Things you should never say in front of childless women

[Clothrabbit]

Just following on from another thread I started, what things have childless women on here had said to or in front of them, or read celebs spouting in public, that really hurt or upset them.

For me:

You don't know what real responsibility is until you have a child.
Having a child makes you less selfish.

However, it isn’t primal in the same way. That all consuming intensity isn’t there. As a mother, there’s a tiny voice in the back of my head that is always screaming, ‘Where are they?’ ‘Are they safe?’ And I mean always. All day every day. It doesn’t take over your life (well it does for some women but that’s unhealthy and they need support) because you rationalise it and learn to control it but it is there from the moment they’re born to the moment you die.

Now, to me (as a childfree by choice woman) that sounds like the very opposite of love, which to me is an ethereal thing, unbound by duty or commitment.

What the PP describes sounds like anxiety-ridden co-dependency. It's not necessarily a bad thing - I've got a mother, presumably that sort of feeling kept me alive during my formative years and for that I'm very grateful, obviously - but it DOESN'T sound like what I think of as love.

Ergo there is no such thing as 'real' love, because it's purely subjective.

I'm sorry for your losses, @Helpmefindaholiday, and certainly not thinking of 'top trumps' . I'm just trying to make the point that any one person can only speak about the intensity of an emotion relative to other emotions they themselves have experienced. People who don't have children may find other outlets for intense love - other people in their lives may become more important because in the absence of children they are all they have.

I wouldn't say it to someone but I don't believe you know real love until you have your own kids.

Fucks sake

@ThistleAmore, it is love but I’m broadly in agreement with you. Although I don’t personally have undue anxiety, a good many mothers do.
And yes, it isn’t that endorphin releasing, feel good emotion that one equates with love before they become a parent. As I said upthread, the love I feel for DH is one that makes me happy and content. Parental love is bloody amazing and bloody hideous all at the same time. We almost need a separate word for it because it probably is a very different emotion entirely.

'What the PP describes sounds like anxiety-ridden co-dependency. '

I agree. It sounds oppressive and suffocating to me. 'Love' is a very subjective term

If you lose your spouse that sadness will always be there but it is possible to move on and eventually be happy again whilst always acknowledging that love and loss.

Really? How would you know? I feel the loss of my husband as a visceral, physical pain every day for the last 6 years and I will never not do so.

My father feels the same about my mother.

Many widowed friends - both sexes, kids or not - feel. The . Same.

i always find it strange when a childless person argues the point that they understand they same level of tiredness that a parent does

I'll see your tiredness & raise you. I don't have children but I have medical conditions which make me so tired I've barely got out of bed for 2 days. Tiredness isn't a competition you know. You don't however have the monopoly on it. I'd never say someone doesn't know what it's like to be so tired/in pain until they have my medical conditions. I

Thank you @ScreamingValenta. I just meant I don’t understand competitive love any more than I understand competitive grief. To me comparing parental love to other love is like comparing apples to oranges. They are so vastly different. Although certainly losing my mother in particular was horrific and my grief was intense so I in no way seek to diminish the love felt for family members.

All this ‘I’d die for my kids’ just sounds to me like we’re genetically programmed to ensure the survival of offspring. Which we are.

Leighhalfpennysthigh sorry for your loss. I was going to write effectively the same post (I haven’t personally lost a spouse). It’s amazing that posters continue to tell others how they feel. Supremely arrogant.

'I said that the word family is applied to any family member, not just children'

Yes, in theory, you could take your mum along, but it's intended to mean parents and their young children. And not everyone has a family or sees their family. Calling it a 'community' event would be much more inclusive

And by the way I lost 4 children. Yes, they were my children though people like some on this thread dismissed them as "just" a miscarriage. Not at 12, 14, 14 and 18 weeks they weren't.

Oh FFS, I am not being arrogant. I am not saying every spouse can move on or that the loss of a spouse is easy to recover from. I was merely pointing out that it’s a different kind of loss. Not everyone will want to move on or be able to move on emotionally after the loss of their partner. But with time, many do. That’s just a fact, not a judgement. I was merely pointing out that parental love is different because no way ever do bereaved parents ever move on.
I’m sorry for your loss, Leigh. I wasn’t dismissing your feelings or playing down how devastating the loss of a spouse can be.

