Why do parents say "You'll see" or "Just wait until..." to expecting parents?

[marriagehelpplease]

I've been thinking about something that's been bothering me lately, and I'd love to hear from parents who have found themselves saying phrases like "just wait until..." or "you'll see when you have kids" to expecting parents.

I'm currently pregnant, and what prompted this post was an interaction with a friend who made these kinds of comments completely unprompted - I hadn't even expressed any opinions about parenting or claimed it would be easy. It got me thinking about why this seems to be such a common response to pregnancy announcements.

What's particularly interesting to me is how unique this seems to be to parenting. We don't generally respond this way in other life situations. Imagine telling someone starting a new job, "Just wait until you've been there a year - you'll hate it!" Or telling a newly engaged couple, "You'll see how hard marriage really is!" We'd probably consider those responses pretty inappropriate and unnecessarily negative.

So I'm genuinely curious (not ranting) - if you've made these comments before, what was your mindset at the time? I wonder if it comes from a place of wanting to prepare others, or perhaps it's a reflection of your own challenging experiences?

I'd especially love to hear from those who've caught themselves doing this - what do you think drives you to make these comments?

It doesn't work like that 4 everyone. For some parents, the teenage years were HELL

SPOT ON and thank u 4 your honesty

I was a much better parent before I had kids! There can be a lot of smugness before you’ve had kids about the type of parent you’ll be, such as not allowing screen time or not giving your kid sugar until they are two or even just doing a toy rotation and it just doesn’t always pan out that way. By the time the baby is here you know you’re just winging it. Every day.

But otherwise honestly, I think it's coming from a dark place.

Of course it is. You’re not going to have that reaction to every statement a pregnant woman makes but something you particularly struggled with, even if you don’t make the comment you’ll definitely be thinking it. You won’t think it for every comment made but you will go through something individual to your baby that is really, really hard and when someone says, what you perceive as a smug comment about it, you might lash out. You will also react to something completely different to what another woman reacts to. It is likely that you didn’t say anything smug but due to the person’s own experiences, and sometimes their guilt around it, they will perceive it as smug.

I suffered a lot with pregnancy insomnia so comments about being tired in pregnancy wouldn’t cause me to think “you’ll see” or “just wait”. But if someone said they were going to be EBF (especially something like if you just try enough it will work) or they were going to love maternity leave, I would definitely think to myself “you’ll see” because they were dark areas for me. If I’m having a bad day, we have another nursery bug and we’ve not slept and struggling with something at the minute, I might not keep that comment in my head.

Which is fine, but not everyone's parenting experience is the same so saying to parents of young kids "oh you just wait until they're teens" is so pointless. Some teens are awful, some are great, then there are all of those in-between! So people making a "you just wait..." comment is based on the assumption their future teens will be like your teens, so pointless and just causes unnecessary worry.

To prepare you for the hell that is to come.
😉😁😁.

I havent RTFT. I had children after infertility issues and there's a lot of gatekeeping parents do that is totally avoidable. I always take care not to that as you never know what someone has been through ie have ppd/cant have kids/had losses etc

@Baggingarea I've had many losses which the person knows...perhaps why it annoyed me much, much more.

It makes me want to distance

This discussion is posted frequently on MN. I think there are two sides to it really. No, it’s not cool for seasoned parents to try to scaremonger new parents. It’s often the case that they are struggling and not in a good place and it pains them to see others happy and optimistic. On the other hand, some new parents can be gratingly naive with their opinions and plans and you just look at them and think ‘oh dear, you have no clue’.

At the end of the day, some of these parents will go through hell and some will have dream babies. There’s no point begrudging them their optimism when they feel it. I do however don’t think it’s out of line for seasoned parents to call out anything offensive, such as an unfounded and direct criticism.

@marriagehelpplease sorry to hear that. Some (not all - didnt mean to generalise before) parents really show that they've not had any major issues in life. And that's not really their fault. I think some of us miss that innocence but (without being too woowoo) in a way we are lucky to experience life in all its ups and downs. I do think it makes you a more resilient parent/human.

