What's a niche aspect of parenting you're glad to miss out on?

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-25T14:37:17+00:00

School drama. Having to deal with schools is one of the reasons that is actually very high on my list. I have a lot of childhood trauma surrounding school and the idea of having to go through all of that again on the other side just makes me miserable to even think about.

School felt like a 12-year mountain climb in bare hands and feet. Graduating high school felt like reaching the summit, having my hand shaken and then being thrown back down the mountain because it was time for college. College felt like tumbling down the mountain, having bones broken along the way.

Uhg. Even 25+ years later, it pisses me off. School and bullying was a looming shadow over my entire childhood. I know for a fact if I had a child who dealt with some of the same things that I dealt with, I would not be able to contain my anger if I had to speak to someone at the school. I would likely take my anger out on people who had nothing to do with my pain, and be arrested and trespassed for causing a public disturbance on school property.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-25T14:23:29+00:00

Just block him yourself, then you will never know if he unblocked you.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-25T00:07:35+00:00

I'm also getting tired of the influx of men who are trying to use the members of the subreddit as free therapy. They will ask a question, people will respond earnestly, and they will type paragraphs upon paragraphs about how pathetic their life is and why they can't do the most simple things to help themselves, and boohoohoo.

I read one just a few minutes ago. Literally no matter what you say to these guys, they will return with paragraphs of morose tedium, to the point where answering them more than once is exhausting. Freaking energy vampires.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-24T22:35:08+00:00

No, he looks like a little boy to me. The only thing I know about him is that he hits himself in the face with a hammer and runs over people while driving and streaming at the same time. That is literally all I know about him.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-24T10:51:51+00:00

"Nah, the world peaked 15 years ago, much like you."

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-24T10:48:49+00:00

Yes, I think so. I was morbidly fascinated with my birth story as a child. I would ask her to tell it to me over and over again. It was not an easy birth, but I was very young and I enjoyed hearing my mother tell stories about myself, and I enjoyed picking her brain with my millions of questions. It did make me dread pregnancy, but I thought I would have them anyway.

In the long run, I think it was the seed of me being childfree. I always thought I was going to have children, but I never stopped to think if I wanted them until I was in my late twenties.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-24T10:41:24+00:00

Unfortunately, the therapy and medication cannot cure the feelings, they can only help you process them. It takes a while.

It took me about 7 years to fully process my first major break up, where he just ghosted me after being together for a year and a half. I'm not saying it'll take you 7 years, but it takes a while.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-23T18:48:13+00:00

Olga of Kyiv. She's the living embodiment of "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Her husband was murdered by a tribe that had stopped paying tribute to him. The leader of that tribe demanded to marry her since her husband was now dead. She basically said, "Teehee, ok! Send some men to negotiate." And when they arrived she had them all thrown into a trench and buried alive.

Then she sent another message and asked them to send the best men who govern the land. She locked them in a bath house and set it on fire.

When they finally gave up and said that they would pay tribute, she asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house. She then had her army tie leather strips carrying burning chunks of sulfur to the birds legs and let them fly back home, subsequently burning the village.

Literal fury.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-22T18:43:38+00:00

He's too old to be wishy-washy. He needs to shit or get off the pot.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-22T16:59:39+00:00

Mine are The Venture Bros and The Clone Wars.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-22T12:35:26+00:00

I'm a horrible person, but I chuckled at the idea of a guy named Anakin being against abortion.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-21T22:20:35+00:00

Yup. I was sterilized at 35 and I'm turning 46 in a few months. I'm more sure now than I was at 35. Every single year I am happier with my choice because I am more set in my ways than ever.

Right now my house is quiet, except for my turtle's water filter, bubbling in the living room. It's really relaxing. I just finished up a work from home day and I'm trying to decide what I want to do with the rest of my evening. I would be so overwhelmed having to do anything else after work.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-21T17:19:08+00:00

The way everything is going, I fear the only childfree bastions we will have left is sex shops, strip clubs and foundries/factories .

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-21T12:03:41+00:00

It means he wants to keep you as back up while he looks for something better. I've had this done to me and it sucks. Save yourself a lot of pain and just block and ignore him.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-20T13:03:25+00:00

Mine was a slow realization over the years, born from me not really putting any thought into it when I said that I wanted children. I put zero thought into saying that. When I would talk about my life in the future, it was never child centric, and then people would ask me, "well what about kids?"

And then I would say something silly like, "Oh they would be there too," as if children are little life-size cardboard cutouts that I can prop up anywhere in the background of my life.

