Reply to What is it with people given childless couples unsolicited fertility advice?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That’s not what you wrote in previous posts. And I find it really hard to believe relative strangers are walking up to you and randomly going “hey, you’re old, you might want to worry about infirtility”. [/quote]

I don't remember writing that, but the point is, the fertility conversation starts as soon as they learn I don't have kids. By your logic I shouldn't tell them that at all. You'd be surprised at how nosy some people can get. [b]These are acquaintances/relatives I rarely see, hence the "relative strangers" [/b]part.[/quote]

NP here. I was just at a family event where my relatives, some I hadn’t seen in a long time, had lots of questions for my senior in high school.  They didn’t get that the college process is something that some kids like to play close to the vest to deal with their emotions around potential rejection and making one of their biggest decisions to date.  I realized that in general most of the  all the relatives are nosy and has had unsolicited advice for every step of life, dating, marriage, kids, kids schooling, job you name it.  I am not sure of the motivation - is it cultural and expected, is it because life was likely very difficult for them and they had to depend on each other and they want to feel like their advice is helpful.

But what I realized is that no one truly has life worked out - every one of the relatives giving advice has made a series of choices and decisions that led down different roads, both happiness and sadness. Some choices may have been partly due to the era of their times so I can’t say if I wouldn’t have made the same decisions. And even if they were making those same decisions today they might not make the same choices I would make. It’s hard because you can’t have the real conversations about the trade offs and sacrifice and if in today’s world they would have done the same.  But then again, maybe the point of unsolicited advice is for the person giving it to feel as though it is creating a bond, and looking for respect and/or validation of their choices rather than giving you a perspective (both the good and the bad) with space for you to make your own decisions that could be different than theirs.[/quote]

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