Childfree Goodjers Roundtable

I posted something similar in the depression thread, but after a major illness in my life I was successfully guilted into scrapping part of my vacation plans to see family at Christmas. Part of the reasoning used was, "you guys haven't experienced the joy of kids opening presents at Christmas". Like, it wasn't good enough for us to scrap part of our plans to come visit. We had to scrap MOST of our plans to be there on Christmas day because kids.

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

DSGamer wrote:

I posted something similar in the depression thread, but after a major illness in my life I was successfully guilted into scrapping part of my vacation plans to see family at Christmas. Part of the reasoning used was, "you guys haven't experienced the joy of kids opening presents at Christmas". Like, it wasn't good enough for us to scrap part of our plans to come visit. We had to scrap MOST of our plans to be there on Christmas day because kids.

Frankly, I'm just glad everyone in my generation is done and I've got at least 2 years until my cousin's kid is doing that. Yes, I'd love for some shreiking while ripping paper and throwing it everywhere, followed by tantrums when the big thing of the year isn't in one of those boxes.

Or better, kids thinking I need help opening my present because they want to rip more paper. BACK OFF KID, THIS IS MY PRESENT, GO PLAY WITH THAT THING YOU WERE SUPPOSEDLY SO EXCITED ABOUT 10 MILLISECONDS AGO!

Quintin_Stone wrote:

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

It's obviously more complicated than I'm making it. She recently had major health issues as well. Her health issues are "winning" and mine are being completely ignored because they were diagnosable as opposed to my serious, but strange medication reactions and ensuing anxiety / severe depression. So I do think it's fairly selfish in this case. She wants the family together right now. She's not dying, she just went through a traumatic experience and she wants what she wants right now and her traumatic experience trumps mine somehow. Adding the kids to the mix was just the extra dose of f*** you that you expect from a parent.

DSGamer wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

It's obviously more complicated than I'm making it. She recently had major health issues as well. Her health issues are "winning" and mine are being completely ignored because they were diagnosable as opposed to my serious, but strange medication reactions and ensuing anxiety / severe depression. So I do think it's fairly selfish in this case. She wants the family together right now. She's not dying, she just went through a traumatic experience and she wants what she wants right now and her traumatic experience trumps mine somehow. Adding the kids to the mix was just the extra dose of f*** you that you expect from a parent.

f*ck em.

boogle wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

It's obviously more complicated than I'm making it. She recently had major health issues as well. Her health issues are "winning" and mine are being completely ignored because they were diagnosable as opposed to my serious, but strange medication reactions and ensuing anxiety / severe depression. So I do think it's fairly selfish in this case. She wants the family together right now. She's not dying, she just went through a traumatic experience and she wants what she wants right now and her traumatic experience trumps mine somehow. Adding the kids to the mix was just the extra dose of f*** you that you expect from a parent.

f*ck em.

Yeah, unfortunately that's going to have to wait until after I go out there. I've told them how bad I was. The stuff I'm too scared to post here. They know I was close to losing my job and going on disability. And they've heard those words and I don't think they're taking them seriously. So we're going to be there on Christmas Eve to watch the joy of Christmas as I hold this in deep down. And then I may never see them again.

DSGamer wrote:
boogle wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

It's obviously more complicated than I'm making it. She recently had major health issues as well. Her health issues are "winning" and mine are being completely ignored because they were diagnosable as opposed to my serious, but strange medication reactions and ensuing anxiety / severe depression. So I do think it's fairly selfish in this case. She wants the family together right now. She's not dying, she just went through a traumatic experience and she wants what she wants right now and her traumatic experience trumps mine somehow. Adding the kids to the mix was just the extra dose of f*** you that you expect from a parent.

f*ck em.

Yeah, unfortunately that's going to have to wait until after I go out there. I've told them how bad I was. The stuff I'm too scared to post here. They know I was close to losing my job and going on disability. And they've heard those words and I don't think they're taking them seriously. So we're going to be there on Christmas Eve to watch the joy of Christmas as I hold this in deep down. And then I may never see them again.

Seriously, don't hold it in. It may seem easier to do in order to be non-confrontational, but you're really doing yourself a disservice. Especially if they aren't taking you seriously and then you "seem fine", nothing good can come of that. But I guess that's all based on wanting continued contact with them and more understanding of the situation. If you're sure you're done and don't care for them to get it, do what you need to do to get through it unscathed. Just my opinion of course.

Yellek wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
boogle wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

It's obviously more complicated than I'm making it. She recently had major health issues as well. Her health issues are "winning" and mine are being completely ignored because they were diagnosable as opposed to my serious, but strange medication reactions and ensuing anxiety / severe depression. So I do think it's fairly selfish in this case. She wants the family together right now. She's not dying, she just went through a traumatic experience and she wants what she wants right now and her traumatic experience trumps mine somehow. Adding the kids to the mix was just the extra dose of f*** you that you expect from a parent.

f*ck em.

