The weird things that non parents say...

[Wiggles9408]

Just a general one, no malice intended but what are your experiences of the things that people without children have said to you in regards to parenting?

My examples are as follows (all in one day): dd is 6mo I went into work for a KIT day and a few of my colleagues that don’t have children (in amongst genuine lovely questions about dd) said the following ‘Babies seem easy to me now I’ve got a rabbit..’ and ‘so what’s it like?’ My answer ‘harder than I’d imagined’ the response ‘oh really? I just imagined you watching Disney films all day with a baby!’
And my favourite one EVER ‘I’d love to be getting paid to do nothing all day but watch Jeremy Kyle!’
I know they probably weren’t meant to come across so ummmm belittling but in my head I did have a few brash come backs but didn’t say anything just laughed it off. so anyone else had comments made that left them a little

When I had to leave work for an hour (over lunchtime!), to collect my DS from school, ill:
'Why can't he catch a bus home?'.

I pointed out that if he had been well enough for an hours journey on public transport, he'd probably be well enough for school, but they made it clear they still felt I was mollycoddling him!
One of them is expecting a first child now, so I look to seeing how that goes for them ;-)

When a couple of friends came to visit me and my 3 day old baby, one of them walked in and immediately started parading up and down in her new coat asking what we thought of it. I think I mumbled something about it being very nice until it was pointed out to her that I'd made an actual person and perhaps they should look at him. I still laugh about ithe now. She's a lovely woman but not really one for the kids. 😀

A friend of mine was giving me "advice" on how to find a way to teach my 19month DD (at the time she just turned 1yr) to stop screaming so loud, because it's unfair to other people, what if someone had a heart condition and the screaming caused them to have a heart attack.
Also if you don't teach her she will become a nightmare later on.
This is a 12month old who cannot speak, so she screams when she wants something, or out of frustration.
My friend doesn't have and doesn't want children. She's the minority of people that I say are "allergic" to kids. She loves my daughter though as long as she's "easy"

That was very unkind Rach51

I have to say I DID sit around watching a lot of telly with DS.

Now my gripe is people asking when I’m having another. I need a girl apparently.

"I'll never let my kid do that"

I’m also genuinely interested in why people who are happily child free are on mumsnet? Initially because I have a stepchild, and now mostly because there are thousands of funny and interesting discussions on here which are nothing to do with having children.
Exactly.

The comparing baby to a pet comments are the worst - plus the people who just assume you can come to an exhibition/gallery type thing with a toddler, or can’t understand why you need to be home at a certain time or eat by a certain time if you’re going out for the day.

I thought the sleep deprivation with a newborn was much worse than anything else I’ve ever experienced - including caring for a terminally ill relative. With being a carer there were things like respite care, overnight carers from the hospice, help with washing, dressing and feeding - effectively loads of other people to share the load with. Plus the relative mostly slept and was in bed so no need to walk them round the room to try and get them to sleep, hold them all the time or take them out. We did the newborn thing with no family support and that was a nightmare because there simply was no alternative but to stay up all night. And it is grim in the early weeks when you don’t even get a smile, just a small, red, angry-looking baby bawling at you!

I looked after a dying relative when young. There was very little help available. That did include constantly seeing to her at night, changing adult sized nappies, spoon feeding, wiping snotty noses, etc. Basically she could not do even simple things. I think that was harder than looking after most babies. I used to cry every single day

This. Unless your child has severe disabilities or life-limiting illness, you have the knowledge that she is going to get progressively more independent and that you'll have the joy of seeing her grow up, to see you through the tough times. Caring for a sick or dying adult has none of those compensations - you know that things can only get worse. Plus, all the practical side - dressing, bathing, dealing with incontinence is 100 times etc harder for an adult who can't just be picked up.

This is a smug and nasty thread.

"You look great, you've really lost weight."

Yes, I'm no longer growing another human.

And "sleep when the baby does" . Not confined to childless people. Great advice, I'll clean when they do, and cook when they do too shall I?

When I went back part time from maternity leave and was invited to an in-house lunch meeting with a buffet, a colleague said "are you just having half a lunch now you work part-time?" :-/

Oh, and, the person who said, in response to me saying that I’d love it if DD would sleep longer before waking in the morning ‘just put her to bed later’!

If it was that easy...

I thought this thread was mostly going to be hearing stuff like:

"yesterday, I lay in bed all day long because I got so drunk the night before. I puked everywhere but I had to just leave it and it took me all day, today, to clean it all up. Plus I watched a shit load of crap telly. Plus I lost my keys and credit cards & I think I may have pranged the car. It's gonna cost a fortune to fix all that, but Wow what a great night out! Can't wait to do that again."

Coz that sounds very other worldly when you're a half-responsible parent of young kids.

