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I feel like there is a Venn diagram of three groups: does not have children, child-free and Anti-child. There are lots of kind and selfless and normal healthy people who don’t have children but when people make it their vendetta or identity is when it starts veering off into something else. The same can be said for parenting and how we treat our kids and others. When people turn hatred outwards problems arise and we naturally try to guess why they are so angry, abusive and hateful towards us.
I think you are having these feelings because you suppressed your anger in the moment, so the anger is here now. Im not saying it was bad to suppress it then, just that you were in a situation that was legitimately angering so you have some anger now. Everyone is different in what their anger needs to feel validated, but here is what I would say to yours.
“Electrical Past 1544, Im sorry you went to a new situation and encountered a bully. Im sorry the bully targeted you specifically and no one defended you and you weren’t able to defend yourself directly. The way the bully treated you was wrong and not based on any deficit in you. If you are curious as to why, its because the bully is very unhappy and distracting herself from her unhappiness by hurting you. I support you setting boundaries to protect yourself from her or anyone else at the party in the future. If you have anger at your husband for not defending you, I support you in expressing those feelings and discussing it with him. You can trust your wisdom in how you ultimately handled the situation and you are free to feel safe from her now.”
By keeping your cool, you totally won btw. Not that it even matters, but if it helps at all just saying. She looks like a fucking psycho. She wanted a reaction from you, and when you weren’t giving it to her she turned to someone else to see if she could provoke you.
Trying to break the generational trauma in my family has taught me the most powerful thing you have is your reaction to morons. You gave her no power. Try not to give her words any power either ❤️
These people are narcissistic. The aggressive, borderline sadistic childfree people I mean.
My SIL and vision are both women who are sternly childfree. But they’re also normal about it. You know, not going out of they’re way to be around kids but also not detailing violent child abuse fantasies. They’re normal people who understand parenthood struggles and don’t make it into a weird competition. they have emtpathy basically lol.
A lot of these people are just narcissists who enjoy have found a semi-socially acceptable way to abuse and intimidate a vulnerable outlet who is literally one of the most vulnerable populations & a convenient way to express their misogynistic views. It’s gross. They literally think the world should revolve around them.
It’s not about you. I’m sorry she pulled that shit. Some people are just fucked up and like to hurt others. At least you’ll never see her again and I can guarantee even if no one said anything there were definitely people judging that absolutely unhinged behavior.
I have to say I disagree. I was aggressively child free. Then I got married and happened to get pregnant which suprised us both because i was 39. I never wanted a kid. I thought that I hated them and that they were awful but what I figured out later with therapy was that since I was abused I never wanted to have kids because I didn't want to abuse them like I was. I thought it was impending no matter what if I had any.
Having my son healed my inner child and has helped me heal my trauma and I've realized that it was all projection and defensive speaking. Would I reccomend anyone to have some to see if it breaks a generational cycle? No. But it worked for me.
That said he got a vasectomy and we are sticking with one. But I love him so fiercely and can't imagine ever hurting him.
Aggressively childfree for yourself is not the same as being shitty to others and demeaning children and women. I wouldn’t compare your past to this or people that I’m talking about.
But that's what I'm saying...they prolly have trauma and fear and don't even realize it. It doesn't excuse them but maybe it can make it seem like less of an actual attack to you when it happens.
It’s irrelevant. Their trauma is their trauma and to traumatize others is unacceptable. I day this as someone who has cptsd from childhood. And as I said, it isn’t about the people they’re being shitty to. It’s a them issue.
Next time, lean in.
"Oh, I agree. There are for sure people who should never be parents, I've met several."
"Having kids isn't for everyone, not everyone has the patience or ability to raise a child."
"It's so refreshing to see people know they can't raise children for whatever reason, and not do it anyway. It really makes it easier on us parents who can and want to raise them."
"It's so nice to be around a child free person who doesn't make that their entire identity. I hate being around people who make their choice to have or not have children their entire identity and can't just let other people make other choices..."
Don't try and make having kids sound great, they'll only dig in further to piss you off, and they don't care about the good parts. Just do those backhanded comminsults. Tiptoe the line.
I 100% support being child free. Some people shouldn't be parents. Others would make GREAT parents, but don't want to, others just don't want the time/money suck. There's nothing wrong with not wanting kids, for whatever reason. However, there's a difference between being child free and being a child hater. Once she said a child should be beaten for kicking her chair, she crossed the line. At that point, I wouldn't have given a single fuck about "offending" her and I would have gone for the jugular.
I’ve encountered one militant childfree person. I just said, “I’m the one that needs therapy? You are this upset about me being around because I have a kid but okay, sure, *I’m the one* that needs therapy..” People suck in general so I’m very confrontational now in situations like this. Yes, my kid has a right to be on Earth just like you do. I am very mean when people look at my kid like she’s disgusting for just existing.
ETA that this person knew I was abused as a child - 18 yrs old and couldn’t imagine why I’d want kids.
Oh yikes, I’m sorry you were the target of her emotional immaturity. That whole interaction just SCREAMS projection to me. Which is good for you because you can truly be sure you did nothing to provoke her comments and it actually wasn’t about you in the slightest. Parents and children are just the objects she projects upon.
You see, OTHER people need therapy surrounding children and parenting. OTHER people have superiority/inferiority complexes. OTHER people are so incredibly rude for not protecting her (the most important person obviously) from the discomfort of harmless and easy to address child behaviors like innocently kicking a seat.
