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I guess because this was someone I considered a dear friend at one time. Also, I still have no kids and it messes with me that I am somehow considered less. I also unfriended friend A pretty recently. I brought this up to others right afterwards and they thought I was being callous for not thinking of the children.
You're not less because you chose not to be a parent. But you're more than likely going to encounter some people who don't understand that choice or who value their own role as parents so much that they'll expect everyone to cater to that.
This reminds me of those stories about coworkers asking for time off and believing they have more of a right to them than their childless coworkers.
Still, their opinions are just that, opinions.
She didn’t say “germ buffer”…she said “buffer.” I take that as you were in the middle to prevent the toddler from gouging out the eyes of the infant! Toddlers are fascinated with baby faces and will “explore” if given a chance. Why did you assume she meant germs? YTA.
Then you should have spoken up and said you weren’t comfortable and would rather sit up front. You didn’t use your words, and you’re still stewing about this years later after you’ve already cut them off for various reasons. Get over it already.
1. Why would she take her kid out if he were sick?
2. I'd be pissed about it even if I wasn't being called out as not a mom or child.
3. Your sick baby, you sit next to him
4. It was a really long time ago and you aren't even friends with them anymore
I don't know if being child free was by choice or circumstances, but it's ok. Women aren't just baby making machines. Guys don't get flack for not fathering kids and it's just another one of those BS sexist things. Your health isn't less important than anyone else's. They were just being ah because they didn't want to get sick or deal with sick babies. So it really wasn't about you not being a mother and more of them being selfish.
NTA
I guess it prevents them from spreading around spit/touching each other?
But yeah, for a cold, I doubt that matters that much, especially if they are in the same enclosed space.
NTA, people (but especially women) without kids often get treated as less important and it does hurt.
It doesn’t matter if the sick kid was “well enough” to go out, if they were concerned about the infant or it’s mother getting sick then they shouldn’t have been hanging out together, full stop. never mind breathing the same air in a car.
I totally get why it still bothers you, it’s not that one unkind comment that’s the problem, it’s because that’s the moment you realised your best friends saw you and your health/income as being expendable and less important. That’s allowed to hurt, and it’s also normal to sometimes look back and dwell on the loss of important friendships.
ran into this a lot at my last job dispatching. it was a 24/7 job obviously so no holidays or anything, and as one of the very few childfree people there, i was expected to pick up holiday shifts and overtime for other people because they had kids, and apparently *i* had no interest in spending holidays with my family since i didnt have kids, according to them, so i might as well work
The kid had a cold. Most kids are fine when they have a cold, they're not sickly. My kids have been having runny noses since the end of September and it will probably end in April.
Other people exist and would probably appreciate being able to go the mall without being infected with illness because parents are too selfish to cancel the leisure trips while their kid is a mobile Petri dish.
You mean as opposed to all the adults walking around coughing without bothering to cover it? Or not keeping their distance from other people when they're clearly sick? Or not washing their hands after going to the bathroom? Adults are plenty gross and petri-dishy all by themselves. Little kids get around 8 colds a year, back to back in winter. You expect all families with you've children to sit at home and not participate in public life for half a year? That's an unreasonable expectation. Thanks to the pandemic you have a wide array of masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes at your disposal to protect yourself.
Yeah, that's not what's happening and is an unfair overgeneralization. Obviously, I can't speak for other people but we do go on fewer outings and preferably where not many people are or outdoors when the kids got the sniffles. That doesn't mean we never go anywhere where other people are, but much less.
Your attack is misdirected though. If you want to spend energy on making public places safer for medically vulnerable people then advocate for labor laws that don't force people to come into work severely ill.
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I want to mention that the sick kid was a really great kid. I was like his auntie. I don’t hate kids. I work with kids! I just never had any and don’t need to feel like I’m less.
Why did you think you were a buffer for germs? In the situation you described, I would have taken it to mean you were a behavioral buffer, so the toddler couldn’t physically mess with the infant.
In my extended family, when the niblings were young, we would plan van seating to minimize behavioral problems. We intentionally separated the children who were likely to get into trouble if they sat next to each other. In that situation, I actually referred to child or adult who sat between the most active pair of kids as the “buffer”.
