Woman shares her colleague's response when she revealed her choice of remaining child-free

Periodically, women encounter remarks in their workplace that serve as stark reminders of the pervasive sexism still prevalent in society. Recently, a woman took to her TikTok account to share a video highlighting such an incident.

The woman—who goes by @honeyandmud on TikTok—recalled a conversation between her and her male colleague. “I was chatting with a guy at work today and he asked me if I have any kids,” she began. “To which I responded with, ‘Oh no, I’m not gonna have children.'” Her colleague responded to this with, "Never say never" and laughed at her statement.

The woman did not like her colleague's comment as she knew for a fact that she did not want kids. Her colleague looked rather surprised by her response. “Yeah, I’ve known since I was a child that I don’t wanna have kids and I’m 35 years old and that hasn’t changed and I don’t see that changing in the future,” she said but her colleague was still not convinced with her arguments. “Well, you never know,” he said. This touched a nerve with her. Thus, in her video, she spoke about people who act “like they know the person better than the person knows themselves.” 

She continued, “A lot of them seem to think they know better than me, that it’s only a matter of time before I cave and have a child, and make sure I know that with their ‘you never know’ and ‘only time will tell’ comments.” She continued, “Females seem to feel some strange sense of pity like they might pat my head and say ‘poor dear’ in some disgustingly condescending tone. Whereas males seem to respond more as though I’ve got a few screws loose like I must not be right in the head and therefore quite incapable of coming to this sound decision on my own.”

She also explained why she does not want kids. She talked about how she has been “a childcare provider for a decade” of her life. “I started babysitting when I was 12, which eventually evolved into my being a full-time nanny in my 20s. I loved being a nanny, as I truly do love children and enjoy spending time with them—but I need that clock-out time,” she said.

“As a nanny, I would spend over 8 hours a day with a child,” she explained, “and as much as I enjoyed it, the respite at the end of the day, my decompression time, was so sacred to me.”

She concluded her argument by saying, "The United States is on the verge of a civil war, rights are being stripped away from minorities left and right, and with the way human beings tend to destroy themselves, I don’t doubt that Mama Earth is preparing to shake us off her back like the fleas we are if we don’t shape up. Bringing a child into a world on fire is not something I am willing to do."

Many people agreed to the video and it has amassed 178k views in the last two days. It has received several comments as well. @IreneRogers7 wrote, "Anytime a woman chooses to be childfree. Agreed." @JesseDavis commented, "It happens to us constantly because we are a married hetero couple in our 30s and it’s just." @AspiringtoNarrowBoat shared, "I decided at nine. I’m 49. No children." @RileyJD expressed, "It’s because they see you exercising that choice as a challenge to their lifestyle, and it freaks them out to an amazing degree."