40 Questions The Childfree Get Asked (All The Time)
9 06 2008I thought it would be interesting to list (some of) them. It’s really staggering the questions childfree people get asked simply because we’ve made a choice not to re-produce. These questions are quite a massive intrusion into a very personal decision. Yet the childfree get asked them, and sometimes, we even try to answer them! Even though it’s none of anyone’s business why we don’t want to have kids, people seem to make a point of making it their business.
I’ve numbered them simply for ease of reading… they’re all as irritating as the other and they’re in no particular order of importance. Some are so silly I have trouble not adding (duh!?) after them. And it doesn’t include the statements. Those are different. But many of these questions are often presented to the childfree as statements of “fact.”
- Do you have children?
- Why not?
- Don’t you like children?
- When are you going to have children?
- Aren’t you leaving it too late?
- When are you going to give me grandkids?
- Why don’t you like children?
- Why are you so selfish?
- Doesn’t your husband want children?
- Who’s going to look after you (when you’re old, sick,)
- Why aren’t you doing your bit for society?
- Why don’t you want to be a mother?
- Why don’t you want to be a father?
- Isn’t that selfish?
- Who’s going to pay for your pension?
- Who are you going to leave your shoes, house, clothes, worldly goods to?
- Aren’t you lonely?
- Are you normal?
- How can you not want kids?
- Don’t you like yourself?
- Do you hate parents?
- What if your parent’s hadn’t had you?
- What’s wrong with you?
- What about women who can’t have children?
- What else is there in life if you don’t have children?
- Isn’t that what everyone does?
- What’s life if you don’t have kids?
- What if everyone thought like you?
- Did you have a bad childhood?
- Don’t you want to make your mother/father grandparents?
- Don’t you want a fambly family?
- What do you spend your money on?
- What contribution have you made to society?
- How can you deprive your husband of a child/children?
- Why aren’t you fulfilling your nurturing role?
- Don’t you want to have your own flesh and blood?
- Don’t you want to experience being pregnant?
- Where’s your maternal instinct?
- How will you fill your life?
- When are you going to Grow Up?
I stopped at 40 but of course there are many more. I’m sure you can add your own and even variations. Go right ahead.
Technorati Tags: childfree, childfree
I’ve counted 24 out of the 40
Don’t forget the really intrusive questions about one’s sex life or health status! As if “Is there something wrong with your ovaries/uterus/sperm count?” or “Are you having sex at the right time of the month?” is an appropriate question to ask of ANYONE, trying to conceive or not. But when it comes to kids and the begetting (or not) thereof, no question, no matter how personal, is off limits.
As you can tell from my username I love dogs. I have two, and would have more if I could. I have heard this before: “Well, don’t you understand that dogs are not children? You’re not going to get the same fulfillment out of dogs that you are out of children.”
Gee, I didn’t realize dogs aren’t children! What a revelation!
As Sarah pointed out, one of the main ones is something like: “Can’t you have children?” Making the assumption that poor you, you can’t have them or else you would.
Number 24 “What about women who can’t have children?” made me laugh. It reminded me of the old “Eat your dinner, there’s starving children in India (or China or wherever).” I always wondered what would my eating my dinner do for those starving kids? Similarly what would my having children do for those women who can’t have them? That’s a definite “duh” question!
As much as we don’t like to acknowledge/answer these types of intrusions I think it is important to deliver strong, intelligent answers to help people understand that the childfree decision is a viable one.
Here is my contribution to the blogging community on the topic of things people ask the childfree.
You know, when you put them all in a list like this, it really helps to accentuate just how incredibly rude these questions are. Said individually in “casual” conversation, they may seem innocent but are really rude, intrusive, and insideous they truly are. As I read this list, my chest tightened up and I realized that I was getting angry reading the list, and this is a SAFE CF site too! That’s why I say this highlights just how rude and intrusive the questions are.
Now, when asked in English (because I get the questions in French too), I say “I can’t bear children” (the two possible meanings don’t translate into an equivalent in French). That gives food for thought to the insensitive idiots who ask these questions.
Annoying yes, but it doesn’t stop. I’ve started to mentally catalogue some of the wonderful witty comebacks that people have posted for questions like this, so I can give a good serve back to the idiots that ask them.
