Man, one time I took my kid to a park playground and then another group just drops off like six kids and nopes out to a picnic shelter away away from the park so now I'm the only adult in a playground full of kids.

So was very uncomfortable, then one of the little girls gets scared and cries for help because she's panicking and can't calm down enough to get out of the spinny thing she is in, she thinks she is stuck.

So nervous helping out this stranger kid, thinking some one was going to assume something. Picked her up and put her on the ground without incident, but was annoyed I basically became defacto babysitter and afraid I would be seen as a creep.

story time. my wife and I go to the zoo and my wife likes taking pictures. she wants to take pictures of the carosel they have and im like. oof. imma sit on this bench and you knock yourself out. Anyway did not feel wierd until she to like the opposite side of the thing and I suddenly realize im a grown man sitting on a bench facing the carosel alone. so great when she got back around to me.

Comedic effect exists

All the way, even when I go to Ikea alone, I think "I should have brought my kid, he'd love this"

A consequence of a popular post making it to people's general feed. It's reasonable that people might not even notice the theme of the community when posting.

I think broadly healthy for communities to occasionally get a dose of diverse perspectives from such events. We are otherwise too prone to get into circle jerks over our perspective being the one and only valid one.

Ironically reinforcing why we need this community to begin with

No. Child free doesn't mean child hater. In fact often, people who don't have kids like kids better than people who do.

FRICK

Hell to the fuck no. I'm going to the museum to enjoy myself and learn about cool stuff for myself. Bringing a kid is absolutely not going to result in a "great and absorbent state of mind", especially if I constantly have to worry about where said kid is and what they're doing -- I can just as well take an (adult) friend or partner to whom it is also new and wonderful if I want to share the experience with someone (and we can go someplace that's not fucking McDonald's after.)

I'm sorry that your state of mind is so terribly moribund that simply being in a cool place of learning doesn't suffice for you to learn and absorb new things and that you have to rely on an external locus to delude yourself into believing you're getting to that point.

This is so true, my daughter, fostered her since she was 11, is in a long term care facility trying to get over her trauma and become functional. She could be there for years. My wife and I went to the museum last Friday after I got off work, favorite place in the city and all things in it are free fridays and it's open late.

While we were there there were many times I wish she was there. She has severe mental trauma and is quick to, "just give up". She's missed Holidays, birthdays, and potentially the death of both her grandmas (tecnically she is my wife's cousin).

When you have a kid things change. You think more about what they would enjoy l vs what you would enjoy. It's not really this would be more fun with or without children just, ai want to give my child this experience. I miss my daughter.

Going to a water park kinda sucks solo.

Speak for yourself.

Thank you for the anecdote, I guess? I don't quite understand why you felt the need to share it in a childfree community in response to a thought process that is unique to childfree people though.

I'm glad your trip to Paris was fun and I don't really know what to do with the knowledge that you're bored of traveling solo. My feelings on the matter are diametrically opposed to yours, I don't know what else to tell you.

As an adult it’s cool to see the little clams burrow down in the turf for a minute.

As a mid-30s adult I and my partner (also mid-30s) spent about two hours on a beach in Thailand collecting pretty shells and digging in the sand to make little waterways. It was indeed cool to be around.

Validate my lifestyle and give me attention, please.

We want Lemmy to become more like Reddit, I guess?