role" of having a family is simply boring to me.

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    • Jimbo24

      Really, they still consider marriage as part of the transition to manhood in your neck of the woods? There's nothing manly about marrying in this day and age as most husbands are pretty pussywhipped -- they're not heads of families anymore; they're "partners". The whole female empowerment thing didn't help either.

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  • SmokeEverything

    Children are parasites
    You still believe it's everone's responsibility to "create the future generation?" The world is overpopulated as it is, and kids are annoying. God bless anyone that doesn't have them.

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  • bbrown95

    Where do you get that from? How is it "living selfishly for your own needs" to refuse to have children when you know that you don't want children and therefore would not be the parent that child deserves? Isn't that the opposite of selfish? Isn't refusing to bring another child into this overpopulated world the opposite of selfish?
    You are forced to grow up and have financial stability just by getting a job and providing for yourself. You give yourself completely to a spouse or significant other as well.
    The "ultimate goal of adult life" isn't the same for everyone. It is a great thing that some people are childless.
    I've known several people who are parents who act like children and are sexual deviants.
    Also, what would you call the people who decide that they need children when they are not financially stable, mature, nor prepared, and haven't even thought it fully through? The people who don't even have a career in place or know what they are doing with their life who think they need to bring a child into that? I've known several people like this. Is it not selfish to bring a baby into this world for the sake of "baby fever" and to struggle to provide for it because you did not have your life together before you decided to have that child? Is shuffling from run-down apartment in a bad neighborhood to another, driving a jalopy car that constantly breaks down and that you can't afford to replace or repair, working multiple minimum wage jobs to keep above the water, etc. because you decided you needed a baby when you weren't ready not selfish or unfair to that child? I've known several people who did this. I even know of people who weren't moved out of their parents' house yet and couldn't even afford to pay liability insurance on their clunker cars and worked part-time at minimum wage-paying fast food joints who thought it was a great idea to bring a child into their mess of a world.
    Please don't tell me that you're under the notion that every person is fit to be a parent either.
    It's pretty clear that you are very naive about life.

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  • bbrown95

    I guess so.

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  • xfg-48

    I had children but I ate them.

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