AIBU to tell my mum to stop asking about grandchildren?

[TwinklySeal]

My partner and I both turn 40 in August. We've been together since we were 18 we met at university both studying Medicine and have been together ever since. Medicine at uni has that sort of environment where everyone in the same cohort kind of just sticks together. Everything I did was to do with medicine, I played hockey but that was medicines hockey etc. In a way slightly culty.

We've built the life we wanted. We both have careers we genuinely love. we've bought a house, have a great group of friends and close relationships with our families.

We've never really wanted children. I had an abortion at 35, and if anything it confirmed what we already knew. We both realised parenthood wasn't for us. We wouldn't want to bring a child into the world unless we were 100% committed to it, and we're not. We enjoy our life as it is. We like the freedom of deciding on a random day to go away for the night, eating out, travelling, spending time with friends and our nieces and nephews, and focusing on our careers.

Some people might call that selfish. Maybe it is. I'd actually rather be "selfish" than have a child because it's expected and then resent the lifestyle change. Children deserve parents who desperately want them.

I absolutely adore my nieces and nephews and happily spend time with them, but loving other people's children has never translated into wanting my own. I've never had that maternal calling, I know I would be a terrible mother and at nearly 40 I think it's safe to say the maternal instinct is not suddenly going to appear.

We're getting married in August. Neither of us is particularly interested in marriage itself, but from a practical point of view (next of kin, legal protections etc.) it just makes sense. We're having a very small registry office wedding in London followed by a nice meal with close family and friends. Exactly what we want.

The issue is my mum.For years she's brought up grandchildren. Every conversation seems to circle back to babies. I've repeatedly told her we're not having children and that the subject is closed.Recently she said, "Well then what's the point of life?"

That has shocked me. As though our lives somehow have less value because we've made a different choice. I don't judge people who have children most of the people I love do but I don't understand why some people can't accept that not everyone wants the same life.Eventually I'd had enough and told her to stop bringing it up because the answer isn't changing and I don't want every visit turning into the same conversation.

Now she's upset and thinks I was harsh.
AIBU? Should I just let her keep hoping and politely shut it down every time, or is it reasonable to expect her to accept that at nearly 40, after over 2 decades together, we've made our decision and it isn't up for debate?

Even when I’m 50 she will go on and on about it. It’s making me want to see her less every single time she talks about. A close friend of mine had her first baby recently I went to see her and meet her son. I sent a photo of me holding her son to my mum (this friend had known me since we were 7 and our mums are good friends) and my mum instead decided to comment on what I’m apprently missing in my life. Even added that my partner and I should hurry.

what "baton"?

All these people defending her - do you all truly believe it's okay to keep asking your child intrusive, personal questions for what must be at least 10-15 years?

A lot of people are ignorant of genetic dilution. Even someone who is obsessed with "the family line" needs to accept that their chromosomal patterns will be a droplet in the ocean after a few generations.

And don't even get me started on the illogical people who argue "your genetic line will end and that's bad" alongside "the future is going to be awful because people aren't having children". Oh no will your great great grandchildren not exist to suffer the end of civilisation what a pity.

Your mum can ram it. She wants the status of a million grandchildren to brag to the other old ladies about.

It does seem to me that the OP’s mother likes the idea of being a grandmother more than the reality. OP has said she’s not remotely interested in the young children in the wider family.

Oh my god. I don’t know anyone who thinks of grandchildren in terms of their genetic line, what weirdos do you hang out with? Everyone I know wants grandchildren because they are their baby’s babies.

Some people might call that selfish. Maybe it is. I'd actually rather be "selfish" than have a child because it's expected and then resent the lifestyle change. Children deserve parents who desperately want them.

I agree 100% with what you say. I shut down these kinds of arguments by reminding people that my taxes pay for their subs and handouts as parents but I get little back in return. Even the 25% off council tax still means that I subsidise families by paying 75% of what they do with one income.

Ive been through this with my own parents and constantly reminded that my golden princess sister had gifted them with two grandsons.It was instrumental in my moving to another city in my 40s to study and never returning to the city of my birth. I gradually dropped the rope until the time when my parents died - within two years of one another - we were semi estranged. No big bust up, just a gradual drifting away.

