When a child enters the life of its parents, everything, or at least a lot, changes. Short nights, little sleep and a huge pile of responsibility. But just as the childless single friends are “required” to be considerate and show understanding, the singles can “require” the other way around too, can’t they? Yes, our author says—parents don’t own all the stress and troubles of the world, after all.
“I’m tired, I just slept very badly and was constantly awake,” I answer my girlfriend when asked how I’m doing. “How do you think I’m doing, the little one just screamed and the big one kept waking up because of it – you can just go to bed earlier tonight,” replies my friend – who has just had her second child.
There has always been a conflict of understanding between parents and those without children
Yes, I can do that. After all, I have no children and live alone with my dog. This little conversation may not seem like a big deal to most people, and in a way it’s true, but it’s a subtle reminder to me: your stress isn’t as bad as mine, your responsibilities aren’t nearly as important as mine are – even if in many cases this is probably not meant that way. Of course, this is not meant to be a blanket condemnation of all parents, because not all are like that. But this conflict of understanding smolders again and again between the single or childless and parent fraction and it is therefore important to talk about it.
Many people are probably familiar with the sentence: “Once you have children, you will understand that”. Or also: “Once you have children, then we’ll talk more!” What is sometimes simply said like that can hurt the friend very much. Because what if I can never have children? What if I can’t find a partner who wants to have children? What if I don’t want to have children? Am I not a “real” woman then? Will I then never be able to understand the “real” problems or stresses of life?
Being a parent means stress – but being childless is not a stress-free life at the same time
Don’t get me wrong, I can imagine how stressful having a child can be, I see it all the time with friends and family. I would never think of downplaying the work – on the contrary, I think mothers are not appreciated enough and paid for what they do and what they achieve. Yes, I’m talking about mothers here because they still bear the brunt of raising children. I am well aware that there are of course many great fathers out there.
I am considerate of my girlfriends, schedule phone calls so that it fits with the baby’s sleep pattern, I like to drive to them more often than to let them come to me and I offer my help when mother and child have to go to the doctor and daddy does that need car for work.
Respect isn’t a one-way street—it has to come from both sides
But I keep asking myself: Why should only I be considerate? Mutual consideration, that’s what matters. I can imagine that the statements made by most friends are due to the stress and could be shelved as a skipped action, but unfortunately these sayings also come from the family and the extended circle of acquaintances. What many underestimate: The sentence “Once you have children, then we’ll talk more!” can be just as hurtful as the question: “When are you going to have children?”
The problem is in society as a whole and still suggests the image: Only children make a woman’s life meaningful. I don’t need to debate the concept of motherhood as a man-made system. The only thing that matters to me is that the woman is always free to make her own decisions about her path in life.
I know what stress means even if I don’t have children
For me, being a mother is not the goal in life at the moment and I don’t know if it will ever be. But I accept every woman who decides to do so and am happy when she has found happiness. But her happiness doesn’t have to be mine. With the simple sentence: “First have children, then we’ll talk more!” always resonates that as long as you don’t (yet) have children, you can’t have a say in the whirlpool of everyday stress.
I’m always caught up in this social thinking and even at 30 I still can’t give an answer to many questions. I don’t know if I want to have children at all, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like children, nor that I can’t understand the stress of parents. I continue to be considerate of my girlfriends, all I ask is some consideration for me as well. My worries and needs – no matter how small they are – are no less valuable than those of my parents-friends. I would like to be able to live my free, self-determined life without children and partners just as naturally as families do.
Dear parents: I take you and your concerns seriously, so please do the same for me
Singles like to argue with parents with the sentence: “You chose to have children”, I could start with that now, but I don’t do it because I know how hurtful this sentence can be and how much it contradicts the parents , sometimes being annoyed, stressed and completely drained, even though they are happy to have children. I accept that and listen to my friends after they have spent a whole day holding a crying baby and I can imagine how exhausting it is. But just because I’m single and don’t have kids doesn’t make my life completely stress-free and worry-free.
I would like to be able to say just as carefree and without any judgment about a stressful and exhausting working day in my 40-hour week that the dog is sick and I have to take him out every half hour or that I just slept badly – I am for you there, so please be there for me too.