"You’re a coach without kids? You don’t get it."
That was the underlying message in a post I saw recently. It looked like a call-out, but it read more like a dismissal:
"If you’re a fitness coach without kids, you have no business telling someone they have the same 24 hours as everyone else."
And I get it. I really get it.
I’ve coached moms balancing soccer practice and sleep regressions, perimenopause symptoms and pay gaps. I’ve worked with clients who couldn’t take a breath for themselves without negotiating it first through guilt, exhaustion, or someone else’s needs.
I’ve also coached people with no kids who feel like their exhaustion isn’t valid, like their overwhelm doesn’t “count” because it isn’t tethered to caretaking.
That post wasn’t about me, but it landed on something bigger. So I responded:
That whole “you don’t have kids so stay in your lane” vibe assumes that parenting is the only lens that grants credibility to speak on time management, burnout, or resilience. And that’s just not true. You can lead with empathy, honor the hard stuff people face, and still invite them to notice where their power is.
What I didn’t expect was the heat I got in return.
Not from trolls. From a fellow coach.
Instead of hearing me, he deflected:
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"That’s not what I said."
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"You’re internalizing something that isn’t about you."
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"What did you even dismantle?"
But here's the truth: I didn’t internalize it. I interrogated it.
Because this isn’t just about one post or one guy with a grudge against influencers.
It’s about the way ego shows up in coaching culture—dressed as authority, hiding behind "hot takes," deflecting reflection with sarcasm and smugness.
It’s about the way misogyny shows up even in soft-spoken advocacy—when women without kids are told their insight doesn’t count, when experience only matters if it fits the dominant narrative.
It’s about gaslighting in real time, when someone tells you "that’s not what I said," as you’re reading the exact words they wrote.
This is the part that frustrates me most: He was trying to advocate for parents. So am I. But somewhere along the way, advocacy turned into hierarchy.
And hierarchy kills nuance.
Because guess what? I’m a coach who doesn’t have kids. Not by choice. I’m infertile. I’ve been in surgical menopause since 38. I know what it means to wake up in a body I didn’t plan for, live in a rhythm that doesn’t follow the expected path, and still show up for other people’s goals, grief, and grind.
And I also know this: empathy doesn’t require identical experience. It requires curiosity.
It requires listening. It requires releasing the belief that only one version of struggle is legitimate.
If we want to actually support people—parents, child-free folks, burned-out professionals, anyone stretched thin—we can’t lead with shame or superiority.
We have to lead with both hands open.
So no—I’m not the coach saying “we all have the same 24 hours.”
But I am the coach asking: How do we use the hours we do have with more intention, more grace, and less bullshit?
And maybe, just maybe—how we treat each other in these conversations is the real test of our coaching philosophy.
Because anyone can preach. But can you stay in the fire of a hard conversation… And still stay curious?