To think questioning someone on why they haven't had children is just RUDE!

[shareacokethissummer]

This afternoon - 'so why do you not want kids? It is coz you work with them all the time?' (I am a teacher.)

:(

I really want children but it's unlikely to happen - but this is just so rude! I don't want to explain myself to someone I've just met!

AIBU?

Absofriggin, I can't tell you how nice it is to gear a parent describe the fetishisation of parenthood so openly. A lot of people do consider themselves to be saints by virtue of becoming a parent and the smugness does get a bit much sometimes. I know lots of great parents but I know lots of awful ones too who have no interest in their kids or in learning how to do it better.

YANBU. One of my colleagues at work assumed I was incredibly driven and didn't want children when actually we had been trying for years. She collared me, pissed, at a meeting and laid into me about how I shouldn't leave it too long and my "ovaries will shrivel." She herself had had ivf and eventually adopted, but seemed to have forgotten about any sensitives around it.
She was in full flow when another colleague (who is always thought was a bit of a twat) dragged me away with a "dickie, come over here and look at these figures a minute." And then muttered "why is any of that her fucking business?" He wordlessly handed me a big glass of wine and faded away. He went up 1000% in my estimation.

I still cringe remembering an ex-colleague who quizzed a new member of staff (male, in his 40s) on this subject.

About a year later, he and his wife adopted two children.

So there was her answer, not that she deserved one.

YANBU it's so ridiculously rude and insensitive and such a personal question it baffles me why anyone would think it's ok to ask!

I remember being told by a friend of a friend (who we didn't know) at a childs birthday party that we should 'go upstairs and get on with it, there's just you left' about 3 weeks after we'd had our 3rd miscarriage

People who think they have the right to ask why someone doesn't have any children can be a number of things:

Invasive why should I justify my choice to you? ( 'oo are yer, 'oo are yer? Sung like a football chant)

Nosey - none of your business why we don't want to, or are unable to procreate

Insensitive - so I have to give you chapter and verse about my medical history, and the years of hurt involved in ttc, do I?

irritating - I told you no once but that's obviously not enough is it, now just give it a rest, OK??!

socially inept - why ask me the question in the middle of a crowded pub, have you got no boundaries?

lottapianos I think it comes down to self-awareness, whether you have children or not. The child part is irrelevant.

Perhaps for some people having children is a life-changing event that suddenly opens their eyes to others and suddenly enables them to understand concepts like empathy, unconditional love, sacrifice, tiredness, devotion, etc etc? But they shouldn't assume it's the same for everyone.

My DM is a classic at this and has on many occasions told me "you'll understand one day when you're a mother" She truely believes this crap. probably because she is a naturally selfish/narassistic person Unfortaunely, her complete lack of self awareness means she has been/is quite an emotionally distant, selfish mother.

Motherhood is not an automatic right of passage to personal betterment.

I hate this question! Had a colleague who asked me on every single business trip (we sadly had a few together) when I was having my next - bear in mind I'd needed fertility treatment for the first one and had just had a miscarriage.

Ended up snapping at her that I'd miscarried, but all that meant was that she knew I was trying, and then would still ask me about it every trip!

When I got pregnant she then immediately asked 'so how long were you trying for then, because it was a while, wasn't it?'

ARGH

I understand that if you've never had any problems with finding someone to have kids with or with infertility that it just may not occur to you that it could be a tough subject for someone. But once you know it is, just leave it alone.

I never ask anyone that, even one of my work friends who constantly says she wants kids but will try 'in six months, in twelve months' etc. She's 39 and from everything I know about her (she would tell me I am sure if actively ttc), her husband is desperate for kids and thinks they're just waiting, but she is putting it off because doesn't really want to go through it all.

Next time someone asks me 'buy why?' I'm going to say 'just assume it's the exact opposite of all the reasons you chose to have a kid.'
Which will baffle them, because all the people I know who have a kid put little or no thought into the matter. Their reasons were 'babies are cute!' ' you can dress them in cute outfits!' 'My best friend has one' 'it'll make my fuckwit of a boyfriend stay with me'. 'My husband has a kid with another woman, so I want one so she doesn't feel better than me'. seriously
And yeah, I'm on MumsNet, have been for years and everything I read on here about children puts me off even more, but I don't say that because that would be fucking rude, like the people who inquire into our wombs.

It's bad enough when random people ask. When it's people who KNOW I've had a hysterectomy it's worse and worst of all are so called health care professionals ask. I was asked by a nurse, the day after surgery 'oooh you're young for this! (I was 25) must be hard not having more children, eh?' I mean wtf?! Insensitive much???

It is very rude to ask.

Love your post EvenBetter! Completely agree that far too many people put far too little thought into parenthood. Lots of people seem to expect it to be a fairytale where you dress up your little dolly and marvel at how complete you now feel. That is largely how its sold within celebrity culture and the like and some people don't seem to think beyond that.

Happyseaturtle. Ok, I'll say it..

CRAP.

(well, it was Sunday after all, and I don't swear on Sundays )

But today is Monday. CRRRRAAAAPPPPPPPP ....

Yanbu - it does depend how it is asked but I think people just don't think!

I thought I was pg this month - 8 days late (never late) and some pg symptoms.

