Ummm no-one ever spread their sperm to me willy-nilly either (hun)! I only ever got pregnant by my husband who I believed to be a decent man at the time and not part of the legions of shitty men out there, but unfortunately it was all an act.
Believe it or not I wasn’t so hellbent on the wedding and the “baybee” that I’d have blithely ignored red flags. My family and friends wouldn’t have let me either.
Believe what you want but there are sociopaths out there and they are scarily good at masking.
I will accept that in hindsight, having gone through the Freedom Programme and educated myself significantly about abusive dynamics and also sociopaths, there was perhaps a very occasional hint as to what was to come that I simply missed at the time as someone in her twenties who was in love and who had not previously had the misfortune to come across the sort of man who seeks to control or abuse. It’s the downside of having had a lovely childhood and having only trustworthy and decent people around you. My guard wasn’t up enough. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. However I maintain that there were certainly no glaring red flags at the time. He really hid it well and I thought at the time that he’d make an excellent husband and father.
I’d love to see some sort of programme in secondary schools to warn teenagers about what to look out for. I think I’d have recognised what was happening to me more quickly if I’d had such a programme at school. Probably would still have not recognised it until after marriage and children though (which is absolutely the typical time that an abusive man ramps up abuse, at the exact point non-coincidentally where it’s no longer easy to extricate yourself so it’s safe for them to let the mask drop - this definitely does happen, ask Women’s Aid etc).
But basically I think it’s a bit unfair to imply that I was so blinded by being totally desperate to get married and pregnant that I paid no attention to who I was marrying FFS. And that I deserved everything I got because of my apparent poor judgement in marrying an abusive and controlling man. I understand that nobody likes to think that it could have been them and so people tell themselves that they have better judgement than me, therefore this would never happen to them etc. It’s a psychological self-protection mechanism. I understand it but it doesn’t make it true.
And yes, that’s exactly what I did when I had to work Christmas, celebrated and found the “Christmas magic” as you so scathingly refer to it at another point in time, as you say it’s simply the price of having the career I have. Fortunately these days I don’t have to choose between my career and my child as I deliberately went into a niche of medicine that was more family friendly.
But I’m simply aware that not everyone has that choice, it isn’t easy to find childcare on Christmas Day if you aren’t close to family etc.
And so I think it’s totally ok to ask a colleague if they would consider swapping! I’ve done it before and it can work out for both people. I’d never make assumptions about someone not wanting Christmas off but it’s ok to ask if it’s important to them and if they’d consider swapping for a return favour. For example one time I had a Hindu colleague who wasn’t bothered about Christmas but wanted time off over Diwali. When he was rota-ed on. We swapped and so he had Diwali off and I had Christmas off. Win-win. It’s ok to ask. I agree it’s also ok to say no if it doesn’t suit!