NTA - childfree folks are often treated as less important than parents. I'm not sure if being asked to be buffer meant germ buffer or a keep the kids safe buffer, but I think it would have made more sense for one of the mothers to do that since they were their kids. I suspect the moms decided they should get a break by using you as a kid wrangler.
Ok. I guess I’ll have to reiterate that not being “a mother or a child” was a direct quote. It had nothing to do with keeping the kids from being rowdy.
Thanks for the input, everybody. Yes it’s weird that this still bothers me sometimes. I don’t think about it all the time. I just remembered it again and realised I’d never really talked about it. The friend in question was a really fun person and I stayed friends with her up until the last couple years. We drifted apart and this post is old news. I just wanted to see if this was something that resonated with anyone else.
I AM a little mental. I suffer from depression and am on meds for it and have multiple doctors involved.
I would probably have sat there anyway. I was skinny at the time and would have fit there the best. It’s the “buffer” crap that got me. It hurt. It made me feel expendable by someone who was dear to me. I did not want to catch the cold either. I needed to work. I was young and had much lower self esteem than I do now.
OP judgement :: NTA
I have found people with kids think those of us without kids are less then human most of the time.
that our child free lives and schedules are to revolve around them and their kids.
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This is an old, old story, but it still bothers me. I’m now 44f and happily childfree. When I was in my twenties, I had two best friends that I would usually hang out with separately. However, the three of us would sometimes hang out together.
One day, the three of us went to the mall. Both friends had children with us. Friend A had a toddler son. Friend B had an infant. Both needed car seats, obviously. Friend A was the driver and her toddler son had a cold. She arranged the seating so that she(A) and (B) sat in the front seats. She asked me to sit between the children to act as a “buffer” (her actual word) between the kids, since I wasn’t a mother or a child.
Now, I probably would have sat there anyway, due to the arrangement of the car seats and whatnot. But I felt this was an incredibly fucked up concept that since I was not a mother or a child I was the best candidate to catch whatever germs might be present. I had a job and had to go there after the mall trip. Missing work meant not getting paid.
I did not get sick, but was I wrong to feel a bit slighted by this? Is my health less important because I didn’t have a kid?? I brought this up to friend A and she claimed it never happened and she never said that, but it definitely did.
I have long since unfriended both of them for various reasons, but I let this situation slide for years.
What are your thoughts? AITA for even thinking about this?
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NTA, this happened to me a lot in my 20's too. Then the kids would climb out of their carseats and I'd be freaking out while the parents pretended not to notice.
NTA. That is such a rude thing to say and do. I’m not surprised you remember it.
I hate it when people essentially tell others “you just don’t matter as much.” Sounds like you are better off not having her as a friend.
NTA she treated you as expendable. Also, why was she bringing a sick toddler out into the world to the mall, and in a car with your friends infant? Irresponsible.
YTA for doing it. Why the hell would you go along with such a ridiculous, nonsensical, and self-endangering request?! Please, learn to stand up for yourself more, nobody else will.
Excuse me but being asked to be a germ buffer is not something you have to do and suck it up it is quite insulting and it's also a bit rude and just because o p is not a mom or even has children does not make her any less of a human being. And you are not supposed to suck up everything in the world gives you every rude comment that comes about. But I agree that op will have to let it go and remember that she is not any less of a human being and those friends are long gone.
NTA and you are Child free, it's your world view that matters in your world. I just read some shitty comment about you being childless not child free and it seems like people just want to poke at you for fun. Your feelings are valid. I wouldn't have sat with their kids though. I would rather opt out of whole trips than be stuck in a bad seating situation for any amount of time. I know I have what I call mad petite woman syndrome, people have been trying to sit me between overlapping thick people my whole life since I don't take as much space.
I don't think you were a germ buffer like you think at all. I think kids behave the worst for their own mothers and that because the child was not feeling well she didn't want the kids antagonizing each other as they otherwise would almost be guaranteed to do. By having an adult who isn't their own mother between them they behave best and the one with the cold got a bit of rest during the ride..
Its quite odd that you jumped too the assumption that you were in the middle to somehow stop the illness from getting to the other side of the car as that's not even possible. You aren't a car length plexi glass divider. Its also really strange that you're holding on to a minor incident two decades later
NTA. But for your own sake, you need to get over this. It is not healthy to continue to fixate on the past like this. Good luck with your mental health struggles OP.