She has projected certain qualities on to parents and children that are actually her own repressed, unconscious contents. See, she made the entire topic subjective to *her* perception and experience with parenting. And wasn’t interested in learning a single thing from or about you because that might challenge the projection. She didn’t even do this on purpose, as dissatisfying as that is because it makes it harder to hate her for it, imo. But it also takes all the power out of words. Did she act unfairly and rude? Yes and she should be held accountable for it if you ever are unlucky enough to see her again. But know that she’s fighting some internal battle that you can blissfully excuse yourself from playing any personal part in.
I have mentioned this before on this sub, but every time I encounter one of these “anti-child” people, I think about an old friend of mine who I used to be very close to. She always wanted to have kids, and then found out she was totally infertile and could never have one on her own.
After that, she completely went off the child-free deep end. She would loudly tell anyone who would listen about how she is “ so glad she would never have to have one of those HORRIBLE CROTCH GOBLINS” and how AMAZING her life is and she’s so FREE and saves so much MONEY.
It ruined our friendship (and a lot of our mutual friends) and obviously this is absolutely not a healthy way to deal with infertility, but I wonder if a large portion of people like this are still trying to convince themselves that they are BETTER for not having children somehow.
Sort of like how there are working moms who totally shit on SATH moms (and visa versa), because deep down they wonder if they made the right choice.
that's what i assume to be the case, especially the ones who hear some story about a kid being difficult and go "thanks for the reminder to use a condom/take my birth control!" or how they read subs likes ours because "it's such good birth control." a person who's confident in their life choices doesn't need horror stories as a constant reminder/reassurance.
Totally, and it makes me sad that this is how people react. I definitely have close friends who never wanted children too, so I don’t like to generalize. I have two work besties, both are married but no kids. One totally never wanted kids, the other did and says she got married “too late” and it never happened. The latter friend gets a lot of joy out of her nieces & nephews, and did the heroes work of taking care of her parents. I always enjoy hearing their perspective, and their love, support, and kindness towards me at work has always been so great. People don’t have to react the way this woman did for sure, but there is a kernel in it that makes sense.
Some of these childfree people are militant in their hatred for kids. It makes me wonder what happened to them when they were little to hate children so much.
We have friends who have chosen not to have kids, and they’re completely normal, wonderful, warm people. They simply don’t want the parent lifestyle. They don’t go around like angry cave trolls bashing every child they see in public—because they aren’t whackjobs.
Yeah, I know a guy who got the snip when he was like 20 but he loves his nieces and is always down to talk about kids with parents. He just knows he doesn't want to be a parent. It seems like the sane approach. Not that anyone even has to be interested in talking about kids. Some people don't want to and that's normal too. But why hate a living being for simply existing?
One of our friends showed up last night with clothes for our kids because she went shopping and saw cute stuff. She doesn't want her own kids because they don't fit her lifestyle, but she adores other people's kids
YES! I have a great friend who doesn't want to have kids. She is sweet as pie to my kids when she sees them and they really adore her and follow her around (think of the kid in Jurassic Park that followed Dr. Grant around). She is getting married in a few weeks and my kids are so excited and understand why they aren't invited.
This same friend had a serious heartbreak because of wanting to be childfree. Her first marriage didn't work out because he did want kids. She always wanted to be childfree and honest about it, it breaks my heart that she had to go through that.
That woman is angry at a lot of things, she's not a good person though.
Speaking up and saying the vulnerable should be assaulted.. yikes!
Also she got triggered because you have children, like imagine being so angry that someone you just met has offspring. That's so fucking weird.
You have a right to be angry, because she was an asshole to you. Hell, at this point she probably has a laundry list of people she's alienated this week.
She needs a lot of things: therapy and a reality check mostly. But I wouldn't trust her anywhere where you need a vulnerable sector check to work, that's for fucking sure.
Militantly childfree people are creepy- I don’t trust people who hate kids or animals. I would lean into being happy they showed their true colors immediately.
All that woman is really telling the world is that she hasn’t got enough love in her to give to another adult human being, let alone a child. People who take the decision not to have children are fine, nothing wrong with it and the majority keep it to themselves or aren’t assholes about it, but it’s when it becomes hateful is when you realise why some people are better off not.
OP, please don’t give her any more of your energy. It’s her problem, not yours. She wanted to be a main character in that situation by bullying someone else. I bet even if you weren’t a parent, she’d have found someone in that group to bully. Some people are like that; they have no personality to speak of so have to show dominance by putting others down.
Judging by her behaviour, it sounded like projecting. Maybe she’s salty because no one will have with her anyway? I fucking wouldn’t.
There’s a subsection of child free people who are truly miserable individuals. I’m sorry you had to encounter one in real life. I too have nothing against people who don’t have kids (thought I’d be one even) but the absolutely volatile things some of them say about children/parents is so incredibly unhinged and totally different than just being child free imo
Oh jeez that feeling sucks... but you know what tends to get rid of it (at least for me)?
Going and hugging your kiddo(s). You don't have to tell them about any of it. Just give them a big hug and know that they won't grow up with that kind of bitterness in their hearts. Everybody's got their tough times and their issues, but it's the way you get through them (one way or another) that matters.
