Add it to the list…
We all know and come to expect getting bingo’ed from time to time when others discover our non-procreating decision and lifestyle. We’ve all heard the generic ones “You’ll change your mind,” “But you were a child once too,” “What if your parents had made the same decision,” blah, blah, blah… However, recently I’ve heard a new one that was used by two different people. It goes like this:
Them: What? You don’t want kids.
Me: Nope.
Them: Well, but you haven’t done anything like, drastic and permanent have you?
Me: Unfortunately, not yet.
Them: That’s great! You wouldn’t want to do something permanent that you’d regret!
Me: Like having kids?
Of course, I realize this is just another round-about version of the “You’ll change your mind” and “You don’t know what’s best for you,” all rolled into one bingo for your childfree convenience. Has anyone else gotten this one? What are some of the wackiest bingos you’ve heard?
August 26, 2008 at 10:52 pm
That is Awesome! Great come back!!
August 27, 2008 at 7:15 am
That’s funny! I usually tell people a variation–I’d rather regret NOT having kids than regret HAVING kids, because the former is only cruel to myself, but the latter would be cruel to both myself and my children. In response, people tell me that that means I would be a wonderful mother.
August 27, 2008 at 2:20 pm
There’s something on my blog for YOU!
http://s2dolife.blogspot.com/2008/08/clever-chicks.html
August 28, 2008 at 8:41 am
I just found your blog through Stepher. Hope you don’t mind visitors! People used to say the “don’t do anything drastic until you get older” line to us all the time. So we did what we thought was the responsible thing and waited and waited. Let’s just say the urge to procreate never kicked in. I really wish we had done something much sooner. Life would have been easier. And all the money saved could have financed a great vacation!
August 28, 2008 at 10:43 am
I just posted this to a thread on BratFree:
Some friends said that I do so much work taking care of my cats, that I “should have a kid”. I explained that with the cats, everything is at MY convenience – don’t have to be on THEIR school or sleep schedules, and can blow them off if I don’t feel like hanging out with them, it’s easier to find someone to look in on the house and cats when we go camping than it would be to find a babysitter or to take a kid along with us, etc. etc. etc. And one of them said, “You don’t mind doing all that once you have a kid, you do those things because you HAVE TO.”
And I said, “But I don’t HAVE TO…etc.”
August 28, 2008 at 1:35 pm
My mother in law once told me that she still has my husband’s childhood teddy bear in her attic, “so you’d better hurry up and give us some grandchildren”. Now there’s a REAL reason to have children!Why hadn’t I thought of that before! At the time she already had one grandchild with another on the way. Happily, she’s given up on the bingoing now.
August 30, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Well some people just don’t want kids. How can they not understand that? C’est tres simple…
September 2, 2008 at 7:30 am
Your response was great! And you know what? There’s a lot of truth to it. There are a lot of people who regret having kids but don’t like to admit it aloud. But sometimes, if you ASK, you will get the truth. I write about this a lot in my blog, but one of the questions I like to ask parents (when I hear them bitching and complaining about parenting) is….”suppose there is such a thing as reincarnation. When you come back in your next life, you are born with complete knowledge of what parenthood is like. Would have you kids in your next life?” 7 out of 10 times, the answer I have received is NO. Most of these people point out that they love their kids, but if they knew what parenthood involved before going into it, they wouldn’t have done it.
And yet they cautious US about regret.
April 12, 2009 at 12:13 am
I got something similar once. I mentioned that I was CF and looking into sterilization, and the two women I was having lunch with suggested that since it was “such a big decision,” I should wait until I was at least 30, because, you know, “a lot can change about a person between 20 and 30.” Barf.