Mombies. Breeders. Trash. Stupid. Entitled. Why do childfree women hate moms?
Do Childfree Women Hate Moms?
The title might seem a little clickbait-y, but it’s a question I’ve had to ask myself over the last couple of years. Since seeing more of the online childfree community, I’ve seen the absolute disgust many childfree women have for mothers. It’s brutal. And it’s left me wondering, time and again, why?
You may disagree with me on this, but in my experience no one obsesses over the wrong-ness of someone else’s life unless it’s harming them directly or touching a nerve. Now, random mothers on the internet aren’t directly affecting childfree women’s lives. At best we can claim they’re hogging resources for their children, that’s nothing compared to the disproportionate resources very wealthy individuals are using just on themselves.
So what is the real reason childfree women hate moms so much?
Mom-Bashing on the Internet
I come across some pretty hate-filled speech when I visit childfree groups. Besides the name-calling (breeder, mombie and crotch droppings for kids), I see posts filled with reasons that mothers are disgusting, gross, entitled, and trash. Any post that contains some sort of pain, discomfort, or unhappiness for a mother is met with more than a few words of delight. She deserves it, the stupid breeder.
And maybe you’re thinking, “Lils, it’s the internet. If you can’t handle hate talk, don’t log in.” And that would be fair. But my quest here isn’t to rid the world of impolite people on the internet. It’s to find out what is really at the bottom of this surprisingly vicious and unending anger toward moms.
Why the obsessive interest in moms?
It looks like childfree women are paying a lot of attention to a lifestyle we supposedly don’t care about. And sure, if you’re social media friends with a pregnant woman, you’re going to see posts about her pregnancy. And if you hate kids and pregnancy, it’s going to upset you. I also understand that many people keep contacts they don’t particularly like on the friends list. But… why follow them? Why keep up with their apparently distasteful lives?
Why create online spaces that help childfree women hate moms?
Are Moms Just Easy Scapegoats?
When you get right down to it, moms aren’t hurting us or cramping our style more than other groups. It is distressing to see the horrible ways some mothers treat their children. And it can be annoying to see mothers getting so much attention. But, that’s a lot of anger for such common crimes. Is it simply the fact that this is the internet, and being mildly annoyed at someone can translate to unreasonably angry speech?
All of it looks–to me–like a basically baseless hatred. The kind we need to hang on to to keep from looking more closely at something in our own lives or society. And so we make moms the “other.” We find their lifestyle gross, so we call them disgusting. We think they’re dumb for no knowing motherhood would be so taxing, so we call them brainless mombies. And, like any type of resentment-based, illogical anger, we back it up with ‘proof’ that they’re hogging resources and overpopulating the planet. They deserve our hatred.
Pardon My Soap Box, But…
So why the heck do I care so much about the way childfree women hate moms?
Because being childfree wasn’t always a choice for me. I grew up in a very conservative church group where birth control was never discussed. It could only be whispered among married couples who already had a few children.
I had no sex education whatsoever. And I definitely didn’t have the means to get any kind of birth control. I mean that. There was no possibility of me even going into a pharmacy on my own, much less coming home with condoms. If I’d ever had sex as a teen, there would have been no way I would have been able to use protection.
So, when I read comments like, “That stupid twat knew what she was getting into,” I think, “Did she?” Childfree women, overall, seem very educated about pregnancy and childbirth–which is probably part of why we opt to be childfree. But no-one (I mean literally no-one) ever told me about any of it when I was growing up.
My experience isn’t usual. A lot of kids grow up in similar situations. It’s easy for a childfree woman with unrestricted internet access to look down on teens and young, insulated adults for not knowing better. But when your school, parents and church refuse to discuss the realities of sex, childbirth, or birth control, how are you supposed to learn about it?
Despising the Less Fortunate
This is the case for most of the unhappy mothers I know. I imagine it’s the case for most unhappy mothers, period. They were herded into a lifestyle they didn’t choose freely (if you don’t know there are options, you can’t make a choice). They’re stuck in a society that idolizes birth but devalues mothers. They lose their selfhood in service to their kids. At times, they try to take pride in this martyrdom. And sometimes they turn to social media to vent their frustrations.
