For the most part, we tend to believe that if something doesn’t affect us, it’ll take a pretty strong argument to make us worried about it.
However, as anyone who’s made it clear to their family that they don’t intend to have children will tell you, there are no shortage of people who will think they need to be talked out of it. It’s not any of their business and people can be just as happy without children as with them, but that doesn’t really stop them.
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And perhaps the worst part of this dynamic is the fact that friends and family members who are this concerned about whether other people have kids or not are rarely willing to let it go after they’ve already been told it’s not going to happen.
That was the situation one woman faced and when she tried to play off any impending awkwardness with a joke, it seems it couldn’t have gone worse.
Before she told her story, the woman said that she and her husband are very sure they don’t want kids.
As she explained in a Reddit post , she likes kids and is particularly fond of her nieces and nephews, but has her own reasons not to want any.
Clearly feeling the same way, her husband has undergone a vasectomy.
Nonetheless, every life event they’ve shared together including the purchase of their new home has had relatives asking when they’ll have kids. As a result, even the relatives who don’t know about the vasectomy know that this is how they feel.
One of these relatives was the husband’s brother (codenamed Alex) who still asked when they’ll have kids after hinting that their house would have a lot of room for them.
Because she figured that telling Alex to stop asking her this would be abrasive enough to ruin the festivities, the woman brushed this question off with a joke, saying, “Oh, well, I like sushi too much to have to give it up for a pregnancy. Plus not drinking for pregnancy and breastfeeding? No thanks.”
As she put it, “I tried to make it very light-hearted and laugh it off.”
But while most of their other guests laughed, this only seemed to make Alex angry and he said, “Children are a joy, and a good mother puts her kids before everything else.”
You might have noticed that second part really isn’t an argument against having kids, so the woman agreed and continued trying to brush off the conversation.
However, she later learned that this only got her and her husband dis-invited from Alex’s Halloween bonfire because he thought they were being insensitive to his own family’s struggles with fertility through their jokes.
While the woman felt bad that her jokes had this effect, she also felt tired of having to justify the life she wants to lead so often.
For the most part, the Reddit comumnity she reached out to sided with her and said Alex was in the wrong for insisting on prying into matters that weren’t any of his business.
Still, others felt that even though she didn’t intend to be insensitive, that’s how she came off by being flippant.
So now she’s taking this feedback to heart and plans on reaching out after the bonfire passes. Then, she will apologize for hurting Alex’s feeling and reiterate her love for his family and particularly his children.
But at the same time, she said, “I will also be firmly putting down any further attempts to discuss our child free status if the conversation is about changing our minds.”
She also hopes there can be some understanding once she goes over her reasons for being childfree. And if all of that isn’t good enough, there doesn’t seem to be much else she can do.
h/t: Reddit | Noswellin
