To be fed up of stupid remarks about childless people

[Beverlysparty]

Just in the last few days on here someone has opined that maybe Lucy letby killed all those little babies because she was 'jealous' of people who had children; someone has stated that as her childless/free friends get older they have become very self absorbed while she hasn't and someone else has made an insulting comment about childless people in hotels.

It's the same in real life; comments about how you don't know real love until you've had children, you don't know what tired is until you've had children, you have all the money in the world for holidays and expensive make up and clothes because you don't have the worry and expense of children.

It's not only insulting it's also deeply inaccurate.

How do you know they haven't experienced these comments? In fact, from the tone of your post you sound exactly like the kind of person who would say something totally tactless and insensitive and then be all bewildered and "whaaaat? All I said was...... honestly some people are so touchy"

I'd say there's a good equal split of parents who make nasty comments about childless people and childless people who make nasty comments about parents and children

Perhaps people should just focus on their own lives 🤷‍♀️

I always found it really irritating pre children the comments about how I wouldn’t understand what it was like and could not relate to the tiredness. Well it was exactly as expected and the tiredness was manageable and could be similar to many other scenarios. Looking back the comments were largely from people who saw having a child as an achievement as they had not really achieved anything else. These were also the ones that seemed to very much struggle with empathy.

@Wishitsnows yes.

OH FUCK OFF.

Clearly this has touched a nerve with me but as someone who has had three miscarriages this year and would desperately love a child, who spends me weekends with friends and their children, this is such a hugely hurtful and cruel thing to say.

Do you know who lacks empathy? My friend who when I told her that I had my second miscarriage offered to bring her baby round for a cuddle to cheer me up. So I’ll extend that to all parents and say that you’re all horribly unempathetic.

People like Vault687

The “opining about LL doesn’t mean opining about all childfree/less people” argument doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because the reason for the opinion is not something inherent in LL’s character as we know it, nor something that came up in evidence. It’s that she didn’t have a child. That’s it.

The opining is, essentially, that the state of not having a child caused her to kill children. Absent something specific about LL, the opinion is that the absence of a child is so horrific that killing babies is what one could do in response to it.

It would be entirely different if people were saying “LL talked with her family/friends about how desperate she was for a child of her own, perhaps in a horrible way her envy took over”.

But that’s not what’s being said. It’s “LL didn’t have a child, how utterly awful for her, perhaps that’s why she murdered babies? Because not having a child is such a terrible intolerable status.”

That opinion is secondly garbage because far more parents kill their children and nobody suggests they’re envious of those without kids.

Unless it’s born out of something specific to the killer, statements about their childed status are best left well alone, as there’s an inherent extrapolation to other people with that same status.

As long as you realise that it's a subjective view and applies to the childless/free people who you've had close dealings with.

Until you’ve had children you don’t and can’t know what true tiredness is

Goodness. Try having an underactive thyroid! Or Chronic Fatigue!

The 'not knowing true love' is also nonsense.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

I suspect many parents still do not know what true love is.

So why not extend your point and offer something to the debate? A sweeping superficial statement that gives no detail as to what you actually mean (lack empathy with whom? How does this manifest?) gives people nothing to go on does it?
Throwing out an oh arent i controversial sentence isn't debate, its just attention seeking. Well done. It worked.

And I've often witnessed Mangers with children being unable to truly relate to the fact that childless/free colleagues actually have lives and loved ones and are as entitled to their evenings and weekends as other colleagues.

What do you mean, though? I’d like to debate your point, but you’ve given absolutely nothing except a ridiculous and offensive generalisation.

What do you mean that childless people lack empathy? For whom? How have you reached this conclusion?

As a childless person who has sat next my dying grandmother on EOL care, stopping her pulling her wires out, dropping 5ml of water into her mouth using a tiny syringe, moving her so she doesn't get bedsores, night in, night out on shifts with my mum and the carer until she eventually died your comment is utterly ridiculous. We were, and still are exhausted. But no, I haven't pushed a child out of me so of course I can't know what being tired is.

I always find childless people lack empathy.

From some of the thoughtless and unkind remarks I've had made to me purely because I have no children, by people with children, I would disagree strongly!

🤮

I'm a person who doesn't need a real load of sleep. I also had children who were amazing sleepers. I never felt tired as a new mum as I got enough sleep and I was young.

I'm now over 40 with low iron and heading to the menopause. I'm definitely way more tired now than I was with babies.

I also think you can know what love is, romantic love, love for family and friends. It's different to love for children but doesn't mean it's not as deep.

People like to find fault no matter what.

I think this would be valid if like in the cases you mention there was clear intent to take or keep the babies. There wasn’t in the LL case. People don’t say serial killers that kill prostitutes are jealous of them because there isn’t a hyped up media image of the single man who is jealous of women. But there is that media image of ‘the crazy childless woman’ so people make those links without real reason. There was no indication that LL wanted to mother or care for those babies…

And having made this comment I can see that you are positively brimming with empathy.

What that poster probably means is that she hasn't met a childless person who has fawned over her children in the way that she finds acceptable.

Some people have empathy for others, some don't. Some of those might be parents, some not.

I personally could say that I've never met a parent who wasn't selfish and self-absorbed, but that wouldn't be true and would be just said to goad people and to be a knob.

OK. So your beef is with employers needing to run a business or service and requiring staff who’ve signed a contract to provide labour to provide labour.

What about that is lacking empathy? Do you mean that managers are inflexible for no good reason? Or do you mean that parents don’t get special treatment?

I ask the latter because where I work, I’ve worked the last 7 Christmases because parents insist that everyone needs to “relate to the predicaments” they find themselves in. I don’t think these parents - or parents generally - lack empathy. I think these parents are pretty self-centred though.

I struggle to believe that anyone that trots out nonsensical generalisations like this is particularly high on the empathy scale.....

@Utereusbegone "People like Vault687"

To be fair, there are more people on this thread saying @Vault687 is talking bollocks than otherwise.