It’s Whiny Wednesday and this is one that always makes me scratch my head:
“Having kids made me grow up.”
So, does this mean I’m not a grown-up? Because if so, I’d like to relinquish all these grown-up responsibilities I seem to have. How about you?
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It wouldn’t matter how many kids my sister has…she will never grown up. She has NEVER had the same job for more than a year. The most promising job she has ever had was working at a school cafeteria and then there was a storage place. I don’t believe she has ever made more than $12 an hour at any of her jobs. Right now she is working PART TIME and needs $2700 worth of work on her car that now won’t start to get her to that job. Does she look for a better job when she isn’t work? NO she sits on her BUTT and watches tv while our dad and brother take care of the kids. She moved in with my dad TWO years ago (RENT FREE) he buy the food for them. Our mom (my parents are divorced) buys them clothes. My brother helps out when he can, but he is mentally disabled. And she EXPECTS the pampered treatment.
For my personal sanity I had to step away from it. I help out with the kids…tutoring them for free, she gives me money from income tax to hold to pay for school supplies and I take them to do that. But I don’t do anything for her any more. I just can’t.
Kara – this must be so hard, right under your nose. You are wonderful to put it all aside and do what you are doing for the children. Quite right to step away as much as possible and protect yourself. Sending you strength – you are doing more than enough. Thinking of you.
This drives me nutz! Being infertile causes us to overcome so much just to be able to function. We have to accept the fact that we are childless not by choice, give up on our lifelong dreams, and then make the hard decision to take what life has given us and make the best of it! Those who are fertile most likely never have to deal with this, and I find they are usually the ones who need to grow up! They view our childfree life with rose-colored glasses, thinking it’s full of drinks and going out, like we used to behave in our twenties before they had kids and we had fertility problems. Sorry but that is not the real world, just like parenting is hard, so is infertility. They both cause you to grow up in unexpected ways!
word!
I find that most people who say this are ones who had kids at younger ages. I can totally see a first time mom in her early 20s attributing a first child as a the push to grow up. I have never heard a first time mom over 35 make this type of statement.
This being the case, I can see at a younger age that a child might have made me grow up quicker, but that doesn’t mean it is the only thing that would’ve. Certainly at 45 years of age, I am a grown up with responsibilities for a lot of things and other people even if that doesn’t include a child.
This is up there with, “As a mom of 5 kids…” It’s an insulting comment that belies the shallow and narrow mind of the speaker.
As a society we associate a person who is responsible with adulthood. We praise children with the fraze “your such a big girl” or “he is so grown up”. There are adults who act responsible in their life but are the first to the oportunity to be silly. As children “an adult” is a Mother, a Father, your friends parents. Hense an adult=parenthood. However adults both parents and non parents envy the person who can pay the bills and go do great vacations. Those who can not “have it all” we look down on.
Some of those may have well earned the label but do they have it due to social norm or our own personal expectations.
*sigh*… a friend of mine had her third baby… I’m not as vulnerable to this Kind of Thing as I used to be. But still, it’s not easy for me to deal with. But ok, I’m fine.
Now, not only she had a baby, but her sister had one only a couple of weeks before her and her sister-in-law had one a month earlier! So three Little cousins were Born within 1,5months. Cute, ok, whatever. I don’t have to be enthusiastic about them. only…I am Facebook-friends with her mom (because I’ve gotten to know her a bit closer). So of course this grandmum Posts on Facebook about her three (!!!) new grandchildren.
Ok so that was still to be expected.
But then someone comments not only with congratulations but with “You are the super-Family”.
And this is where I’m losing it and just want to throw up.
What ON EARTH makes her a “super Family”. that her daughters were beautiful enough to find men with big dicks, a healthy sexual Appetite and healthy sperms? Did she hook her son up with a woman who was thankfully able to bear two healthy children? Does she deserved to be praised as a matron because she sews them all cute Little dresses PLUS beautiful wedding dresses for her daughters? Did that produce those children? Are they the grandma’s achievement? I know for a fact that at least in my immediate friend’s Family, not everything is “super” at all but the two older children both have serious Problems. and that the grandma’s way of dealing with things probably isn’t helping….but just the sheer number of children makes her have a “super” Family. I’m so angry.
There are a lot of things that cause us to “grow up,” some far more pleasant than others. In my opinion, having the children I’d wanted would have been a more pleasant way to learn sonecof the life lessons I’ve learned through infertility and pregnancy loss.
If someone said this around me I’d want to say, “Oh! Lucky you for not having to learn those lessons the painful way. It must be so carefree and nice to be a parent and never have to experience childlessness!” Ha. (I’d only do it if I knew they hadn’t gone through hell to have their kid though…mind you those people are usually more careful about shooting their mouths off.)