I know loads of women who will say "but if you don't have children your family line will END"

Clearly pp have similar experiences

Personally I always appreciated my mother's recognition that having children isn't an entirely good thing for women.

In other words

If you really love your kids it's hard to see how you can treat them like breeding farm animals

Which is...literally exactly what I said?

OP asked is she being unreasonable.
I don't think she's being unreasonable to have decided not to have kids.
I don't think she's being unreasonable to have becoming annoyed at her mum for continuing to pressure her.
I do think her mum is being unreasonable to keep pushing after being clearly told it's not going to happen and OP doesn't want to discuss it further.

I literally said that morally and intellectually OP is in the right, as much as anyone can be when all arguments have 2 sides.

Doesn't mean I don't also think OP could be a bit more sympathetic. Nobody on this thread has suggested that OP have a baby just to make her mum happy, but given that she has ASKED for varied opinions rather than those who agree with her personally I think that sending a cute baby photo of her mum's close friend's grandchild shortly after a fraught conversation about not having children herself wasn't ideal.

to be fair, it's a pretty common comment/advice on here too that 'I don't like other kids, only my own,' and 'You'll feel completely different about your own kids,' etc.

I think it's fair enough that OP's mum probably would behave and feel differently towards her own grandchildren that she could form a relationship with rather than a great-niece once removed she sees every 5 years.

Seems strange your mum keeps going on about it if she is not that keen on young children and doesn’t get involved with the ones already in your family. I love my granddaughters dearly but we have other interests and enjoy travel so although they and our daughters take priority they aren’t our whole life. One of our daughters chose to have kids and the other didn’t. Each choice is valid and theirs alone and we would never pressure either of them or even express an opinion on something so personal. I can see though if your mum had four children she might have expected grandchildren from at least one. As you say though pleasing your mum is not a good reason to have children you don’t want. Parenting is hard so unless you are both all in you are right to remain childless. Personally I would just ignore your mums comments as she will be going through a process similar to grief where her retirement is not to be what she expected. That is on her though and hopefully she starts to find other hobbies and interests or takes up travelling with your Dad.

Yanbu in terms of being extremely fed up of your mum's comments. I would agree with PP who suggested ending conversations/visits if she starts on with it. She will do it for the rest of her life if not, transitioning into "It's such a shame you never.." when you're menopausal.

I do find a bit hard to understand some of what you're saying about reasons for not being a parent, though. Obviously it's entirely your choice and it sounds like it's the right one for you and your partner and I do believe you feel entirely sure about that. But as a pediatrician who presumably comes across many families from all different backgrounds I don't know how you can suggest that you and your husband who is presumably also a doctor don't have enough money to have a child. How can that be true? I guess you know your circumstances best but.. who do you think does have enough money if you don't??

I also don't see how you can say you wouldn't be a good parent and you don't have the necessary qualities. You're a pediatrician, I'm sure you have many qualities which would make you a great parent and again I'm sure you come across all sorts of people who are parents who might not be the absolute perfect model of parenting but they're doing it and most people do their best. I just think, it's fine not to want to do it and it's an entirely legitimate choice but I find it hard to imagine many people who'd be better parents than someone of your background. I suppose you didn't go into details about in what ways you felt you wouldn't be good parents.

It's an interesting idea that there are some intrinsic qualities that might make someone a good parent or not. I guess it's only since people, women particularly of course, actually gained control over whether to have children or not that this is something people might reflect on much as previously it was just what almost everyone ended up doing. Which wasn't always for the best, evidently.
Anyway, just some thoughts that struck me. Good luck with DM.

Nobody is saying you owe her grandchildren @TwinklySeal That doesn’t stop her mourning the fact she doesn’t have them… surely you can see that both things can co-exist?

Your mum going on about you having children sounds really infuriating…i think you have to grey rock everytime. ‘Mum I’m not talking about this again. Now.. cup of tea?’

Hmmmm. There's a difference between a couple of posts and a couple of dozen posts.

The general gist of the posts is 'I think this. Someone else thinks something else. I'm right. They're wrong. I shouldn't be challenged.'

