I love the Internet for the breadth and depth of information it provides, and for the opportunity to read so many varying opinions on one subject. But sometimes I just have to walk away.
Case in point, I was doing research for a post and came across the following comment on an article:
“I take care of my parents. My children will take care of me. You want to force my children to take care of you too, meanwhile you arrogantly and selfishly live a much richer life style. Frankly, every GINK I’ve met was an arrogant, self-righteous, elitist. You should apologize for not adding to the future of our race.”
So after I ranted to myself about not expecting anyone else’s kids to take care of me, how our race of almost 7 billion people doesn’t need much adding to, and how narrow-minded this woman was to tar us all with the same “arrogant, self-righteous, elitist” brush, I stomped off and took a long, hot shower.
This woman was clearly on a mission (she posted about half a dozen comments to the same article) and I can’t believe I let her anger get under my skin.
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s under your skin today?
When people say things like ‘You never know what can happen’ or ‘You don’t know what your life will bring’.
I try to fight the urge to make a mental note to call these people at three am until they answer and say ‘Water is wet’ and hang up the phone. Obviously, unless you are some sort of powerful clairvoyant none of us know what the future will bring- how is this helpful? It’s redundant, and to me, just another way people silence you and make any issue you have suddenly irrelevant.
When it’s said as a less obvious ‘Yeah but you could still get that miracle baby- so no sense feeling what you are now’ I will roll my eyes and tell you to zip it. It’s insulting because it’s only perpetuating the idea that the ultimate goal in life is motherhood, and if there is a chance in hell that you could one day find yourself in that role- all your feelings, experiences and stresses are silly and neurotic. It’s reducing all the pain, loss and hell I’ve gone through into a simple case of getting all worked up for nothing because there is still a chance a miracle can happen.
It angers me that I’m expected to sit there and listen to other people natter on about how they couldn’t get a particular toy for their kid, or their daughter didn’t get into her top pick of schools and accept these as hardships, empathizing with their disappointment as parents. Then when the situation is reversed, my experiences are minimized into ‘Well anything can happen in the future’. Having empathy for them doesn’t anger me, it’s the concept that I shouldn’t expect the same empathy and understanding back. If I started responding to every concern my parent friends/family had with ‘You don’t know what life will bring so don’t worry’ I am fairly certain I’d be considered rude and disregarding of them. When they do it to me it’s somehow justifiable.
So with you on the “anything can happen” comment and how it burns. I particularly hate people who know nothing about the dire combination of mine and my partner’s fertility issues that say “There’s always Hope”. No there isn’t! Not for a baby.
Unless Hope stands for ‘Harrowingly Overly-Optimistic Prats Encouraging-me-to-clobber-them-over-the-head-with-my-handbag’ that is 🙂 then there is ALWAYS HOPE 😉
Totally with you too on how we get totally disregarded – summed up very well here, thank you Foxglove. And thanks Zee – love the new HOPE acronym! Very few people know how to show empathy – my feelings have been diminished throughout my TTC days (lasting 20 years). There is no understanding now that all my hope is gone (I am 50), experiencing the menopause symptoms. I’ve had 3 months of hot flushes and sleepless nights and couldn’t wear any of my new clothes to work because I kept burning up! The difference now is I don’t look for any empathy from anyone but LWB and the ladies and posts here. This is the only place I feel I can relate to anyone. I remind myself daily – there is a lot to be thankful for and having children is not the only way to live. On the plus – the hot flushes have stopped for now and I’ve missed 3 periods so the mental torture has eased for now.
Oohhh foxglove that’s a very good one, my thing is I actually say what everyone else thinks, so I’m going to use that one on somebody who has upset me by dismising what I’ve been through.
And i may add a bit too, Oh what a shame you can’t do bla bla bla…well it could be worse, dont be so negative, maybe your blocking it by being negative, stop worrying, if you think more positive a miracle will happen….sadly though they probably will get a miracle and it’ll bit me in the ass!
I have to say .. people who make these statements are sooo arrogant and oblivious as to what is going on around them .. either that, or they are jealous of our lives and feel their lives are miserable .. as if some of of us EVER had a choice not bringing a blessed child into this world .. WE WISH we could!
and i would also like to add .. WHOSE kids are watching us?! as far as i’m concerned, no one is watching us FOR FREE in the future? absolutely no one’s kids .. this is just so hurtful for her to say
Yes it really is hurtful and you’re right they dont do it for free.
I’ve always considered people who have more than two children (those who exceed their quota for “adding to the future of our race”), to be the selfish ones. We are in a population and climate crisis and they selfishly add to that stress because they want a big family with lots of children. Imagine their children go on to have three kids each. The Earth cannot support that growth.
I’ve always thought people who have more than two kids, (those who exceed their quota for “adding to the future of our race.”), to be the selfish ones. We are in a population and climate crisis and they selfishly add to that stress because they want a big family with many children. What if your three children go on to have large families? I cringe with both disgust and guilt when a grandmother says – with pride – she has 14 grandchildren! The Earth can’t handle that stress.
Oops! Looks like that first comment did post! Apologies for the duplicate.
Good point MJ – I’m turning the comment round. 14 grandchildren – yes they are the selfish ones and it won’t ensure their future either. Most children do not stay in touch or jump to look after their elders – they move away!
People making assumptions without knowing a thing about me. Recently I fell into conversation with an older lady at the bus stop, the inevitable do you have kids question came up. On a no, she starts on how I’m just like her son, he never wanted children etc, etc. She never notices I’ve gone three shades whiter and I’m incapable of speaking. Before I can even begin to say anything to explain or express my indignation off she goes on her bus unaware of how much pain she has just dismissed.