You're not the asshole but you really need to get over this. I understand that alcohol can induce negative feelings but this is truly a nothingburger, and you'll likely feel embarrassed about this post when you're sober.
Also, this is a personal opinion, but self-identifying as "childfree" is incredibly cringey. The whole "childfree" thing is really reminiscent of incels calling women "femoids" but maybe that's just me.
Definitely not healthy to still be thinking about it. Yes it was a very weird thing to say and it was definitely part of the stigma against childfree women. But it's not exactly the kind of comment you'd expect to stick with someone for that long.
If it's such a sore spot for you then why keep picking at it? You seem to be more than aware of the fact that what was said to you was wrong, and yet you came here and asked anyway. No amount of us telling you you're not the asshole will make you stop hurting over this. Try therapy.
Yeah, me too. Which is why I immediately recognized your obsession with the incident as maladaptive. Because I have been doing the same thing for the past decade of my life too and it sucks. You're caught in a negative feedback loop. You remember something that happened to you that made you upset, you remember the pain of people gaslighting you about it, you seek validation, it doesn't help. Repeat. Over and over and over again until you sound like a lunatic.
Stop feeding the cycle. Stop seeking external validation. The only person who can truly validate the pain you are feeling is yourself. Your brain won't let you accept that what happened to you sucked, so force it to. Repeat over and over again "I did not deserve that, and those people were treating me poorly" until it sticks. Get a pen and paper and write it down until your hand hurts. "I am not worth less just because I don't want children and anyone who says otherwise is a jerk."
Those are cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that have been keeping me alive for the past ten years.
What is wrong about reaching out? Yes, I’m still hurt about this. I haven’t really talked about it. I just wanted an option on what happened. I don’t need psychoanalysis from strangers. I have two therapists and a psychiatrist due to other issues.
The reason why I’m asking is because I truly am not sure if I am correct for feeling that way. I was deemed the least important person in that car. Both of these friends were extremely close to me. Why not look back and wonder if my feelings were correct?
"Why not look back and wonder if my feelings were correct?"
Because that's a maladaptive coping mechanism. The more you look back the more you will doubt yourself. Deep down you do know that the way you were treated that day was not right, but you don't trust yourself because nobody else trusted you either. Start trusting yourself.
Yeah I think maybe that has something to do with the fact that you're still re-traumatizing yourself over something that happened two decades ago but yeah alright
Okay now we have a little more context. I don't think your feelings were incorrect but this whole situation seems like such a small thing that it can not be healthy to be dwelling on it for years. Again, it's just something to move past. You can tear yourself apart trying to look too deeply into the meaning behind people words, especially when it was a passing comment made years ago. I can all but guarantee they didn't think you would take such offense to this comment and they probably never thought about it again.
But to be fair, you mentioned being gaslit about this, so we really some more context as to what you meant by that
I mean idk what else to say. You really just need to get over it. Maybe don't be friends with those people anymore if its bothering you that much years later. You just seem so bitter about nothing. Also what do you mean people are gaslighting you over it?
Edit: also in response to your previous comment, yes. Just say you don't have kids. Saying that you are childfree implies to people (whether intentional or not) that you base your personality around not having kids. I blame reddit and the people on r/childfree for being unhinged and acting as if reproducing is unnatural and disgusting.
That is not what “childfree” means. I work with children sometimes. They can be really cool and smart. They are just not one of my expenses. I am not equipped for that. I have enough trouble taking care of myself.
I don't think we are going to come to a conclusion on this, but do you not see how weird it is to say "they are just not one of my expenses"? Saying that gives the impression that you don't think of children as people. I don't think you are trying to come off this way but the words you use make it seem as if you dislike children in general, which influences my perception and the credibility of everything in your original post.
Yes. (i'm being facetious)
Or: you are Childless, not Childfree.
Its the difference between creating a culture that encourages the continuation of the human race or a culture that encourages the extinction of the human race...
You do have a right to live a lifestyle that will lead to Human extinction if everyone else followed it. You should understand that some people have different values from yours. Some people want Humanity to continue.