Because you have that happy pregnancy glow, and people want to ruin it for you.

You're overthinking this. Although I can understand why it's tiring to hear this, I think most of the times it's a spontaneous response from people who are brought to remember specific "difficult" periods with their child through your conversation. I do think a lot of us underestimated the impact on our life, and we probably project a bit what it used to be like.

I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that they are gloating or judging you...

I also disagree that people don't do that with marriage etc. I've heard similar comments millions of time about relationships ("wait until it's been 5 years and he does x...", "wait until you move in together..." Blablabla).

I think it's patronising and I don't know why people say things like that.
My SIL was particularly annoying when I was pregnant and she already had a baby. She used to say "You'll have to get used to this, you know" about changing nappies, feeding, etc. I don't know how I didn't tell her to F off- I certainly would now.

It's so rude. It can go in the bin along with:

• "You'll understand when you're a parent."
• Acting as though non-parents can't be tired or don't know what true tiredness is
• "Treasure every minute, it goes by so fast!" to a parent who is clearly struggling and having a very untreasured minute.

It's so patronising. I'd respond with, "Well, parenting can't be that hard if you're managing it." Well, maybe I wouldn't, but I'd think it.

It will never go away though, I'm afraid. When you have a colicky newborn, it's "Just wait until you have a threenager!" When your 3 yo is having a series of tantrums and relapsing on potty training, "Just you wait until you have teenagers!"

“…some new parents can be gratingly naive with their opinions and plans and you just look at them and think ‘oh dear, you have no clue’.”

It’s this. If you’re a fairly experienced parent and you’ve seen multiple friends go through angst with fertility, bad morning sickness, gruelling births, the hell of colicky babies, the Vietnam of sleep depravation (you weren’t there man, you don’t know…) and all the other hard-ass traumas of birthing and young babies… it’s going to be quite hard to listen to chirpy know-nothings and keep your trap shut.

I kept mine shut though. First rule of birth club…

I kind of get it if people are spouting ignorantly about how they will do things, yes ideally everyone will keep their thoughts to themselves but the parents are tired (did they mention?) and don’t always have the self control.

Also the tiredness comparisons as a PP said aren’t helpful - many people find pregnancy worse than parenting babies. There are definitely people who do it like OP’s friend apropos of nothing at all, I had a couple of them and it was hard to know how to respond especially as I was seriously anxious at the time - being told how awful everything was going to be wasn’t great (just played in to how I was already feeling). @marriagehelpplease all I can do is share what I said after months of this which was “please don’t make comments like that, I find them really unhelpful”.

I've never said this, so not a poster you want to hear from... but I'm glad this thread exists!

Maybe all these disgruntled parents should be preaching to the people who haven't decided whether to have children or not yet! They're the ones who need to know 😆 I'm a firm believer in giving the unadulterated truth so that people can actually make educated decisions. Parenthood isn't for everyone!

When todays parents go onto the internet and they see the parenting blogs which present a perfect and heavily edited form of parenting. So actually realising it might not be all sweet dreams on fluffy clouds can be helpful.

I didn't do antenatal with my first as we were moving area, so I did one with my second. There were two of us there who were second time mums.
When we had a session on pain relief, one new mum interrupted the instructor to tell them she was sure it was entirely mind over matter, and if she went in confident it could not hurt then it wouldn't.
Me and the other second time mum exchanged a look and giggled.
About a year later we'd all met up and we were talking about the classes. One of the mums mentioned this, and said that she'd not really considered that it might really hurt and agreed with the mum who had spoken up.
But when she was in labour, she initially thought that she was just coping less well than every other mother, then she remembered us doing that and realised it wasn't her, it was normal. It gave her the confidence to ask for pain relief.

And in a lot of ways the comment of "just wait" is similar. It's a light-hearted remark that is acknowledging that we all are naïve before it's happened, and giving permission to ask for help because others have struggled too. No one thinks of us as being weaker, or the only mum in the world who can't cope etc.

