A content creator set people off recently by claiming that childfree people are “practically on vacation 24/7.”
At the end of November, Danielle Ekwerekwu (@danni_ek) posted a TikTok video hashtagged #momtok sharing her opinions on the difference in free time between people who have kids and people who don’t.
“I don’t think people without kids realize how much free time they actually have,” she theorized. “They are practically on vacation 24/7. And you don’t realize that until you have kids and you have no free time ever.”
@danni_ek Ijs #funnyvideos #parentsoftiktok #momtok #fyp #viral ♬ original sound – Danielle Ek
Swift backlash
To say people were unhappy with Ekwerekwu’s comments would be an understatement. Nobody is arguing that having kids doesn’t change a parent’s life or take up a ton of time, and Ekwerekwu herself acknowledged that it was a choice she made.
But the way she approached the topic—which also included the suggestion that childfree adults who complain about being overworked or tired don’t know how easy they have it compared to parents—simply didn’t sit well with people. For all her caveats about making her own choices that led to having kids, Ekwerekwu didn’t seem to grasp that there are circumstances beyond having children that could leave adults busy or burned out.
@yapwithmariam #chidfreebychoice #childfree ♬ original sound – yapwithmariam
“Stop having kids if you’re going to complain about your kids,” said @yapwithmariam. “Literally stop it!”
There was also a certain amount of disbelief that she appeared to believe people really don’t understand how much free time having children eats up.
“We know. Which is why many of us have chosen to not have children,” said @bookswithamanda212.
“I don’t need to have children. You guys have shown me more than enough that you are miserable with that life…to act like being a parent gives you a unique perspective on being tired…that’s that insufferability that I was talking about.”
@bookswithamanda212 Some parents act like they have a monopoly on hardship and feelings of being tired solely because they made the active decision to have children and give up their free time. Some parents cannot comprehend the idea that those who have chosen to not have children can still have just as difficult and busy of a life as they do. Because we have more free time, we can choose to make decisions that take up time, make us busy, and tired. Many parents truly do have a delusional sense of their role in society as a parent, as if their position and role that they chose makes them superior, of higher value, or entitled to feelings that childfree people are not. Vacation 24/7 is a joke. #childfree #childfreebychoice #childfreetiktok #childfreemillennial #fyp ♬ original sound – bookswithamanda212
And as at least one TikToker pointed out, Ekwerekwu’s whole video felt jarringly dismissive of her single friends.
@danni___duncan She doesn’t get it, but we do!
♬ original sound – Danni ‘childfree’ Duncan
Follow-up video
Ekwerekwu did post a response after all of the backlash, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying.
“I am not saying that people without kids don’t have a life or don’t have responsibilities or don’t have obligations,” she said.
“I’m just merely saying that people with kids, we don’t have a choice. And I get it, that is because we decided and we made our own choice to have children, but now that we have them, we don’t have a choice on how we necessarily get to spend our free time.”
She also added that she wasn’t trying to compare one lifestyle to the other and used some example about how people with children don’t get to choose when they get up in the morning, whereas people who don’t have kids sort of can decide that for themselves. Of course, in reality, she was comparing one to the other and many people without kids actually have jobs, pets, or other responsibilities that dictate when they get up in the morning.
Many commenters on both videos had at least one helpful suggestion for how Ekwerekwu and other #momtok creators who feel as if they don’t have much time to themselves could find more of it—close TikTok.
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