To think people who say "it doesn't get any easier" should f@@@ off!

[Useruseruser91]

This is more a rant than an AIBU but why do strangers say this?

This morning I'm walking back from the park with my 3 year old. 3 year old is happy and messing about, I'm smiling but also trying to encourage him to speed up so we can get home. A woman walks past us and says very loudly and with a dead pan face "I would love to tell you it gets better, but it doesn't".

What is she trying to achieve by saying this apart from making me feel shit? I remember being told this a lot when DS was a screaming baby and it really did make me feel utterly awful and hopeless. I wish people would keep their opinions to themselves, I think it comes from a place of nastiness.

I got this the other day when I was out with my 3 and 4 year old.
The woman who had said it had 2 children around age 9.
When I said 'I know I have an 18 year old and that it gets much much worse' her face was a picture .
I do infact have an 18 year old wasnt just saying it, and no imo it does not get worse just have different things to worry about or overcome.

I'm sure it's meant to be empathetic, but that is no guarantee it's not also a stupid and insensitive thing to say. The people who come up to someone who's just lost a child and say 'I felt the same when my poodle died' probably mean well, too.

Oh I hate those sorts of comments.
That and if you say something like "I'm really enjoying this stage" people will say "oh you wait till they're teenagers". Piss on my chips why don't you. I think people just like to be miserable or put you in your place or something.

I have a 10 and 20 year old. Sure, different challenges (failed Uni exams, DS2 struggling with his Dad), but it's a heck of lot easier than it was when they were 3. I mean I can go to the loo, I can sleep all night, I have time in the evening. I actually have less time to do the things I enjoy out of the home (mainly sport) because I am now a single mother and mostly it's just me and DS2 at home, but abusive marriage aside it's still easier.

I tell you what doesn't get any easier....the phone thing! They Always Know When You're On The Phone. Even the bloody 20 year old will want something when I'm chatting to my sis for 10 mins!

It’s a bloody horrible thing to say to someone who is struggling and YANBU.
A woman in a supermarket once said it to me when my son was about 2 and flipping out over something minor. I said “thanks very much that’s really helpful” and marched out crying. That was about 8 years ago and I still remember it. For the record - life has got SO MUCH EASIER since then and I make a point of saying so to anyone who I see having a hard time.

It is meant to be an empathetic/solidarity thing, but god forbid some stranger should try to talk to you and show that they do get it and you're not alone.
Parenting does get easier in some respects, harder in others. The problems as they get older can be much more difficult to overcome. Just as you think you've mastered one aspect, wham! They hit you with something else.
The fact that you're peeved that someone just tried to pass the time of day with a comment that was supposed to be light hearted is just a bit sad really. And if you're the woman in GP on Saturday who I said this to, I'm sorry if I offended you by bothering to talk to you.

You haven't hit the teen years yet Byker! 😂

t is meant to be an empathetic/solidarity thing, but god forbid some stranger should try to talk to you and show that they do get it and you're not alone.

Solidarity would be saying something supportive like "it's hard some times isn't it" "it does get better" "mine is like that sometimes" "I remember those days" etc etc etc! Saying it doesn't get better is not solidarity even if it is said with that intention. I have no problem with a stranger talking to me btw

No I haven’t hit teens yet. And if my teens are horrendous I hope I won’t go around laughing at people about what an awful time they have in front of them. What a shitty way to behave.

t is meant to be an empathetic/solidarity thing, but god forbid some stranger should try to talk to you and show that they do get it and you're not alone.

Solidarity would be saying something supportive like "it's hard some times isn't it" "it does get better" "mine is like that sometimes" "I remember those days" etc etc etc! Saying it doesn't get better is not solidarity even if it is said with that intention. I have no problem with a stranger talking to me btw, there's nicer ways of doing it

ha
I say that all the time , and mine are in their 30's

And it is so bloody true , at least when they are kids you can send them to bed and know where they are , and they dont have the big dramatic relationship breakups , or the financial worries that comes with having small children .... which we as parents coped with , but of course your feel your kids will never be able to cope

And of course just to add a bit more fun to your life , your own parents starting getting frail and you worry about them

they are the reason they invented flavoured gin
[plus its fun to know you arent the only ones in the same boat

I’ve never heard this said, ever!

I must have heard “It gets easier as they get older”, which it does, a million times!!

I could have written this myself after I had my first. I was on six months of not getting more than 3 hours sleep in a row, my son had just had open heart surgery, I was suffering from post natal depression and on my own away from friends and family with my military husband who had been sent away.
'Helpful' comments like this could really push me over the edge some days, I get that people want to let you know in some ways that they feel solidarity with you and that parenting is tough...but it honestly used to make me cry. We are going through terrible twos currently, no it's not easy but I am out of the haze of no sleep and have recovered from the huge freight train shock of actually becoming a mother.
I'll take supermarket tantrums over PND and zero sleep coupled with feeling like a complete failure any day.

Mil use to say stuff like this all the time when mine were little. I was v very young so it scared me a bit. She’d be like “Oo just wait til she’s crawling/ walking/ starts school/ you’re potty training/ you have another one!”

I also find this annoying. Yes of course the worries are still there and change but I've found it definitely EASIER as the earliest years pass. I'm absolutely certain that primary school years are much easier than say a teething one year old or a tantrumming two year old or constantly pooing three year old. Teenage years may be tough - yet to reach those - but there's definitely a period of calm in between toddler years and teenage years.

YANBU - I don't think it's a supportive thing to say at all, although they probably meant nothing by it. I remember I had this during pregnancy: I had a terrible second trimester with a couple of late miscarriage / premature labour scares and lots of pain, and people kept telling me to "just wait for my third trimester", and "it's going to get so much worse" which made me feel awful for struggling. (And turns out, my third trimester (including labour) was a dream compared to the first and second one).