I know I’m probably going to have to duck for cover with this week’s topic. We’ve all heard it and the sting never seems to diminish. So here we go:
“You wouldn’t understand; you don’t have kids.”
I’ll be behind the couch if you need me.
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I’m laughing as I throw something at your couch!
I haven’t heard this too often directly – but the passive aggressive comments from parents often show that what they’re really saying is “you don’t understand because you don’t have kids.” Often accompanied with an imaginary condescending pat on the head.
I will say though that the person who has said this to me the most is … me. I say it to myself when I imagine what others are thinking, or are going to say to me, and often prompts me to self-censor myself.
I did post about this issue a year or so ago, after an internet video went around and I saw it several times on Fb. http://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/if-you-dont-have-kids-you-dont.html
I always get the “no wonder you’re so good at your job…you don’t have kids so you have time to be” version or the “why don’t you have time to do ____? you don’t have kids what are you doing?”
I get this frequently… “you’re so good at ______ because you have the time.” It makes me so mad.
I love that – “you should have all the time in the world to do____” as if we sit around and do nothing all day. I also love another variation of this when a “mom” tells me her perspective on a topic and says “Well, as a mom, I…” . It seems like just another way of saying “You wouldn’t understand”.
I don’t like when people imply that I don’t understand what it’s like to be a parent and sure, I can imagine. I have dogs I love dearly who rely on me for everything but I know it isn’t the same. Really, I don’t know. I’ve never seen things from that exact perspective. But you know what, they don’t understand either. The most well meaning parents could say all the right things to me (whatever those are) about not being able to have kids but they DON’T understand. They can’t begin to know the true agony of month after month (or year after year) disappointment or having to completely realign their expectations for their entire lives. Maybe the only way through is to accept that we just won’t ever really understand each other on this, but we can still exist around each other and find the common ground where it may be.
The “as a Mom” thing always annoys me… it is as though you have given birth, ergo, you have reached nirvana… a new plane of existence above all others… all knowing, all wise. Whatever… “huge eye roll”! Especially when politicians do it.
Yes…I agree – HUGE eye roll and I also hate it when politicians say it. It seems so inappropriate and unprofessional.
The reason I found this website and started my own journey in working through my grief was because my sister-in-law made this comment to me.
A few years ago, my mother had to take conservatorship of my grandmother because my uncle was taking advantage financially and was moving towards the physical; it caused a huge rift in the family. Without getting into the gory details, what I had thought was my beloved extended family got blown to bits which magnified my not having kids; big holiday celebrations now dwindled down to just a couple of people, the questions of what happens to me when I am older, will anyone care – you know the drill. Anyway, a little over a year ago, I had a huge blow up with my cousin (her father is the aforementioned uncle) with whom I used to be very close and was extremely upset. Unfortunately it happened in front of her son. My SIL and cousin are very much in their own mommy clubhouse, so before I even showed up, she had already called. I was literally sobbing because my heart is broken that my family is destroyed – I am tearing up, even now. What I needed at that moment was compassion and what I got was a condescending pat on the head that I just did not understand because I didn’t have kids. (The fight in front of my cousin’s son.). Which is a joke given the fights that she has with her own family on a regular basis, but later I realized was more about me rocking the boat of their relationship.
(My brother, to his credit, tried after I choked out to him that he had no idea how lucky he was. He told me to come over whenever I wanted to do whatever I wanted with his kids. I found out later he called my mother worried. I don’t think he had seen me like that since we were kids ourselves.)
What pissed me off the most was my SIL’s excuse was had NOTHING to do with kids but was more about preserving her friendship with my cousin. And this is MY family! Who the hell are you to decide that I am in the right or wrong? And you know, if you want to be friends with her, that’s fine and not really my business. But why were you so damn cruel to me about it? I just feel like I got kicked in the stomach.
I have known my SIL for 20 years and relationship has definitely changed. I love my nephews and niece very much and I am close to them, but I have noticed she will use the kids as a weapon, so I have to be careful. They are getting older though. The boys just turned 14 and will be starting high school next year, so I have started dealing with them directly. And I have made a promise to myself that on their 18th birthday, I will be giving them passport applications to complete for the trip to Ireland I will be taking them on after they graduate high school. (My husband’s family lives there.) And my SIL can squawk all she wants – and she will – but they will be legal adults. A bit petty, I know. But it is something I would have done anyway as I was thinking about it prior to the incident. This just solidified things for me.
Sigh…work in progress…
I really hope that the family rift can be mended. That is tough! That said, I love the idea of you taking the nephews to Ireland…. Wow! That will be a great bonding experience and something they will never forget!
Marci, what an ordeal! I’m so sorry for all your losses.
I have been using this come back for a while – the Supernanny was unmarried and never had children. If she can make a living off of fixing children by correcting bad parenting, then you don’t need to be a mother to understand or know. Boom!
Here here! Thanks for that awesome reminder
Niiiice! I’m using that one if ever I have this thrown in my face.
I’ve heard this a bunch of times and it really annoys me. Parents use this as a reason at work for not switching holidays like we’re suppose to. Like just because I don’t have kids I obviously have nothing to do.
No one can really be EXPECTED to “understand” ANYTHING! If we go by perfectly shared experiences only. Who can say they’ve had identical experiences in life!? My friends with one child do not share “understanding” with those who have several. My friends who chose not to have children cannot “understand” those who did not choose to be childless. My friends who have children with learning challenges and disabilities can’t even “understand” other friends whose children have DIFFERENT disabilities! We’re all unique little snowflakes; we’re all so special…! BUT! Any one of us *can* UNDERSTAND another! We can empathize, sympathize, IMAGINE what it’s like for another.
Mali, your blog post (thank you for the link) was spot on. “We haven’t experienced it. But we can imagine…”
Not one of us share exact experiences, but we all share similar moments here and there, and if we listen to one another, we can learn from each other about the many similarities we do have, and the many differences that there are can be opportunities to learn more stuff…
Because we are all so different and unique, we DO look for our “tribes”, sometimes based on the most tenuous relationships, “I’m a mom, therefore other moms will ‘know’ me.” or “I like scale model trains, therefore other scale model train aficionados will be my tribe”. Sometimes we force it a bit, and sometimes we use exclusion to define the tribe, “You don’t like apples, so you can’t be in my fruit club.” It’s ridiculous to think the apple-disliker doesn’t like other fruits, or to even assume they don’t know what an apple tastes like, but some people put limits on what THEY are willing to “understand”, so the fruit-club-organizer will exclude the apple-disliker, (without ever learning about the apple-disliker’s love of pomegranates!) Er, sorry, I tend to talk in metaphor. What I am trying to say is: the person who said, “You wouldn’t understand; you don’t have kids.” may really be saying, “*I* can’t understand that you *might* actually understand, so I’m just gunna go find someone who *seems* a little bit more like me, whom I *think* would understand me better…” Some people don’t understand the possibility or other people’s actual understanding… And y’know what; not understanding things is fine, too (see very first sentence here). We’re all unique snowflakes, looking for nice soft snowbanks to land on.