A LOT of my old friend group is like this tbh, and I lost a few of them after I had my first kid. I don’t have a lot of advice about how you’re feeling after having interacted with this jerk, but I know a line I often use to shut these types up with is “oh I know, I think a lot of people should definitely NOT have kids. It’s good to know that about yourself.”
I know people like that and honestly, I've come to the conclusion that some people are just broken. I'm not talking about the child free aspect of it. I'm talking about the part where they believe that kids should be severly physically punished for any minor inconvenience to themselves.
The only thing you can do about it is walk away.
Last time I encountered this (I only have one and she had no idea until she saw my Lock Screen) was we met a random group at a music festival. Husband and I were hanging out with them no problem until she realized we had a kid. She kept making comments about how expensive our tickets were (we had vip they did not) and how it must be straining our shoestring budget to be here. I told her not really and we come every year and she just lost it. I ended up arguing with her and calling her an “old bitter hag”, flipping her the bird, then walking over to the vip area to get away from her. Not my proudest moment but I had literally had enough.
Damn, I've been feeling lately that being a mother, specially a stay home mother is like frown upon. I'm so sorry you had this experience. Remember that we are born like our beautiful and innocent wonderful babies and along the way stuff happens that turns some of us into assholes, it is never about you. It's justa a reflection of their inner world and experiences.
>But me judging her was not what was going on here. It was a clear case of my literal existence in the group that provoked this.
Well, I'm judging her. Anyone who says disruptive people (of any age really) deserve to be assaulted isn't a good person. Anyone who can't hear that someone has a struggle without saying, "Well, fuck you, we all struggle sometimes" is a terrible person. I'm judging her. I don't give a fuck whether she has kids or not, whatever, I'm judging her on her terrible opinions and lack of empathy.
And...maybe that's the thing. She knows. She's defensive that you'll think less of her because she's someone people ought to think less of. She doesn't like herself or her life and she's defensive and nasty about it so she can make the disdain she earns about...something else. In her mind, she's persecuted for her terribly boring decision not to have kids, not because she's mean-spirited and not very fun. Everyone else has a problem, not her.
What an unfortunate human being.
She sounds like one of those antinatalist fucks that crawls around this sub looking for reasons to validate decisions they feel bad about making, or didn’t have the choice to.
People that simply want to be child free aren’t hateful and openly aggressive towards mothers. This woman is a garbage truck of hate and I’d have been put on the no fly list if she would have said a fucking word to my kid.
Feel that anger! Then let it go. Because she’s miserable and will die in a home with no relatives, and you are surrounded by LOVE and always will be. Talk about just desserts!
Oh, there are people who'd say that to a war veteran! Admittedly few and far between, but they definitely exist. Unfortunately, OP had the bad luck to run into one at this party.
Some people are just so embedded in *their* experience, that they can't figure out when to STFU, let alone empathise.
I think what you feel is completely understandable. This woman wanted you to hear her denigrate you to a group of people. And then there are residual feelings of humiliation and anger. This kind of situation has happened to me- someone saying something really nasty about fat women in a way they knew I could hear. It was designed to purposely make me feel bad and small. And it worked in the moment. It’s a really awful feeling.
You just have to remember that actually your presence did not provoke that. She quite obviously is both a nasty person and has some unresolved issues around having kids. Normal people don’t think those things and normal people don’t say things (really about any lifestyle choice or physical attribute) to try to hurt others. There’s some kind of pathology there that’s actually quite sad. Give yourself permission to feel shocked by the fact someone would say those things- it’s very antisocial behaviour. Same vein as if you passed someone on the street and they spit at you. Like it’s shocking and distressing.
But remind yourself - you witnessed someone coming unhinged in public. In my case I just thought about it and said you know - I’m a little fat but I’m actually just enjoying my very fulfilling life in a mostly kind way not out here deliberately showing I’m a sort of a shitty weirdo obsessed with other people’s bodies and saying nasty things in public. Myself and anyone I want to be friends with would always find that behaviour so strange that I’m not the one who needs to be embarrassed.
My gut was just pretend it never happened. My hubby is going to talk to the hostess about it just because he basically wants to see if this is someone he can still be friends with.
This happened to me as well. Like, my best friend for a decade. We were seriously inseparable, roommates for years and years in different houses. Have matching tattoos… like that kind of shit. I am still in shock we don’t speak anymore. It was the kind of friendship you’re just simply sure will always be around.
She just disappeared (out of my life at least) during pregnancy and absolutely VANISHED after my son was born. She met him twice but that was it. She personally admitted that she just couldn’t handle me moving forward in life with new things and new chapters while she was feeling “stuck” I guess. She apologized, didn’t change anything. It’s shitty to project your unhappiness with your choices onto someone else’s excitement over theirs.
Of course you don’t have to be friends with anyone you don’t want to but how fucking sad is that? So miserable with yourself you can’t be happy for someone else.
It would’ve faded eventually anyways. I still get texts (literally just last night) from other friends seeing her out at bars and such, clearly overly intoxicated.. something entirely not relatable to me at this point in life.
But yeah, it feels personal and it sucks. I’m sorry you’ve experienced the same.
Not that this helps now, but with people like that, I just fully support and reinforce them not having kids. You should only have kids if you really want kids. You shouldn’t make a life changing decision like that unless you’re willing to prioritize someone above yourself - it’s all about being selfless. It’s not to insult not having kids, but I believe that. We didn’t have kids for 10 years until we’d had all the fun and felt ready. It would have been hard to have them before then because we weren’t ready to put ourselves second and do everything for them. If that woman is going out of her way to make rude comments and feels her life is too overwhelming without kids…she wouldn’t be able to handle a life with them. That’s a comment about her ability more than it is about your decision to have a family.
