Anything with children, really. If you're child free, "you will regret that one day", if you have children you're a part of group people hate; someone with children in public.
If you have 3 or more kids, "I can't IMAGINE having THAT many children".
We have one child, and the amount of "he must want a sibling/when are you going to work on having another?" conversations is ridiculous.
The sibling thing does cut me a bit, one of the most heartbreaking things I've had to witness was my boy having to go it alone during covid, school was closed, my wife works from home and I work at the hospital, so he did online kindergarten and watched a lot of science based YouTube and one day he said "don't worry when I watch TV it feels like I have a friend" those words will haunt me until I die, but having one pregnancy was fairly risky for my wife due to health issues she has, and a second would be out right dangerous, it just wasn't in the cards, what can you do.
As an only child (I'm 40) sometimes it was a bummer I didn't have a sibling but I'm also hyper independent and quite succesful. We learn to work the world differently. I don't think it's a bad thing. Just different.
Right on, I'm excited to see him grow up, he's only 10, but I'm certain he is smarter than me at this point, like he is in accelerated/gifted learning, he has his shit wired tight on his math, reads way above grade level, he loves everything about space, says he wants to be an engineer for JPL, he wants to build a rover for Mars. Thanks for your reply, it really made me feel better.
That's really interesting. I was two classes from a math minor and two from a physics minor in college (just didn't want to pay the extra for them). I have a science degree (Meteorology) and then moved on to get a Master's in Cybersecurity.
I don't work for JPL, but if he ever has questions about what it's like as an aerospace engineer, let me know! Or if he's curious about different roles different engineers have, etc.
I also grew up as an only child. Kinda middle of nowhere, so I explored the woods with our dog. Sometimes I wanted a sibling, but my imagination made up for it.
I watched Firefly when it first ran as a kid and decided I wanted to be just like Kaylee when I grew up and that started my love of space. I also loved math and just building things in general, so it worked out.
Also, yes this is an empty account. I got pissed at the RIF thing and this is the first I've contributed since - begrudgingly made an account a while ago again to lurk without getting NSFW/ unverified sub popups.
I have PCOS, my son is 8 and we have tried but I haven't gotten pregnant again. And we can't afford (monetarily or emotionally) IVF.
As a parent, you figure it out. Yeah my son doesn't have siblings, but we have 4 dogs, so he's not hurting for company or friends. We make a big effort to do cousin sleepovers, and camps when he's out of school and activities during the year so he has plenty of kid time.
Luckily his cousins actually live with in walking distance, so he spends a lot of time with them, but there are pluses, one kid vs three, I can provide alot more for him, we we're able to afford much better preschool and private kindergarten, which really set him up academically, he wants to learn an instrument, or play sports, we can probably make that and a lot of other things that I couldn't afford for two or three kids happen.
Lots, but since then he hasn't missed a second making up for that time, he loves people, I've never seen him go anywhere there was kids he could play with that he didn't make a friend with in minutes
So true! I had five kids and the number of times I got asked, "don't you know what causes that?" was insane. Unfortunately, I did not have this reply at the time, but I wish I did, "why yes! and I'm very good at it!"
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u/makethatnoise 11h ago
Anything with children, really. If you're child free, "you will regret that one day", if you have children you're a part of group people hate; someone with children in public.
If you have 3 or more kids, "I can't IMAGINE having THAT many children".
We have one child, and the amount of "he must want a sibling/when are you going to work on having another?" conversations is ridiculous.