10 Things Not to Say to your Childless Friends

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meshaliu:

wawajeanne:

My friend's kid's parties are generally at bouncy houses with an at-home present opening to follow.  I attend both parts joyfully.  I love bouncy houses. 

And I can't wait till their kids are old enough for chuck e cheese because I love skeeball.  I actually asked about the possiblity of a chuck e cheese party at the last party I attended...

I might be weird. 

You are not weird. Who doesn't love bouncy houses? 

The Chuck E Cheese by my house, re did it's skee ball lanes so they're these little short lame things with light balls. They made me ranty. Back in my day everyone had regular skee ball lanes and liked it! *shakes cane*

My best friend's neice's bday party (who was turning 5 I think) had a keg of heff and a bouncy house that more adults jumped in than kids. It was awesome.

And yes, I really did go to be BFFs neices bday. I have known her neice her whole life.

Also,

that skee ball sounds like sh!t.

barcelonagirl

mrsbecky07:

tartaruga:

"You wouldn't understand" is pretty much inherently condescending. And pointless too. Either you can say something to help that person understand, or you can't. Telling them that they can't possibly understand it accomplishes nothing - it just says "I'm not even going to bother to try explaining this to you, so the discussion is over."

this exactly.  It ends the conversation.  "Why are you so tired when you have a 3 week old?"  "You wouldn't understand." okaaaay then. Conversation over, rather than "she wakes up every few hours or so to eat" or "she's really colic-y and its hard to get her to go to sleep" or whatever.  That prompts a conversation, "you wouldn't understand" shuts it down.  Of course if the question itself is asked in a snotty and condescending way then maybe the conversation should be shut down. But in itself saying "you wouldn't understand" is condescending pretty much all the time.

Now I'm sitting here trying to think of instances where "You wouldn't understand" isn't inherently condescending.... Now that I think of it most of the time I do use it as a converstion-ender though...hmmm.  

I will venture to say that I think I use the phrase to spare you i.e., because I don't think you want to hear (heck I don't want to hear) that my kid is colicy or won't shut up or crapped all over --to my non-parent friends; or what a pita it is to find anyone that can do my hair --to my "good hair" friends; or how hard it is to find the right size anything when your not average sized -- o everyone who's able to buy off the rack; or my uterus feels like its going to fall out and i want to eat lots of ice cream, cry and sing all at the same time ---to my male friends....

Crap I don't want to deal with this stuff either!

bunnybean

I really don't care for the "you're lucky you get to sleep in." Really? Because you chose to have a baby. You could have been "lucky," too. 

It's just stupid. Don't ever act like that about anyone in any situation.

And frankly, I think you're "lucky" that you are well off enough to afford a child while I'm not in a place where I can. These are sucky statements, and people should not say them to each other.