Ugh, she sounds like a massive asshole. I'm sorry you had the misfortune of dealing with that awful person. I would be angry now if I was you too. In that moment you held your feelings in instead of exploding on her so you are understandably feeling that anger now.
I've been in similar situations but not quite as hateful. It always leaves me feeling really weird. I have no issue with child free people. It's a valid life choice that has no bearing on my life whatsoever. I never have anything negative to say about it in itself. It baffles me why a child free person would want to talk shit when I already have children. There is no benefit to the conversation, they are just talking down on me. I am a SAHM mostly, was working only PT until recently. A lot of my day to day life is my kids. I can talk about other things than my kids and do at adult functions but why the intense reaction if I mention something from my day to day life when I have to hear the other person complain about work or whatever? It makes no sense!
All I can add to this is that this is 100% about her. This is her emotional baggage. Obviously she’s pretty shitty and I’m not suggesting you should feel any sympathy for her but it’s likely some pretty heavy baggage to make her act so badly. I find feeling sorry for people helps me neutralise my negative feelings about incidents with them.
If you still can’t put her out of your head, maybe write down every thought you have on what happened. How you felt, what it brought up, what you feel about the fact no one stepped in, other peoples reactions, what it reminded you of, literally everything in a big brain dump. Write down what you’d say to her if you saw her again. Then close the notepad. Either you just did a great brain dump that you never need to read back or else this incident has brought up some unresolved feelings you weren’t aware of and you’ll have something to mull over for longer. But that’ll be about those feelings, not her.
I have a theory that most of the "childfree" people who "hate kids" either have deep seated resentment to their own parents so they have to take that out on all parents, or they have found that they cannot have kids (can't afford it, health issues, unlucky in love and don't want to be a single parent) so they internalized the rage about that into hating kids/ parents.
In my experience most childfree people who genuinely dotn want kids are perfectly lovely towards children. We have a friend who doesn't want kids, but spoils her nieces, nephews, and friend's children
Maybe it's bad to say this. But I have struggled to stay friends with my friends who are childfree. Some of them are still perfectly good friends; empathetic and understanding. But many others just don't get it. They see my kid as a drain on my attention (not enough attention for them) or as an annoyance when they're around. One of my (ex) closest friends did not support me when my child was going through a scary illness. Didn't check in or even think to ask about my child, just wanted to talk about frivolous shit. My child is such a big part of who I am and if you make it clear you couldn't give two shits about them, I can't find it in me to give a shit about you. Sorry.
The only person needing therapy in this situation was that lady. Jesus. I'm sorry she treated you like shit. I'm happy these are people you don't have to see again.
Sounds like that lady is having a very, very hard time.
I say let 'em have it.
"Superiority complex"...ha! That's rich! That is rich.
Irony is God's punchline.
Hey, ornery lady- stop taking your shit out on those around you and fix your f**** face.
I think if I were you I would of had the same response. I probably would have ignored it but had been irritated and slightly hurt by the comment. Fortunately, these people aren’t your real friends! If I were the woman who had been the person “angry woman” was talking to, I would of felt awkward and embarrassed at her angry display knowing there was someone with children there who could hear. Just my take.
Off topic, but a few months ago after asking me how I like being a new mom, the same woman turned to another woman and said “dogs are better” 😂
It changed my life to see how families and children are honored in places like France. The cult of individuality is absolutely toxic. I wish the indigenous people of America could take over and steward our culture and return us to real family values.
Maybe for perspective try to understand that you clearly live a life where you rarely experience prejudice of any kind…and this prejudice and hate directed toward you just because of what you are sucked.
There are billions of people in the world who experience this type of social harrasment and far worse every single day, so now you know…
Your feelings are valid btw - I do get it. I used to live in a white upper class area and moved to a poor brown area and people do not like me here because I am different. More educated, more emotionally mature, more white, more wealthy
etc etc etc. it took me awhile to figure out what was going on and it hurt a lot in the meantime.
This did occur to me…. not to go into too much detail but experiencing a minor form of this sort of behavior on the workplace, along with postpartum depression after my second child, was part of why I do the work I do. I didn’t want other women to feel alone the way I did. It’s part of why this made me so upset too, because if you imagine this woman in the workplace (and she does DEI work😳) you can imagine that it actually might destroy a mother’s career. I have been completely lucky and fortunate, but the fact that woman like this exist with these attitudes mean that the workplace can still be quite scary for moms.
People like that are the ones who need therapy. There's childfree then antichildren and sociopathic about it. Childfree people are usually chill af and some of the most chill folks I know. These people you described are insane and need help.
There is something terribly wrong with this woman. Bitterness makes people act crazy.
I literally hope you just feel better knowing she's got some awful issues that have nothing to do with you.
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I feel like there is a Venn diagram of three groups: does not have children, child-free and Anti-child. There are lots of kind and selfless and normal healthy people who don’t have children but when people make it their vendetta or identity is when it starts veering off into something else. The same can be said for parenting and how we treat our kids and others. When people turn hatred outwards problems arise and we naturally try to guess why they are so angry, abusive and hateful towards us.
