“Have Fun In Your Nursing Home”: Childfree Woman Gives People A Reality Check On Their Reasons For Having Kids
Interview
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone on Planet Earth who decided to have children just so that they’d have someone to take care of them when they’re older. And yet, bizarrely, that’s an argument that childfree-lifestyle haters use to try and ‘shame’ women who don’t want to have kids.
Dominique Baker, an award-winning fashion and beauty influencer from Canada, called out a very nasty comment in a TikTok video. The commenter said that she’d be all alone in a nursing home if she didn’t have kids, but Dominique shut them down with a heavy dose of logic. The video instantly went viral: it got over 1.8 million views, as well as 369k likes on the video-sharing platform.
Scroll down for the childfree woman’s full video, as well as how the internet reacted to it. Meanwhile, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments, dear Pandas.
Bored Panda reached out to Dominique and she was kind enough to answer our questions. She revealed how often she gets comments like the one that she addressed in the video, and shared her opinion on why some people are so immensely hostile to those who choose a childfree lifestyle. Read on for the full interview.
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Fashion and beauty influencer Dominique Baker, who is childfree, recently went viral after calling out a mean commenter
She explained why the anti-childfree comment didn’t make any sense at all
Image credits: dominique.baker
You can watch the full viral video right over here
@dominiquebakerofficial Replying to @tury330 I’m good. You don’t have to worry about me. I would never birth a “caretaker.” If I wanted to, I would want to birth a lovely human being with her own life. #childfree #childfreebychoice #over40andfabulous #nokidsforme #chanelbeauty #blackgirlluxury ♬ original sound – dominique.baker
Bored Panda was interested to find out how frequently Dominique has to deal with nasty comments on her videos. Unfortunately, they aren’t rare.
“I get these comments almost daily across my platforms. The best approach for dealing with these types of comments is to not engage at all. That particular comment was one I would get constantly, so I thought it was time to stick up for myself and other childfree people and address it,” she told us.
“I answered it using my own experiences and feelings. It’s a really hurtful assumption and I was tired of being asked that.”
Fashion and beauty influencer Dominique shared her thoughts as to why some people are so hostile towards childfree women.
“For a long time, I was pretty bewildered at the hostility! I think it may be a combination of ‘childfree women bucking the rules’ and this false sense of a woman’s duty to procreate and continue a lineage,” she explained how these individuals tend to think.
“Our society expects women to get married early, immediately have children, and tend to their families’ needs primarily. I also think that some people may question their own decision to start a family. They may be resentful of that decision when they realize that they had to make a lot of personal and financial sacrifices to do so… and then see a childfree person being ok not making those sorts of sacrifices. This could make a resentful parent jealous and angry.”
Dominique noted that the idea of ‘starting a family’ is “pretty deeply rooted in our society.” However, it’s not clear what it would take for people to be more considerate of childfree women.
“For starters, just being open and non-judgmental would be great. Also, taking the time to speak to a childfree person and be considerate of their reasons would make such a difference. Most people who are ‘pro-natalist’ feel that childfree people are selfish.”
Dominique revealed to Bored Panda that “one of the main reasons I didn’t have children is due to the genetic disease in my family. I didn’t want to pass it on to a child.”
“The few people I have shared that with—I can see the “understanding” switch go on in them and they usually apologize and admit that they had never thought of that.”
Dominique is an extremely successful fashion and beauty influencer. After launching her blog, Style Domination, in 2015, she’s created a global following for herself. She covers topics ranging from beauty and fashion to food, healthy, lifestyle, and travel. From time to time, she covers the childfree lifestyle.
Though there are many people who fully support the TikToker’s decision to not have children, some individuals still have a hard time processing this. Instead of respecting her choice, they mock her and write nasty comments.
However, once you take a closer look at what they’re saying, their arguments fall apart. And that’s exactly what Dominique did with one of the comments in her viral video. She explained that people don’t have kids just so that they’re taken care of in their old age. Moreover, she pointed out that there are, unfortunately, plenty of older people living in palliative care whose family members don’t visit them. Whether or not you choose to have children doesn’t dictate how lonely or social you will be in your sunset years.
