To start a thread about things you should not say or do to childless people

[user1485342611]

As someone who can't have children I have sometimes been shocked at how tactless and insensitive some people can be - the latest being a colleague who objects to having to work over Christmas because 'Christmas is about children. Staff with families should get priority'.

I do have a family, it just doesn't include children of my own.

AIBU to be fed up of this kind of stuff and to ask other posters in similar situations to share hurtful acts and words in the hope that it might educate those not in our situation and who don't always think before they speak/act?

Yes yes yes zezeek and love your analogy margaret. Having been following your posts with an open mouth londongirl. May I suggest that when supporting your infertile childless friends you don't make a point of going on at length to them about how mothers need support and validation or you may find they can't deal with being around you for long

Great analogy Margaret. And no, it's not hard. For most people anyway.

I’m really trying to understand you LondonGirl but I’m struggling.

I don’t really understand why a mother needs to be validated? Why?

Sure it’s nice to know you’re doing a good job, for instance, if someone mentions my son has good manners it feels good but I already know he has good manners. I’m adult enough in most cases to know that a decision I make for my child is the right one, I don’t need someone to give me a virtual pat on the back for it.

I already know that when at work I try my hardest and yes I struggle sometimes with spinning every plate going but that’s part and parcel of being a mother, I don’t need other women to make me feel good about it. My child does it for me.

The support you need when struggling with infertility is something that unless you have suffered you will never understand - you cannot grasp how simply life sucking it is to be aware that you will never have a child. It’s utterly soul destroying and to be honest if I went out for lunch with someone who knew my issues but then wanted me to validate them for the very thing I do not have through absolutely no choice of my own it would leave a very sour taste in my mouth.
But to be fair when I was undertaking my cycles of IVF, they were all self funded because my PCT don’t fund it so I wouldn’t have been able to afford to eat out anyway because apparently having a child is a lifestyle choice and infertile couples can get to fuck.

As for KW, I can’t stand the bloody woman or anything that comes out of her mouth 😂 child related or not!

Christ- I only elaborated on that in response to zeek. If that is all you can get from everything I've written then you are being wilfully blind. I'm not saying you have to agree with the PoV I've provided on KW comments but accusing me of doing things that are clearly not my intention is not a reasonable response.

x-post with a just rocks. Given the previous comments I'm not sure here is the place to go into why mother's benefit from public validation.

People on this thread might be interested to hear that there is a phone-in on You and Yours on Radio 4 this lunchtime about NHS funding for IVF. If you have a view, you might want to phone in or listen to the programme. I heard it mentioned on the Today programme this morning.

disahsterdahling

Thank you, I hadn't heard about this

Londongirl83 I think the point you are arguing is not something anyone really disputes. Nobody is suggesting that Kate Winslet and others in similar situations were thinking "How can I deliberately denigrate the childless?"

And the fact that people mean well with their "Everything happens for a reason", "Maybe it's for the best", "Think of all those holidays you'll get!" etc is not the point either. Nobody is suggesting that those people are malicious. Just utterly thoughtless and lacking in empathy. It is not only malice that is worthy of reproach.

Yes yes yes zezeek and love your analogy margaret

Me too. I thought your analogy was very well put margaret

Given the previous comments I'm not sure here is the place to go into why mother's benefit from public validation
You are correct londongirl. A thread titled things you should not to say or do to childless people is not the place to say why mothers benefit from public validation as multiple posters on here have tried to explain.

My personal take is that there there is a difference between :

'things people say that aren't specifically insensitive but I find difficult due to my personal circumstances'

'things people say that are insensitive'

Neither are intended with malice. Neither falls into the 'I'm sorry you are offended' pass agg (I have said something offensive but I refuse to acknowledge this and therefore I will deflect the blame onto you for being offended rather than taking accountability for what I have said) camp.

I believe the KW comments fall into the former camp. I might find them difficult, but that's all on me because I am conscious of feeling lesser than in a society where the childless are often treated as second class citizens. I don't believe they are specifically insensitive per se

I do however think it is insensitive to repeatedly use these comments as an example of the importance of validation for mothers, on a thread about what not to say or do to be supportive of childless women. I refer to margaret's brilliant academic example

I do think it is offensive, rather than merely insensitive, when comments about childlessness tip over from thoughtlessness about the situation of childlessness, to judgemental comments about a woman on the basis of her childlessness

For example - Andrea Leadsom, when she used Theresa May's childlessness as a stick to beat her with, saying that 'as a mother' she could understand the need to protect the next generation's future in a way that May could not. There are many many many reasons to criticise Theresa May's competency as PM - I do not believe her childlessness is one of them.

Another one. When the New Statesman published a cover of Liz Kendall, Angela Merkel, Theresa May, and Nicola Stugeon, around a ballet box inside a cot, asking why so many successful women were childless, with the undertones that childless women are avaricious career women who selfishly prioritised their careers over having a family. As it happens, both May and Sturgeon have spoken publicly about their experiences of infertility and miscarriage, and about their sadness at never having had childre. But whether these women are child free by choice or childless by circumstance is entirely irrelevant - it's still vile and reinforces prejudiced stereotypes.

I do NOT believe that the KW comments fall into this category. But all I would ask is for people to show a little awareness about where is most appropriate to discuss the question of giving mothers validation, and a little kindness to those who will never be lucky enough to be able to validated in this way.

There are many kinds of pain. Grief at losing a husband is not the same as the hurt caused by one's partner's infidelity. They are different in kind. Just because someone feels pain at infidelity does not mean that someone cannot also feel grief at bereavement.