My favourite is one that I read a couple of weeks back :
“You’re not an adult until you have kids”
“So by that reasoning, the Dalai Lama is less of an adult than Britney Spears. I’ll be sure to let him know”.
Kat, love that reply! I will use it if you don’t mind. It’s absolutely fantastic!
Unfortunately I can’t take credit for that one, although it is utterly brilliant. Someone on CF Hardcore posted it … I laughed all afternoon. I can’t wait to use it!
Sarah - Yes, I didn’t even get to the sex ones!
Explosive - I agree to a large extent. But at the same time I find I’m getting tired of being educator and the strong intelligent answers sometimes have to wait until I’ve mentally willed myself not to say “what damn business it of yours what I do with my uterus?” when someone asks me if I don’t hear the tick-tocking of my biological clock yet? I have an answer for that one actually - it’s “hell no, do you?” i’ll check out your post though
CFSince six - That’s basically it. They’re rude, and some are deceptively innocent but insulting all the same. It seems because people who don’t have children are thought by many to be “lacking” or “in-waiting” until they’ve sprogged they’re thought to be fair game for any and every question going. I also think the questions are pretty patronizing.
The thing is, I would never dream of asking anyone these questions. I’d consider them personal and therefore off-limits.
RMS - you’ve got it… of course you know the inference (and the accusation) of that one is of course that these poor wimmins are going to such extreme lengths to have a baby and be mothers,etc… and here you are WASTING all those eggs and all that opportunity to have… babies!!
Just a correction to number 1 - I rarely, if ever, get asked *if* I have children. I am always asked how many children I have.
“Then why bother to get married?” With my wedding coming up in September, I get this one sometimes.
Why bother to get married? Because we love each other. Because we want to be taken seriously and recognized as a couple.
Holy shit, Bombchelle, did somebody actually say: “Your parents should not have sent you to college; they ruined their chances of becoming grandparents.” to you? That’s messed up… I might have hit somebody.
Megs- unfortunately, yes. Someone actually said that my parents shouldn’t have sent me to college and pretty much they got what they deserved; an “overly educated woman who didn’t abide by the natural order to get married and populate the earth.” We’ve come a long way baby, haven’t we
I once got the “Smart people like YOU are the ones who should be having kids!” from a former friend who was an inner-city school teacher and wannabreed (she had miscarried twins before).
I actually take that one as a compliment rather than an insult but can’t help but smile ironically and say, “ah, but that’s the thing. It is because we are smart that we don’t breed.”
My fiance and I are getting married in September. Nobody really bingoes us yet, but it will be interesting to see how that might change after the knot is tied.
As I mentioned in another post, even though I know that CF is the right choice for me, I do feel guilty about not giving my wonderful and worthy dad and stepmom a grandchild. But one of the best bits of advice I’ve heard is, when you find yourself torn between guilt and resentment, to choose the guilt.
Randonlyred - I wouldn’t change #1. I get asked the question in one form or another quite often. Usually as a pre-cursor to “oh, don’t you want them, then?”
The response of “No” to both questions sometimes has the intended effect of shutting down that conversation track - but not always. The next question of course is #2. It’s almost telegraphed.
Megs - acutally there are a number of cultures (and seemingly some are Western) who believe that sending a girl to college almost guarantees she’s going to “rebel” against the “natural order of things.” And because of that in some cultures girls can’t get an education because their parents don’t want to chance it.
CF4Life - The bingoes won’t be far away. Some see marriage as the subtle announcement that you’re going to have the kids, and are shocked when people say they aren’t going to have them. I hope your dad and stepmum don’t put the guilt trip on you.. but if they want grandkids they will try.
CF4Life, to continue what Britgirl said. My boyfriend and I don’t plan on marrying. So now the pressure, which is heavy, is on his married sister to have kids. They’ve been trying with IVF, so far with no success. And since that is not working, from what I understand, BF’s mom is pressuring with adoption as well. I’ll cross my fingers that your parents and inlaws don’t put pressure on you guys because I’m sure it’s not fun. (I am secretly glad that it’s BF’s sister and her husband with all the pressure, and not me an my boyfriend. LOL!)
