This has had me stewing over the weekend. * On Friday, a co-worker had just gotten off the phone with her teen, turned to me, and declared, “You are lucky that you have chosen not to have kids.”
I what? All my life I’ve planned on having kids. I even have picked out potential names. So, I stammered something about having plenty of time to have kids. Her response: “So, you’re going to be one of those forty-year olds with toddlers?” Argh! Way to pigeonhole me… I know she was probably just venting some frustration with her own kid but I don’t appreciate people putting their issues on me.
I’m 28, single, and childless not by choice. It’s just the way my life has ended up. Hell, if it’s just a matter of choice, I’d be pregnant right now! Apparently, paleolithic co-worker believes I’m behind the curve. So now I"m at work feeling defensive about my life choices and pissed. Fun!
I’ve decided to stop talking to her about my personal life anymore and wait out the results of my job search. Hopefully, I’ll find employment at a place where a single 28 year old is not seen as a sterile anomaly.
*I’m probably extra annoyed because for the past week, I’ve been having dreams where I’m pregnant.
Sounds to me like your coworker is a jerk who should be ignored.
People ought to have the freakin’ tact not to comment on other people’s lives like that. Would have served her right if you’d burst into tears and babbled on about how your husband and children were all killed in some freakish accident involving a yak and white chocolate.
What a rude fucking bitch-ish thing to say. She has absolutely no redeemable reason for pulling that gem out of her ass (frustrated with teen or not), and she owes you a full apology. Not that you’re going to get one.
Not to worry, When I was 28 I had no plans for kids. By 30 my first was born and you know what, I’m having no omore difficulty than any parents in their 20s in fact I think I have more patience and emotional maturity to handle the fact that the kids take up more of my time. In other words don’t worry about it you’ll have kids when you have kids, enjoy your 20s!
Your co-worker’s statement was clumsy, that’s for sure. Maybe she fell pregnant accidentally and regrets it, and looks at you as being smarter (and luckier) than she is.
I guess it goes to show that we shouldn’t assume anything about what a person wants, by looking at what they have.
I totally sympathize, coming from the other end of the spectrum (childless by choice), and getting the “Oh, you’ll feel differently when you have your own kids” crap. People’s reproduction is just nobody else’s damned business.
Wait, hold on here…you’re 28?!?! That’s practically still a baby yourself! Having kids at some point after age 28 = having toddlers in your 40s?!? Woman is not only rude, but unable to do math.
Twenty-eight is past childbearing age? Jeesh. I’m 28. (And single, and would like to have kids someday, but not for another five years at least. More to the point, hardly any of the other people I know who are my age have kids either.)
Life is strange isn’t it. Here you are, childless and really wanting one. And me never wanting to have children and I have two.
How screwed up is that?
Because they are threatened by people who chose to live their lives differently than they do. (in my experience, of course, not to make a sweeping over-generalization)
When I was about to turn thirty, a co-worker told me that it was too late for me to have children. I put it on my five year plan and had my daughter when I was 34. I have a good friend who got married for the first and only when she was 34 had two children, one at 36 and one at 42 who is looking forward to her youngest graduating college in a year. She does not look her age, she looks much younger.
Ya, I was thinking of you and your diseased yak scenario. Perv.
I too thought Gobear was gay, but perhaps he was merely offering the young lady a turkey baster.
AmericanMaid, you could smile at your coworker brightly and say “But mother always said, marriage first!” I found that slowed down a number of people back when I was single. Unfortunately, I’m almost out of the “but we haven’t been married very long” excuse. I will have to start practicing saying “bugger off” in a menacing tone.
I often gave a hurt and almost teary, “We can’t!” It was true and made the asshole inquiring feel like shit much of the time. So now when I go out the nosy questions are about who my daughter belongs too. Assholes will always ask unwanted questions and give unwanted advice.
AmericanMaid, your cow-orker is a total twit. But I have to share this with you.
Many years ago, I worked with a single lady in her early 40s. I always thought she was a little standoffish, but she totally endeared herself to me one day when someone gave her that line about not choosing to have kids, etc.
As best as I can remember, her response was, “I’ve had a kid already. The damn thing was born with fangs and claws and killed the doctor and two nurses before the hospital staff managed to inject it with alcohol and kill it. They’ve got it in a jar down at the hospital.” She then went back to nonchantly eating lunch while the other woman’s jaw was dragging on the ground. I was busy choking to death trying to laugh and swallow at the same time.
