I’m 39 and child-free. My friends with kids are dead behind the eyes

Like many women of a certain age (late thirties), I’ve witnessed first hand the drawbacks of having kids. I’ve sat across from exhausted friends who can barely finish a sentence without interruption. I’ve heard the late-night confessions, the whispered regrets, the quiet mourning for the lives they once had. It’s hard to ignore the way some of them have changed – their spark dimmed, their relationships strained, their careers quietly abandoned. So, when musician Chappell Roan went on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast earlier this year and said that “all [her] friends who have kids are in hell” and that she doesn’t know “anyone who’s happy with children at [her] age”, she caused quite the internet uproar. She added: “I literally have not met anyone [with young kids] who’s happy – anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who has slept.” (Photo: Swan Gallet/Getty)

Reactions to the comments

Predictably, her words ignited a storm of opinion pieces and angry internet mothers insisting that motherhood is the most rewarding job there is. But for every outraged stay-at-home mum defending their life choices, there are the child-free among us – myself included – who listened to her words and nodded in quiet agreement. “Chappell Roan going on Call Her Daddy saying none of her friends with kids are happy is a prime example of why you cannot just vent to anyone because I guarantee she has this perspective because a few of her mum friends are going through it. May the friendships of narcissistic childless women with no sense of loyalty ever find me lol,” posted one angry user on X. Another joined in: “Chappell Roan said she doesn’t know anyone that’s happy with kids. Well I’m one. I love my son more than anything, yes it can be a hard job, but it’s the absolute greatest job in the world. Sorry that you’re almost 30 and too busy being a ‘pop star.’” (Photo: Call Her Daddy/YouTube)

Parenthood - rewarding, but a lot of work

Between the viral outrage and the TikToks dissecting her words (many racking up millions of views), it’s clear she hit a nerve. But instead of asking whether her comments were too blunt, perhaps we should ask why they resonated with so many people. Yes, parenthood is rewarding. Yes, it’s a choice many embrace wholeheartedly. But let’s not pretend it’s not also an identity-destroying, sleep-depriving, bank-draining slog. And the reality is, it’s so much harder for women. The toll on their bodies, the way it derails their careers. There’s a reason why fewer people are having children in the UK than ever and, according to a recent YouGov survey, 28 per cent of Britons aged 18-40 who don’t have children say they’ve definitively decided not to. But Roan’s comments don’t read as a cruel dismissal of motherhood – they sound like the observations of someone who has listened to their friends as they navigate the perils of early parenthood. And frankly, my own pals really ain’t selling it to me. (Photo: Getty)

'Don't do it'

There was the time I arrived at my friend Sarah’s house to pick her up for one of her first nights out since having her first (and last) baby. Her husband was held up at the office, the babysitter was sick, and as she sat miserably nursing a glass of red, angrily texting her husband, her baby started crying upstairs. She sighed, disappeared for what felt like an eternity, and finally reappeared – wearing a different dress. A so-called poonami had erupted over her first outfit. “Don’t do it,” she said, looking all but dead between the eyes. “It sometimes feels like a fate worse than death.” I laughed, held her hand, and told her not to be silly – reminded her how often she told me that her daughter was the best thing that had ever happened to her. But I’ll never forget her face that night, nor how, an hour later, when her husband still wasn’t home and she ushered me into a taxi with a tired smile, she looked utterly drained of life. (Photo: Getty)

'If you value freedom, forget it'

Then there’s Bill, a close friend whose wife is also in my circle. When they’re together, he’s all nudge-nudge, wink-wink, telling me and my boyfriend that we’d better hop to it. But when I see him alone, his tone shifts. “If you value your freedom, if you like your sleep, if you want to continue to travel the way you do – forget it,” he tells me, his manner deadly serious. (Photo: Kateryna Zasukhina/Getty)

A loop of meal prep and school drop-offs

And then there’s Emma, one of the most ambitious women I know. She spent years building her career, working late nights and pouring everything into making partner at her law firm. Then she had a baby. At first, she was determined to make it work – returning to work early, juggling meetings with day care pickups, and answering emails at 2am while rocking a colicky newborn. But after months of exhaustion, she finally admitted defeat. “I just can’t do it,” she told me over coffee one day, looking utterly defeated. “I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mum, but I can’t keep up.” She ended up leaving her job, convincing herself it was just temporary, that she’d go back when things got easier. But the years passed, and she never did. Now, she watches younger colleagues rise through the ranks in a company she once helped build, while she’s stuck in an endless loop of meal prep and school drop-offs. “I don’t regret having my son,” she says. “But I’m not sure I’d do it again, given what I now know.” (Photo: Tetiana Lazunova/Getty)

Strong relationships cracking

Even the strongest relationships crack under the weight. My old university friend Jake and his wife were once inseparable – one of those couples who travelled the world, threw extravagant dinner parties, and still made time for date nights. Then they had twins. I saw him last Christmas, and the change was stark. “We don’t even talk anymore,” he admitted, “We’re too exhausted to fight, too drained to care. We’re like two roommates just trying to survive.” They split a few months later. (Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty)

Why Chappell Roan's words strike such a nerve

I always thought I’d have children. But after nodding along to Roan’s comments and watching Netflix’s Adolescence in utter horror (surely the most effective form of birth control in recent history?), me and my boyfriend are happy to remain child-free. These stories don’t mean that parenthood isn’t worth it for some. But they highlight an inconvenient truth: we live in an era where we’re supposed to be honest about the hardships of life, yet when someone like Chappell Roan states the obvious – that early parenthood can be a waking nightmare – she’s crucified for it. Maybe instead of cancelling her, we should we be asking why her words struck such a nerve in the first place? (Photo: Oleg Breslavtsev/Getty)