Elected not to have kids early, why the animosity?

[Anonymous]

I’m in my early 30s and a director at a large, fortune 100 firm. In a long term relationship, my husband is active duty military. We elected to wait to have kids and it seems like the snide comments I get have increased lately.

Things like ‘DH and I are taking a long weekend down at the beach’ are met with ‘wow must be nice to not have kids, we could never do that’ and when discussing my evenings things like mentioning i read a book by the fire pit(obviously not turned on) just get crooked eyed comments.


Am I missing something or do people genuinely dislike others having control over their lives?

[Anonymous]

Cringe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cringe.

Yea, OP. people are cringe. You don’t deserve the sly comments. You go girl!

[Anonymous]

They’re jealous. They’re remembering what it was like to be unburdened by parenting. They’re not judging you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re jealous. They’re remembering what it was like to be unburdened by parenting. They’re not judging you.

This 100%!!

I love my kids but I want weekends to sleep and not answer questions or cook or clean. Having kids occupied a lot of my day.

[Anonymous]

I assume this is the active duty military people making comments. This is its own weird culture, but yeah they have a lot of kids early.

[Anonymous]

You are reading too much into this

[Anonymous]

Main character syndrome. No one cares what you do, promise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Main character syndrome. No one cares what you do, promise.

+1
Stop talking about anything personal at work. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Are you by any chance prone to frequent complaints? The only person I have ever seen experience what you are describing was constantly complaining about daytime vs nighttime socializing and other parent-friendly policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Main character syndrome. No one cares what you do, promise.

+1
Stop talking about anything personal at work. Seriously.

This advice has to stop. The idea that work is work and home is home is unhealthy. Work is a huge part of life and you can’t be expected to turn on and off that way. There is nothing wrong with sharing what you did over the weekend with your coworkers and this advice is always said with animosity and judgment like the OP is complaining about in the first place.

OP: Certainly, it’s not everyone but one or a few people that you’re thinking about writing this post. These people will be there no matter what you do. I had kids at ages 27 and 31 and got comments. I bottle fed and I got comments. I put my kids in daycare and worked part-time and I got comments. I bought a house and I got comments. I didn’t manage to produce a male heir and I got comments.

It’s not your particular situation that receives judgement. It’s ALL SITUATIONS.

Just learn to shrug it off, and hopefully find someone else at work to whine to on the side so you can keep on that fake smile the next time some jerk makes a comment about some innocuous comment.

[Anonymous]

You sound lazy and Brag a lot.

[Anonymous]

You probably work with deeply unhappy people.

[Anonymous]

Sound like your own insecurities on waiting.

[Anonymous]

Ref the beach comment “ you could go, you would just need a sitter”
Or “ you could go, you would just have your kids with you”
Everyone prioritizes things differently and makes different choices with how to spend money/time.