Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

To be upset that friend couldn't be more supportive?

59 replies

camimillie · 08/11/2015 14:35

After telling a friend that I was planning to try for a baby in the New Year, she openly laughed.

Her reasons for doing so are that I live in a small flat, plan to work full time and don't have any support and so therefore will find it all too hard.

AIBU to think she really should not voice such opinions? I have been friends with her for over ten years now: we worked together in our first jobs but she is a bit older than me as she started the role after her children had started school.

OP posts:

honeysucklejasmine · 08/11/2015 16:09

I think she's not a great friend! Her only defense could be that she was shocked and it was a nervous laugh.

I have a few friends considering what you are, and more power to them! Conceiving with a partner is not guarantee of not being a single parent, its a risk we all take.

knaffedoff · 08/11/2015 16:15

If she is your friend, I am sure she wouldn't wish to offend you. Perhaps you need to find out if your were being laughed at (as the theory and practical side of having children is huge) or if she was not expecting you go say what you did and gave a nervous laugh!!!

Good luck with your journey, having a child, living in a small flat and working full-time with no support will not be easy .

Kewcumber · 08/11/2015 16:18

I'm a single parent by choice camimillie - brace yourself you'll get a few more of those reactions!

My "best" friend was obviously horrified when I told her I was going to try to get pregnant alone - she though I should just go find any sucker to marry (not her exact owrds but her sentiments).

Although she did learn over the following years to cover it up more, our relationship was irreparably damaged (whether by her own feelings or my reserve with her after that I don't know) and when I bought DS home she was extremely unsupportive. I lived 2 miles away and was a single parent with a toddler and she never once suggested coming over for a drink one evening, never.

Ironically she ended up as a single parent herself but I don't trust her now.

Some people don;t approve of people becoming single parents by choice - no way around it you just have to grit your teeth and carry on.

Morsecode · 08/11/2015 16:22

As a friend, she seems to have good and valid points. You did post recently about your small flat and lack of support. As for laughing maybe it was a shock to her.

Kewcumber · 08/11/2015 16:23

Oh and the whole faux-concern of a parent who already has a child saying with a headtilt "I do worry about you as it's soooo hard and really quite boring"

Oh do fuck off. I'm not a special snowflake, others have managed and I'm not going give up on having a family because it might be hard.

(It is hard but IME managable and I wouldn't be without DS for all the "hard" in China despite having him wittering on in my ear about minecraft all afternoon)

Kewcumber · 08/11/2015 16:25

Don't "give her the benefit of the doubt" just continue and see if she is supportive as time goes on.

Original poster

camimillie · 08/11/2015 16:30

Morsecode - "You did post recently about your small flat and lack of support."

No, I didn't

The problem is that I always end up seeing these two friends together and friend B is very supportive, thinks I'll be a lovely mum (!) - hope so!

Kew, ironically, said friend was a single parent briefly but is now remarried. It was all a rather messy divorce, a long time ago now but I must admit, I remember saying to my dad at the time that it was a lesson in how choosing the wrong person to marry was devastating to everybody.

You're absolutely right, though - not everyone does approve, which is fine and everybody is entitled to their opinion but it is very hard to maintain friendships when someone's opinion is so vastly different to yours.

OP posts:

ThatsNotMyRabbit · 08/11/2015 16:32

Depends on lots of things.

Do you have form for harebrained ideas?

I can think of a friend of mine who does, and if she sprung this idea on me out of nowhere I can well imagine the shock making me burst out laughing in a "Whhaaaaaaat???!!!" sort of a way.

Closely followed, probably by pulling myself together and going "Oh, ok. You're serious. Sorry for laughing. Bit of a surprise! Ok so well, how are you going to cope with XYZ?" etc etc.

ExitPursuedByABear · 08/11/2015 16:33

I sometimes laugh inappropriately. I think it is nerves.

I laughed when DH proposed to me

cashewnutty · 08/11/2015 16:37

It so also possible that your friend thought you were joking? I know women can have children without a partner but I would assume she didn't really have time to process all that as you were telling her. In her shoes I too might have laughed.

ShutYerCakeHole · 08/11/2015 16:37

'test tube baby'? Nice. Or, y'know, just a 'baby' baby.

OP, yanbu. Shock, surprise, whatever, she's entitled to give her opinion yes, but laughing was mean, and if she really couldn't help it she should have explained.

Good luck!

zzzzz · 08/11/2015 16:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OnlyLovers · 08/11/2015 16:48

YANBU. Openly laughing is fucking rude behaviour, ESPECIALLY from a good friend.