Yeah, unfortunately that's going to have to wait until after I go out there. I've told them how bad I was. The stuff I'm too scared to post here. They know I was close to losing my job and going on disability. And they've heard those words and I don't think they're taking them seriously. So we're going to be there on Christmas Eve to watch the joy of Christmas as I hold this in deep down. And then I may never see them again.

Seriously, don't hold it in. It may seem easier to do in order to be non-confrontational, but you're really doing yourself a disservice. Especially if they aren't taking you seriously and then you "seem fine", nothing good can come of that. But I guess that's all based on wanting continued contact with them and more understanding of the situation. If you're sure you're done and don't care for them to get it, do what you need to do to get through it unscathed. Just my opinion of course.

Seriously.

The holidays are stressful enough without this kind of bs. Spend it someplace emotionally safe even if that is alone with a stack of DVDs and Chinese take out.

Paleocon wrote:
Yellek wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
boogle wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

DSGamer, why do you think she was so adamant about you going? I'm curious if you think she was motivated by selfless or selfish reasons.

In my experience, the "joy" of children opening presents is that they tear through the wrapping paper and 5 minutes later there's a fight because one of the kids wants to play with a present another kid got.

It's obviously more complicated than I'm making it. She recently had major health issues as well. Her health issues are "winning" and mine are being completely ignored because they were diagnosable as opposed to my serious, but strange medication reactions and ensuing anxiety / severe depression. So I do think it's fairly selfish in this case. She wants the family together right now. She's not dying, she just went through a traumatic experience and she wants what she wants right now and her traumatic experience trumps mine somehow. Adding the kids to the mix was just the extra dose of f*** you that you expect from a parent.

f*ck em.

Yeah, unfortunately that's going to have to wait until after I go out there. I've told them how bad I was. The stuff I'm too scared to post here. They know I was close to losing my job and going on disability. And they've heard those words and I don't think they're taking them seriously. So we're going to be there on Christmas Eve to watch the joy of Christmas as I hold this in deep down. And then I may never see them again.

Seriously, don't hold it in. It may seem easier to do in order to be non-confrontational, but you're really doing yourself a disservice. Especially if they aren't taking you seriously and then you "seem fine", nothing good can come of that. But I guess that's all based on wanting continued contact with them and more understanding of the situation. If you're sure you're done and don't care for them to get it, do what you need to do to get through it unscathed. Just my opinion of course.

Seriously.

The holidays are stressful enough without this kind of bs. Spend it someplace emotionally safe even if that is alone with a stack of DVDs and Chinese take out.

I vote DA:I instead of DVDs... just avoid a certain companion's loyalty quest to avoid seeing other people's family drama.

Well, we're supposed to spend it in the ocean in South Beach. Just books and sun. That was the consolation prize for having to cancel our Thailand / Indonesia vacation when my doctor didn't think it was safe for me to leave the country. We'll still get a couple of days there.

Thought folks would appreciate this.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5QX2mjIgAAEf4X.jpg)

Lol. That's funny, and probably true for many. Though not for me. I liked the family I came from. I do have a family, quite large in fact, just no children of our own.

I do hate it when people imply that without kids I don't have a family.

clover wrote:

I do hate it when people imply that without kids I don't have a family.

Assuming you don't mean Jayhawker's joke implied that, though, right? I get what you're saying, but I also like the sentiment in that picture. My childhood was weird. That was at least 20% of my decision, to not inflict my family pathologies on someone else other than my poor wife.

I shouldn't come to this thread after getting into a discussion about Sims 3. My first thought when reading clover's post was, "What do they mean I don't have a family? I currently have about 137 families right now!"

DSGamer wrote:
clover wrote:

I do hate it when people imply that without kids I don't have a family.

Assuming you don't mean Jayhawker's joke implied that, though, right? I get what you're saying, but I also like the sentiment in that picture. My childhood was weird. That was at least 20% of my decision, to not inflict my family pathologies on someone else other than my poor wife.

I don't think the joke implied that, just thinking about the comment that spurred it... the assumption that either a family is "incomplete" without kids, or that it doesn't exist at all without them.

Like you, not wanting to pass on family-of-origin baggage (genetic and otherwise) carries a lot of weight in my decision to not have kids.

bekkilyn wrote:

I shouldn't come to this thread after getting into a discussion about Sims 3. My first thought when reading clover's post was, "What do they mean I don't have a family? I currently have about 137 families right now!"

Mai Family, let me show you them!

At a Thanksgiving get together, the wives of my wife's 2 brothers were talking. One said to the other that she "has to think about her immediate family first" when making holiday plans, and talking about how the others don't matter.

You do realize that to my wife's mother, YOU GUYS are the immediate family, right? Your gonna sh*t on them because you only care about whatever you're doing for your kids? I totally get, you know, spending Christmas Eve or day with your immediate relatives, but this is her excuse for basically never visiting family events.

So anyways, yeah, to her, once you have kids, that other "family" doesn't exist anymore.

