12 Stories of Childfree People Who Need to Defend Their Lifestyle From the World

The child-free lifestyle has gained recognition in discussions over the past decade. Despite this, people who opt not to have kids still face criticism, and are often told they are making a mistake. Sometimes people take to social media to highlight the challenges they face because they’ve embraced a childfree lifestyle.

• My husband is a collector of Lego sets and action figures and has a few toys and figures decorating his area at work. A customer saw his collection and said, “How can you afford all those?” He responded with a smile, “I have no children and disposable income!” The guy scoffed, rolled his eyes, and said, “Must be nice.” My husband just replied, “Yeah, it is nice!” My husband laughed about it, but it made me mad. Don’t get an attitude with someone because you’re jealous that they made different choices. It’s not his fault that you decided to have kids, and now you’re broke because of it. © SoCrazyItMustBeTrue / Reddit

• I don’t know how many times my cousin asked us to look after her children while she went on a planned weekend away with her husband. We always said no. So on Friday they just dropped the kids off at the driveway and sent me a message saying that they’d be back on Sunday night to pick them up. I had the great pleasure of checking our porch cam, calling her back, and going, “Yeah, just checked the cams, they’re still sitting out the front. Dude, we’re in another town and won’t be back until Sunday afternoon, you better go back.” The conversation that followed involved the ridiculous requests that we could head back early and be home that afternoon, organize for someone else to look after them, or maybe find a flight.
  Absurd. The kids were there more than an hour and a half by the time their parents got back to them. I might not want kids but you just don’t do that. © AxeDentist / Reddit

• So about a week ago, I went to my doctor and asked him for a recommendation to go to a gynecologist. I told him I wanted to have an operation because I didn’t want to have children. He just said, “You just wanna be selfish!” and laughed. © LadyJupitor / Reddit

• My co-worker and I were interviewing this person for a position, and she asked me if I had kids during the interview. She had brought up, unprompted, that she is a single mom and has one son who is a teenager and everything she does is for him. My co-worker responded that he was also a single parent and just said something short about how great his kids are. I said nothing. We moved along. She spoke at some point about how her ex had been controlling and manipulative. Then she asked me if I had kids. I said no. She asked how old I was. I told her. She told me that when I find the right person, I’ll want kids. I told her I was married. In a job interview. © Hotel_Lazy / Reddit

• My husband and I just converted a bedroom in our house into a his-and-hers gaming space. The first question everyone has asked us is, “But what if you have kids? Won’t you want that room for them?” But when we say we’re not having any, out comes the snarky “Must be nice.” © SweetGlasgowSmile / Reddit

• A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were out of town to see my grandparents. All was going great until she asked if we would ever have kids. I told her no and gave her several gentle reasons why. First, I have a heart condition and other major medical issues. My body wouldn’t handle pregnancy well. Second, I just don’t want kids. So on, so forth. She told me that: “Having kids is my job, and it will rectify my medical issues.” © Hamilmr17 / Reddit

• I am a child-free widower in his late 50s. I lost a friend of over 20 years over some Instagram pictures of a recent trip I took overseas. My former buddy was scrolling through my feed and left a few comments on my pictures like, “Must be nice to have all that money to burn” and “Here my wife and I are stuck with REAL LIFE taking care of our responsibilities and kids while you are globetrotting.”
  I messaged him to ask him what was up and he basically blew up saying that he and his wife were jealous that my deceased wife and I couldn’t follow them in having 3 kids and tying down with a mortgage. I asked why he felt this way and he said he felt cheated by life because he and his wife followed a “life script” and my wife and I cheated the system by staying “teenagers with money.” © deephurting66 / Reddit

• My husband is 24 and I’m 25. We got married about 6 months ago. We’ve known each other for almost 6 years. We talked about kids very early on and are 100% child-free. We have 4 pets that we love dearly and are both focusing on our careers. With that being said, we are getting tons of people asking us when we’re starting a family and arguing when we tell them we have a family already and don’t need/want kids. © hannahrichelle / Reddit

• I’m a 31-year-old single woman. A few months ago, I bought a house. When my co-worker (a few years older than me, 2 kids working on a 3rd, usually just a sweet, chill person) learned about my house she got super offended, and she had this weird knee-jerk reaction of “Why didn’t you just buy a condo until you have kids? Why would you need a house?” When I reminded her that I didn’t want kids, so there was no point in waiting, she said that I was basically stealing this house “from a family who could really enjoy it, kids who could play in the backyard.” © theditzydoc / Reddit

• My sister became spiteful behind my back when I decided to undertake a master’s degree. Her entire personality is based around living through the achievements of her 2 (now adult) children, and she never shuts up about them (like, several times a week she’ll be crowing about her “perfect” kids online). I posted my graduation photo on Facebook once, and she said I was apparently attention-seeking. Like, it took me 3 years and a heck of a student debt to get that degree, why shouldn’t I be proud? © 30-something / Reddit

• My boyfriend is 28, I’m 27. We’ve been in a relationship for 5 years. He asked me last night if we could try for a kid. I was like, “Hahaha wait, what?” because we’ve always agreed to never have kids. Not to mention, I have health complications that would immediately put me in a high-risk pregnancy. Then he made a comment that having kids is less scary to him than getting married, and I kind of just decided right then and there it wasn’t going to work out. © AelaMarie / Reddit

• My husband was chatting on the phone with a relative earlier, and she brought up the question of if we were planning on having children soon. My husband explained to her that we didn’t want children, and of course, this caused her to start in on all the reasons why we should have children. This went on for a few minutes, and I was just rolling my eyes because, at the end of the day, I knew it didn’t matter what she said. But then she went on to tell my husband that he shouldn’t go through with our wedding and religious ceremony until I changed my mind. Then she said that when she saw me, she was going to interrogate me and try to change my mind. © taco-belle- / Reddit

Everyone feels the need to vent every once in a while and for some people, social media is a safe space for it. Through anonymous posts, they reveal secrets they don’t feel comfortable telling anyone in their real life.