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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think "oh well she hasn't had children'" is an unfair comment.

122 replies

user1485342611 · 16/10/2017 12:15

I was having coffee with my mother and her friend, who were talking about the friend's former cleaning woman. My mother said she had bumped into her in Tesco and she was looking well for someone of 86 and is well able to get out and about.
Friend then said "oh well she hasn't had any children, she's never really known what worry is".

AIBU to think this was deeply unfair. This woman had to go out and clean houses to pay the bills, while Mum's friend has always been well off, lots of holidays etc. She has also suffered the loss of her husband and has presumably had lots of other worries and stresses in her life.

It's something I've heard my mum say about childless women as well, implying that their life has been much much easier than hers, simply on the basis that they don't have kids.

OP posts:

splendide · 16/10/2017 13:51

They also don't seem to realise that people without children are also getting older, taking on mortgages and other responsibilities, and dealing with stresses and strains that didn't bother them in their twenties.

This is a good point. Life tends to get more complicated anyway.

PollyPelargonium52 · 16/10/2017 13:51

Well I don't think having had my son has aged me although he is 12 now so the sleepless nights have long passed.

I look a lot younger than I am.

brasty · 16/10/2017 13:55

Yes being childless in your twenties, is not the same as being childless in your fifties.
Hate to say it, but do women with children live longer, because women with severe health problems are sometimes unable to have children? Just wonder what the stats are when you compare a healthy childless women at 30 and a healthy mother at 30 - how do their life expectancies compare.

I say this because women who get pregnant over 40 have a longer life expectancy. But that is because only healthier women can get and sustain a pregnancy at this age.

mirime · 16/10/2017 14:04

A couple of years before I had DS, so we were both early 30's, a friend and I were looking up people on Facebook that we'd both gone to school with and commenting on how they seemed to have aged more than us - they'd all had children and we hadn't.

Now my friend had gone through some very difficult times, including losing her mother, but we both looked younger than our peers who had children.

Then I had a baby and it's been all downhill from there for me!

Cornettoninja · 16/10/2017 14:05

Reflecting on this thread further has made me think they've used the wrong words or over dramatised the average parenting experience.

I think they mean the burden of responsibility rather than actual stress. It's not the same thing at all but the first can lead to the latter depending on circumstances.

I still believe it a dickish thing to say though. Even if I believed it to be true you can't belittle someone else's experiences. I like the saying 'your broken leg doesn't make my
Stubbed toe any less painful'.

TravellingFleet · 16/10/2017 14:18

Well, I do have to admit that as a child free woman, I have just had a morning visiting art galleries, lunch out with a friend, before settling down to read novels and listen to music in front of the wood stove. So if all this magically comes with good health and unlined skin into my 80s, I’ll be delighted!

Original poster

user1485342611 · 16/10/2017 14:20

Is that a typical day for you, TravellingFleet, or just a nice day off work?

I don't know many child free women who would spend their days like that. Most of them are commuting and working to pay the mortgage, like everyone else.

OP posts:

TravellingFleet · 16/10/2017 14:26

Good question, User. The lunch was in part about discussing how I can make it a much more typical day - my friend is a business coach and is working with me on how to move from full time employment to consultancy and contracting so that I can choose to spend more time on my own projects and interests. I don’t know that I’d feel able to take that leap if I had children dependent on me - as it is, I don’t have the responsibility to worry about. So that is a genuine stress taken off my shoulders, but I’m very fortunate to have that option.

Pigface1 · 16/10/2017 14:58

I've not got children but I'm at the age where everyone expects me to be having them (and I may do).

I've had comments from both sides of the spectrum - I've had the patronising 'you don't know what real worry is - wait till you have kids!' on many occasions.

But I've had comments from the other end of the spectrum - I work in a very demanding job and I voiced to a colleague who has a 4 year old and a 2 year old that I'm unsure whether I could cope with the stress of having kids. Her response was 'Bullshit. The people who come out with that crap about never knowing real worry haven't done a job like this one.'

Everyone's individual - I guess there's no objective 'stress barometer'!

tangledyarn · 16/10/2017 15:10

I am involuntarily childless (health problems) and I certainly know a thing or two about worry and the horrendous grief that is there everyday. My friends with children worry about their children of course but they definitely don't have the crushing weight of childlessness to carry and I'm definitely not feeling young as a result but get the same from people who don't know my situation..as if I'm living an amazing carefree life and have almost not yet turned into an adult. It's horribly patronising and dismissive.

BoldKitties · 16/10/2017 16:14

I agree completely, tangledyarn. I've been told how lucky I am by my friends / family members who have lovely, beautiful children. Don't get me wrong, I know appearances can be deceptive, and their lives with children can be difficult. But so is mine without. I've had 5 miscarriages. I carry all that loss every day. I'll never have children, and I have mostly come to terms with that. But sometimes I look at my nephew and think 'I'll never have that'. No tiny person will ever look at me with the utter love and adoration that my nephew looks at my sister with. I watch DP playing with him and as lovely as that is, I'm reminded that I'll never see him playing with our child like that. I remember MIL once saying, in the run up to Christmas 'sure what would have you busy? It's not like you have children' in response to us saying that we'd had a busy day getting ready for Christmas. I'd miscarried the previous Feb. I should have had a 3 month old baby that Christmas. It cut like a fucking knife.

And on top of all that, I have other stresses. Dealing with my Nan who is v elderly and ill for example. Visiting every night. I leave my house at around half 6 every morning and get home at 8/9pm. I never sleep a full night as I'm so worried and stressed. I have health problems, DP suffered a serious injury a few years back that he's still struggling through the after effects of, I'm my Mum's only emotional support as she struggles with aging, losing her father, and an ill mother. It's all so hard.