This pattern is being consistently repeated. It's problematic on a number of levels, partly because if the question is AIBU, then it necessarily invites challenge. However, all challenge is being rejected. While some challenges are unreasonable, it's worrying that the thinking pattern means there can be no legitimate challenges whatsoever. It's as if the OP is trying to establish a universal truth that will hold at all times and in all places. I'm unsure who they're trying to convince, themselves or everyone else. If the answer is the latter, then they're making a categorical error because the only prison they actually need to consider is their own mother.

Because as hard or as selfish as this seems your mother has wiped all your bums, spent sleepless nights nursing you and feeding you and taking you to clubs and sports stuff and helping you all with your home work and hours of laundry, doing all the work to keep the family going and you have all thrown it back in her face because none of you can be bothered to give her a single grandchild.

It’s the equivalent of doing a special work project that has a big bonus at the end
It has taken up all your time for decades and you watch it come to fruition and then wait and wait for the bonus cheque only to get a redundancy notice and a pat on the head and a letter to say you did a great job but they have decided to not to pay out the bonuses because they don’t want to.

You might argue that there was no guarantee that she was going to get grandchildren. It is none of your jobs to provide her with any but it must feel like a kick in the gut thinking you raised 4 dc and not one of them has given her the one thing she thought would come naturally

I suspect if one of you does give her the GC she desperately wants then the rest of you will be left for dust.

Seen it happen in more than one family

I can understand why she'd feel disappointed, and I don't think she's wrong for feeling that way. But I don't agree with the idea that raising children creates a debt that can only be repaid with grandchildren. My mum chose to have four children. Everything you describe, wiping bums, sleepless nights, homework, laundry, clubs is what parenting involves. As children we weren't capable of reciprocating; we needed those things. That's the responsibility you take on when you decide to become a parent. If she'd found parenting so unrewarding that the only worthwhile outcome was grandchildren, then that would be quite a sad way to view those years. Surely raising your children and seeing them become happy, independent adults was the reward, not a down payment on the next generation.

I also don't think the work project analogy works because children aren't projects and grandchildren aren't a bonus payment. They're autonomous people who grow up and make their own decisions. My mum was free to choose motherhood because that's the life she wanted. I'm equally free to choose not to because that's the life I want. Those aren't acts of gratitude or ingratitude they're simply different life choices. Saying that "none of you can be bothered" also misses the point. It isn't about effort or convenience. Having a child is one of the biggest commitments a person can make, and bringing one into the world to meet someone else's expectations would be far more unfair than deciding not to have one at all.

At some point, though, acceptance has to follow disappointment. My siblings and I are all over 35. We've each made this decision independently, we've all held the same view for years, and none of us will be having children. This isn't a phase, and it isn't something we're likely to change our minds about. Our lives are our own to live. Parenthood simply doesn't fit the lives any of us want and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Other people find fulfilment in raising children; we've found fulfilment elsewhere. My mum is entitled to grieve the future she imagined but she also has to accept that her adult children's lives belong to them not to the expectations she had for them. My dad has always understood that. He's always encouraged us to build lives that are meaningful to us rather than living according to someone else's idea of what our lives should look like and I think that's a healthier way of looking at it. My life my choice not my mothers choice however selfish that is. I do not care about that she wiped my bum as a child….. controversially, that was her job, that was their job as my parents. A baby cannot do those things and if she thought doing those things mean she gets to have a say in my life then I’m afraid having children was the wrong choice for her and she just has to live with that. Children don’t owe their parents thing because parents did things of them, parents are supposed to do things for their children, this changes as they grow into adulthood but as a child taking me to clubs was her job. Otherwise don’t have children. My partner and I are aware enough to know we wouldn’t want such responsibilities therefore no children.

Not a universal truth just my opinion on my own life. No one else gets to decide what I do but me. I am capable of making decisions.

This is the decision I have made and I hope my mother decides to get over it. It’s been ongoing for a long time I will not have a child that should be the end of it. Not constantly trying to convince me or asking about my sex life with my partner I find such things intrusive.

