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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

You can’t understand, unless you’re a mother

182 replies

PerfectionistProcrastinator · 23/11/2018 14:40

I was having a conversation today with two colleagues about a lady that we know. She is currently going though a difficult time worrying about her young adult DS.

We were all in agreement that the lady in question must be going through a terrible time at the moment when one of them (a mother in her 40s) says that our other colleague and myself could not possibly understand how it feels until we are mothers ourselves. This is not the first time that this person has suggested that people without children could not fully relate to a situation.

AIBU to be irritated by this?

I am 34, my partner and I have been trying for a baby for a year since our miscarriage at 12 weeks. She knows that I would love nothing more than to be a mother myself.

OP posts:
abacucat · 23/11/2018 16:35

And some on here are talking about situations as a mother as though all mothers are the same.
So you may not be able to hear about a child being hurt as it upsets you too much as a mother. Meanwhile I know mothers who work in child protection and deal with levels of abuse to children that most non parents could not deal with.
Or you may not have been able to understand what real sleep deprivation is like, but the childless woman I know with a husband with alzheimers does, as he rarely sleeps more than an hour and tries to do dangerous things all the time.She looks on her knees with exhaustion.
This idea that every mother magically understands what other mothers think and feel is just part of the mystification of motherhood.

Hidillyho · 23/11/2018 16:36

I don’t think you can truely understand until you are in that position. Even as a parent.
I think I would know what it feels like to have an ill child, but I don’t have one so although I can have empathy, maybe slightly more than someone who isn’t a parent, I won’t actually know unless it happens to me.
This goes for anything, giving birth, dying, being hit by a car, having cancer, eating chocolate etc etc.

TalkingOrmer · 23/11/2018 16:41

My self-proclaimed Earth mother "D" SIL used to say this all the time even about random crap. All the time she knew I was struggling with miscarriage after miscarriage.

I often wanted to say to her "you'd understand if you ever held down a job".

Funnily enough 3 out of 4 of her kids are no-contact with her now.

irnbruforlife · 23/11/2018 16:41

People say things all the time that they dont mean to be offensive/rude but are taken offensively/rudely. I doubt the colleague meant to offend the op and just said it as way of conversation as a phrase which many people find to be true.

abacucat · 23/11/2018 16:43

And some people are just idiots. Like my "D" F who told a man with lung cancer who was coughing all the time and exhausted, that he didnt know what real tiredness was like as he did not have kids.

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 23/11/2018 16:44

I never get why mothers having a greater understanding of being a mother is such a divisive topic. Of course a non parent can be sympathetic to the problems or worries of having a child but it is different.
If I was passing comment on drug abuse and someone pointed out i have so experience of such I would agree- and if they did, their opinion would hold more weight.

Worriedmummybekind · 23/11/2018 16:46

I found these kind of comments hurtful for similar reasons OP...although now I actually agree. Motherhood is a huge and cataclysmic change. It’s hard to understand until you’ve been there. I really didn’t believe that until it happened to me. Confused sorry.

It’s totally unnecessary and pointless and hurtful to say it. I would never say this to someone in real life.

StarsAndMoonlight · 23/11/2018 16:46

Again, YANBU to be irritated but she is correct.

Not only that but it always makes me smile when parents of under 1s talk about how easy it is. If you have a sleeper without feeding issues, it really can be.

Just wait until the school years start.
And the then teenage years.
And then the university years...

I couldn't relate to the parents of teenagers when I had a 12 year old and I couldn't relate to the parents of university students until mine became one...

Letshopeitsallok · 23/11/2018 16:47

We just look at each other and say 'Those poor parents - their baby is gone' or 'How could they do that to that innocent child?' or 'I don't know what we'd do if that happened to our DS'

The first two sentences anyone could say. Childless people are also horrified by the same news stories. The last one, anyone with any empathy could imagine if it happened to someone they loved.