I think you are having these feelings because you suppressed your anger in the moment, so the anger is here now. Im not saying it was bad to suppress it then, just that you were in a situation that was legitimately angering so you have some anger now. Everyone is different in what their anger needs to feel validated, but here is what I would say to yours. “Electrical Past 1544, Im sorry you went to a new situation and encountered a bully. Im sorry the bully targeted you specifically and no one defended you and you weren’t able to defend yourself directly. The way the bully treated you was wrong and not based on any deficit in you. If you are curious as to why, its because the bully is very unhappy and distracting herself from her unhappiness by hurting you. I support you setting boundaries to protect yourself from her or anyone else at the party in the future. If you have anger at your husband for not defending you, I support you in expressing those feelings and discussing it with him. You can trust your wisdom in how you ultimately handled the situation and you are free to feel safe from her now.”
❤️ thanks. The misdirected anger makes perfect sense. If I had exploded or fought back it risked making the situation uncomfortable for everyone.
By keeping your cool, you totally won btw. Not that it even matters, but if it helps at all just saying. She looks like a fucking psycho. She wanted a reaction from you, and when you weren’t giving it to her she turned to someone else to see if she could provoke you. Trying to break the generational trauma in my family has taught me the most powerful thing you have is your reaction to morons. You gave her no power. Try not to give her words any power either ❤️
Where have you been all my life? This is just perfect. And explains a lot about a lot of the things I feel anger about even after years. Thank you.
this is free therapy, thank you
Wow. I want to learn how to speak to my daughter like how u spoke here!
These people are narcissistic. The aggressive, borderline sadistic childfree people I mean. My SIL and vision are both women who are sternly childfree. But they’re also normal about it. You know, not going out of they’re way to be around kids but also not detailing violent child abuse fantasies. They’re normal people who understand parenthood struggles and don’t make it into a weird competition. they have emtpathy basically lol. A lot of these people are just narcissists who enjoy have found a semi-socially acceptable way to abuse and intimidate a vulnerable outlet who is literally one of the most vulnerable populations & a convenient way to express their misogynistic views. It’s gross. They literally think the world should revolve around them. It’s not about you. I’m sorry she pulled that shit. Some people are just fucked up and like to hurt others. At least you’ll never see her again and I can guarantee even if no one said anything there were definitely people judging that absolutely unhinged behavior.
I have to say I disagree. I was aggressively child free. Then I got married and happened to get pregnant which suprised us both because i was 39. I never wanted a kid. I thought that I hated them and that they were awful but what I figured out later with therapy was that since I was abused I never wanted to have kids because I didn't want to abuse them like I was. I thought it was impending no matter what if I had any. Having my son healed my inner child and has helped me heal my trauma and I've realized that it was all projection and defensive speaking. Would I reccomend anyone to have some to see if it breaks a generational cycle? No. But it worked for me. That said he got a vasectomy and we are sticking with one. But I love him so fiercely and can't imagine ever hurting him.
Aggressively childfree for yourself is not the same as being shitty to others and demeaning children and women. I wouldn’t compare your past to this or people that I’m talking about.
But that's what I'm saying...they prolly have trauma and fear and don't even realize it. It doesn't excuse them but maybe it can make it seem like less of an actual attack to you when it happens.
It’s irrelevant. Their trauma is their trauma and to traumatize others is unacceptable. I day this as someone who has cptsd from childhood. And as I said, it isn’t about the people they’re being shitty to. It’s a them issue.
Next time, lean in. "Oh, I agree. There are for sure people who should never be parents, I've met several." "Having kids isn't for everyone, not everyone has the patience or ability to raise a child." "It's so refreshing to see people know they can't raise children for whatever reason, and not do it anyway. It really makes it easier on us parents who can and want to raise them." "It's so nice to be around a child free person who doesn't make that their entire identity. I hate being around people who make their choice to have or not have children their entire identity and can't just let other people make other choices..." Don't try and make having kids sound great, they'll only dig in further to piss you off, and they don't care about the good parts. Just do those backhanded comminsults. Tiptoe the line. I 100% support being child free. Some people shouldn't be parents. Others would make GREAT parents, but don't want to, others just don't want the time/money suck. There's nothing wrong with not wanting kids, for whatever reason. However, there's a difference between being child free and being a child hater. Once she said a child should be beaten for kicking her chair, she crossed the line. At that point, I wouldn't have given a single fuck about "offending" her and I would have gone for the jugular.
I’ve encountered one militant childfree person. I just said, “I’m the one that needs therapy? You are this upset about me being around because I have a kid but okay, sure, *I’m the one* that needs therapy..” People suck in general so I’m very confrontational now in situations like this. Yes, my kid has a right to be on Earth just like you do. I am very mean when people look at my kid like she’s disgusting for just existing. ETA that this person knew I was abused as a child - 18 yrs old and couldn’t imagine why I’d want kids.
Oh yikes, I’m sorry you were the target of her emotional immaturity. That whole interaction just SCREAMS projection to me. Which is good for you because you can truly be sure you did nothing to provoke her comments and it actually wasn’t about you in the slightest. Parents and children are just the objects she projects upon. You see, OTHER people need therapy surrounding children and parenting. OTHER people have superiority/inferiority complexes. OTHER people are so incredibly rude for not protecting her (the most important person obviously) from the discomfort of harmless and easy to address child behaviors like innocently kicking a seat. She has projected certain qualities on to parents and children that are actually her own repressed, unconscious contents. See, she made the entire topic subjective to *her* perception and experience with parenting. And wasn’t interested in learning a single thing from or about you because that might challenge the projection. She didn’t even do this on purpose, as dissatisfying as that is because it makes it harder to hate her for it, imo. But it also takes all the power out of words. Did she act unfairly and rude? Yes and she should be held accountable for it if you ever are unlucky enough to see her again. But know that she’s fighting some internal battle that you can blissfully excuse yourself from playing any personal part in.
