Comments that people with kids make to people with no kids

[lastqueenofscotland]

Just to flip the other thread on its head.
I am childfree by choice, I don’t hate children, I was a nanny for a number of years. I enjoy spending time with my friends children, but for various reasons it’s never been right for me. However some people with children have made some howlers of comments about this.

My two favourites remain
“You’ll grow out of it” as obviously not wanting children is hugely immature.

“You must just not have met someone you love enough or you’d want children with them” this drives me backwards as I ended up breaking up with someone I adored because he was desperate for a family.

Thecat: and me! Nothing worse than drifting off for what would inevitably be a few hour stint at the very most (as usual) to wake up to a hungry baby a few minutes later and knowing that was probably your only shot at sleep. I'm not comfortable taking anything either as I don't want to risk being too deeply asleep to not hear baby (although none of them really worked for me anyway).

I still don't care if I'm more tired with or without children though, it doesn't help me to sleep any better, and plenty of people for a plethora of reasons will be in a similar or more savage boat. I find it weird people are so competitive with it, and haven't encountered it in real life, thankfully- pre or post child.

I say nothing worse in the context of insomnia and a baby, I imagine there's almost an infinite combination of things which are worse.

Nothing compares to tiredness caused by having to defend your right to say you are really tired when not having a baby.....

@TheUltimateGoober This actually disgusts me. Do people genuinely not realise that evolution has made them feel this 'love' so that they don't yeet their offspring into a river?! It's not a higher form of love - IT'S A TRICK!!!! (Plus, self love crystallised....)

Right. And so is orgasm - IT'S A TRICK!!!! to make you want to have sex and reproduce.

And so is food tasting good - IT'S A TRICK!!!! to make you eat food so you don't die.

And so is drinking water when you're thirsty - IT'S A TRICK!!!! to make you drink water so you don't die.

And so is taking your hand out of a fire before it starts to burn - IT'S A TRICK!!!! to stop you burning to death.

What a fucking weird way to think you've somehow spotted something that no one else has. The idea that the animals who are more likely to protect and nurture their offspring are more likely to have offspring that survive to reproductive age - and then protect and nurture their own offspring - is not something you've just sussed out. And neither is it any sort of response to the idea of parent-child love being a particularly strong kind of love, because it's fundamentally missing the point. It's answering it on the wrong sort of level.

Orgasm feels good because animals that want to experience orgasm are more likely to reproduce than those that don't. That doesn't mean that the good feeling of orgasm is A TRICK!!!! and that it doesn't really feel good.

There are loads of good lines of argument that someone could choose if they wanted, for some reason, to discredit the idea that parents' love for their children is a particularly powerful sort of love. This isn't one of them.

(For what it's worth, I'm supportive of the points being made by childfree people on this thread on the whole. This post just annoyed the fuck out of me.)

Nothing compares to tiredness caused by having to defend your right to say you are really tired when not having a baby

I quite agree. I am more tired than some parents. Less tired than others. Or, shall we do what we should really do with those statements and replace parents with people.

I'm more tired than some people.
Less tired than others.

Why should I explain why I'm tired though? Sometimes, I just am. It's life and all the shit that goes with it.

Rubicon80 totally agree. I thought it was a stupid and pointless thing to say too. I did try to counter it as well but not with your gusto. 😂

I went out for the day last week with a dear friend who does not have children.

We went with my 3 children and she wanted too. She was hanging and so was I, she is caring for a very frail elderly mother and also caring fro a sister with mental health issues both in seperate addresses than her. She is full on menopausal and working as well.
I was hanging as had slept in a single bed the night before with a future England goal scorer, have a sore back after a few nights previously with a darling sleeping starfish ballerina.
Neither of us trumped the other and we had a lovely, and tiring day.
I absolutely hate the female bashing that goes on, and yes sometimes subtly but quite often blatantly.
I didn't breastfeed any of my children and had so much negativity from other mothers. For the mothers who didn't judge and got to know me found it wasn't a choice for me.

Once my friend made a comment to my DP (who was working shifts and knackered/not very chatty) that you "Don't know what tired is until you have one of these!" Indicating towards her DC. The kicker is, my DP does have a child but they live overseas and he rarely sees his kid.

@Ginburee - the breastfeeding vs formula feeding nastiness I see baffles me as well. After creating, carrying and birthing a baby most mothers will obviously do what they think is best for their baby and themselves so they can continue caring for their baby. So why tell them they’re wrong for the way they feed their baby as if they’ve just thought ‘oh this will be terrible for my baby, I’ll go with this option’ 🙄

Like I said in an earlier post though you (general you, not personal you) can’t do anything right so if you had breastfed, people would’ve found a way to criticise you for it anyway.

