"One Thing I Have Noticed about Not Having Kids in Your 30s Is That People Don't Care about Your Life Anymore"

 

Mike Mancusi is a 30-something comedian in NYC whose observation about the divide between childfree people and people who chose to parent has gone viral:

"One thing I have noticed about not having kids in your 30s is that people don't care about your life anymore," Mancusi told his followers.

[...] "You'll go to gatherings, and now people around your age, they have kids and babies at these parties, and your adult life is just not even on their radar anymore," said Mancusi in the clip.

Although I am close friends with two women who have children, most of my friendships are with other childfree people. In my experience, outside those two aforementioned friendships, and despite the fact that I normally quite like hearing about parents' kids and lives, most parents don't have any interest in my kid-free life.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with one of my partner's coworkers, who told me "if we didn’t already know each other, she wouldn’t be friends with me, either — because she wants to be friends with other moms who can help with carpooling and school scheduling and so forth, and I didn’t have anything to offer."

Yikes!

Mancusi also makes the point that the choice itself can become a point of contention between childfree people and parents:

"For the people that have decided that they do not want children, they are often met with nagging questions and judgment when they just try to communicate why it's not for them," Mancusi said. "I think people are becoming sick of having to feel like their life decision to not have kids is 'weird.'

"If someone chooses that their time on this planet will be better off without kids, that's a decision that should be celebrated, instead of being met with judgment."

Heck yeah.

It's a decision that should met with curiosity about what someone's life is like sans children. When one replaces judgment with curiosity, it will inevitably provoke compelling conversation. 

And isn't that just about the best part of any friendship?

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