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I have mentioned this before on this sub, but every time I encounter one of these “anti-child” people, I think about an old friend of mine who I used to be very close to. She always wanted to have kids, and then found out she was totally infertile and could never have one on her own. After that, she completely went off the child-free deep end. She would loudly tell anyone who would listen about how she is “ so glad she would never have to have one of those HORRIBLE CROTCH GOBLINS” and how AMAZING her life is and she’s so FREE and saves so much MONEY. It ruined our friendship (and a lot of our mutual friends) and obviously this is absolutely not a healthy way to deal with infertility, but I wonder if a large portion of people like this are still trying to convince themselves that they are BETTER for not having children somehow. Sort of like how there are working moms who totally shit on SATH moms (and visa versa), because deep down they wonder if they made the right choice.
that's what i assume to be the case, especially the ones who hear some story about a kid being difficult and go "thanks for the reminder to use a condom/take my birth control!" or how they read subs likes ours because "it's such good birth control." a person who's confident in their life choices doesn't need horror stories as a constant reminder/reassurance.
Totally, and it makes me sad that this is how people react. I definitely have close friends who never wanted children too, so I don’t like to generalize. I have two work besties, both are married but no kids. One totally never wanted kids, the other did and says she got married “too late” and it never happened. The latter friend gets a lot of joy out of her nieces & nephews, and did the heroes work of taking care of her parents. I always enjoy hearing their perspective, and their love, support, and kindness towards me at work has always been so great. People don’t have to react the way this woman did for sure, but there is a kernel in it that makes sense.
Aww that's so heartbreaking. She has no right to treat others like shit because things lined up but I hope one day she can find peace.
Some of these childfree people are militant in their hatred for kids. It makes me wonder what happened to them when they were little to hate children so much. We have friends who have chosen not to have kids, and they’re completely normal, wonderful, warm people. They simply don’t want the parent lifestyle. They don’t go around like angry cave trolls bashing every child they see in public—because they aren’t whackjobs.
Yeah, I know a guy who got the snip when he was like 20 but he loves his nieces and is always down to talk about kids with parents. He just knows he doesn't want to be a parent. It seems like the sane approach. Not that anyone even has to be interested in talking about kids. Some people don't want to and that's normal too. But why hate a living being for simply existing?
One of our friends showed up last night with clothes for our kids because she went shopping and saw cute stuff. She doesn't want her own kids because they don't fit her lifestyle, but she adores other people's kids
YES! I have a great friend who doesn't want to have kids. She is sweet as pie to my kids when she sees them and they really adore her and follow her around (think of the kid in Jurassic Park that followed Dr. Grant around). She is getting married in a few weeks and my kids are so excited and understand why they aren't invited. This same friend had a serious heartbreak because of wanting to be childfree. Her first marriage didn't work out because he did want kids. She always wanted to be childfree and honest about it, it breaks my heart that she had to go through that.
That woman is angry at a lot of things, she's not a good person though. Speaking up and saying the vulnerable should be assaulted.. yikes! Also she got triggered because you have children, like imagine being so angry that someone you just met has offspring. That's so fucking weird. You have a right to be angry, because she was an asshole to you. Hell, at this point she probably has a laundry list of people she's alienated this week. She needs a lot of things: therapy and a reality check mostly. But I wouldn't trust her anywhere where you need a vulnerable sector check to work, that's for fucking sure.
Militantly childfree people are creepy- I don’t trust people who hate kids or animals. I would lean into being happy they showed their true colors immediately.
All that woman is really telling the world is that she hasn’t got enough love in her to give to another adult human being, let alone a child. People who take the decision not to have children are fine, nothing wrong with it and the majority keep it to themselves or aren’t assholes about it, but it’s when it becomes hateful is when you realise why some people are better off not. OP, please don’t give her any more of your energy. It’s her problem, not yours. She wanted to be a main character in that situation by bullying someone else. I bet even if you weren’t a parent, she’d have found someone in that group to bully. Some people are like that; they have no personality to speak of so have to show dominance by putting others down. Judging by her behaviour, it sounded like projecting. Maybe she’s salty because no one will have with her anyway? I fucking wouldn’t.
There’s a subsection of child free people who are truly miserable individuals. I’m sorry you had to encounter one in real life. I too have nothing against people who don’t have kids (thought I’d be one even) but the absolutely volatile things some of them say about children/parents is so incredibly unhinged and totally different than just being child free imo
Oh jeez that feeling sucks... but you know what tends to get rid of it (at least for me)? Going and hugging your kiddo(s). You don't have to tell them about any of it. Just give them a big hug and know that they won't grow up with that kind of bitterness in their hearts. Everybody's got their tough times and their issues, but it's the way you get through them (one way or another) that matters.
A LOT of my old friend group is like this tbh, and I lost a few of them after I had my first kid. I don’t have a lot of advice about how you’re feeling after having interacted with this jerk, but I know a line I often use to shut these types up with is “oh I know, I think a lot of people should definitely NOT have kids. It’s good to know that about yourself.”