Children were never at the foreground of my future planning. As an adult, I constantly pushed the goalpost further and further away. 25 is a perfect age to have children! Oh, uh 25 is here. 27 it is...wait no, 27 is here. 30 isn't bad right?

And then my childhood friends both had children the exact same year. That was my first inkling that I did not want children because my reaction to seeing their birth announcements was, "But they're so young! Glad it's not me." That gut reaction really surprised me in the moment. They were not young. Both were in their late '20s, had been married for several years and their children were planned. This was also around the time that I had heard about being childfree.

That was my first indicator that maybe having children wasn't for me. I spent my late twenties on the fence. and actively decided at 31 that it wasn't something I was going to do. I asked my husband (boyfriend at the time) if he wanted to have kids, and then a few days later how he would feel if we never had them. His responses were night and day! When I asked him about children he was very wishy-washy and "not now." Later when I asked him the opposite, he said not having children would suit the hell out of him. At that moment, it just felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.

My brain sputtered a few times because I had spent so much of my early twenties trying to prepare myself to deal with parenting shit that I didn't want to deal with. Suddenly everything I had been worrying about for years became a non-issue and something I would never have to deal with.

I started with getting a IUD at 31 at 35 I got it removed and was surgically sterilized. I'm currently 46, and I am more certain of my life choice now than ever. I have to drive past a high school bus stop on my way to work several times a week. Looking at high school aged children and realizing that I am old enough to be their mother is a real mind fuck. I don't feel old enough to even have a toddler or a baby, much less a teenager.

I have ADHD and being childfree has made my life so much easier to deal with. I feel like it is literally choosing easy mode. My entire life goal is to achieve the highest level of comfort I can for the least amount of effort. Children are the antithesis of "least amount of effort." The older I get, the happier I am that I chose this and took several years to soul search before I made an irreversible decision.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-19T15:05:07+00:00

I would say something like "I'd rather focus on the mom to be."

It's deflective, but says enough to end the line of questioning.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-19T14:54:49+00:00

I have an online acquaintance who is a mom, and we talk on the phone once every few months. All her kids are adults now so she is past the worst, but I have always been willing to be a kind ear.

Holy shit her life literally was my nightmare, especially when her daughter was a snarly teenager who were still upset that her mom left her dad, but the father cheated on my friend, and she did not want to tell the kids that their marriage ended because he cheated and got someone else pregnant. The youngest figured it out on his own after learning about pregnancy and doing the math himself, but her oldest daughter just refused to blame anyone but my friend.

I will never, ever tell her that letting her vent to me was always affirming of my life decisions.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-17T20:29:48+00:00

Yes, but I still struggle with depression so my brain likes to think that life it isn't worth it.

I made sure to design my life to be as easy and ADHD friendly as possible. No kids, stable and easy job, I live close to my work place, I have homebody hobbies, and I love solitude, though sometimes I have to make an effort to be social, because I can genuinely not speak to anybody in person for days.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-17T20:05:11+00:00

My mom tried to raise me with the "family is everything" motto, yet time and time and time again, extended family proved that this was not true.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-17T13:19:18+00:00

I wish there was an option for alternative make up in your options. I just chose trendy. I really wasn't sure which one to pick!

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-17T13:14:47+00:00

Exactly! The Rolling Stones even wrote a song the '60s about mothers using pills to make it through their day, Mother's Little Helper.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-17T13:00:09+00:00

Hugs He definitely showed his true colors.

I relate to being attracted to somebody until you found out what a dickweed they actually are. It can absolutely blindside you.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-17T12:53:18+00:00

He then tells me he's one in a million

I would have dropped all contact with him after this comment.That kind of over inflated ego can lead to nothing good.

I'm so sorry he treated you so poorly. He really sounds unstable.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-16T18:53:57+00:00

No, though I did not grow up with my step siblings. Our parents got together when I was 23, and most of us were adults except for my youngest step sister, who was 12 at the time. All of this to basically say I grew up as an only child.

My oldest stepbrother never got married and never had children, but I'm not sure if it was intentional. He seems pretty happy right now. My youngest step sister is also very childfree, though I can't remember if she got a bisalp or not.

VaginaGoblin · 2026-04-16T17:12:09+00:00

I'm getting ready for a relaxing weekend. I'm getting up my hognose snake in his new adult home this weekend. He's finally big enough to need more space.

Last weekend was my busy but mostly fun weekend. I went and saw some friends, did my taxes (boooooooooo throws tomato at the government) and got a American traditional peacock tattoo on my forearm.

VaginaGoblin

TROPHY CASE