“Are you a lesbian?” - usually asked in an apparent attempt to scare me into toeing the line, so I just say yes to freak them out. “Were your parents abusive?” - which just makes me see red. “Can’t you get a boyfriend?” - yes, I can, but that’s not the point. “You’re afraid of loving”. “You’re afraid of the competition”. “So, how many children do you want? You should have them young.”
“People like you should have children?” - my uncle recently visited from Nigeria and started with this one. Apparently the “wrong” black people are having children and I should breed to save the race, or else my education would be “wasted”. He seems to think the only reason to educate females is to make better mothers. I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that he said it or the fact he thought it would work.
i get that one too cf4life.., but i have an even better one.. i should breed because i am white.. not only is this racist.. but WTF??
Irishgirl: LMAO! That’s a good one, and a comment/insinuation I’ve not related to others that I too, as a married woman, have experienced.
Being [finally] sterilized, I have given up trying to legitimize my very own adult decisions and just tell those who don’t know us: “Yea I know…we keep trying”!
I think the variations on “not everyone is meant to be a parent” and “you shouldn’t be a parent,” are subtle put-downs when it comes from a childed person. It somehow manages to imply that you don’t have “what it takes.” And that they do.
It’s a tricky one, because I could say I’m not meant to be parent. I’m not a parent because I chose not to be. And sometimes it is true… like when people know they don’t want to pass on certain things to children. But then it is SELF declaration, not patronizing.
When you consider people who clearly should not have had kids…like teenagers to name just one group - talk about fitness to be a parent or who’s “meant to be a parunt” never seems to be an issue. I’m not sure I’ve said exactly what i mean here, so - thoughts?
In the eyes of breeders, everyone should breed, unless you say you don’t want to breed. Then you’re a bad person who obviously would abuse a child, because you’ve consciously made the choice to not have one. If you just had one, without any forethought, then everything would magically change, and you would be a better person, because you had one.
I’m not saying I UNDERSTAND breeder logic, I’ve just been on the receiving end so much I can spew it forth without thought.
Feh is right on the money. When someone does not want kids, it is always because the person has health problems, fears he/she will abuse the kid (probably because he/she was abused as well!), or because they are in some way just not ’strong’ enough. I always get fake sympathy from breeders when I announce my childfree status: “oh, well if you can’t handle a kid, then of course you shouldn’t have them!”. Uhm, excuse me? Nowhere did I say I felt incapable of rearing a child. In fact, I think I would make a kick-ass mom. I just don’t WANT to breed! Why is that concept so hard for you to grasp?
Hi, just wanted to let you know I featured this article in my link love for the week.
http://childfreelife.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/link-love/
Cheers!
Ah, yes, in my previous location, “how many kids do you have?” was a frequent ice breaker, usually followed by a question about how many are planned. The question itself is revealing - the assumption that of course there are or will be some.
I actually had one person state they didn’t feel people who don’t intend to have children should be allowed to marry, and not as part of the point being made about the arguments against homosexual marriage. In one case, the same person who said that also argued that couples should not live together before marriage because, “what if you discover you can’t stand each other?” I’m still trying to figure out how either discovering that once married was better or how being married would prevent it.
Re: mercurior (11:30:26) :
i get that one too cf4life.., but i have an even better one.. i should breed because i am white.. not only is this racist.. but WTF??
Have read this by people (that we whites should breed) and it makes me see red! I am (very happily) married to a wonderful olive-skinned Egyptian moderate Muslim with brown eyes and curly black hair whose mother tongue is Arabic (but of course he now speaks English too) NOW do those racist bigots want me to breed? I didn’t THINK so!
Annoys me too when
people say to breed for your religion (basically) because HELLO when the kids grow up they might NOT choose their parents’ religion. For e.g. I was raised Christian and I am now an EX Christian. We have a friend raised on Communist Germany with NO religion from her family or society, basically raised atheist who is now a Muslim.
Hi Britgirl! All I can say is…THANK YOU! It is so very refreshing to see that someone has a blog where other couples can meet and encourage each other in living child-free! My husband and I have been married for almost 4 years now and neither one of us feel called to be parents. We are still involved in our church, though not very close to anyone in it. The people there, for the most part, appear open minded so we’re hoping to “gather numbers” who think the same way and maybe offer a Sunday School class strictly for Child-free couples.
