I wanted to love this. I wholeheartedly agree there is a chasm between the childfree and parents. I do a lot of advocacy work for the childfree. And, I have written many articles on this very topic.

I hear your struggles and I feel compassion for you. But I feel what your article gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.

You recognize some of the stigma the childfree face. Yet, you do nothing to address this, o r dispute it. Infact, you double down on some of the “bingos”.

For instance, you voice your opinion that Childfree people cannot have any struggles. The word you use is “entitled” and I’m afraid, that is how your article comes across.

You acknowledge that childfree woman are made to feel “less than”, and truthfully, your article adds to this.

You say “I know that the childfree are made to feel that their time is less valuable than those rearing children, or that they don’t have important things to do” and confirm that you can understand if “we” (parents) make you feel that way. Yet, you do nothing to acknowledge that our time is equally valuable, we are perfectly entitled to choose to spend our time in any way we please (as you have done by having children) and just because we don’t have children does not for one second mean we don’t have anything important going on.

By having children, you have chosen how you spend your time. By not having children, I have chosen how I spend my time. Incidentally, I am often up at 5am on a Saturday. But that’s a by the by as I don’t need to justify where I spend my time.

I appreciate you don’t represent all mothers and I don’t represent all childfree women. But you speak of feeling entirely unsupported. Where is your children’s father in all of this? Surely your anger and frustration with the lack of support should be directed at him and not at the childfree women.

I appreciate that you acknowledge that the childfree have often considered whether to have children in more depth than many parents. And I value your honesty in relation to whether you would make the same choices a second time round. This is admirable honesty

But here’s the thing. You talk about a community and bridging a gap between the childfree and parents. You talk about all the help you need and everything the childfree don’t do for you. I am curious. Do you do anything to support the childfree? Do you advocate for the childfree choice? Do you check in on your childfree friends? Just because we don’t have children does not mean we are cruising through life. Just because we don’t have children, does not mean we are in a position to serve those who do have children. But, this is not struggling Olympics.

Before you had children, what did you do to help your parent friends?

Lastly, you try to guilt the childfree into stepping up by saying that your children will be caring for us in a nursing home. Come on, that may well be the case. But we will be paying them - with the money we have saved by not having children! Just like how we are spending a huge amount of our taxes on your children’s education (which I willingly do and am extremely pro).

You know there are many childfree people out there involved in the education, medical wellbeing and health and safety of your child. Childfree people are all around us and involved in all areas of society. It’s not a simple case of “my child will be looking after you in your old age, so what are you doing for us?” look around you. We are already ingrained in society.

Life can be wonderful, complicated, complex, difficult, frustrating, joyous, fulfilling, hard, vibrant, challenging and simply beautiful with or without children. If you are interested in building a bridge between parents and the childfree, we need to look at things from both sides. Don’t just focus on what the childfree can do for you. But ask what you can do for the childfree.

Thank you for opening up this conversation