Swansandducks · 23/11/2018 16:47

Onlyfools in this case there was no need to make a difference between whether the OP had children or not. She was sympathising and empathising with the mother.

And so often people with children make stupid generalised comments:

"You don't know what tiredness is"
You don't know what worry is"

so rude and insulting to the childless people who have had their own problems, illnesses, difficulties etc.

WorraLiberty · 23/11/2018 16:47

I was going to say that OnlyFools.

I can sympathise and empathise with someone who is wheelchair bound but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have a much greater understanding if I was disabled myself.

mostdays · 23/11/2018 16:48

I think yanbu to be upset due to your personal difficult situation, but I don't think she's wrong.

Swansandducks · 23/11/2018 16:48

Yet worriedmummy you have no problem coming onto a public forum and saying them.

Gatehouse77 · 23/11/2018 16:48

I think she misunderstood your empathy for how your colleague was feeling with the cause of those feelings.

You don't have to have had the same experience to have empathy with the feeling of despair, frustration, sadness, joy, excitement, etc.

Clothrabbit · 23/11/2018 16:51

But Worraliberty, this mother was going through a specific worry about her son. So no, other mothers didn't necessarily understand better than any other human being.

JellycatElfie · 23/11/2018 16:51

I do think it’s probably sort of true, I know my own perspective dramatically changed on things when I became a mother but it’s insensitive to say especially as she knows your history. I’m sorry for your loss by the way.
I also think that there’s lots of things you can’t fully understand unless you’ve experienced them - breaking a leg for example! It doesn’t mean you can’t have empathy for them though.

MrsStrowman · 23/11/2018 16:52

It's nonsense OP, you don't have to have been in the situation to understand and empathise. I worked for years with victims of sexual and domestic violence, I had not been in the position they had it didn't mean I was unable to understand

WorraLiberty · 23/11/2018 16:52

Swansandducks to be fair to worriedmummy, the OP did start this thread. It's not like she randomly said those things to someone without any thought.

The thread title is pretty clear too, to anyone about to open it.

Workreturner · 23/11/2018 16:53

@Leighhalfpennysthigh

I meant that it would pee me off to be thought of as one generic group with same feelings etc

Worriedmummybekind · 23/11/2018 16:55

Swansandducks - fair point. Was trying to honest to a direct question. Apologies if it upset anyone.

WorraLiberty · 23/11/2018 16:55

Clothrabbit I'm pretty sure if specific experience of the actual problem was necessary, the woman wouldn't have said what she did. She would probably have said to everyone in the room "Unless you have experience of XYZ" you can't understand.

She's obviously talking about the depth of emotion...not the actual problem itself.

drspouse · 23/11/2018 16:58

I felt sad and angry about bad things happening to children before I had any.
I feel upset and worried about things my older DN is going through, which my DCs won't go through (because we are not opting out of things that will benefit our DCs on principle like my DB is). I felt like that before I had my own DCs.

abacucat · 23/11/2018 16:58

*Not only that but it always makes me smile when parents of under 1s talk about how easy it is. If you have a sleeper without feeding issues, it really can be.

Just wait until the school years start.
And the then teenage years.
And then the university years...*

You do know some mothers do have easy children?

captainproton · 23/11/2018 17:00

I think anyone who has experienced miscarriage or stillbirth and unfortunately not yet had a successful pregnancy probably understand much more than people realise. IMO the moment you become pregnant your whole focus and purpose changes to that tiny little bean growing inside us.

Geekster1963 · 23/11/2018 17:01

Yes she was tactless OP. If not entirely wrong.

I had six miscarriages before we had DD and people were often tactless the amount of times people asked if we wanted to have children (to be fair they didn’t know about the miscarriages), broke my heart. I wanted to say ‘desperately’, but didn’t want to explain it to them.

I think when you have lost babies and or are trying to convince these kind of comments hurt even more. I can understand why it upset you.

I wish you good luck with conceiving and your next pregnancy.