A few days ago, I was out for lunch with my family. My brother just got his master’s degree, so we had to celebrate his big day. It wasn’t your usual family get together of 5-6 people. My family is quite big. We were all there. From cousins to nieces, girlfriends, boyfriends, and fiancés of relatives, grandparents to friends. Literally everyone.
So, you know how it goes. After a few rounds of drinks, it finally happened. The conversation that all young, 20-30-something people dread.
A close friend of my mom’s sat next to me and my cousin (who just got engaged) and started making us extremely uncomfortable. It started with “When are you planning to get married?” and eventually got to “What are you and your boyfriends waiting for? Your biological clock is ticking.”
I was trying very hard to ignore the whole conversation by simply smiling and nodding, but just when I thought that it couldn’t get any more uncomfortable than it already is, she asked another question. And with it, she crossed the line.
“You don’t want to have kids? Aren’t you worried that your life isn’t going to be fulfilled?”
That question drove me nuts. So, I said what I had to say to her and politely left the table.
But that moment stayed with me for the next few days and made me VERY angry.
Tell me, how can people think that it is perfectly normal to tell another person what’s best for their life? How can people allow themselves to openly judge someone else for their lives’ choices?
More importantly, how do people have the nerve to criticize others without even putting themselves into their own shoes?
Don’t you get how rude that is?
We live in a society where people believe that the most important thing in one’s life is to get married and procreate. So, when you reach a certain age but haven’t already found a partner with whom you would eventually spend the rest of your life, they start to judge you. Suddenly, they start to look at you differently. You are strange, weird and you probably have issues. All because you have your own, different vision in life. A vision that doesn’t fit in their general picture of what life should be about. A vision that should not concern anyone else but you and your partner.
Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe some of the people that you’ve openly judged about not having children, cannot have children at all? Have you ever considered that they may not be ready for that step?
Of course, you didn’t. Because most of you who make comments like this don’t even think about the consequences of your actions. You only care about your opinion and your life.
Well, here’s what. Other people’s family plan is none of your f*cking business. In fact, their whole lives are none of your business. What they choose or not choose to do is completely up to them. They can have children if they want and they can choose not to have children if that is their plan. They can get married or not if that is what they desire. They can have kids out of wedlock and get married afterward if they want. And that should not concern you even a bit.
Because it is their own life!
Asking someone why they are waiting to get engaged or when they are planning to have a baby is absolutely disrespectful.
So, here’s a piece of friendly advice.
From now on, please mind your own womb and stay out of people’s lives. Stop asking them about their plans and stop assuming that they have the same life that you do. We each have our own journey in life. If mine is different from yours, that doesn’t make me any less important than you.
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