to wish my colleague wouldn't refer to the effects of child-rearing as 'self inflicted'

[mumofaboy]

She is a perfectly nice woman really, single and no kids (no idea if this is through choice or not). I try very hard not to be a baby bore at work and only mention DS if someone asks after him. She and I chat quite a lot, she'll ask me how I am (and vice versa), and if I dare to mention that I'm a bit tired or have had a hard night with DS she'll make a sort of 'aunty knows best' face (IYSWIM!) and say, 'oh well, it is self inflicted after all', in the sort of jolly/disapproving tone you'd use to someone hungover. Well, yes, I did choose to have a child (although she doesn't actually know that!!), but I wouldn't describe a sleepless night caused by DS crying because he is unwell/teething as 'self-inflicted'.

She also seems to think I have it easy as have more time off than her - but again if I mention that this 'time off' is largely spent caring for a small child, I get the same comments. This is starting to wind me up somewhat!

Sorry if you think IABU, but have to vent on here so I don't have a go at her in RL as she is quite sweet normally!

I had this exact problem..every time I had a little moan, my friend would say "You chose to have kids!" in a very patronising tone.

In the end, I replied to her by saying "You chose your husband and your job, but I still listen to you moan about them! Give me a break please!"

She did .

Is your friend childless? I ask because my friend had had a hell of a time TTC, and never managed it, and I think she was starting to reent me.

We're back to being good friends now...I don't think she realised she was upsetting me until I said something back.

I would ignore it. Who knows what she's been through/is going through? I can see it would be irritating but she does have a point. Albeit not one I would think needs making all the time!!

Oh dear. I do wonder if people think this about my pregnancy related moaning.

I like the husband / job analogy.

Well next time she has any issue/problem/ambivalence about, say, her partner, you could wear an 'aunty knows best' look yourself & say 'well it's self inflicted you know, you could choose never to have a relationship & then wouldn't have these issues'.

I hate this attitude of 'your choice' in all it's guises, it rejects the possibility of any ambivalence. As if choosing something is as simple as 'it always will make you happy & only happy'.

I suspect she really doesn't realise how it's coming across. I'd ignore it if you get on well otherwise.

I'd also say that before I had my children I went through stages of being really fed up at work with a couple of colleagues who never thought how much harder I had to work to make up for their family holidays/leaving at 5 pm etc.

Not that I was being taken advantage of by them personally, but because my employer was too tight to provide adequate cover I used to end up picking up the slack. I didn't get Christmas off for four years because my two colleagues divvied it up between themselves! I'm not saying for a moment this applies to you, but there was a definite assumption that my time off wasn't as valuable as theirs because it didn't involve small people!

She is single and no children - she is in her forties and I suspect this is partly choice, partly through the lack of meeting the 'right' person IYSWIM. myface - I would never assume my time is more valuable than hers because she is a free agent. (Although ironically the reason she got her job in the first place is because she replaced me when I went on maternity leave!)

I know AIB a bit unreasonable as she is quite right in the respect that I did choose to get married, have children etc. I just find it a bit annoying that I daren't make the slightest complaint about my lot in life without being made to feel it's ALL my own doing.

That said though, I do regularly have to listen to her complain that she has slept badly because of a badger that rustles about outside her bedroom window........ I would never say it out loud, but a BIG part of me is thinking 'sleep deprivation? you have nooooo idea'.....

But did she chooooooose the badger?

That counts as self-inflicted surely -she's chosen to live near a badger.

I think she may have been there before Mr Badger......

Can badgers get ASBOs?

anti-social badger orders?

Brilliant.

Actually I'm about to start handing out ASPOs. That's anti-social pigeon orders. Fecking things.

ASPO's. amazing.

I used to sit next to a woman at work who sounds very similar and ticks all those boxes i.e. single, child free etc.

She used to be very, very scathing about women who had had children (I hadn't had one at that stage). She would constantly refer to the fact that they were "loose" down there and that she was a far more desirable prospect to a single man than someone who had had kids (yet she remained single)...

When I got pregnant all she talked about was how much of a bucket chuff I was going to end up with. "It will be like throwing a sausage down Oxford St" she chirped with glee.

How gutted was she when I ended up with an emergency section.

(Disclaimer - I know that giving birth does not a bucket chuff make. She, however, seemed to think it was a given)

She'd annoy me too. I guess almost anything could be classed as 'self-inflicted' so she's talking poo. Did she indeed choose to live near the badger?!

What's a bucket chuff? I have to know. Even if it makes me . (I've had a very sheltered life.)

A loose vagina, my dear.

'Like chucking a welly down the Finchley Road' - that's the one that always sticks in my head!

My favourite-ever childless colleague comment was 'You're so lucky, you have to take time off at weekends because you have children while some of us can't stop ourselves and carry on all weekend.'
Er, no. Those of us with children have to look after the children at the weekend and still get the work done so we do not start the week lovely and rested after frolicking through fields of buttercups, we have to do childcare all day then the bloody work after the dcs have gone to bed. But it is self-inflicted, of course.

And re the badger thing, it does make me simply furious when dh gets to stay in a hotel all night for work and comes back and says he slept badly because there was a noisy air-conditioning unit . There may well have been but it's not like he had to keep getting out of bed to fix it, is it?

Its only self inflicted in a roundabout kind of way.

Like, you dont choose to have wrinkles as such, you choose not to have botox...

I've just confused myself actually.

often when I'm doingthe monotony that is the school run

or yelling at the kids to get their shoes on NOW

or spreading my millionth piece of toast with marmite for them

I think I never envisaged this when I became broody for a wee cuddly newborn

I had no idea of the relentless monotony of it

of potty training, of spending my Sundays in softplay centres for yet another party, of parents evenign ona friday night

you don't get broody for all the above do you?

I think you should spare a thought for her. I was childless for a long time and it is really hard to understand what it's like if you're not a parent. She is probably a bit lost for what else to say. I am not saying she's envious of your family but I used to feel like saying "I only wish I had the opportunity to be knackered out having my own little family" but of course you can never say that so instead some crass awkward comment comes out.

Sounds to me like it's an uncomfortable subject for her and she really doesn't know what else to say since she can't contribute any child-small-talk of her own and anything else would be too personal. That's usually why people make these sort of comments, unless they are the sort who are like that about everything.

SloanyPony thank you for educating me. I am suitably and now even more nervous about life after the passenger I currently have onboard.

I can see what she means. Sometimes when I listen to my friends saying how difficult it is having kids, such hard work, nobody understands etc etc I wonder a) why they had them and b) why they didn't work out how hard it was after number one.

I speak as a childless person so obviously I'm only seeing it from one perspective.

Somebody mentioned what about relationships, jobs etc and I must admit I feel much the same about that too. I love having a moan as we all do, and I will happily be a sympathetic ear to my friends, but when it's a stuck record playing endlessly and they never ever do anything about it, you feel like saying well you can't hate it that much or wouldn't you make moves to change it?

I'm childless but have to agree with you, who does she think will be paying her pension??

Maybe she wanted children and can't conceive. Maybe she wanted children but her partner didn't. Maybe she doesn't have a partner. Maybe she is really quite jealous about you having a child to spend the weekend with. Maybe she has had miscarriages. Maybe she is just not interested, and maybe she is just being a bit selfish about this particular issue. Maybe you talk about your child more than you realise. Maybe she thinks sometimes that that children are a blessing and that you should actually be grateful to have them.

Maybe you should just find somebody else to chat to if it bothers you so much.