To feel really upset by this Facebook comment

[Kourt14]

I'm 24 and currently 11 weeks pregnant with my first. Haven't announced yet as it's still early.

My sister in law (DH unmarried sister, so shares same surname as me) is pregnant and has announced on Facebook last week at 20 weeks. I put a little status up this morning just to say so excited they'll be another little baby surname to love in 2019, and how happy I was to have a little niece or nephew on the way.

One of my old college friends commented saying "Jesus fucking Christ I thought you were going to say you are pregnant. Don't do that to me!" It got 23 likes which seemed bizarre, lots of other old college friends (who I don't spend time with anymore and aren't as settled as me) all started commenting. There's now 15 comments from people saying "Oh thank god, I thought you were saying you were pregnant!" "You gave me a heart attack" "Another one who had a panic attack then, thank god you said niece!"

I'm really upset. I'm not far off it announcing it to my friends and family and this is the reaction? What's wrong with me being pregnant? Yes all my old friends are in a very different place, single, going out all the time.. but I'm married? We own a house? I have all but lost touch with them all, haven't spoken directly or hung out in years just wish happy birthday on Facebook etc, I just find it really odd and hurtful.

It might be hormones and fully ok with being told I'm over reacting but I've had a right cry over it

As lots of PPs have said, I doubt it was meant in a negative way about what you would be like as a parent. They're probably just talking about the general cliché of being in your twenties and suddenly every time you look on facebook a different friend from school/uni is engaged or pregnant. I'm pregnant at the moment (I'm 26) and am the first of my really close group of school friends to have a baby and they were happy but a bit "oh god, I'm getting to the age where my friends are having babies! When did that happen?"

That said, I think people should be a bit careful saying things like that to people they're not really close to, for the very reason that they could easily be pregnant and then you have to hastily backtrack "no no, I was definitely kidding!! I can't wait for your baby! I love babies!"

Get rid of Facebook. You'll be a lot happier.

I remember when the first of my old school friendship group got pregnant at age 25 - it was a massive mental readjustment as although people who I'd lost touch with had probably had babies by then everyone I was still in contact with (this was pre social media) was living in shared houses in London working long hours but also going out loads, perhaps doing postgrad study at the same time, certainly not thinking of having babies, or at uni elsewhere full time doing postgraduate study or off abroad in interesting places doing non child friendly working holiday type things...

Objectively 24 or 25 is not ridiculously young, but if all your friends are in a totally different life phase the idea of one of their group of peers being pregnant will feel incongruous. As others say, as they rarely see you any more they won't have readjusted their mental image of you and your lifestyle, and will see you as the same as them and you being pregnant as shocking because they'd be shaken up and not necessarily happy if it were them. They possibly don't want to think about any of their old friends "moving on" into parenthood!

I have all but lost touch with them all, haven't spoken directly or hung out in years just wish happy birthday on Facebook etc, I just find it really odd and hurtful.

It's probably just that ^^

If you haven't spoken to them in years, they'll have forgotten you're married and will have no idea of your living arrangements either.

As PP's have said, they probably just think you're at the same 'footloose and free' part of your life that they are.

Congratulations btw

I would have been shocked if I’d got pregnant at 24 because I only graduated at 22. I was in a flatshare and very much just trying to start my career.
Obviously your life is very different but people can’t helo thinking of themselves at your age (particularly if they are your age).

It’s nothing to do with them thinking you’d be a crap mother, and everything to do with them feeling too young to have children themselves. They don’t feel ready to be ‘grown up’ yet and therefore can’t imagine that any of their peers are.

THey are just FB comments. People try to write amusing stuff and don’t think about it too much.

If it were me I would announce my pregnancy in the same thread, but I have that kind of humour.

Get rid of Facebook. You'll be a lot happier.

This. Especially as it seems like most of your "friends" are dicks.

Congrats OP. Maybe stick to whatsapp with actual close friends and family in future.

They don’t feel ready to be ‘grown up’ yet and therefore can’t imagine that any of their peers are

Exactly. And judging by their comments, they're right about themselves!

