Are there people in your life where you just think ‘ I can’t wait until you’re a parent and finally get it and rub that smug look off your face ‘?

[doyuever]

This is a bit tongue in cheek and I know I’m evil. But DH has younger siblings and they just get on our nerves SO much. They just DON’T get it and have NO idea how hard it is to be a parent.

granted, neither did we. My DH was such an unsympathetic dick when my older sister had kids. She had her first and then two years later, she was blessed with twins. It was an absolute fucking nightmare.

a beautiful blessing, but very very very difficult time for her and her husband. I used to give a lot of moral support and try my absolute best to be there to help practically too. It was really tough and took it out of them.

my DH would say stuff like ‘ they’re not the first to have kids ‘ and ‘ they’re too dramatic and not the only people to have problems. They’re not the centre of the universe ‘.. he just didn’t get it at all.

now we are parents with small kids, he kicks himself for being such a dick and says how wrong he was.

now we have his siblings coming to see us a fair bit and they just don’t get it at all. Obviously. They try to give absolutely rubbish ‘ advice ‘ sometimes. They try to visit at 5-6pm sometimes and we’ve had to try to explain why that’s just not good right now. When we do talk about things being hard or we seem frazzled, they never have the emotional intelligence to say anything kind. ( we don’t generally say anything anymore about it being hard going as it’s just pointless ).

SIL just thinks it’s pretty much normal for mums to do it all. SIL was saying how when they were kids, the dad would go on overnight fishing trips with his friends almost every weekend… I said quite horrified that it must have been hard for their mum and she was like ‘ but why ? ‘… so no fucking clue what so ever!

me and DH say quite frequently that we just can’t wait until the have kids and we can finally understand each other again. ( they all want kids btw ).

can anyone relate ? It’s kind of funny but also annoying.

That is so annoying!! IME it is the same-sex 2nd child who is the real 'learning curve kid' when you are a parent

Not ALL the time obviously, before people comment how wrong I am, but probably at least 75% of the time

Yikes this thread seems to have touched some nerves.

I had sort of the opposite happening - I did chuckle when my DB’s relationship imploded and his plans to have children in this perfect, untroubled relationship went up in flames. Of course he can still have children, but he’s now back to square 1 and frankly it’s a good thing, including for these hypothetical children. No one needs a bully for a father.

I was the first one to have children in my friends’ group and it was never an issue, except that I couldn’t go out as often as they did. It probably helped that DD was always a nice, sociable baby. There was only an instance of a very loud tantrum.

I’m sure we were all the same op- I remember rolling my eyes because dsis was giving out when on holiday that we needed to get dinner because the kids had just been snacking all day. Also didn’t get her not going places for different reasons that are crystal clear to me now!!! Give them a break, they’re just at a different point to you

Yes!
I was the first in my friendship group to have a baby. Most were kind and empathetic but didn't really get it. One really lacked understanding and there were some snide and insensitive comments. They have had children since and been very, the one who wasn't very kind has been very apologetic and said she had no idea it was so hard and feels bad for the way she was. The others who were kind have also said they had no idea how hard it was.

Oh yey another thread bashing the childfree.

Do you regret having children, @doyuever ? You sound very resentful and bitter towards those who are childfree.

Me too. I think that with family though it is a case of them trying to be interested and supportive and they really don’t deserve this level of rudeness. Surely you want your children to have people in their lives that love them? The other option is the person like me who disappears when you announce you’re pregnant and doesn’t reappear again.

What an odd OP. Especially this bit -

"She had her first and then two years later, she was blessed with twins. It was an absolute fucking nightmare"

🤣🙈

I think a lot of people don't realise how hard kids can be.

But to not realise that twins would be hard especially with a 2yr old?

That's some level of dickishness!

Some people lack empathy and imagination.
And that exists on all sides.

One thing I’ve found slightly irritating is people - usually colleagues or strangers - who assume I must be living some hedonistic life and sleeping in all the time as I don’t have kids. I like early mornings, books and tea and brunches lol no wild child here!

I stayed with a friend who had a toddler for a few months and she was shocked to find I was telling the truth when I said I didn’t wake up late, and that I in fact slept much less than her 😂 I’d told her before but apparently she hadn’t believed me until she saw it for herself.

