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

Absolutely! It is tough and exhausting but all the positives are things that you can't properly imagine before you have them - just as I couldn't imagine how exhausted I feel, I couldn't begin to imagine how happy they make me of how much I love them. We had a really tough time with me being sick and them being in hospital a long time, then all sorts of other issues, but I'd do it all again to have them, no question in my mind. My only regret is not doing it sooner when my mum was still alive. We were scared to have kids then but I really wish we weren't!

So when non parents say to you that they are really happy or feeling really in love or whatever, do you think "yeah but it's not as great as the happiness/love you'd get from children and just currently can't imagine" in the same way you'd think they didn't know what real tiredness was? Genuine question again.

Well I can only say that I thought I was happy, knew love etc before kids, and I was and did - but for me it is different, and although I though I could understand how much I'd love my own kids, personally I couldn't ever have understood until I had them. I'm not saying that people who don't have kids aren't really happy or don't really know what love is, not at all. But it is different, and I don't think there's any way to realistically understand how it feels until you have them. Obviously it's a big leap of faith to then have them when you can see all the negatives but can't feel the positives.

Also, some people really don't want children and are happier without them and that's great if that's what makes them happy.

one of my friends has no children. (Well actually lots of my friends don't...)
The thing which riles her above all else is parents telling her "you don't know what you're missing". Especially when those parents are her neighbours, and she has heard quite a lot of what she is "missing" through the walls

I suppose my point is that everyone's experience of love is different. People want different things from life. Therefore, as a parent I don't think "yeah but it's not as great as the happiness/love you'd get from children and just currently can't imagine".