Went to boots with ds - aged 6 to get a test. Handed it to her discretely at the till as DS can read everything now and I didn't want him seeing.

She was very nice but went on to asks me - if I was ds's mum or sister!

• am I ttc?

Sorry posted too soon.

So she went on asking me questions saying I looked young and was I trying etc!

What if I wasn't! What if I was as young or younger then I looked - surely her comments would have made me feel even worse then they did!!!!

I worked in a pub from 1996-1998, one of my afternoon regulars would ask me EVERY DAY why I didn't have children.

I was told I couldn't have children in 1988.

And my boyfriend had dumped me a few months before and gone off to have a child with my best friend. All my regulars knew this.

I said to this bloke EVERY FUCKING DAY "I can't have children Brian, I'm infertile". The fucker still went on about it every day.

AnAwfullyGoodOxymoron
I think it's mostly just 'filler' conversation. Yabu. Don't take it to heart so much.

You've touched a raw nerve with me. I've had several miscarriages. Don't try to tell me whether I'm allowed to take that to heart or not.

Well said Red Room. There's a 'get over it' response on here to just about everything. Not helpful.

I'm so sorry about your miscarriages

We have two lots of childless friends. One lot (known over 40 years) and they have been married for that time, we have never known why-both teachers. The second couple has also been married for many years and the woman is my best friend. I have always known that her dh didn't want children and she was prepared not to have them. They are one of the happiest couples I know. Interestingly they were also teachers.
My point is that people will talk about it if they want to and it is no one's business but theirs.

It's brought me to tears in the past when asked. I work with kids - I love kids... Would've loved a big brood! But my husband's infertility put a stop to that. We tried everything for nigh on a decade. It's taken me many years to get my head around the fact I will not be a mom.

But I am so grateful and thankful to have the wonderful husband I do. And I focus on that... And then, working with early years children means I receive and get to give loads of hugs and fun times with them, which helps immensely.

When a woman is married and a certain age and doesn't have children there is never a good moment to question this as it's because ...

A) the couple cannot have children together
B) the couple have chosen to not have children

Either way... Said couple doesn't want the sympathy card or the selfish card drawn against them. It's rude, it's nosey and no-one's business why people don't have kids. Or have one/two and no more. You have NO idea what's going on in that household.

And another height of rudeness s the assumption it's

A) the woman who has the fertility problems
B) telling an overweight woman that if she loses some weight she will fall pregnant

Not only does this make me upset it makes me incredibly angry. Bloody rude.

YANBU. I think it is insensitive and thoughtless more than rude, but still.

Personally I don't mind being asked the question because I am (so far) childless by choice and will gleefully point out all the downsides of having children and say I have no desire to subject myself to all that.

But it is an insensitive question precisely because there are plenty of people out there who would love to have children but haven't been able to. Those reasons are hardly a subject for trivial small talk.

I've tried and tried to find the sketch from "Manstrokewoman" where a babied-up couple joyfully extol the loveliness and necessity of having a baby to a childless woman. To the nth degree.

Eventually she says: "I can't have child; there's something wrong with my twat." Priceless; how I wish it had been around and I would have had the nerve to say that when I couldn't have a second child.

If you have DCs prepare to be asked whether you have DGCs and if not why not?

As to DCs: I had a colleague who when asked why she had no children looked the questioner straight in the eye and said Well, you see, while my mother was pregnant with me she went to a wise woman who assured her that if I had a baby it would be the spawn of Satan and would involve the entire world in a nuclear cataclysm so I have thought it better not to risk it, do you think I'm right? which stopped the discussion!

Downright bloody rude IMO

I tried for a year for 1st pregnancy, which was ectopic, lost a tube. Fell straight away for DD (8 days after ectopic) who was born when I was 39. Tried again for another year, third pregnancy ended in a MMC at 12 weeks. Tried again for another year and then gave up age 42. I am sick and bloody tierd of people telling me DD will be spoilt if she is an only child !. I would have loved another baby, cherish DD as she is my miracle baby, who the hell are they to judge.
I am sick of hearing "oh now you have stopped trying it will happen", to which I reply "not with a coil fitted it wont". People don't seem to understand "stopped trying" means we have taken precautions that it wont happen, we want to continue with our lives.
At a dinner party a my DH's friends wife went on for nearly and hour that I should remove my coil, not tell DH and get trying again. Why do I ahve to justify my reason for now stopping TTC !

People who have never had to face the prospect of month after month after month of trying, getting nowhere, trying some more, suffering a loss, trying some more, suffering another loss, trying some more, month after month after month, genuinely facing the reality of never having a baby - just DONT GET how appealing the thought of stepping off the treadmill and drawing a line under it all can be. How that can actually be empowering when so much of it all is outside of your control. They just can't realise how much conviction it takes to make such a decision, when the possibility of 'hope' that next month could be the month is so seductive. If people have made the decision to stop trying that should be much respected.

I really hope that one thoughtless person reads this thread and stops and thinks about the hurt they may have caused. And thinks twice in the future before asking incredibly intimate and personal questions simply to 'pass the time' or to satisfy their own curiosity....!!

and to anyone on this thread who has suffered with fertility problems and loss