When DD was a few months old she started kicking off on a bus for seemingly no reason. I was trying all sorts to chill her. Some woman gave me the death stare and asked me why I hadn't learnt how to keep her quiet yet Because yes, I am simply just ignoring her even though you can see I am trying, I simply have not found a young babies off switch yet. She then went on to inform me that I just needed to 'train' her to be quiet on command as it was easy to teach her puppy to do this 10 years ago. Whole convo was weird tbh, I still wonder if she was just a bit drunk or genuinely daft, or taking the piss entirely.

Actually I have one that was a childless (at the time) me being the insensitive and silly one.

When my sister told me she was pregnant again, for some reason the first thing that came out of my mouth was not 'congratulations' or anything nice. It was...'enjoy labour, you hated it last time'. Still don't understand that now

I think that the bottom line is that caring for a loved one is a huge responsibility. I came very close to losing my daughter from Sepsis 6 weeks ago and have never experienced anything so awful . I had to take time off when I was at work ( have now quit) and got zero support from the NHS Trust I worked for ( you got one and a half days compassionate leave paid and the rest you had to take as Annual Leave) . I have now given up work for the time being and had worked for 30 years prior to this .

Honeyroar, sorry to hear that you have to deal with such stressful circumstances in your life especially when it's close relatives. I wish you all the best.

A lot of parents are a bit pathetic about it though. How do they think people manage elsewhere, where you get 3 months maternity or even less? Of course you should be able to cook a meal as well as care for a baby, once the first few weeks are over

The woman that has always been my closest friend but who I now struggle to relate to was late twice to meet me for lunch in the fortnightly couple of hours break I had from my extremely intense baby son. She left me waiting in a restaurant wasting such precious time only to turn up to explain that she’s just had soooo much sleep the night before she’d lost track and the next time that she had lost track of time whilst meditating. She was then genuinely miffed that I didn’t want to share my food with her when I cook every night, never get cooked for and rarely eat out and she seems to dine out all the time. Next time I have a few free hours to myself I won’t be making s lunch date with hrt. Quite sad really.

I looked after a dying relative when young. There was very little help available. That did include constantly seeing to her at night, changing adult sized nappies, spoon feeding, wiping snotty noses, etc. Basically she could not do even simple things. I think that was harder than looking after most babies. I used to cry every single day

@Selmaandjubjub
These two things are as comparable as thinking having a child and a dog are the same.

Entirely different ‘work’, I was my Grandads full time carer for two and a half years, including all the above things. I was prechildren and would have agreed with your statement at the time. In actual fact they are nothing alike at all. Emotionally and physically difficult in completely different ways.

I quite agree. Caring for an adult, particularly one that is chronically or terminally ill is a thousand times more difficult that caring for your own child. Emotionally and physically.

Where they are similar is that both cases are finite. In the case of your child it is because they are growing more independent.
In the case of,your chronically kr terminally ill loved one it is because they have either deteriorated so much that they are needing a care home, or they are dead.

This isn’t a competition of who has it hardest guys. I’m so over this thread now, it was started with the hopes that people would have a bit of a giggle at the things we may have said before having dc or we’ve heard since having children, not a huge slagging match of who’s got the crappiest hand dealt, people with kids, people with pets, people caring for the sick or elderly OR people doing all of plus a full time job?! Since when was that the point. All these comments that revolve around that BS have been written only to appease themselves, no ones starting a war over who’s lives are the hardest and if we don’t live each other’s lives then how will we ever truly know?! I’m getting the thread removed, it’s been watered down but complete and utter nonsense that’s unrelated to the whole point in it. And to be told that the thread is smug and nasty?! How ludicrous. I don’t believe anyone actually stopped to think YES he parents that are actually commenting on this that have a similar sense of humour to myself and understand what the thread meant may have still felt like their responsibilities and hardships of being a parent were undermined by silly make even comments that did sting st the time BUT WE LOOK BACK AND LAUGH. And for all those commenting hat don’t have children and then answering a pp saying ‘we come on mumsnet for the posts not about boring children’ DONT COMMENT ON MY THREAD ABOUT BORING PARENT/CHILDREN STUFF? And also the actual tag line of mumsnet is ‘by parents for parents’ so do one.

I hate it when ppl get cheesed of with us explaining our baby's as 8 months old 12 months old 18 months old.... there's a massive difference from 12 month old baby to a 18month old I think u have to be a parent to get it

tbh I found other parents were just as useless at predicting what my life as a parent would be like

oh you won't be able to do such and such (watch me!)

by such and such an age this problem will be over (no, it isn't!)

the only way to make children behave is to do this (totally has the opposite effect on mine!)

looking back, I don't really see a difference between childless people and people will children in understanding what my life has been like: the difference is between sensible people and people who thinks everybody is them

Oh for goodness sake, OP - get a grip (no malice intended)