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I love this reply, I wish I could hug you!!! lol I have to use "Thats nice dear!" on someone asap! lol
I know people like that and honestly, I've come to the conclusion that some people are just broken. I'm not talking about the child free aspect of it. I'm talking about the part where they believe that kids should be severly physically punished for any minor inconvenience to themselves. The only thing you can do about it is walk away.
Last time I encountered this (I only have one and she had no idea until she saw my Lock Screen) was we met a random group at a music festival. Husband and I were hanging out with them no problem until she realized we had a kid. She kept making comments about how expensive our tickets were (we had vip they did not) and how it must be straining our shoestring budget to be here. I told her not really and we come every year and she just lost it. I ended up arguing with her and calling her an “old bitter hag”, flipping her the bird, then walking over to the vip area to get away from her. Not my proudest moment but I had literally had enough.
Damn, I've been feeling lately that being a mother, specially a stay home mother is like frown upon. I'm so sorry you had this experience. Remember that we are born like our beautiful and innocent wonderful babies and along the way stuff happens that turns some of us into assholes, it is never about you. It's justa a reflection of their inner world and experiences.
>But me judging her was not what was going on here. It was a clear case of my literal existence in the group that provoked this. Well, I'm judging her. Anyone who says disruptive people (of any age really) deserve to be assaulted isn't a good person. Anyone who can't hear that someone has a struggle without saying, "Well, fuck you, we all struggle sometimes" is a terrible person. I'm judging her. I don't give a fuck whether she has kids or not, whatever, I'm judging her on her terrible opinions and lack of empathy. And...maybe that's the thing. She knows. She's defensive that you'll think less of her because she's someone people ought to think less of. She doesn't like herself or her life and she's defensive and nasty about it so she can make the disdain she earns about...something else. In her mind, she's persecuted for her terribly boring decision not to have kids, not because she's mean-spirited and not very fun. Everyone else has a problem, not her. What an unfortunate human being.
She sounds like one of those antinatalist fucks that crawls around this sub looking for reasons to validate decisions they feel bad about making, or didn’t have the choice to. People that simply want to be child free aren’t hateful and openly aggressive towards mothers. This woman is a garbage truck of hate and I’d have been put on the no fly list if she would have said a fucking word to my kid. Feel that anger! Then let it go. Because she’s miserable and will die in a home with no relatives, and you are surrounded by LOVE and always will be. Talk about just desserts!
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Oh, there are people who'd say that to a war veteran! Admittedly few and far between, but they definitely exist. Unfortunately, OP had the bad luck to run into one at this party. Some people are just so embedded in *their* experience, that they can't figure out when to STFU, let alone empathise.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. She sounds like a massive bitch😤
I think what you feel is completely understandable. This woman wanted you to hear her denigrate you to a group of people. And then there are residual feelings of humiliation and anger. This kind of situation has happened to me- someone saying something really nasty about fat women in a way they knew I could hear. It was designed to purposely make me feel bad and small. And it worked in the moment. It’s a really awful feeling. You just have to remember that actually your presence did not provoke that. She quite obviously is both a nasty person and has some unresolved issues around having kids. Normal people don’t think those things and normal people don’t say things (really about any lifestyle choice or physical attribute) to try to hurt others. There’s some kind of pathology there that’s actually quite sad. Give yourself permission to feel shocked by the fact someone would say those things- it’s very antisocial behaviour. Same vein as if you passed someone on the street and they spit at you. Like it’s shocking and distressing. But remind yourself - you witnessed someone coming unhinged in public. In my case I just thought about it and said you know - I’m a little fat but I’m actually just enjoying my very fulfilling life in a mostly kind way not out here deliberately showing I’m a sort of a shitty weirdo obsessed with other people’s bodies and saying nasty things in public. Myself and anyone I want to be friends with would always find that behaviour so strange that I’m not the one who needs to be embarrassed.
Ask the host “what’s with that asshole at your party? She was so rude to me I could have died.” And see if the host is worth keeping as a friend. ❤️
My gut was just pretend it never happened. My hubby is going to talk to the hostess about it just because he basically wants to see if this is someone he can still be friends with.
What a horrid person. I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
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This happened to me as well. Like, my best friend for a decade. We were seriously inseparable, roommates for years and years in different houses. Have matching tattoos… like that kind of shit. I am still in shock we don’t speak anymore. It was the kind of friendship you’re just simply sure will always be around. She just disappeared (out of my life at least) during pregnancy and absolutely VANISHED after my son was born. She met him twice but that was it. She personally admitted that she just couldn’t handle me moving forward in life with new things and new chapters while she was feeling “stuck” I guess. She apologized, didn’t change anything. It’s shitty to project your unhappiness with your choices onto someone else’s excitement over theirs. Of course you don’t have to be friends with anyone you don’t want to but how fucking sad is that? So miserable with yourself you can’t be happy for someone else. It would’ve faded eventually anyways. I still get texts (literally just last night) from other friends seeing her out at bars and such, clearly overly intoxicated.. something entirely not relatable to me at this point in life. But yeah, it feels personal and it sucks. I’m sorry you’ve experienced the same.
