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.

But if you saw them trying to train in flip-flops and told them it was a stupid thing to do, your opinion would be valid regardless of the fact that you don't run marathons yourself...

A friend of mine once asked if I'd taken up any new hobbies since going on maternity leave 😂 Errrr....does breastfeeding count?

I remember having a colleague who was always criticising other people's parenting and what they allowed their children to do, saying when HE was a parent he'd do XYZ.

Some years later when he had kids of his own I remember catching sight of him in a shopping centre looking exhausted & dishevelled with 2 small kids running rings round him.... oh the satisfaction!

If people who know you think its easy, then you are clearly doing an amazing job of making it look effortlessly under control.

Hmm yes and no. Some people went on about how l would change my mind about certain things after having children (child free weddings, endless screen time, wanting to be a working parent, holidays without children) and l haven't changed my mind about any of them! I had zero interest in a minutae of friends parent e.g. when a friend was going on about the 4th trimester and how l should research it 🙄. But why would l? Wasn't especially interesting for me and it was her major lifestyle change not mine (she often thought it was mine and got annoyed when l still went on holidays, out drinking etc

My ex BIL and his wife acted like they were first people ever to have 2 children which was supper wearing. I ended up having twins but never went on about it as much as them. I was from a big family with lots of children so always knew having children was tough

A colleague who insisted that low income families are being unreasonable to complain about having nothing to do over the summer because, according to her, there are loads of free and fun activities so money should be no barrier. I thought to myself just you wait until you have kids of your own and find that they're not satisfied just going for a walk in the rain or to the library for the umpteenth time and that the free activities last about 20 minutes and are often a bit crap. She'll soon be shelling out £80 for one day at the zoo like the rest of us.

This is brilliant!

You all sound insufferable, banging on about how hard it is, judging each others parenting and resenting anyone who is having a good time.

You'd bloody hate me. I love being a mum and I think it is EASY. I also know I got very very lucky, I only have one and she's very laid back. I don't doubt that other people have serious challenges I don't experience. However I'd bet the farm that even if you lived my life you'd still be moaning.

Exactly.

I was in my early 20s twenty years ago and knew that that having DC was going to be extremely hard work ,all-consuming, could be years of sleep deprivation, years of not having time to yourself, everything revolving around the DC etc just by having life experience. And never ends.

It contributed to my decision not to have DC.

With the advent of the internet and social media, I don't know how anyone could claim to be surprised by it so I was a bit bewildered when my friends in their late 30s and early 40s seemed surprised by it.

I decided on no children when I got a few hints, from popular comedies at the time, of just what is involved in pregnancies and childbirth. Of course the movies played it up for laughs, but it gave me an instant "no thank you" attitude toward motherhood. From all I've heard about it since, I am still convinced I chose correctly.

@Goditsmemargaret this is more about people who don't yet have children who underestimate how much work is involved and how much your life changes temporarily when they are small. My baby is pretty easy going but some of the comments I have had from people are downright hilarious.

This isn't about childless people generally, but a subset of idiots who think a baby is just a potato that sits there while you travel the world, do a masters and pick up some hobbies during maternity leave 😂 believe me, there are some real gems out there.

@YourQuirkyLimeSnail because some people really think they're special and that a non-sleeping colicky baby won't happen to them. All the information out there i think gives people a false sense of "we know what this is about".

And tbh, the sleep deprivation and no time for yourself thing is short lived.

They probably just find it unbelievably boring to have you tell them how hard you have it all the time.

If someone tells me about a problem my natural response is to try and solve it. I dont have kids or want them, and I'm not really interested in parents moaning about how hard they've got it when they've chosen the life they have.

You are my hero. I am hungover to f* today and couldn't articulate my enraged inner response to the OP. But you have done it perfectly. Thank you.

aaah . having a child is good fun at the end of the day.

But not having them is a valid and sometimes enviable choice as well.

What's important either way is making a good and fulfilling life.

God it was easy being a hypothetical parent. My son was going to be absolute angel who slept all night, never cried or acted out and ate whatever I made. He didn't get the memo unfortunately hes a ball of energy who never stops moving or talking, creates chaos wherever he goes and exists on bread and sausage rolls.

I recall DH and I saying to each other in smug bafflement about parents who moaned about children waking early ' Surely if you want them to sleep later you just put them to bed later?'.

We laugh about it now (and thank our lucky stars we never said it to real life parents and just to each other).

I also took Ds1 at the age of 3 months to australia on my own saying 'well they are portable at this age'. Like he was a slightly plump rucksack. That was more or less true, but still more difficult than I imagined.

God. That is the height of irritating.

To be honest there are a lot of parents on here who apparently climbed Kilimanjaro, won a Nobel prize and wrote a best seller with their baby in a sling!
I do get it because I’m not a knob and I’ve lived in this world alongside actual human beings for nearly 51 years now and some of them have had kids and I’ve seen what is involved and I decided that I didn’t want it.
i may want to avoid babies and parents of young children now but that’s because I find everything childish or child centred boring and because I’m not a parent I don’t need to suffer it.

No, there is no excuse for it these days. I started ttc 35 years ago when I was 29. I did have a rose tinted view of motherhood and family life because back then people really didn’t talk about how hard it was, not openly. I thought everyone who had kids must be blissed out all the time.

Yeah, you ultimately got to do what works best for you and what is in line with what you want out of life. For some people it is having children and for others it's remaining child-free.

And for still others it’s making the best of not having the choice.

100% this! I was at a party (yes, a party) once where I was literally grilled for about an hour about why we didn't want children, like it was THE strangest thing in the world. I felt really affronted at the time but now I totally understand where the incredulity came from: 'We can't understand why you don't want children' was actually 'We can't understand why you don't want to share in our misery!'

I see this thread has morphed into a child free one 🙄

That sounds like a great balance. I loved when my two were small too. Thoroughly enjoyed it 😄