@PurpleDaisies . This thread is descending into shit as we continuously get parentsplained. Thank you. In tears here tonight.

I was merely pointing out that parental love is different because no way ever do bereaved parents ever move on

I know several parents who have “moved on”. Not that they ever forget their child-they carry the loss with them but it hasn’t stopped them living. I really don’t want to minimise what an awful trauma it is but it isn’t right to say that a parent who lost a child couldn’t move forward in the same way that someone who lost a spouse could.

Leigh, I'm so very sorry for your loss. The way you feel makes perfect sense to me

'Parentsplained' - great word. And very bloody irritating

Don’t people realise that saying ‘you really should have children, you just can’t understand until you experience it’ is, for some people, like a lottery winner telling their broke friends ‘you just can’t understand it until you experience it, you really should win the lottery’?

I want children so badly that it hurts. I don’t need to be told what an incredible experience I am missing out on. I KNOW.

This is bloody ridiculous! No one knows what anyone else feels , how can you compare a feeling ? Who knows whether I love my DD more than the next person loves their husband ?

Who knows whether one persons grief is worse than another's ?

We should just accept that we all have feelings and be considerate towards people .

It's not a frigging competition .

@Helpmefindaholiday you are not helping. Really, I'm p sure your intentions are kind, but continuing to repeat the things that a lot of us are saying rip us to shreds is cruel. I, sure you don't mean to be, but a lot of people don't mean the harm they cause.

Sometimes all we want is for parents to read our thoughts and understand. Not try to explain things from your perspective - you can do that on a million threads on this forum, but to just listen and maybe, just maybe, understand.

We wanted to be parents very, very much. So much so that we put ourselves through the hell that is IVF 4 times. Each time ended in a miscarriage and the fourth a hysterectomy. My husband, my soulmate, the man who instinctively understood and knew me from the day we met, was so heartbroken and so depressed by his inability to be a father, to make me a mother and, yes, this fucking smug child centric world we live in, that he killed himself.

I will never get over that. Ever.

@lisasimpsonssaxophone I know lovely.

I have been reasoned and supportive throughout this thread. I posted earlier in support of child free posters and agreed that lots of the nonsense spouted was just that; nonsense. I haven’t said anything offensive to anyone. I haven’t said everyone can move on from widowhood, just that many people can. That doesn’t diminish their love nor their loss. The loss of my parents and then my sister broke my heart. I grieved deeply for many years and I still feel it now. But I can now also remember good times and I feel a little less bitter and I no longer cry every day. I have been able to cope with the intense grief. But I know that intensity doesn’t ever leave bereaved parents. Nothing in their life can ever be the same again. Many bereaved parents state they haven’t felt happiness in 30 or 40yrs as if time for them stopped that day. They describe themselves as ‘living dead’.
I am not overbearing or overly anxious. That’s just motherhood. It’s not a pleasant feature of motherhood, it’s just something you learn to put up with.

There really isn’t any need to attack me, call me arrogant and suggest my love for my children is abnormal or suffocating. There’s no need for nastiness.

@lisasimpsonssaxophone we're with you, you aren't alone

There’s no need for nastiness

No there isn't. But this is a sensitive topic for many of us and yes, we do take offence. I am not going to apologise for that. And I've lost a mother too, it was heartbreaking, but nothing like the pain I felt at losing my husband or my 4 miscarriages.

So sorry for your loss **Leighhalfpennysthigh

I'm childfree by choice (I have two stepkids who I adore) and I've been told:

• I don't know what sleep deprivation is (I'm disabled and in chronic pain, I do know what sleep deprivation is).
• I don't know what I'm missing.
• I'm selfish.
• I'm lazy. See above!
• I just haven't met the right man yet.
• I've been asked to change days off work that I'd booked because I don't have kids and so & so wants to take the kids to Alton Towers etc etc and this is the only day her hubby can take off.

I'm past baby-bearing age now and I only wish I'd been sharp enough to retort asking why the person had chosen to have children. If they can dish it out, they should be ready to take it back. Not having children is a subject many, many people think they have the right to comment on. They don't and should mind their own business.