Internet Backs Childless Woman Telling Mom Her Hobbies Just As Important As Kids

Redditors have backed a childless woman who refused to cover for her colleague so she could watch her kid's soccer game, adding her hobbies were just as important.

The 36-year-old woman, going by the name u/Normal-Respond-7656, shared her experience in the 3.5 million-subscriber-strong AITA [Am I The A**hole?] subreddit.

In a Monday post, the woman said she and her co-worker were asked to cover an evening call as the company sometimes dealt with collaborators across various time zones.

According to the poster, the co-worker asked if she could take the call on her own, as she wanted to watch her son's soccer match. The Redditor countered that she could not do it as she had a volleyball game to go to.

The woman added: "I said that respectfully my outside-of-work commitments are not less important than hers because I don't have children, and that she should take the call because I had taken the last two.

"She scoffed at me, and I know that other people around the office have been gossiping about me since and saying that it was super messed up that I made her miss her kid's soccer game."

While Normal-Respond-7656 said she supported working mothers, she added that her commitments were important to her and would not break from them if it caused "significant inconvenience."

When she confided in her friend, who has a child, the poster was shocked to learn they were not supportive of the decision she made.

The woman added: "I said respectfully that I do understand that working mothers have much more stressful lives than I do, which is why I decided not to be a mother.

"I also said that I can have respect and empathy for working mothers and also value my time/ choices equally. She similarly scoffed and said that I don't understand."

The topic generated a massive discussion in the subreddit, being upvoted some 15,000 times and commented on more than 2,020 occasions.

The majority of members in the group backed the poster and shared their own accounts of dealing with people who have children.

One user said: "NTA [not the a**hole]. I love it when people say 'but you don't have a family' as tho [though] people were hatched from pods. Having children isn't a free to get out of things you'd prefer not to do."

Another added: "At some point, these parents had no kids, how can they act like they have no idea what that was? That s*** irks me."

While a third commented: "I'm childfree and [have] been treated as less just because I don't have kids. There are some seriously entitled parents out there. Their kids are not my responsibility. OP [original poster] NTA."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau (USCB), in January 2021 around 10 million U.S. mothers living with school-aged children were not actively working due to the effects of the pandemic.

In 2018 the USCB said there were some 23.5 million employed women with children under the age of 18 who were participating in the labor force.

It was estimated that, at the time, working mothers made up 32 percent of all employed women in the U.S.