Childfree women, on the other hand, have lives we supposedly love. But we talk viciously about women who ended up in lives they don’t even like. Don’t misunderstand me, we need to vent our frustrations at times, too. And not every action we take has to be some glorious, altruistic move.
But maybe, instead of ranting about how much moms disgust us, our time would be better spent trying to reach young girls and women to let them know that they have other options.
Does this ring true for you? Tell me about your experiences in the comments below.
If you’re uneasy with the way childfree groups are often flimsy disguises for anti-procreation groups, I recommend checking out Respectfully Childfree.
I don’t hate mother’s.
I hate how I work just as hard but they get all the assistance and my life is affected because they made a choice.
I get more work tasks at work(because they have Kids), stay later (cause they have to be home, well so do i), sit uncomfortable on a seat cause their child is in the way (ever sit next to a child on a plane?), have a child throwing food while the mother eats (I was a waitres and this is where I really had issues with “mothers” who had no respect for property, other people or manners), how kids can trample my dog (cause running everywhere and kicking is ok), how moms think it’s ok to change a dirty diaper in a restaurant or on a plane (just disrespect, there are bathrooms, we all like to breath and eat food), how children can cry and scream and everyone has to sit and allow it?
I don’t hate mother’s, I hate the lack of parenting.
This is where the cliche comes in, YOU made the choice to have children. Not me. We are both hired for the same job, I am not working later or earlier because they don’t manage their lives. I take care of my nieces, pets, sick parents and get NO assistance because I don’t have kids.
Kid is sick at school, well guess moms going home and now I’m doing double the work load. No I don’t get her pay or a thank you, she gets to go home at a drop of a hat tho.
I show up on time for work, other mothers do as well, but there is always 1 mother who can’t cause of her kids because she isn’t proactive. Guess who suffers…..everyone else!
That is why I have issues with mothers. Not all mothers, I have many friends with kids and I love their kids and then to death. They don’t work, abuse the system, their kids are blessing and not issues. If they can’t make arrangements, they stay in to not affect others.
It’s called respect.
I respect your choice, be respectful and own up to your choice and deal with the consequences and stop making us all deal with your choices as well.
I can relate in a way to Lilli as a teen. When I was a teen I knew nothing about sex, boys, birthcontrol. I had to kinda figure out what sex was based on boys just talking among themselves in middleschool. It was later in highschool that a teacher showed us what birth control methods there were. I’m still kind of like a 12 yr old and men are something kind of foreign to me. I’m really glad I didn’t have sex with a boy when I was a teen because I could of easily gotten pregnant, and back then I didn’t know I had Aspergers and I wouldn’t have known what a bad mom I would be IF I had kids (bad mom because of my mental and physical problems). I hadn’t lived long enough to learn more about myself.
I think you’re simplifying it. It’s all too easy to say: you hate mothers because secretly you’d like to be one. Of course that’s the first thing everyone tells us. All the time.
First, I am against being rude online. Whether it’s with regards to political views or being child free. But some people choose to express themselves in an impolite manner, and child free women aren’t an exception.
I do feel anger towards moms but that’s not because I wish, or ever wished to be one.
I feel angry because it’s such a taboo to say openly that I don’t like children. Because I am surrounded by mothers I have to constantly pretend and bite my tongue. So that leads to frustration and anger.
I am not allowed to openly say when looking at a newborn: It’s not more a miracle than a puppy. Even though that’s so true. I am not allowed to say that I think in today’s environmental situation having children is immoral. That human overpopulation is threatening other species and the balance on the planet.
I can’t say those things, even though they are true. Instead I am having to grin and pretend. Yes, motherhood is hitting a nerve for me. Yes, I am feeling frustrated and angry. But that’s not because I secretly want to be a mother.
I don’t see how we’re in disagreement. I certainly don’t think people who say they hate mothers secretly want to be mothers. I’m not sure what part of the post seemed to imply that. I actually didn’t even touch on that common accusation, one way or the other. What I wrote was that the anger I encounter seems disproportionate to the ‘crime,’ and that the level of anger appeared (to me) to be largely baseless.
