"You'll change your mind!"

[AskewAtTheTreddle]

Posting this on the one-child families board in the hopes someone has found a way to shut this down.

I am currently pregnant through fertility treatment (same sex couple). We are sure we are staying with one child, for various reasons. I find when this comes up in conversation, people are quick to laugh and say either "oh you'll change your mind" or "oh I've heard that before" etc. I would love to have something to say to shut it down. Even people who know I've been in hospital with hyperemesis have reacted this way! It's frustrating.

I know part of the resolution/ one way out of this problem is to just not volunteer to people that we're staying with one child (!), or just continue to brush off questions about future potential children! But sometimes it slips out, and also I am sure this sort of thing will come up again when baby is older.

Pa. I could lie and say something like "we can't afford more treatment" but then I'm sure many would the bring out the classic "there's always adoption!" which is a whole other problem for another day...

Ps. Should have spell checked treadle before setting up my new name 🤣

I hate when people do this! I've got one by choice and the constant banging on about having another one is ridiculous. Depending on how direct you want to be, I'd just say I can't have any more. That would usually shut it right down whilst making them feel as nice and uncomfortable as they make you by asking 😊 though I don't give a toss what people think of me so don't know if you would be as comfortable saying it

People say this to us and I just shrug and say "maybe, maybe not, you never know what life throws at you".

Most people who say that to you are looking for a reaction, so just shrugging it off annoys them greatly. And it's healthy to bear it in mind yourself, as I find clamping down and making "one and done" a part of your identity generally makes it more stressful when people say things like this.

Congratulations and best wishes
I'm not sure what to advise, because for some reason no one ever did this to me! But, at least that shows it's not inevitable and some people are capable of butting out!

You could laugh and tell people they're really living in the past if they think there's anything unusual about choosing to have one child nowadays.

www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230110-only-child-or-siblings-one-and-done

CF here and used to get 'oh you'll change your mind' all the time. I just congratulated them on their mind reading ability and ability to see into the future; and BTW, did they have any thoughts on lottery numbers for the next big rollover?

if they got the huff and shut up, job done.

Oh yes I'd love another child but I have ovarian cysts (go in to great detail about some disgusting medical condition) - would you like to see a photo? Should get rid of them 😂

Seriously tho, it is so very tiresome. It doesn't seem to matter what you say they won't shut up. A cousin of DH's (at a funeral no less) kept bringing it up again and again as if our secondary infertility was merely down to us not trying hard enough. It was the first time I met him (thankfully the only time as far 😬).

Eventually I learned to just not engage. Smile and nod. Say non-committal things. Change subject.

Just don’t get involved with it. People can be presumptuous and annoying can’t they!
You could just say oh we don’t know yet. You don’t need to get into it because often they don’t mean anything, they’re just saying it as a stock phrase that people say.
The only people who need to know your plans are you and your partner (and you don’t need to make plans right now if it doesn’t suit). If they insist on saying things like oh you will want to have another, just take the ae’ll see route and let it wash over you. Their views based on what ‘everyone else’ usually does matter not a jot.

😆 👏 nice 👌🏼

I get this too! Frustrating but they are either looking for a reaction, or they have two themselves and they want me to have a second to validate their choice. Either way, I always stay breezy and say 'yes maybe, I'm not sure yet but you'll be the first to know if I do!'. That tends to diffuse it and then I ask them about their child choices whatever they are ('how did you decide on a second?') and that distracts them. I'm 100% set on no more but telling people that invites them to debate it with me.

Another retort to 'you'll change your mind' might be, 'I hope not, because I can't change my body 🤷‍♀️'

Thank you all. It's definitely partly me resolved by me letting go of making a point to strangers! It often comes after people ask "is this your first?" I come out with something like "and our last" or "yes, and i'm not doing this again". I go through patches of being better at just saying "yes" and moving on. But sometimes it just... falls out my face against my better judgement. I don't know why I over-share.

I think I engage because it feels like it's all part of the rhetoric of just "women have to put up with any amount of pain about pregnancy because childbirth is non-negotiable part of womanhood". And the "two children is what makes a family". And I just fundamentally disagree with both.

Trying to get better at choosing the hills I die on...

I don’t think you’re oversharing. You’re making an important point about some fairly dopey assumptions. I got ‘So when’s the next?’ and when I said there wouldn’t be one, there were often shrieks of ‘You can’t do that!’ or ‘That’s selfish!’ (Not from actual friends, more people I met at neighbours’ barbecues.) I was unapologetically direct in my responses.

Trying to get better at choosing the hills I die on...

Good idea ... definitely a useful skill to practice, you need it when you've got a kid for sure!

If in doubt, go weird.

"You have to have sex to have a baby last time I checked"
"Ah thank you, I'm looking for babysitters!"
"When are YOU having another child?" (Turn the conversation round on them. If they are old, mention world records for having late babies).

One of the above tends to shut them up.

People have stopped asking me now, my daughter is 6 and a half.