It's not a competition. And I know that some of my friends and family with children are stressed and exhausted. I empathise with them. I just wish some would bear in mind that my life can be difficult too, it's not all 'ooh, we're childless, lets go on weekends away and drink gin and live it up'. I get a bit fed up being told I'm soooo lucky to not have that which I really want.

Wishingandwaiting · 16/10/2017 16:27

It’s not my brain science.

Many many many parents will have experienced something kind of sleep deprivation to varying degrees. Some, horrifically, others mildly.

Surely we can all agree that sleep deprivation, even for one night, has quite an affect, physically and mentally.

So make sure sense that parents will be a bit more weathered than those without children.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 16/10/2017 16:35

Many many many parents will have experienced something kind of sleep deprivation to varying degrees. Some, horrifically, others mildly.
Surely we can all agree that sleep deprivation, even for one night, has quite an affect, physically and mentally.

So make sure sense that parents will be a bit more weathered than those without children.

You are assuming that those without DC always sleep well and are never sleep deprived ever.

StealthPolarBear · 16/10/2017 16:39

No I don't agree that one night's bad sleep has a physical and emotional effect.

Wishingandwaiting · 16/10/2017 16:46

Stealth, it does, on the next day.

Say up 4x and eeked out 3 hours poor quality sleep. That will affect the next day.

It’s a silly argument. I am going to bow out

JonnaSilvie · 16/10/2017 16:46

I'm also at the age where people are expecting newly-married DH and I to have children soon. And I love my friends with kids, but they are a bloody patronising bunch!

I've started just laughing at them when they do the whole, "You've no idea what stress is," "You've never seen what 4am is like." My average work week is 60-80 hours in a role with a high level of responsibility. And I regularly see the early hours as I'll have gotten up in the night to do work as I can't sleep for thinking about it.

I tend to assume they mustn't have had very demanding jobs pre-kids.

BoldKitties · 16/10/2017 16:51

Many many many parents will have experienced something kind of sleep deprivation to varying degrees. Some, horrifically, others mildly.
Surely we can all agree that sleep deprivation, even for one night, has quite an affect, physically and mentally

So make sure sense that parents will be a bit more weathered than those without children.

Nope. Not really. I am sure that there are parents that never sleep the whole night through. And that must be fucking awful for them.

However, I'm not a parent. I don't ever get a full nights sleep. Stress and anxiety prevents that. I have experienced serious sleep deprivation. I'm feeling pretty weathered.

BoldKitties · 16/10/2017 16:52

Okay, my bolding the quote didn't go quite right there .

splendide · 16/10/2017 16:53

ve started just laughing at them when they do the whole, "You've no idea what stress is," "You've never seen what 4am is like." My average work week is 60-80 hours in a role with a high level of responsibility. And I regularly see the early hours as I'll have gotten up in the night to do work as I can't sleep for thinking about it.

Everyone is different but I had a job like this - regular all nighters, worked most weekends, always on call with international clients.

I found having a newborn much much much more stressful and difficult and tiring.

Doobigetta · 16/10/2017 16:58

It's a stupid thing to say but it's also a bit true. Without exception, the women I know who haven't had children look five years younger than other women of the same age who have. All that sleep deprivation takes its toll.

Danceswithwarthogs · 16/10/2017 16:59

Boldkitties, sorry for your losses thank you for sharing.

If I can throw in a confession into the mix.... Having small children for me is a bit of an excuse for " letting myself go" I used to walk miles when we only had dogs, I ate better when I was at work everyday rather than cupboard raiding or picking over leftover fishfingers, I never blow dry my hair now and rarely get it cut, and keep promising I'll make time for exercise when youngest starts school... I know some mums manage these things, but I'm too lazy or don't prioritise it enough - and at some stage I'm sure the lifestyle differences will start to show physically.

woollytweed · 16/10/2017 17:02

The link people miss, of course, is the reason parents are stressed or that parenting can be stressful, is simple. It's because we love them so.

Anyome can have a sleepless night, but what people mean is the gut wrenching terror when you lose your toddler in Sainsburys and imagine her terrified and alone, the sleepless nights when your nine year old is being bullied, the tossing and turning when your nineteen year old is burning his student loan and not doing a scrap of work.

It's obviously pretty offensive to suggest somehow people without children don't have or are incapable of that sort of love. I had a horrific dream last night that DH died in a car crash - actually asked him to come home from work a different way - and I suppose it's a different kind of love, but really it doesn't matter. Love is love.

And for all the stress it may bring people, and for all the stress free lives we may hold when no one matters to us, it's not a life many of us would want.

Crescend0 · 16/10/2017 17:03

OP different people have different kinds of resilience for certain kinds of stress. It's by no means a competition. For instance, my DH can get worked up about financial issues to a level that I can't relate to. On the other hand, he deals far better with emotional stress than I do. We're all built differently.
What I can definitely say as a mum to three, is that I feel my children's pain or stresses far more acutely than I could ever feel my own. There have been times when I've been totally overwhelmed by situations relating to my parents or friends' health, but even then, but the anxiety I feel about our children is on a different level entirely. I wonder if it will ever end?!

Original poster

user1485342611 · 16/10/2017 17:05

I have a colleague whose husband died before they had a chance to have children. Then, in the space of a year and a half she lost her sister and her brother. She now visits her mother in hospital every single evening after work, and has been doing this for over a year.

No doubt some people with children are looking at her and thinking 'ah, but she doesn't know what real worry is'. Unfortunately, being a parent doesn't automatically stop you from being a total idiot.

OP posts:

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 16/10/2017 17:07

No doubt some people with children are looking at her and thinking 'ah, but she doesn't know what real worry is'. Unfortunately, being a parent doesn't automatically stop you from being a total idiot.

Completely agree.

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