Believe me when I say I don’t think you secretly want to be a mother, and I don’t think that your anger toward mothers stems from any secret envy. Again, I think you and I are in agreement.
As a mother who has seen this “mom hate” culture and experienced it first hand, it’s very refreshing to hear that not all child free women see us as brainless demon breeders. I chose to become a mother and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But just because I made a choice does not mean every women has to. I feel at times I have committed a crime and don’t belong in society since I had my baby. Thank you for giving me hope.
I can’t honestly say that I hate mothers. I understand why many of them choose to have kids, and I understand that many didn’t feel like they had a choice. I have issues with mothers who can support their kids but don’t, and mothers who have kids that they want but obviously can’t support. My sister-in-law got pregnant at 19 when she and her husband couldn’t reliably pay their rent and were constantly switching apartments. My biggest issue is with the mothers who shame childfree women, calling them selfish and trying to make them feel less human for deciding to not have kids. Nobody should be shamed for the lifestyle they choose.
It really is more about what you so blithely describe as “common crimes“ that build up frustration towards parents in general for me (not just moms). Having the back of my seat kicked by a kid across the Atlantic is FRUSTRATING. The fact that my husband has to go on-call every month and the parents he works with do not is FRUSTRATING. Working as a server and watching a kid throw pasta all over the floor is FRUSTRATING. The privileges granted to parents come at a cost and it’s paid for by the child free people around them. This post skips right over the inconveniences hoisted upon childfree folks by irresponsible parents on the basis that they happen all the time, so who cares? Seriously, did you ask a single one of those angry childfree women why they feel they way they do?
Many of us aren’t child free by choice. It was (unfortunately) nature’s cruel hand.
We don’t hate mothers (or fathers for that matter.) What we “hate” if you want to use that term, is that this world has turned it’s back on the childless and especially single and childless.
We pay higher taxes, we seldom get discounts at restaurants (there are no “single/childless eat free nights.”) We pick up the slack when parents are gone from work early and we’ve don’t get paid for it. We don’t extra days off from work for NOT having kids. We don’t get perks at clothing stores and up close parking for not having a kid. We also don’t get a special days of recognition like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day where more discounts abound.
It was not my choice to not have a child. Like a lot of people. I love kids I wanted my own. By the time I found out that couldn’t happen I couldn’t finically adopt either.
Also we don’t need to act sugary sweet around your kid all the time. We childless adults have bad days too. It doesn’t mean we hate your child. Get a grip.
As I am in the target audience of your inquiry, I have some things to say.
First, you got it wrong. Childfree women do not hate mothers. It is the other way round. Or at least that is the feeling from this side of the fence. Some of them hate us and a lot of us despise them. Please note I haven’t put everybody in the same basket.
What you have seen on these sites is the hardcore CF. Not all of us have that amount of anger and hatred towards the moms. But the hatred is real. And believe me, in some cases is well deserved.
I will start off by admitting I am one of the nastiest specimen of CF b%$h who will dish out unlimited amounts of bashing, jabs and not so subtle insults towards the mommykind! Both online an in RL. And I am proud of it! As I’ve said, some mommies deserve it!
Let’s be clear on something, we don’t like moms, but it isn’t us who are secretly stalking mom’s Facebook walls in search of new victims. NOOO, the mombies are pushing themselves and their photos with their crotch goblins, erm kids, all over the damn online places. House decorating sites? Pet sites? Cooking ones? There is a matter of time until a mombie pushes a picture of her offspring down our retinas. Despite warnings being in place asking NOT to post stuff like that. There’s a word for it. Mommyjacking. And we, Childfree HATE IT!!
I can’t speak for other CF people out there, but I have severe tokophobia and I get very anxious at the sight of small children. And you, mom, came to my page posting high resolution pics with your goblins, despite me expressly asking not to post that kind of content! In spite of this, actually. “Look at my little Timmy, he sooo cutey, you’ve got to like him!” Like hell, no woman! Am I gonna roast you and your precious darling? You bet I will! Will me calling your kid “an ugly piece of t#$d”, hurt you and make you cry? I hope it does!