I'd nannied babies (two, separately) before I had my first. My first was a very easy baby, and I loved babyhood. But I'll still acknowledge that it was very different to what I'd imagined. "Just wait" is a private joke, welcoming you to the club of motherhood.

I suspect it may be related to some perceived unreasonableness from you in the past. Like maybe child free wedding, expectation of baby free meet up, friendship expectations when they were in the early stages of parenthood.

They think you will finally get it, but you likely won't remember whatever they're hanging onto.

YANBU and I tend to try and do the opposite!
So if someone is complaining about the baby phase, for example, rather than responding with a mean “just wait until they’re a toddler” I will reassure them that it’s a phase that will pass.
Or I will talk about all the lovely firsts they have yet to experience. “Ahh it’s so wonderful when you hear them laugh for the first time”
that kind of thing.

Some people just like to be nasty and smug. I also hate women telling their labour horror stories to first time pregnant women. It’s totally unnecessary.

I really don’t think this is true unless the person is extremely ignorant. It’s constantly reinforced these days how hard parenting is, most of the mummy blogs are more talking about how awful/challenging parenting is. To be honest it’s an overwhelming message of doom and gloom and I find it hard to believe people are truly ignorant to this unless they don’t know anyone who’s a parent or are willingly ignoring all the information.

Same with child birth, you might get the odd person who thinks it’s mind over matter but as a general rule it’s constantly shoved in our faces how dreadful and EXTREMELY painful it’s going to be.

"What's particularly interesting to me is how unique this seems to be to parenting. We don't generally respond this way in other life situations."

Honestly OP.... Parenting is a whole different ball game.

Just take those comments with a pinch of salt and move on...

You'll have your own experiences and can take it from there... Don't let it bother you for now as every has their own experiences and you will have yours.

An older family member used to do this to me all the time. Drove me up the fucking wall. Actually she started it initially before I'd even had children with the sanctimonious phrase "as a mother" whenever she wanted to ensure that her opinions and experiences were far superior to my opinions and experiences as a non-mother (at that point).

Then, when I was pregnant with my first DC she started up with the "oh wait until the baby gets here you won't know what's hit you", "it's awful, you'll be so tired and cry for weeks". I even remember when we moved into our house she came to visit (this was when I was early pregnant with my first) and she smirked as I was putting my wine glasses away and said, "oh you'd better not bother unpacking them they'll all get smashed in no time when the baby is bigger."

It was like she was so gleeful and actively looking forward to anything she perceived as negative to do with parenthood happening to me. I remember vowing to never say the "as a mother" phrase to anyone when talking about anything and I've stuck to it. Just so patronising. The gleeful doomsday chat to pregnant women is also v v annoying. Sorry this happened OP.

I think it's because people are still genuinely in disbelief at how rose tinted they were before the baby came along.

I know I was. I honestly thought I'd be rocking a baby in a crib and watching daytime tv with my feet up for a year
aaaahhaaaaahaaaahaaaa ha ha haaaa

You'll see 😆

I think it’s because once you become a parent you realise how little you know. And that just keeps going the older they get, there is always more you can’t possibly understand until you’ve been through that age / phase. I had a few people recently say ‘just wait until they start school’ in terms of the juggle and they were absolutely right. I know a lot of parents of teens on MN would say that parents of young kids don’t understand how tough it is to have teens. I keep having to bite my tongue with my colleague when he says how easy it is to have two kids…. Because yes it is easy(ish) when one is a newborn.

I do think ALL pregnant women are naive to some extent about what lies ahead but I think you have to be because that’s how the human race survives.

That said I do get it’s negative and doesn’t really help anyone so I definitely try to do more of the positive ‘just wait until’ and keep the negative ones in my head.

I think it's more a 'I'm finding this bit right now Tough, give me some attention!' With maybe a bit of 'I feel sad that no one recognizes how hard I find this, you will soon and then we can talk about it and have a moan together' and 'enjoy this cute stage, even though they wake up a lot at night it's so nice when they stay in one place and don't empty the cupboards/try and topple over'