Loneliness has powerful negative effects on a person’s health. According to the CDC, social isolation increases a person’s risk of premature death from all causes. The risk is about the same as if the individual smoked, was obese, or was physically inactive. Social isolation increases the risk of dementia by 50%, stroke by 32%, and heart disease by 29%. It also leads to higher rates of depression and anxiety.
According to a study done by the University of California, San Franciso, over 40% of seniors regularly experience loneliness.
More and more adults are seeing the childfree lifestyle as a viable alternative to having kids. For example, one recent sociology study found that 21.64% of adults living in the state of Michigan are childfree. Michigan is demographically similar to the population of the United States, so this is an indication of how the trend is affecting the entire country.
Meanwhile, in Canada, the numbers are pretty similar: one in five Canadian women will remain without kids. The number of births in the country has continued to drop for the past few years.
If you do decide to have kids, it’s best to make this choice freely, because you want children, not because of social pressure. And, frankly speaking, there’s quite a bit of pressure there. We’ve covered on Bored Panda before how childfree individuals often have to deal with disparaging comments both in real life and online.
Here’s how some TikTok users reacted after watching Dominique’s video
From time to time, Dominique posts honest videos about being childfree
Image credits: dominique.baker
She also touches on the struggles that come along with this lifestyle. Some people are extremely judgmental of childfree women
Image credits: dominique.baker
My sister loves to point out that I'll "regret" not spending time with our elderly mother once she's dead. Nope. My mom is my biggest lifelong abuser - all through my childhood and adulthood and it still continues today. I won't be regretting a thing. Conversely, my father was a wonderful dad who treated me like a real daughter (I'm adopted), and I happily and willingly gave 20 years of my life to stay at home (and endure my mother's abuse) to take care of my dad after he had an accident when I was 18. He was fully disabled with a catastrophic brain injury. He died in 2021. I still miss the dad I lost when I was 18, but I don't regret the two decades I dedicated to being his caregiver.
Having kids so you won't be alone when you're old is a horrible and selfish reason to have kids and is exactly the kind of attitude that will cause you to have children who leave you alone when you're old.
I am a childfree woman at 59, and feel fine about my choices.. . . And I just want to mention, these choices are about more than me and my immediate family. This earth is dying because there are too damn many human beings using up too many resources and killing off all the others that live here. IMHO, the human population should be down around 2 to 3 billion. Tops. That would be sustainable. But what we've got now is way too much. That's why I didn't have children.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Lyone! I am 28 and don't want to have kids for similar reasons. I often wonder if I am being overly dramatic for not wanting to have kids because of the future of our resources. It felt very freeing to read you have had more years thinking about your decision and feels fine about it.
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My sister loves to point out that I'll "regret" not spending time with our elderly mother once she's dead. Nope. My mom is my biggest lifelong abuser - all through my childhood and adulthood and it still continues today. I won't be regretting a thing. Conversely, my father was a wonderful dad who treated me like a real daughter (I'm adopted), and I happily and willingly gave 20 years of my life to stay at home (and endure my mother's abuse) to take care of my dad after he had an accident when I was 18. He was fully disabled with a catastrophic brain injury. He died in 2021. I still miss the dad I lost when I was 18, but I don't regret the two decades I dedicated to being his caregiver.
Having kids so you won't be alone when you're old is a horrible and selfish reason to have kids and is exactly the kind of attitude that will cause you to have children who leave you alone when you're old.
I am a childfree woman at 59, and feel fine about my choices.. . . And I just want to mention, these choices are about more than me and my immediate family. This earth is dying because there are too damn many human beings using up too many resources and killing off all the others that live here. IMHO, the human population should be down around 2 to 3 billion. Tops. That would be sustainable. But what we've got now is way too much. That's why I didn't have children.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Lyone! I am 28 and don't want to have kids for similar reasons. I often wonder if I am being overly dramatic for not wanting to have kids because of the future of our resources. It felt very freeing to read you have had more years thinking about your decision and feels fine about it.
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