I also think she’s so far gone that she thinks the only way someone’s life is fulfilling is because they don’t have children, my eldest brother has had a very fulfilling life, he was in the RAF for many years and describes those years as some of his best, he’s a pilot now and I couldn’t imagine him and wife as parents that’s not to say he wouldn’t be a great parent but it’s just not in him. He is a great pilot and a great husband who has decided to build his life how he wants. Surely everyone has a right to choose. That’s just my point.

We all have a right to choose and my choice has been the same for a long time. I am approaching 40 I don’t know everything but I like to think I know what I want my life to look like. I would like my mother to respect that, she’s had many years to know what her children want in life. This isn’t new, this has always been our stance. Same way I respect women who want to be mothers I would like for my choice to be respected especially by my own mother.

I’d be devastated if none of my children decide to have their own children. And yes I’d wonder where I went wrong

Their place in the world I guess. It’s not anything definite. Just a sense of continuation?

@TwinklySeal What I don't agree with is the suggestion that understanding her disappointment means I should keep revisiting a decision that my partner and I made a long time ago.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has suggested you do that.
People are suggesting ways you can see your mother’s viewpoint to help her recognise yours.
You seem to see it as your mother missing something physical. I would say that’s the very smallest part actually.

I think this is what @TwinklySeal is getting at.
It’s not about YOU or a reflection on you as a person, a parent or the childhood you gave them.

You are, hopefully, raising an individual of free thought and will. They will be growing up and working in world that is very different from the one you did as a child and a young adult - better in some ways and worse in others.

It great that you and others on this thread are aware now of how you would feel if you had no grandchildren.
Perhaps for the sakes of your children, any future grandchildren and yourself, start considering and working on these strong feelings.

Your post started off very reasonably, but descended into childish ranting. Perhaps it’s unreasonable to expect more empathy and logic (and punctuation) from a doctor, but I’m glad I’m not your patient.

This all makes having children seem very transactional. The things that you describe are consequences of the choice to have children. I don’t know about you but when I was in the thick of parenting young children and finding it tough the last thing on my mind was “oh well this’ll be worth it one day when I get grandchildren”, as if that’s the only reason to parent the children I chose to have.

And what is ‘not being bothered to give her a single grandchild “ about? You can’t seriously be suggesting that OP or her siblings should have children that they don’t want as some sort of “thank you” or gift to their mother?

I think this is what is getting at.
It’s not about YOU or a reflection on you as a person, a parent or the childhood you gave them.

What parent doesn’t worry about what their parenting is or has done to their children though? Why would that change when they have grown up?

I find it interesting that a discussion about empathy has turned into questioning my intelligence & punctuation and ability to be a doctor because I have a different opinion.

I personally think there’s a difference between my personal frustrations on a forum and my professional life . Maybe I’m terrible at my job as you imply but there’s been no complaints. I can be a compassionate doctor while also being a human being who finds repeated pressure from my own mother jarring and a waste of time. I’m nearly 40 get over it my life my choice at the end of the day. Don’t have children if you expect them to give you grandchildren in return.

Also I’m dyslexic as previously mentioned so the punctuation comment is a little unnecessary. Thankfully, my patients tend to value how I care for them rather than whether I use perfect commas on Mumsnet. Then again my patients are often children. I can’t be that bad at my job based on the countless feedback. The NHS would lose a lot of great doctors if they got rid of everyone with a learning disability. Anyway I’m too stupid to work with adults ahaha albeit I have been a 17 years as a medic.

Disagreeing with someone doesn’t mean a person lacks empathy or logic. Sometimes it simply means they have listened and reached a different conclusion. I don’t appreciate being told that I should have children. If she wants children she can go foster the many children that need loving homes or volunteer at children’s homes but she would never do that.

I think there are some people who just can't imagine life being complete without children (my mother is one of these). My sibling is child free and my mother views everything she does (like travel) as compensation for not having children. One of my children is child free, not by choice, but my mother doesn't know this. I have had to tell my parents to stop asking about babies because they were hassling ME about when they were going to be great grandparents.

I personally don't care if I am never a grandparent. My children have to do what is right for them in their lives. For me, that was having children. For them, that might not be. My own life is full and happy, so I'm not needing grandchildren to fill any void.

I think your experience of being hassled about children is very common for those who don't have any. I'd suggest coming up with a short and quick way to shut the conversations down as soon as it starts.