AIBU to expect people to think a bit before asking

[CaipirinhasAllRound]

a couple in their mid/late 30s who've been married for almost 6 years if they think they would like to have children one day?!

Oh, or (d) the couple have unsuccessfully TTC, and are childless not through choice. Or (e) are thinking about/going through the adoption process.

There are more answers than immediately spring to mind! I stand by them all being private and potentially distressing, though.

YANBU and it is indeed horrible when someone asks insensitive questions.

I speak as someone who has had 5 miscarriages and a lot of treatment to have DS, now 10 months.

But I have to say i feel that most people don't ask maliciously and are just unaware that they need to consider whether people are having problems or not. I have asked in the past too and although now I know not to, previously it was just a case of making conversation and getting to know someone.

When people asked me, when going through ttc and recurrent miscarriage treatment I told them. Not in a way they made them feel bad for asking but just in a way that carried on the conversation. Of course I know not to outright ask now but if you can tell someone wants to talk about it or bring it up themselves I will happily have a conversation about it.

When I was heavily pregnant a conversation like this started and it turned out the lady I was speaking to had also had miscarriages. I told her about my treatment and we swapped email addresses and, to cut a long story short, she had the treatment too and now has a three month old daughter.

Like I said, I know not to ask now whether people want children or not unless they are close friends but sometimes those of us who are having problems do in fact want to talk about it. Although I realise some people are a lot more private and can't, understandably, face the pain of talking about their struggles, if more of us are open about our problems maybe that's not such a bad thing. Children are a fact of life, whilst I realise it's not the same (as said up thread) as choosing to buy a car or a house, babies are born every minute of the day and as such are going to occasionally pop up in conversation.

Even better is when after 6 years of 'when are you having a baby then?' you finally manage to get pregnant & the question you get asked is 'Was it planned?'!!

This drove me mad with dd, so they want me to confirm if I've deliberately been having unprotected sex or if I'm crap at contraception? WTF?

lisianthus, you raise an interesting point about how people would respond. For us, it would be pretty basic and blunt so, depending on who asked the question and how, the answer, if ou don't want to talk about it woudl simply be, "I don't really want to talk about that".

I'd argue that in any culture, the lady Eyesore refers to is rude. The point I was making up thread is that asking the question in itself would not be the issue, but, like any potentially sensitive topic, it would be expected that you would respond sensitively to the answer.

So, for example, if you know that someone has been and is very ill with cancer. The chances are you're not going to go on adn on about it, but you may reference it in some way directly or indirectly to demonstrate your support. At that point, you'd be sensitive to how the other person responds ie does he/she want to talk and vent, or just move on?

YANBU, but I do think that most people (including myself in the past) just don't think. Before DS1, I often asked people that, as it was something that was on my mind, but I would never ask anyone that now. It's a complete minefield, and it a very personal question. But I think is also a generational thing i.e. random aunts asking at family get togethers. It seems they never had such a thing as "infertility" in their day!

I don't have children. Just never wanted them. More and more people seem to be choosing not to have children so I think it is less out of the ordinary than in the past. So expensive to have kids now too.