Ranger Rick wrote:

At a Thanksgiving get together, the wives of my wife's 2 brothers were talking. One said to the other that she "has to think about her immediate family first" when making holiday plans, and talking about how the others don't matter.

You do realize that to my wife's mother, YOU GUYS are the immediate family, right? Your gonna sh*t on them because you only care about whatever you're doing for your kids? I totally get, you know, spending Christmas Eve or day with your immediate relatives, but this is her excuse for basically never visiting family events.

So anyways, yeah, to her, once you have kids, that other "family" doesn't exist anymore. :P

This was actually one of the issues with my marriage, looking back. Every holiday was about her family because they all relied on my ex-wife to cook, host, etc... and my family relied on my mom to do the same. So every holiday, we spent hours and hours preppinf and cooking for her family, and spent maybe an hour visiting mine while she was disengaged for most of it. Really weird how people are with family and in-laws for holidays.

I always thought immediate family just meant no cousins or aunts/uncles. Siblings, kids, parents, grandparents, grandkids, and spouse are all immediate family. And by extension the same grouping for your spouse.

bnpederson wrote:

I always thought immediate family just meant no cousins or aunts/uncles. Siblings, kids, parents, grandparents, grandkids, and spouse are all immediate family. And by extension the same grouping for your spouse.

Yep, me too.

It's weird talking with someone who wants to be childfree but is choosing to let that go because her soon to be husband really wants a child. My head hurts just thinking about that.

Demosthenes wrote:

It's weird talking with someone who wants to be childfree but is choosing to let that go because her soon to be husband really wants a child. My head hurts just thinking about that.

I have a number of friends that want to be childfree but already have kids.

Paleocon wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

It's weird talking with someone who wants to be childfree but is choosing to let that go because her soon to be husband really wants a child. My head hurts just thinking about that.

I have a number of friends that want to be childfree but already have kids.

At one point in my life, my childfree views hadn't fully formed and I would have done something similar if really pushed by a partner.

Paleocon wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

It's weird talking with someone who wants to be childfree but is choosing to let that go because her soon to be husband really wants a child. My head hurts just thinking about that.

I have a number of friends that want to be childfree but already have kids.

Well, learning from experience is a little different than doing something for a partner because they want it. I mean, it's totally her choice and she can make it however she wants. I just feel like, at this point, being very open about my childfree desires... someone coming to love me, then saying, you know what I want? KIDS! Like... I just don't know how I'd deal with that.

Cod wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

It's weird talking with someone who wants to be childfree but is choosing to let that go because her soon to be husband really wants a child. My head hurts just thinking about that.

I have a number of friends that want to be childfree but already have kids.

At one point in my life, my childfree views hadn't fully formed and I would have done something similar if really pushed by a partner.

True, and thinking back on it, I ALMOST did this with my ex-wife. Luckily we didn't succeed before she decided instead she wanted to be childfree but party a lot because that's why childfree folks should be doing. Rather than just... you know, whatever you were doing before children, but continuing onward.

Demosthenes wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

It's weird talking with someone who wants to be childfree but is choosing to let that go because her soon to be husband really wants a child. My head hurts just thinking about that.

I have a number of friends that want to be childfree but already have kids.

Well, learning from experience is a little different than doing something for a partner because they want it. I mean, it's totally her choice and she can make it however she wants. I just feel like, at this point, being very open about my childfree desires... someone coming to love me, then saying, you know what I want? KIDS! Like... I just don't know how I'd deal with that. :?

Single parenthood is a thing. When my kids told me they wanted a dog, I made it very, very, very clear that I was not to be expected to be anything nor provide anything for that creature in any way. They backed down from the request. Setting clear boundaries is the thing. I've seen relationships where the biological father or the mother was clearly only a token parent or purely a financial provider or even less than that. It can work if other people who are interested can fill in other roles, and everyone is clear on what every individual person wants.

"I can help you sex up the kid, but you're on your own after that," is a clear, honest statement about where your priorities lie, and I don't consider that negative in the least in an open discussion about priorities. This assumes that your partner will take you seriously and not hope for you to change or to take up roles you clearly didn't want once the kid is up and about.

Having children for the sake of the partner/sake of the relationship seldom ends well for anyone involved.

LarryC wrote:

"I can help you sex up the kid, but you're on your own after that," is a clear, honest statement about where your priorities lie, and I don't consider that negative in the least in an open discussion about priorities.

Supposing one were okay with procreating in that fashion they would be legally outta luck if the other party decided to push issues such as child support. For reference there have been cases of sperm donors with written contracts being successfully sued for child support, even if finances are not among one's motives for being childfree I don't think many childfree people would want to risk the potential (perhaps probable) outfall from that sort of thing.

That is a notable hole where parental assumptions and patriarchal assumptions have been prioritized over childfree and non-patriarchal concerns. In that kind of legal and cultural environment, it's probably sound to just steer wide of the entire thing.

Famously child-free world leader says choosing to be child-free is selfish!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...