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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be totally unreasonablly angry/frustrated at people who say "But I have no choice" or "I have no other option"

158 replies

SnapDragons · 05/02/2010 22:12

There is always another choice

You may not like any of the other options/choices but that doesn't mean they do not exist

Your 'non-choices' may be so far outside your experience you cannot deal with them - but that doesn't make them any less a valid choice

OP posts:
heQet · 05/02/2010 22:48

most people don't make that choice, 2shoes, not don't have that choice.

SoupDragon · 05/02/2010 22:48

If you 're going to tout utter ignorant shite such as the OP then yes, the name is too close.

I'm sure all the people lumbered with having to cope as a single parent would be delighted to know you think they had a choice in the matter.

If the other option(s) is(are) completely nonsensical then there really is no choice at all.

gaelicsheep · 05/02/2010 22:49

As I said it's a matter of semantics, and OP is being pedantic!

heQet · 05/02/2010 22:49

that's exactly it, trillian. But my point is how much better it is to feel the power and control of saying I make this choice, rather than I have no choice. Even if the choice is shitty there's a lot to be said for feeling like you are in control of it.

Mumcentreplus · 05/02/2010 22:50

sometimes the choices you make are not for yourself...as a parent alot of the time they are not for yourself...are they not viable choices?...

StarlightMcKenzie · 05/02/2010 22:51

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StarlightMcKenzie · 05/02/2010 22:51

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SoupDragon · 05/02/2010 22:52

Oooh yes! I choose not to lock my children in the underground bunker to allow myself a day off! Er... no.

StarlightMcKenzie · 05/02/2010 22:53

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wubblybubbly · 05/02/2010 22:54

I do think we (usually) have choices available to us. All options have consequences though and it's whether or not you can live with the consequences.

For example, when I was cracking up at work I just wanted to get out of there, I felt as though I didn't have a choice. In fact I did, I could've just got up and walked out, but there would have been consequences to doing so that I didn't want to face. BUT, just acknowledging I had that choice made it a bit easier to stay put.

Just because none of the alternatives appeal doesn't mean there isn't a choice.

Herbieta, you have the choice to move home, if where you're living isn't working out for you. Of course, there would be consequences of that choice that you might not be able to tolerate, so you choose not to, but you have made a choice.

Original poster
SnapDragons · 05/02/2010 22:54

I do like a Friday night thread - but maybe I should have put it in Pedants Corner?

OP posts:
SpeedyGonzalez · 05/02/2010 22:54

I have frequently spoken to people faced with some challenging life situation, who genuinely feel as though they have no choice. But as an external bystander I have the privilege of being able to see their situation less emotively, and so I am able to see that actually they do have several options/ the options they are seeing are not necessarily as catastrophic as they imagine, etc etc.

Often when people talk about having no choice they are betraying the fact that they are unable to see outside their usual patterns of behaviour. They talk and feel as though these patterns are fixed, because they do not understand that their behaviour/ personalities, etc can be as fluid as they are willing to let them be.

Obviously there are a very few situations in life (such as whether or not to give birth when in labour) when we genuinely don't have a choice, but IME actually the choices are there more often than not; it's often a question of having the support/ imagination to see them. So the OP is not talking bollocks at all.

2shoes · 05/02/2010 22:55

heQet ok put it another way, my dd didn't have a fucking choice,
she didn't choose to have CP.

Mumcentreplus · 05/02/2010 22:57

sometimes you may feel you are protecting someone with your choice...or enlightening someone with your choice ..as I have said life ..and human beings are not simple

Original poster
SnapDragons · 05/02/2010 22:59

Having a 'choice' or considering options are things that a person does

Things that are done to a person do not (generally) confer any element of choice (being born/dying/having blonde/health)

Maybe?

Seriously Soupdragon - if you want me to change just CAT me (I'll explain name/who I am etc)

OP posts:
Mumcentreplus · 05/02/2010 22:59

some people know no different, experience no different ,see no different and they make their choices based on what they know and experience...not always what is right or wrong

StarlightMcKenzie · 05/02/2010 23:00

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2shoes · 05/02/2010 23:01

SnapDragons oh so now you are deciding what you mean by choice

heQet · 05/02/2010 23:01

no 2shoes, I know. Like I said above (and I think speedy said?) there are events that happen to us, over which we have no control, but that's not what the op was talking about, she was talking about people saying I have no choice, I must do X, when there is Y and Z as well, but they don't want the consequences of Y or Z so they choose X, but instead of saying they chose X,they said they had no choice.

AllThreeWays · 05/02/2010 23:01

As a complete aside.
I get incredibly frustrated at the help and financial support that is available for foster carers of children with special needs, that is not available for birth parents.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Mumcentreplus · 05/02/2010 23:02
StarlightMcKenzie · 05/02/2010 23:03

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Goblinchild · 05/02/2010 23:03

Well, a local woman appears to have exercised her choice. She killed her two children.
How cornered and desperate and out of better choices must she have felt?

2shoes · 05/02/2010 23:04

heQet tbh I don't think the op has a clue what she is talking about

heQet · 05/02/2010 23:05

or you could retrain to be able to command a higher salary.

or you could sell a kidney

anyway, am going to bed. will leave snap to face the beating alone.

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