@WTF0ver - perfect example of why people shouldn’t be so rude! When he said he was tired from working shifts she could’ve just said oh I know how you feel, I’m knackered after being up all night with the baby myself. Both people are tired and whoever was more tired wasn’t taking away the others tiredness so why does it matter which one that was 🤷🏻‍♀️

My colleague has no kids. She started to complain to me last week how tired she was. Then stopped and said "oh I know I have no kids so obviously you'd be more tired than me". I replied "people with kids do not have a monopoly on tiredness. I felt every bit as tired when I had no kids myself if not more at times as I had a busy social life and burned the candle at both ends".
Hate the competitive tiredness.

Isn't it just a different kind of tiredness rather than more or less? Same as a different kind of love? I've been exhausted during busy times at work and exhausted as a mum. They are different but neither is more or less than the other. Same with types of love and affection.

Now I'm thinking about it, there are a lot of mum martyrs around, aren't there? I remember a mum talking to me in the park once when I was with dd and I had painted toe nails and she said to me, "I have no time to do anything like that" and she looked really harrassed and disheveled and I thought why the hell not wouldn't you have just a few minutes to do that?

@TheLittleDogLaughed

My closest friend is childfree and it enrages me the comments she gets - and 99% of the time they are from other women!

A mutual acquaintance was horrified recently because when we were in the pub she was doing the usual "Have you not changed your mind yet? You had fun at the zoo with the kids" routine to her after friend had spent the day with me and 4 of my 6. She then said to me "Don't you think she'd be an amazing mother?" Friend almost fell off her chair laughing when I said "No", mutual friend was horrified.

I have a lot of respect for people like my friend who say "I'd be a terrible parent. I'm short tempered and selfish so I'm not going to do it". My parents shouldn't have had children and just took their anger out on us kids instead.

I also have a friend who is childless and it makes me murderous when people say to her "Oh do you not want kids then?". Yes nosy Mary, she just went through the multiple miscarriages - that you know about - for shits and giggles rather than a desire for children

@lyralalala - my childless friend has similar things said to her. She got married and her and her DH started to try for a baby but found out that both of them would have trouble conceiving and were devastated. After a few months of marriage she started getting asked if she was pregnant, when they would be having babies and one colleague asked ‘oh god are you not pregnant yet!?’ When she said no the colleague laughed and said ‘well you’d better hurry up before he leaves you’.

I’m childfree so peoples ridiculous comments annoy me rather than hurt me but the people I’ve known who are childless have said they are so hurt by those comments.

"No kids yet? Shall I show you how it's done?".

Said to my wife, by a male coworker, at drinks after work.

She made him regret it.

BadLad no!

.

Why are you on mumsnet if you don’t want to have kids / arnt planning on? Isn’t that a bit weird. Just saying

@ArkwrightsTill That’s hideous. People are so thoughtless and cruel.
Then again people are genuinely surprised that my friend’s younger and “out of her league” husband hasn’t left her since she was diagnosed with a progressive condition that will eventually lead to her needing a lot of care. People are just nasty.

Why are you on mumsnet if you don’t want to have kids / arnt planning on? Isn’t that a bit weird. Just saying

Isn't that a bit narrow minded considering the hundreds of topics on MN that aren't related to children? Just saying.

@Rapbitch22 - go on active and count how many threads have anything to do with being a parent.

Some people have children in their lives. Some people might need medical or legal advice or be experts in things they want to help people with. Teachers, pet owners, bakers can all find threads here relevant to them. And while we don’t have children, we can still give advice on things concerning them. Just some examples. Also not sure why it’s ‘weird’

@lyralalala - that’s awful too, I agree people are just nasty. The world would be better if people spent more time concentrating on themselves and the things that affect them rather than concerning themselves with things that don’t.

@rabbitpied @arkwrightsTill

‘ Mumsnet is a website for parents in the UK. It hosts discussion forums where users share advice and information on parenting and many other topics’

It would be like me joining a writers circle and not being a writer. Or a pro fox hunting group and not being a hunter... then starting a deliberately antagonistic thread about people with kids ?! WEIRD.

No one asked to see proof I was a mother when I signed up. There are men on here. Men with no children as well.

If I had a child and it sadly died would I be banished?

Do you not want childfree people on here who are lawyers, doctors, accountants, teachers, SEN specialists etc who can advise people? WEIRD

Why are you on mumsnet if you don’t want to have kids / arnt planning on? Isn’t that a bit weird. Just saying

Somebody hasn't RTFT.