“You may disagree with me on this, but in my experience no one obsesses over the wrong-ness of someone else’s life unless it’s harming them directly or touching a nerve. Now, random mothers on the internet aren’t directly affecting childfree women’s lives. ”
Oh, you are right about the first phase but I am disagreeing with you on the second one! See, I, and many other CF don’t give a damn about the wrongness of mother life, but their sense of martyrdom DOES affect our lives!
“You can’t be that tired, you have no kids!” or “You must have it so easy” or “You must be so selfish/lazy not to want babies” and the list goes on. That is INSULTING! That is out rightly calling us less them them! If your ever said or thought that to a CF person, then mombie, you deserve all the hatred out there!
“So what is the real reason childfree women hate moms so much?”
IMHO, entitlement! Not all mothers are entitled pieces of human dunk, but those who are spark rage. Do you know how the mombie entitlement translates in the real life? By them expecting everybody else bend backwards and accommodate them, because they HAVE CHILDREN! ” I can’t do the Friday shift, I have to take the kids to Whateverland!” or “I want all the August available for my summer holiday, I am taking the children places !” or “I’ll be late for my shift ask Anna to stay a hour overtime”.”Why do I have to stay at such long line if my darlings are so tired?” THAT! That is why I (and many other CFs) HATE (this kind of) mothers. They just live with the impression everybody owes them for bringing a kid in this world. That they deserve special treatment, freebies or any kind reward for it! Reality check, they don’t. I don’t even tackle the subject of a tantruming toddler in the middle of a restaurant (not McDonald’s, not park or hypermarket, but a grownups restaurant), while the mombie doesn’t even bother with the pretense of calming the devil down.
Moms out there, I don’t give a damn why your kids are acting like that in public. I can’t care less if he is sick/in pain/hadn’t got enough sleep or whatever. If your kid will disrupts my day, I will be sure to ruin yours! Yes, I am that a wretched human being! After all, I will not inconvenience you with my problems and I expect the same of you! You’re welcome!
“Because being childfree wasn’t always a choice for me. I grew up in a very conservative church group where birth control was never discussed. It could only be whispered among married couples who already had a few children.”
That is not an excuse! I came from a similar background and I still found ways to get to information in my early teens. Sexual and otherwise. We live in an age where information basically bombards you everywhere! The internet has been around since a while, and even before, there were books. Have you had no library in your town? As for nowadays people, they can get this kind of info along with free birth control at their local family planning clinics. Even some schools offer it! So motherhood is pretty much a conscious decision IMHO! No matter how a woman gets pregnant, she can chose whether she carries to term or not! You are making motherhood seem some kind of unfortunate accident, at least for some women.
“Childfree women, on the other hand, have lives we supposedly love. ”
No, we don’t. Not all of us, not all the time! What am I, a CF woman, supposed to understand from this line? That mothers are envious of us? That you think we have it easy? That’s false and you know it!
“But we talk viciously about women who ended up in lives they don’t even like.”
We talk viciously about women who ended up in lives they don’t even like because they think we should too. It feels like they resent us for our supposedly easy lives!
Oh, and something more. For every CF rant site where we vent all our mombie-generated anger and frustrations, there are just as many if not more mom-support ones where they are roasting us! So quit painting them as the victims, because they are not! The hatred is real and brutal, indeed, but is on both sides!
I hope I did some enlightenment on why some CF people dislike mothers and their attitudes.
Anna
I couldn’t of said it better myself.
As a child free person I do not waste my time on stalking parents profiles, In fact whenever I see someone on my Facebook post a photo of their child or announce that they’re having one I politely unfriend them without warning it makes it so easy because a mother will shove anything about their kid down your throat at the most inappropriate times.
My take on this is that we don’t hate mothers yet their selfish decision in reproducing, and their entitlements for just about anything.
Having sex is optional and if you’re that unaware of having sex gets you pregnant than I just feel extremely sorry for you.
Having a child is probably one of the most egotistical decisions us humans can do, just because our bodies were designed to give birth doesn’t mean that we should,.