She has the right to ask questions/raise doubts (although I don't think her reasons for being sceptical sound particularly compelling), but laughing? She can piss off IMO.

cashewnutty · 08/11/2015 16:54

I think when someone who is single, living in a tiny flat and in a full time job - someone who you probably believe to be a career minded woman- springs this information on you then it will take a bit of time to process it all. As a first (and obviously in this case, inappropriate) response you might snort and laugh. It isn't done out of malice or badness, often it is a pretty involuntary response. Hopefully she will realise that her first response wasn't great and will be a committed and supportive friend. You have had a long time to think about this and plan it but it is quite a lot to get your head round if your friend had no idea about your plans.

OnlyLovers · 08/11/2015 16:57

Sorry, but I can't imagine 'snort and laugh' being my reaction to this. Not if it's a friend telling me.

Kewcumber · 08/11/2015 17:17

Me neither onlylovers.

In fact I haven't ever really needed to "get my head around it" when a friend says "I'm planning to have a baby". I say "Right then/Good for you/I had no idea you wanted one" no need to get my head around it at all. OP isn't 50, it's hardly that surprising that a woman in their 30's might want a child is it? Is it such a startling piece of news that you'd laugh nervously?

Time will tell.

Booyaka · 08/11/2015 18:02

OP. I have a baby via IUI with my husbands sperm.

Personally I am of the view that if somebody is prepared to go to the lengths you are to have a child, the odds they will be a good parent are stacked high.

You may not have a partner to have a child with, but Mumsnet in general would have a collective hissy fit if anybody other than single women (e.g. Lesbians, gay men) wasn't a suitable parent because of their personal circumstances.

You live in a small flat, you want to work full time. An awful lot of women who want to be pregnant want the same thing. They may or may not change their minds after the baby arrives. That's just parenthood.

And ill good luck.

Original poster

camimillie · 08/11/2015 18:12

Well, thank heavens for page 2 of the thread (apologies to the posters on page 1 who weren't jaw-droppingly rude!)

OP posts:

Kewcumber · 08/11/2015 19:36

Your life will soon become a mixture of page 1 and page 2 OP

And the strangest people fall into each of the two camps.

FYI - I found the best response to a huffy "well I'm entitled to my opinion" is "Yup but you're not entitled to force me to listen to it, thanks all the same"

It amazed me the people who took it upon themselves to lecture a mid-30's professional woman about how hard having a baby is. Once from a middle aged man who had three children. If its so fecking hard why didn't you stop at one

Or is it because I'm single that people felt entitled to comment? 10 years on they've stopped yammering on about it thankfully.

Kewcumber · 08/11/2015 19:39

It is hard OP - no idea if its harder than with a DH as I've never tried it that way. I've managing working, not working, working for myself, working part-time.

The key in my experience is to be flexible and accept things that you thought were set in stone might have to change (job/flat/location etc) and keep reviewing things as they go along. If they don;t work for you try to change them.

I know quite a few single parents by choice - never met one who regrets it.

Enjolrass · 08/11/2015 20:03

I don't think anybody does (and - politely - I am not posting for advice about whether or not I should do it.)

I don't think anyone is saying you shouldn't. I certainly am not. I am just trying to understand it from her point of view.

Ie are you the type of person that makes decisions, thinking you know all the details but don't. Do you have form for making rash life changing decisions.

If not, I can only imagine you caught her off guard.

cashewnutty · 08/11/2015 20:10

I am beyond excited for the OP and what the future may hold. I too was just trying to work out why her friend maybe reacted as she did.

TestingTestingWonTooFree · 08/11/2015 20:15

That was an unfortunate reaction, I guess you've just got to wait and see how she behaves now that she's had notice of your plans.

Original poster

camimillie · 08/11/2015 20:18

Kew - that advice is excellent, and was along the lines that I had been thinking myself.

It can be very hard as a single person because you do need to plan and micromanage to a point. Yet you also (like everybody) need to just be able to manage situations as and when they occur and I have done a very good job of that to date.

I certainly don't have form for making life changing decisions although I did do a skydive for charity once. That was impulsive and utterly petrifying

OP posts:

Samaritan1 · 08/11/2015 20:20

I'm not a single parent, but I do work full time and have no family within 250 miles. I'm 37 so I fully understand the biological clock ticking (D's was born last year).

If you want to make it work you will make it work, end of story. I've known people who have done what you are planning to do (one lady has no family in this country) - they've found it hard, but wouldn't change anything.

I do think your friend was cruel. Sometimes people with children can be so sneering and condescending to those who don't. No one has all the answers or knows what you are capable of.

Good luck with it, it'll be an amazing journey, that's the only guarantee

Flip

1 2 3