It was all probably just light hearted. I quit Facebook some years ago and re-joined for a few months after my son was born as I wanted to join local baby/selling groups. I changed my profile photo to one of me and my baby son as I felt it would be appropriate for all the baby related groups, and some of my old friends immediately commented stuff like "holy shit, is that kid yours?!" I think they just couldn't believe it as I'm probably the least maternal person in our old group of friends, and I was a bit of a pisshead back in the day too, so maybe not the person who you would imagine to go and have kids. 😅 They're all nice people though and there was no malice in the banter so I just took it with a pinch of salt. I've since abandoned all social media because I feel like I'm too old for it and can't get excited about sharing my life with randomers or looking at other people's holiday photos (each to their own though 😊), so I haven't got that issue any more.

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP! You should totally announce it on Facebook now though because their reaction would be hilarious!

It's a risk you take when you live your life on Facebook. People tend to write things they wouldn't say to your face and there is no visual context to explain it.
Get used to it, or leave Facebook as so many others have done.

I got married when I was 23 and had DD at 25. I'm now 27 and none of my old school friends are even close to having kids. Most are saying they would wait until their 30s or have recently got engaged so it will probably be a few more years.

Your friends probably feel because THEY aren't ready that neither are you, which is obviously nonsense. I think they are a bit insensitive though and I hope they apologise if/when you announce your own pregnancy.

It's not about you OP, it's about being the first in your cohort to do the baby thing. It's milestones. First one in a group to get engaged, married, baby, divorced, turn 30/40/50. It's just marking time and getting older. Congratulations OP on a new exciting phase in your life becoming a Parent.

Whether you are 24 or 44, It’s nobody else’s business, I hate this FB crap.

Congratulations

To add to the comments above, that would've been my reaction too, along the lines of 'you idiot, tying yourself down with a puking pooping machine'. Women with babies? They were stupid. But, you know what? I was jealous of women who were pg, or had babies, and I never realised it until I fell pg myself. It was only then that I stopped making those kind of remarks and realised how happy I was to be pg and how resentful I had been of others :)

Those comments are all about them, not you. Just because they aren’t ready (and therefore cannot possibly image ANYONE their age being ready) doesn’t mean that you are not ready to have a baby.

Congratulations! They may well envy you in 20 years time when you’re young enough to enjoy having older kids and time to yourself again. I know slightly envy one of my old school freinds, her kid had just left uni and I was still on nappies.

You say you've all but lost touch with them anyway, so why not unfriend them before you get around to announcing your own pregnancy? You don't need them in your life if they're going to be like that about it.

To those saying get rid of FB, I agree there are aspects of it that can be negative, but it can also be fun and a nice way of interacting with people you don't get to see that much. It all depends on how you use it. I only "friend" people I know and use it for messaging them, and I only post about light-hearted everyday stuff. I have about 100 friends and I genuinely enjoy going in and looking at what they've all been up to.

I think they’re just commenting that from how you worded it (and the fact you posted it as your own status) it looked like you were deliberately trying to trick people into thinking it was your announcement until the end. Like those awful statuses where people put a scan photo and a big long status then ‘I don’t know whose photo this is’ at the end. They were just saying that they fell for your joke. Which it would appear from this thread you weren’t trying to make?

pressed too soon - ignore them. They are not at your stage of life. When you do announce it, hopefully they will eat their words. Congratulations. It's wonderful that your baby will have a little cousin of almost the same age.

Why not just congratulate your SiL personally, or among family, instead of announcing it to a bunch of people that you've "all but lost touch with"?

I read it as she was worried her party buddy was becoming a mum.
‘Don’t do that to me’ is not something you say to someone who you think will be a crap mum.
Congratulations x

Yule I agree. Making it your own status and only using "niece" at the end makes the natural thought process assume you're pregnant....then realise you're not at the end.

I heartily recommend leaving facebook. I'm much happier off it. You only bother being in touch with the people you really care about and this shit doesn't happen.

I'd say def not a comment on you. - they're just thinking yikes she's married and pregnant and I haven't even got a boyfriend/girlfriend etc.
Congratulations and agree it will be wonderful to have similar age cousins. There is 15 year gap between the nearest two in our family and I have none!

How odd. Why do you think they would say that?