Single Men Are Angry and Confused About Childfree Women

Why is this a huge issue for single men?

Recently, I had a phone conversation with an old college buddy that ended in an unnecessary argument about women who choose to be child-free. I wasn’t necessarily arguing. That’s not my thing.

I will allow another person to scream and yell into the phone while I bake cookies in my kitchen with the phone lying on the cabinet because that’s how at peace I am with the choice not to have children.

Nothing or no one can change my mind about having kids in the 21st century. But basically, the conversation went a little like this:

Guy Friend: You are a good woman, Teri. You are wasting your life if you don’t want children.

Teri: What does having children have to do with me being a good person?

Guy Friend: Men and women were designed to multiply. I want to leave behind a legacy.

Teri: Again, what does that have to do with me? I’m not wasting anybody’s time or effort in the dating game. So, why does it bother you that I don’t want to be a mother?

Guy Friend: It’s not that you don’t want to have children, Teri. You don’t want to deal with the man who will help you bring those children into the world.

Teri: *Starts to laugh uncontrollably*

Guy Friend: *Frustrated and hangs up the phone*

I haven’t heard from my guy friend in over a month.

Now, this conversation brought up a lot of red flags, but also one thing that made me feel like a horrible friend to my guy friend because he was being serious and vulnerable with me, and unfortunately, he may never be that honest with me again.

I realized that when a man shares something of this nature, and they don’t feel like their words matter, it can make them hold in their true thoughts and emotions because I shouldn’t have laughed.

But the reason why I reacted in that way was that part of his last statement hit a nerve in two different ways. But when someone is telling me the truth about myself, I usually laugh because I can’t believe they noticed something about me that maybe I was trying to hide from others.

But I probably wouldn't have laughed if I weren’t so emotionally unavailable. It probably would have been more like tears than a blown-off reaction.

But his last statement could have been taken in two or three different ways.

1. Being sarcastic because I know that it takes two to make a baby, and no woman is praying to be just the baby mama of a man. Therefore, no one woman desires to be a single parent, but it’s way more men than women who walk away from their responsibilities once the child is born.
2. Bringing up the heartbreak I faced in a past relationship was also part of his statement because my guy friend knew that before my first relationship, I desired to be a wife and a mother. But life experiences will change your outlook on life — and sometimes, it’s not for the better.
3. He felt he should be the guy in my life by trying to place himself as more than just a friend to me. Like, he completely took me — as a whole person — out of the entire conversation to focus on my womb, and what did he call his future children? Yes. His legacy.

But my issue with men who have a problem with me not having children by my 30s or not desiring children is that none of these men are on my radar. These men who complain about women not wanting to procreate with them aren’t even financially stable enough to date a woman.

So, how in the hell are these men supposed to raise even one child?

I am not currently interested in dating, and it’s not the end of the world if 1% of 3 billion women choose not to be mothers. Some men don’t even know how much life has changed for women.

Yes. We have more rights, but life is much more complicated than 70 years ago. Women can’t just pop out babies left and right and focus on their children. We have to work and pay bills like traditional providers and still maintain a home with additional labor.

Some women don’t want the responsibilities of a spouse, a household, and children. But when a woman doesn’t want children due to freedom in various ways, she is considered selfish because we are supposed to be the nurturers — not the carefree. We are supposed to care for others and place others before ourselves — no matter what. We are supposed to be natural caregivers — even if we don’t desire to be.

But do you know what’s actually selfish? Having children because you don’t want to die alone. Or because you want to live through your own children.

But it’s not just men who place their burdens on me. It’s also women with children who are more concerned with why I don’t have them. But really, it’s insulting because no one ever asks me about a husband or getting married. It seems like others want me to be a statistic — in reference to being a single parent. But I wish they would just ask what they really want to know, such as,

Is your vagina working properly — or at all?

Because that’s how personal it is to ask a woman who has no children why she doesn’t want kids — especially if this conversation has occurred on multiple occasions — by the same people. Because no one can bully me or any woman into believing that we are less than mothers because we have our reasons not to bring life into this world — especially in the 21st century.

Frankly, some women have children who I don’t personally believe should have been mothers, but I am not going to ask them why they wanted children because some people show why they had children based on their actions toward their kids. But that’s not my business.

But people will make a woman's vagina their business if she hasn’t pushed out a watermelon from between her legs at some point in her life.

But again, society implies that there must be something wrong with a woman who doesn’t want a traditional lifestyle. Because there are women who are childfree and prefer to live this way. Some women are childless and may not have chosen the lifestyle but still get ridiculed for not being a part of the majority.

But being a parent is a calling — not just a job, an exciting opportunity, or a legacy to leave behind. And children are not placeholders for our loneliness, automatic caregivers in our old age, or do-overs for the life we regret.

But again, why does it matter — especially if a woman is not even interested in a relationship — or not actively dating to go from a wife to the mother of a man’s children?

— Teri Nickels

What are your thoughts?