We both believe that being parents is a calling that God gives you, just as He would call you to be a missionary, pastor, teacher or accountant. To help encourage others, this is a verse that my husband and I hold onto dearly: Genesis 18:19 “For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household…” People want to know where we get our ideas from, there it is! God calls certain people to be parents and we’re just not one of them.
It’s very eye opening to read through those 40 questions. I’ve been asked most of them in my life and have endured many eye raisings and not so subtle overheard comments, not to mention the blatant comments as well. So this is just my long way of saying, thank you for your strong stand and for so beautifully writing your convictions! You’ve been a huge blessing to me!
~Aryn
That’s just great! I sent an email to a cousin in Latvia, because I happened to remember it’s his birthday today. He answers back by saying thanks and asking when I’m going to pop kids out. WTF?
So I told him: You’re welcome. We’re not having kids, because we have not the slightest interest in them. I have other things to do with my life beside pleasing my mother.
Hopefully, he’ll get the not so subtle message of: Mind your own effing business, Mr. Oopsed-By-A-Shopaholic-Stay-At-Home-Mom-Girlfriend.
You know, I’m starting to get to the point where I might start asking pregnant women, “Why do you want to have a kid?” Perhaps we should come up with our own list of offensive questions: Aren’t you afraid it’s going to hurt? Do you think your husband is going to like you after seeing a baby pop from your privates? Are you afraid the kid is going to get your nose?
Just leave the people alone with their decisions! How hard is that to do? Making other people’s business your business for the sake of meddling is not helpful and very irritating. It is just the same as people insisting that you think the way they do. Last time I checked, we have the freedom to make our own choices.
Dogandmusiclover-I too love dogs and music and I have had exactly the same response as you. I am forever getting told that I want dogs around me because I am using them as a substitute for wanting children to nurture. Um no…I want dogs around me because I love dogs and I’m not a fan of children.
Oh yes and I too wind up with that amazing piece of knowledge that dogs aren’t children. When people say that, I normally respond with “I know, that’s one of the reasons I love them.” I also add that dogs don’t verbally say “I want,” don’t need school uniform and don’t throw tantrums even if they can be naughty in their own ways and puppies can be nightmares.
My mom always says “but you’d have such beautiful babies!” as if the attractiveness of my potential progeny is reason enough for me to go ahead and pop one out..
“I’m not saying I UNDERSTAND breeder logic, I’ve just been on the receiving end so much I can spew it forth without thought.”
LOL! That is close to what the breeders do; spew forth both the crotchlings and the vitriol without much thought.
Hey BritGirl, new to your blog and loving it.
I had this conversation once:
Me: “Why would I ever need to have kids with my (hypothetical future) husband?”
My friend: “Because you love him!”
Me: “I don’t need to have kids to prove that.”
She didn’t consider that I would never, ever marry somebody who expected to raise kids. Withholding my plans to remain childfree would be downright CRUEL.
@Irishgirl said “Apparently the “wrong” black people are having children and I should breed to save the race, or else my education would be “wasted”. He seems to think the only reason to educate females is to make better mothers.”
Either that, or he has a (century-out-of-date) Lamarkian view of evolution (i.e. the passing on of acquired, rather then genetic, traits– get and education, and your kids will be born knowing calculus!)
But yeah, that’s just messed up.
@ Rebecca said “She didn’t consider that I would never, ever marry somebody who expected to raise kids. Withholding my plans to remain childfree would be downright CRUEL.”
Yup– whether or not one wants to have kids is definitely HIGH on the list of things that needs to be out on the table as soon as the relationship looks like it’s getting serious.
A few answers:
15. I am– a child is a human being, not a little 401(k) with arms and legs.
(When people ask this, I wonder if they named their kids Roth and Ira)
28. What if no one became a doctor/firefighter/garbage collector? Then we’d have a health crisis, several major cities would burn down, and we’d all be stuck in a big, stinking mess.
37. HELL no!
38. Darn, I know I left it around here somewhere… unless we accidentally threw it out when cleaning up last week. Oh well.