Originally Posted by EasterJoy View Post
Why? It is like a Stage 4 cancer patient saying that it is difficult being around people who are suicidal or who take a lot of risks. It doesn’t need to be rude or inappropriate. It doesn’t necessarily imply that the suicidal person doesn’t have a real problem. The cancer patient might even say it of her former self, if she had been suicidal earlier in life! It just says, “It is hard watching my life slip away with nothing I can do, and then see someone who would even feel the temptation to throw their life away. It fills me with very difficult emotions.” What is rude about that?
Because who am I to complain about those parents just because I can’t have a child? And no, that is not the same as your example with a cancer patient. I know in this thread you’re not supposed to compare situations because it will sound like a competition and an “attack”, but I would never use a person who is dying of cancer in an analogy with someone who is infertile. I recognize that that is a larger grief than mine…and I wouldn’t be offended if someone said that to me.
I could cite specific posts, but people did cross beyond opinions like “you could choose to look at it this way” or “I have this experience, so I look at it this way, which might give you a different perspective” or “you may need to ask yourself if you aren’t forgetting or doing such and so” and over to “that you even feel that way says something about you”…and not meaning that “something” as a charitable something. The latter example goes beyond opinion and into the realm of a personal attack.
That particular post may have been over-the-top, but I don’t think that much of what that poster said was so awful. He/she spoke of other realities that are out there. He tried to remind the OP that, yes!! things CAN be worse. I’m just not getting why that is forbidden and why that poster is getting raked over the coals for it.
There have actually been many threads on CAF about how difficult it is for the involuntarily childless to endure the ill-advised comments of others, including those who are deep in the struggles of childrearing and those who feel some need to give the “be grateful for what you have” message in a less-than-empathetic manner. Instead, there is a lot of empathy expressed, probably because many people who are in the struggles of rearing children were also once in the ranks of those who wanted a child and feared that they could never have one.
Just because there are many out there doesn’t mean I would choose to post one
I am getting confused at this point with all of the points you are making so forgive me if I am not making myself clear.
I’ll try one more time.
You can find a situation difficult and say that it is difficult without making it someone else’s fault. A girl who has nice but average looks and a gorgeous sister that everyone falls all over is going to find that difficult, and I think she ought to be able to say so without hearing a lot of platitudes or that she looks fine and could have it a lot worse. The situation also isn’t her sister’s fault, it isn’t her fault, it isn’t anyone’s
fault, and she doesn’t need to think it is in order to find the situation difficult. A situation can be hard without there being anyone in particular who deserves *blame *about it. And yes, if the sisters are close, of course the sister that everyone falls all over could say, “I like everyone telling me I’m pretty, I know there are a lot of advantages to having looks that people like, but it is hard not knowing if anyone would like me if I didn’t have looks”…and maybe her sister could help her with that, and maybe she couldn’t. Maybe they’d each have to confide in someone else about those things. My point is that both could find her own situation hard in its own way, even if her sister might not be the best one to work it through with.
I think it ought to be OK to come here and say “this situation is hard for me”. That should be something someone can do without hearing “what’s so hard about that?” let alone “what kind of
person are you, that you find that hard?”
As for
I recognize that that is a larger grief than mine…and I wouldn’t be offended if someone said that to me, I suppose I could recognize that if she were trying to hijack a thread by a childless OP by saying, “oh, I know just how you feel, I’ve been wanting a daughter forever and I got six sons, instead”. I would hope she’s understand if the OP of a thread on how hard it is to be childless were to say “sorry, no, that is not the same thing.” But otherwise, I don’t know why it would be necessary to tell someone who is having a hard time that you’re dealing with something that is a lot worse, that’s all I’m saying.
This is one of those situations where I don’t agree with the OP in actual experience–I only have boys and would have been happy to have many more without a single daughter–but where I certainly know many women who feel as she does. One of the difficulties of her situation is that she has so much to be happy about that it is hard to admit that there is anything about her life that she finds hard. Still, I think we get past these things by finding someone to admit them out loud to. Sharing a problem and having it understood, even if there is nothing to be done about it, has this way of making a problem smaller.
As I said before, I think she’ll do well to be able to explain to her sons what she would change about her situation and what she would NEVER change…that is, she wants a daughter IN ADDITION to her sons, not just for herself but so that her sons could have a sister, but that she’d never trade a single one of her sons for anyone else, no matter what! They do need to hear that, and if they do, that will be something good that might come out of her having posted here.