Just because that’s the life she lived when she didn’t have kids she assumed it’s the same for everyone I guess! She stopped complaining to me about how little sleep she had after that.

Here we go again 🙄

Generally anyone that's said any comment along those lines to me has revived a long manic laugh right to the face. I don't have the energy (or hormonal regulation) for "just you wait"

well- i confess.... DH's friend and his wife (whose baby was 3 months old at the time) observed our profoundly autistic 4 year old son struggling with eating due to sensory issues told us that it was all our fault and they would not accept such behaviour and they were 'take no shit parents' (quote). Their now 8 year old is even MORE fussy and only eats pepperoni pizza and cucumber sticks. I did think to myself 'see, not so easy now, is it?'.

But they have been unbearably smug about many things over the decades and critical- about our house, our children, the fact we have not put our Dcs into boarding school as is what 'everyone does' , how our hosue id decorated; the fact we don't have an au pair, that i have gone part time at work etc etc'. So there is a - silent- bit inside me that thinks 'Pride comes before a fall you tossers'. *

*actually my thoughts are a bit more x-rated than that tbh.

I was a great parent until I had children! 😂

Anyway- there was once some parenting expert being interviewed on radio 4 I think. The interviewer said to her that she now had toddler twins and did she find it easy to put her theories into practice. She said something like; 'God no! I never knew how hard parenting actually is until I had mine!'.

I was so impressed with her honesty!

I feel like a lot of people on this thread dislike their friends and raising their own children.

Of course they want both embryos to take. Who wouldn't?

I absolutely agree, thanks for commenting, I just thought, here we go again, people trying to talk about parenting on a thread about parenting on a site about parenting and some navel-gazing muppet gets the horrors of it Not Being All About Them, Actually, and has to prance on and go ‘not everyone on a parenting thread about parenting on a parenting site is a parent you know omg I can’t believe you’re so selfish in keeping on talking about parenting on this parenting discussion on a parenting site it’s just so MEAN to me, why can’t it all be about ME’.

It’s like going on to a specialist forum about building model railways and getting the hump because people don’t value your interest in crochet.

Haha! Oh yes. When my son was about 18 months old and was climbing over everything I said to a couple friend of mine how exhausting it was trying to rein them in. The husband smugly proclaimed that when they had kids it wouldnt change their life AT ALL and with the right parenting, no toddler would be climbing the walls like that.

Fast forward 4 years and they had a 2 year old and had to leave a local pub mid meal due to the chaos said 2 year old was causing trying to run around the tables and yanking everyone's table cloths. To be fair, he admitted he had been a dick and that it was a dumb thing to say but it did make me feel pretty smug :)

I used to be asked after No 1 daughter 'Do you have a routine yet?' and I would say 'Of course, today's routine is this and tomorrow's routine will be quite different'. Often reading people's problems on this site I think that the problem is that the child does not fit the parents' expectations based usually on social media.

Ah yes my BIL and SIL were in their very early twenties when I had my babies and all I would hear about is how totally boring I was that I wasn’t going out to X new pub or hadn’t seen Y new film or wasn’t going backpacking through Europe on holiday. They had a dog and it was ‘absolutely 100% just as hard as having a baby don’t you know we absolutely get how hard and relentless being a parent is because we have a dog’ blah blah blah.

They were never ever going to have DC and be as boring as DH and I, they were total dicks tbh.

Well now they have two under three and have become very boring because all their money for going out or going travelling is spent on nursery fees, they are exhausted with two toddlers and they now spend all day watching Bluey and complaining about how hard it all is and how they never get to do anything for themselves.

I am now very smug.

Haha, no it's "chinks in their armour", as in a gap where you could get a sword or arrow through.

The “if you can’t have children you’ll never be happy” narrative doesn’t give an accurate account of parenthood I guess.

Wow this thread has been a dog whistle to the childfree and easily triggered. 🙄

Fuck that. You bring it up and say, so which one of you is staying behind?

if they even hint at it being you, just say why would it be me?
if they try to turn it around and say well why not you, point out that they’ve all assumed the woman won’t attend and haven’t once looked at any of the men do in that basis you are eliminating yourself from the options and it needs to be a man.

basically point out the sexism without explicitly doing so.