If you look at the current world it is severely messed up. We’re fighting against global warming, war and civil war, the internet and I’ll mention the elephant in the room shall I… no one asks to be born and people STILL want to raise a child during a pandemic where children are stripped of being children that is incredibly sad to me all because of a selfish decision. I believe that people reproduce so that they aren’t alone and have someone to take care of them when they are no longer able to.
I don’t hate moms at all and I don’t have children because I wasn’t able to. But I met and know a lot of moms, including my wonderful mother (I’m biased! Lol)..And they’re are great moms, fun, creative, loving moms, but also hard working, from their jobs and raising their kids, even with their husband’s helping, or single moms who really do it all and never complain. When I’m around the moms, they’re still themselves, fun, funny, spiritual, takes good care of themselves and find time for themselves. But, at times I do get tired of being asked the same questions, “Do you have any kids”? And it’s not their fault since they either have just started to be a friend I met, I just say, no, I wasn’t able to. Of course that look, “Aww, I’m sorry”.. It’s ok. Sometimes the occasional, “Why didn’t you adopt”? It’s a long story. One guy at my job, he worked in a different department but we would all sit together in our break room once and awhile, he was cool but over heard me when my new co-worker asked that same question..And that guy blurted out in front of everyone, “Didn’t you want babies”?! I honestly wanted to deck him for being too loud about it, and just asking such a question. I guess it was the first time I was asked like that. I did go up to him, and raised my voice like he did so everyone could hear me, “That was very rude of you and its none of your business”! Since we’re at work, even on our break, we can’t cuss, not even in the break room.
Many times I have cried about my situation. But my husband loves me no matter what. He wasn’t that kind of man to leave me for not having babies. One time I did make a joke around of few of my mom friends, “Well, we did save a ton of money from not having kids and we get to travel wherever we want.”.. All those moms chimed in, “You’re right, it’s so expensive to raise kids”! And, “You’re so lucky, don’t tell my husband that! We haven’t been anywhere just us two in fifteen years”! “It’s always Disneyland or a zoo or camping because it’s a cheap family get away”! But I know they love their children so much, they really wouldn’t change anything. ❤️
I found this post after hearing my classmate rant about why a stay at home mom (like me) shouldn’t be allowed to take a night class, and I googled why do some people hate moms. She was saying, “Night classes should only be for people with jobs! Moms decided to have kids; people who work have no choice! If childcare is too expensive, you can get aid and then take morning classes!”
First of all, the only morning class I could easily take was full, waitlist full. The other day classes overlap with when my youngest gets out of school, and I don’t have someone who can go pick her up from school for me. That means I would have to enroll her in after school care. The after school care is impacted, so they prioritize people who need it 5 days a week (my class would only be 2 days a week). I might be able to get her in if I enrolled her 5 days a week. I costs $100/day, so $2000/month. I don’t qualify for aid, but that doesn’t mean it’s financially easy for me to spend $2000/month ($8,000 total for the semester), not to mention I would be taking a seat from a working parent who needed their child to have after school care because they are at work.
I’m supposed to sacrifice this much, spend an additional $8k and have my child stay at school unnecessarily, so some working adult, who waited until the last minute to enroll in the class, can have a seat?
Lastly, I’m in this class so I can get into a career program, so I can get a job!
And no, moms don’t hate child free people. We feel about them the way omnivores feel about vegans: literally do not care except you shove it down our throats all day long and want to be treated like you deserve special allowances because you want them instead of needing them.
It has always been a mystery to me as to why anyone would harbor feelings of hatred towards anyone else based on a “life choice” that has such a small impact directly on their overall life experience. In a society, there are people with children, people without children, old people, young people, people who are married, single, etc. Just lots of different PEOPLE who make all different choices about THEIR lives while trying to also function together in the same public space. I hear a lot of people complain about things not being “fair” when dealing with parents or kids. Well,..I hate to be the one to break this to you but that isnt how the social contract works. There is give and take, back and forth. The snippet of a moment that you perceive as unfair is not taking into consideration the totality of that person’s and your life experience outside of that moment. You really don’t know whose overall quality of life is “better” now do you? Maybe they are exactly the same! Be empathetic, be happy you can make your own choices and grateful that you can have social interactions with others. It makes like worth living…whether you realize it or not.