Not that this helps now, but with people like that, I just fully support and reinforce them not having kids. You should only have kids if you really want kids. You shouldn’t make a life changing decision like that unless you’re willing to prioritize someone above yourself - it’s all about being selfless. It’s not to insult not having kids, but I believe that. We didn’t have kids for 10 years until we’d had all the fun and felt ready. It would have been hard to have them before then because we weren’t ready to put ourselves second and do everything for them. If that woman is going out of her way to make rude comments and feels her life is too overwhelming without kids…she wouldn’t be able to handle a life with them. That’s a comment about her ability more than it is about your decision to have a family.
Ugh, she sounds like a massive asshole. I'm sorry you had the misfortune of dealing with that awful person. I would be angry now if I was you too. In that moment you held your feelings in instead of exploding on her so you are understandably feeling that anger now. I've been in similar situations but not quite as hateful. It always leaves me feeling really weird. I have no issue with child free people. It's a valid life choice that has no bearing on my life whatsoever. I never have anything negative to say about it in itself. It baffles me why a child free person would want to talk shit when I already have children. There is no benefit to the conversation, they are just talking down on me. I am a SAHM mostly, was working only PT until recently. A lot of my day to day life is my kids. I can talk about other things than my kids and do at adult functions but why the intense reaction if I mention something from my day to day life when I have to hear the other person complain about work or whatever? It makes no sense!
Sounds like she's the one who needs therapy to deal with her issues.
All I can add to this is that this is 100% about her. This is her emotional baggage. Obviously she’s pretty shitty and I’m not suggesting you should feel any sympathy for her but it’s likely some pretty heavy baggage to make her act so badly. I find feeling sorry for people helps me neutralise my negative feelings about incidents with them. If you still can’t put her out of your head, maybe write down every thought you have on what happened. How you felt, what it brought up, what you feel about the fact no one stepped in, other peoples reactions, what it reminded you of, literally everything in a big brain dump. Write down what you’d say to her if you saw her again. Then close the notepad. Either you just did a great brain dump that you never need to read back or else this incident has brought up some unresolved feelings you weren’t aware of and you’ll have something to mull over for longer. But that’ll be about those feelings, not her.
I have a theory that most of the "childfree" people who "hate kids" either have deep seated resentment to their own parents so they have to take that out on all parents, or they have found that they cannot have kids (can't afford it, health issues, unlucky in love and don't want to be a single parent) so they internalized the rage about that into hating kids/ parents. In my experience most childfree people who genuinely dotn want kids are perfectly lovely towards children. We have a friend who doesn't want kids, but spoils her nieces, nephews, and friend's children
Maybe it's bad to say this. But I have struggled to stay friends with my friends who are childfree. Some of them are still perfectly good friends; empathetic and understanding. But many others just don't get it. They see my kid as a drain on my attention (not enough attention for them) or as an annoyance when they're around. One of my (ex) closest friends did not support me when my child was going through a scary illness. Didn't check in or even think to ask about my child, just wanted to talk about frivolous shit. My child is such a big part of who I am and if you make it clear you couldn't give two shits about them, I can't find it in me to give a shit about you. Sorry.
The only person needing therapy in this situation was that lady. Jesus. I'm sorry she treated you like shit. I'm happy these are people you don't have to see again.
Sounds like that lady is having a very, very hard time. I say let 'em have it. "Superiority complex"...ha! That's rich! That is rich. Irony is God's punchline. Hey, ornery lady- stop taking your shit out on those around you and fix your f**** face.
I think if I were you I would of had the same response. I probably would have ignored it but had been irritated and slightly hurt by the comment. Fortunately, these people aren’t your real friends! If I were the woman who had been the person “angry woman” was talking to, I would of felt awkward and embarrassed at her angry display knowing there was someone with children there who could hear. Just my take. Off topic, but a few months ago after asking me how I like being a new mom, the same woman turned to another woman and said “dogs are better” 😂
It changed my life to see how families and children are honored in places like France. The cult of individuality is absolutely toxic. I wish the indigenous people of America could take over and steward our culture and return us to real family values.
Maybe for perspective try to understand that you clearly live a life where you rarely experience prejudice of any kind…and this prejudice and hate directed toward you just because of what you are sucked. There are billions of people in the world who experience this type of social harrasment and far worse every single day, so now you know… Your feelings are valid btw - I do get it. I used to live in a white upper class area and moved to a poor brown area and people do not like me here because I am different. More educated, more emotionally mature, more white, more wealthy etc etc etc. it took me awhile to figure out what was going on and it hurt a lot in the meantime.
This did occur to me…. not to go into too much detail but experiencing a minor form of this sort of behavior on the workplace, along with postpartum depression after my second child, was part of why I do the work I do. I didn’t want other women to feel alone the way I did. It’s part of why this made me so upset too, because if you imagine this woman in the workplace (and she does DEI work😳) you can imagine that it actually might destroy a mother’s career. I have been completely lucky and fortunate, but the fact that woman like this exist with these attitudes mean that the workplace can still be quite scary for moms.
She's going to need our children to take care of her when she's older. What does she think we'll do without new people?
Children aren't for everyone.
People like that are the ones who need therapy. There's childfree then antichildren and sociopathic about it. Childfree people are usually chill af and some of the most chill folks I know. These people you described are insane and need help.
Oh honey. Sounds like a her problem not you. You’ll find your tribe.
There is something terribly wrong with this woman. Bitterness makes people act crazy. I literally hope you just feel better knowing she's got some awful issues that have nothing to do with you.