What is constantly happening on this thread is that a small number mothers are behaving like someone who has discovered their husband in bed with the cleaner, and who is saying that their need to talk about this trumps their friend's need to talk about their husband's death because "infidelity hurts". And they are enacting that by barging into every space that the grieving friend has set aside - their counselling slot, their therapy group - and insisting that they talk about infidelity instead. It's incredibly self-indulgent and self-obsessed behaviour, really.

Of course mothers need positivity and validation. It's a hard job, and one that is often overlooked and undervalued. I am sure we all agree on that. But women who can't have children - those who are going through that process and (very different) those who are out the other side without any prospect of a child - need a space too, and they should not continually have to be defending that from women who are insisting that their needs are more important. The two should be able to coexist quite happily - human language gives us this wonderful facility of being able to be sensitive to context and listener.

Great posts banana and whisky. Yes, mothers could do with more support in some ways, however their decision to become mothers and their status as mothers seems to be validated at every turn. Childless / childfree people often feel that their lives are undervalued at every turn. So hearing a mother, especially on a thread started by a childless poster, complaining that mothers need more validation is a bit tough to take

Banana what you said about KW was my entire point- that it falls into that camp and that because it serves its own purpose shouldn't be censored / censured. The point about mothers was only explaining that after repeated questioning which now I refuse to continue to elaborate on despite continuing to be asked. It was never my intention to go on about it or to make anyone feel bad by stating that mother's also have needs.

I never sad mothers need more validation so don't put words in my mouth. I said mothers get lots of public validation and that they need what they get so I wouldn't want to see the ability to do so disappear necessarily. If you are going to take issue with something I've said please be accurate.

This thread is the very definition of irony.

But londongirl - this whole thread is about what not to say to people who can't have children.

If you know that something may hurt someone, you'll think twice before saying it, unless you are a total tool. When it's so hard to talk about it in real life, that's why threads like this are so immensely important. People who haven't been through it should be listening and learning, so that maybe one person who is struggling with fertility won't have to deal with well meant but actually agonising stories about miracle conceptions and advice to relax and get pissed because it worked for auntie Shazza.

If you want to talk about whether mothers should be "censured", or whether that happens in practice, start your own thread. Then those who find it too painful can choose to avoid it.

And I have never said one groups needs are more important than another's. Quite the opposite...

I have really tried but it's clear that no matter what I actually say, things will be projected on it that I've not said and aren't my views or intentions.

My hope was that comments like KW (which are common) would be better understood and therefore less offensive when heard but it's clear that any different point of view no matter how nuanced if coming from me for whatever reason makes me the ENEMY and every stereotype you hold about people who have been hurtful in the past is placed squarely on me.

I do think that some - not all, not most, but some - women think their experience of motherhood is so important and so fascinating that they genuinely can't see that there are a few places where it's not appropriate to discuss it. Every thread on infertility always goes like this - there are literally dozens of active threads at any one time on Mumsnet where it would be appropriate to talk about how hard/tranformative/whatever you find your children, yet some people can't bear to leave the very few threads where its inappropriate alone.

I naively perhaps thought understanding the intentions and goals behind that very common refrain from the queen and KW might actually be helpful and make it less problematic. I never had any other goal.

"- there are literally dozens of active threads at any one time on Mumsnet where it would be appropriate to talk about how hard/tranformative/whatever you find your children, yet some people can't bear to leave the very few threads where its inappropriate alone."

So elegantly and succinctly put, Margaret.

I wonder why this is. There must be something so uncomfortable about it, at a deep level, that certain people with children simply cannot restrain themselves. It's a total refusal to listen, really. I don't understand it but I think it perhaps might indicate something about the way in which our culture finds it much easier to deal with an absence-that-was-a-presence (death) than with an absence that is, in and of itself, a source of pain. People find permanent, non-evental incapacity (of various kinds) difficult to comprehend - something similar happens in threads about chronic illness where well people either minimize or tell others that the sickness that is incurable by modern science will go away if they only take sufficient vitamin D, etc. etc. etc.

(And those advocating homeopathy/vitamin D/a brisk walk in the countryside as a cure for all ills exhibit the same justificatory attitude of "Well, I'm only trying to help/be positive!" We need more emphasis on acknowledgement and listening).

"Every stereotype... is placed squarely on me".

Have you still not got it?! Here it is in very plain English:

This. Isn't. About. You.

But whatever the Queen and KW’s intentions (to big up other mothers, you say), it has been made very clear why that could be hurtful and insulting to non-mothers. Just like margaret’s example, mothers could choose not to bang on about it in public setting. So, it is appropriate to say that it could be a ‘thing you should not say or do to childless people’, in the same way that, although I may feel the need to validate myself by saying that I’ve been knitting a sweater today (because I have chronic illness and cannot work at the moment so have lots of free time), I choose not to say what I’ve been doing to friends who are exhausted from their jobs, or can’t afford to stop work despite their problems. It’s just about having consideration for your audience.

I think it perhaps might indicate something about the way in which our culture finds it much easier to deal with an absence-that-was-a-presence (death) than with an absence that is, in and of itself, a source of pain

I think this is so true and so insightful. As I said upthread, I'm personally still very early in this journey - we've been TTC for a year and a half - and mine's a recurrent miscarriage story, not a not-conceiving one. I've really noticed a) how much more seriously miscarriage is taken than infertility by many people (particularly since it seems to be assumed I'd agree) b) how eager people are to point out that my miscarriages were early and so not a big deal at all: nothing to be mourned, so let's all move on. To me this completely misses the point, as for me the trauma and upset I'm going through is my fear, which each repeated miscarriage and the inability of anyone to find a cause for them has compounded, that I'll never have a baby. But that seems to be a narrative that makes people very uncomfortable. They can just about deal with mourning failed pregnancies, but mourning what might never be seems to be too much.

Have you still not got it?! Here it is in very plain English:

This. Isn't. About. You.

Thank you, rebecca!