Married Couples with Children

[Aquarius1234]

Why do some married people act like being married with kids is better than being single?
That they are more well rounded and wouldn't be able to so their professions and whatever else if they didn't have a family?

Yes all of them, all the time 🙄

Not sure what you mean?
You don't need to earn that much in South East.

I must meet very old fashioned conversation married with kids types.
As tho no other way of life is acceptable.

*Convervative

Where do you live? That's not the norm where I am re conservative married types. Everyone here is pretty down to earth and normal.

Cutting out the Bellshill. Married boils down to sex.

Cutting out the crap and facade *

Not sure about the career bit...but socially; there is a stigma attached to singleness (esp. if single parent).
I have definitely come across married (usually women) that seem to think they've "arrived" once they are married. It is a status thing that still goes on; even now.

Erm, having kids definitely did not help my career. Or our bank balance. And being married/long term relationship, and having kids, is generally the norm (as in it is the situation for most people, not that anything else is abnormal). Doesn't mean it's right or wrong, but that's why you see a lot of people who are married with kids 🙄

Also...aside from supposed smugness you mention, is your issue that they are married or that they have kids? Because if its that they have kids, this is probably not the best audience. This is MUMsnet after all....

Most people want a life partner, a lot of people want children. Not sure it has much to do with advancing careers. Unless you're talking about those romance novels where X has to find a spouse before granny will hand over the family business/inheritance..

To save everyone the time, OP has another identical thread bashing married couples.

After many repetitive pages, it was pretty clear that OP has personal issue with being single, and actually presents herself quite bitterly to her friends and family, but has decided they are the problem, because they are married.

She refuses to acknowledge it's down to her. It's everyone else (as long as they are married), and she won't have otherwise.

I want companionship but don't want sex.
Therefore I'm screwed.

Being married (or at least a stable, loving partnership) massively helped my career and my DHs. We have an autistic child and no way either us would have any kind of career as single parents to him.

Didn't you post another weird thread like this a day or two ago calling married people smug?

Stopped reading. What a silly thread. Unless you are talking about a specific incident the thread is vague and pointless (and I’m not married but have several married friends).

Something about people in happy relationships in their 20s should break up but being single in your 30s is miserable?

OP hasn't given that impression in her post.

I would struggle to work the hours I do (9-5 but I'm a senior manager so often 5 is closer to 7) without my DH picking up the slack in the evenings. Similarly he would struggle to start work at 5am as he does if I wasn't at home looking after the kids in the morning. I would struggle to get the kids to hobbies without another pair of hands. It's not smug, it's a fact. My life would be very different if I were a single parent and I would be naive to think otherwise

Definitely agree have thought this for years.

Who are these people?

Huh? You think being married is about sex? Because honestly I had a lot more before we were married or had kids 😂
For me it's about having a lifelong partner who has my back, I have theirs, we're a team. We love and care for each other, and enjoy being around each other a lot of the time. Not smug about it and I have happy single friends and unhappy single friends. And I'm pretty sure some married friends in each camp too. Sometimes I envy the single/child free friends - after all most people envy the pros they see, without so clearly seeing the cons.
Some people are smug, regardless of their relationship or parental status. Of course it was considered odd to be single/have no kids by a certain age in previous generations but I don't think that's true of younger people, in fact probably the opposite once you start speaking to people in their 20s, who are more and more against marriage and the number of children per adult is reducing in many countries. For reference I'm late 30s, and I can totally imagine my 87yo grandma thinking it lesser for someone in their 30s plus to be single without kids. That's just her norm from when she was early 20s and starting her large family, as was the case with almost everyone she knew then 🤷‍♀️

I’m a solicitor, single and no kids. As far as I know, my clients aren’t all ignoring my advice because I don’t have either.

What's your problem with people being happily in relationships and living their life? There's a theme in your threads that suggests deep bitterness on this topic.

Your own circumstances aren't going to improve if you're going through life actively looking to find ways to moan that other people have happy relationships.

I've never came across this tbh.

I got married because I wanted to. Had kids because I wanted to.

Not to gain some sort of confidence or status.

I don't care what anyone thinks about anything I do or don't.

Marriage is such an outdated thing. Surely loads less do it these days.