I really hate that too Cariade. That has happened to me so many times, I’m left fuming and it makes me angry for a long time after. Then I argue with them in my head afterwards too.
The “selfish” issue is one that always gets me. I’ve ranted about it a few times on my blog.
But the response to someone like that is:
“I’ll be paying your children or someone’s children to look after me, providing them with employment and a means to do things with their own children. Not to mention all the taxes I paid that allowed your children to get an education. AND I’m saving the planet. That’s not selfish!”
I have other things I could whine about, but I don’t want to come off as mean and resentful! lol
Good one Mali, I couldn’t of said better myself
No Whine here for me Mine’s wasn’t a choice.
I was meeting someone once with the view of giving her a job working with me. When she said she was selfish before she had kids but she’s not selfish now that she’s got kids I decided not to give her the job.
I Can’t work with someone with that illusion that she thinks she’s selflessness just because she got kids now.
And the absolute twats who say they can’t understand the mindset and selfishness of us who can’t have kids and don’t want to adopt.
That really pisses me off !
And why is it people online troll US who can’t have kids for wanting to reproduce?
Blaming us for wanting to add to the overcrowded world.
What’s under my skin is how people assume I must be living this amazing life because I don’t have kids. Like I must have all this disposable income, travel constantly and have an incredible career. In fact, I have ME/ CFS and have had to put my career on indefinite maybe permanent hold, have thousands of dollars of debt I can not pay off because I can’t work, I have no partner to help me and I can’t have children. I am wholly dependent on my aging parents for care. I have spent only one week out every month in the past six months out of bed. Gosh I sure am living the sweet life of Reilly *eyeroll*. This vid is how I feel about all the able bodied child free by choice women who go on and on and on about their amazing jobs that pay for their amazing trips and how cannot I not be happy because children are wretched baggage who only prevent you from “living your best life” gosh I just must have gobs of time to do whatever I want because I’m not working. I want to punch them dead in the face. https://www.facebook.com/rejectinglaurenrowe/videos/1547045432041850/
The number of times I’ve been accused of being ‘selfish’ for being in my mid-40s and not having kids is ridiculous. I’d been told when I was 18 (yes, that’s EIGHTEEN) that I would never be able to conceive or carry a fetus to term.
So I never tried. I focused hard on my career. I studied banking and investing. I traveled a LOT – all over the world – to many places most people have never even heard of. I learned to invest whatever I earned.
When I was 30 I actually managed to conceive by accident. My doctor was horrified. He called in specialists and all sorts of other doctors from all over the country. I miscarried in spectacularly painful style 5 weeks later.. The testing lasted a year.
Since that time, it’s become legal for me to try IVF or even to adopt a child from overseas. I chose NOT to pursue those options. I chose to deal with the hand life gave me, marry the man who loves me enough to know we can’t have kids and live that life instead.)
Thanks to my career and investing focus, in my late 30s I made the decision to retire early to live off my investment income. I do what I want – when I want.
Since that time, I’ve been scorned and scowled at as being a ‘selfish’ person, who apparently ‘chose’ to get rich rather than have children. Those people who judge me have NO idea what I live with and how many regrets I’ve suppressed about not being able to have children of my own.
This last Christmas Day I lost my mother. She died of metastatic breast cancer that had spread from the original site of her right breast down to her spine. She had three healthy children. She ate well. She was healthy. She was not overweight. She did everything right. She was just 63. It’s now only a few weeks after this sad fact and I’m still grieving that loss.
Her own mother was at the funeral. Grandma turned 95 just a few days later. Grandma smoked and drank heavily her whole life. She had three healthy children of her own. She’s just FINE – healthy as an ox, in fact – albeit living in a lifestyle-retirement village (not a nursing home).
My mother decided Grandma would be better of living in a retirement village about 6-7 years ago rather than continue caring for her herself. The house was sold. The kids all got nice pay-outs from the proceeds of the sale. The rest of the proceeds pay for Grandmas ongoing care.
Everyone since my mother’s death has been HAPPY to remind me that she had her children to look after her through that awful illness and help her deal with the ramifications of wasting away under that cruel, heartless disease.
But they’ve also been quick to judge me for choosing to have NO ONE to look after me if something happens to my own health. After all, I’m a married woman with no kids. I have a loving, supportive husband and a dog and a bank account. That’s it.
Apparently, that’s all I’m worth.
My heartless brother and his bitch of a “wife” have taught their kids to call me “Aunty Money”. They know that when I die, they’re rich. They hope (pray??) for my early death. I hate those horrible, spoilt, bratty kids I struggle to speak with my brother – and I outright hate his self-righteous bitch of a wife who pretends to be a “good” Christian, despite her awful, jyudgmental, evil nature.
I can’t even verify any of those kids are actually related to my brother anyway. His wife has a questionable past and is a questionable type of person anyway. I’m seriously tempted to amend my Will and leave everything I have to the local medical research foundation. They can all go get screwed.
So when people call me “selfish” for choosing not to have children, I remind them that they’re the selfish ones for choosing to ignore the blessings they have. They forget how lucky they are to have gotten “knocked up” by accident by some random stranger and to have an actual human being result from that liaison.
They forget that the spewing vomit, the diarrhea-laden diapers , the crayon-coloring on the walls, the time-consuming sleep-deprived nights they endured, and the unconditional love of a child ( no matter how bad the parenting skills) are things they take for granted.
There are some of us who chose not to pursue parenthood. But circumstances may have made those choices seem more logical than some of the alternatives.