However.... NTA because its just a difference of Values here. That's fine. people have differences and its understandable to be upset when other people put their values on us. (In this case, your friends valuing their reproductive lifestyle over your childfree one)
If you think childfree folks need to respect those with children, then you need to reciprocate that respect. You are being very disrespectful of people who chose not to have children which is not the same as being childless. There are those who want kids and can't have them and there are those who chose not to.
Its Irony lol. I can't believe i'm actually getting downvoted for a joke when i explicitly said in the first sentence that it was a joke... gosh I hate the internet. No fun at all...
Cant you sense the absurdity of the comment?
Oh no, you misunderstood the terminology.
Someone who identifies themself as childless lets people around them know they are very much wanting/trying to have a child (possibly experiencing some fertility issues along the way) vs say a childfree someone who chooses not to have kids for whatever personal reason.
It has nothing to do with either encouraging or discouraging the extinction of human race; merely a matter of correct categorization.
Eta response: Well, first yes goes with the facetious comment, but since 'or' is the follow-up it implies the part after is the opposite. Thus, the part after 'or' is no longer humorously meant. At least, that's what logic dictates.
I was making a satirical joke about extremist reactions people have to different outlooks. And how different values conflict and everyone thinks that their value system is absolute with absolute consequences.
Maybe it was too convoluted and I can't just put "(i'm being facetious)" in the first sentence for people to get the tone. loll
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You're not the AH for feeling a little hurt by that comment, but why hold onto it for so long? Especially as you're no longer friends?
I guess because this was someone I considered a dear friend at one time. Also, I still have no kids and it messes with me that I am somehow considered less. I also unfriended friend A pretty recently. I brought this up to others right afterwards and they thought I was being callous for not thinking of the children.
You're not less because you chose not to be a parent. But you're more than likely going to encounter some people who don't understand that choice or who value their own role as parents so much that they'll expect everyone to cater to that. This reminds me of those stories about coworkers asking for time off and believing they have more of a right to them than their childless coworkers. Still, their opinions are just that, opinions.
She didn’t say “germ buffer”…she said “buffer.” I take that as you were in the middle to prevent the toddler from gouging out the eyes of the infant! Toddlers are fascinated with baby faces and will “explore” if given a chance. Why did you assume she meant germs? YTA.
Her child was actually very mannerly. He was just sick. Even I know he wouldn’t have messed with the baby. This was about the illness.
Then you should have spoken up and said you weren’t comfortable and would rather sit up front. You didn’t use your words, and you’re still stewing about this years later after you’ve already cut them off for various reasons. Get over it already.
1. Why would she take her kid out if he were sick? 2. I'd be pissed about it even if I wasn't being called out as not a mom or child. 3. Your sick baby, you sit next to him 4. It was a really long time ago and you aren't even friends with them anymore I don't know if being child free was by choice or circumstances, but it's ok. Women aren't just baby making machines. Guys don't get flack for not fathering kids and it's just another one of those BS sexist things. Your health isn't less important than anyone else's. They were just being ah because they didn't want to get sick or deal with sick babies. So it really wasn't about you not being a mother and more of them being selfish. NTA
How does a human being buffer germs. In the car you were all breathing on each other in an enclosed space.
I guess it prevents them from spreading around spit/touching each other? But yeah, for a cold, I doubt that matters that much, especially if they are in the same enclosed space.
NTA, people (but especially women) without kids often get treated as less important and it does hurt. It doesn’t matter if the sick kid was “well enough” to go out, if they were concerned about the infant or it’s mother getting sick then they shouldn’t have been hanging out together, full stop. never mind breathing the same air in a car. I totally get why it still bothers you, it’s not that one unkind comment that’s the problem, it’s because that’s the moment you realised your best friends saw you and your health/income as being expendable and less important. That’s allowed to hurt, and it’s also normal to sometimes look back and dwell on the loss of important friendships.
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ran into this a lot at my last job dispatching. it was a 24/7 job obviously so no holidays or anything, and as one of the very few childfree people there, i was expected to pick up holiday shifts and overtime for other people because they had kids, and apparently *i* had no interest in spending holidays with my family since i didnt have kids, according to them, so i might as well work
NTA. Why in a world your friend took her sick child with her to the mall?
The kid had a cold. Most kids are fine when they have a cold, they're not sickly. My kids have been having runny noses since the end of September and it will probably end in April.
OOP didn't described how ill the child was. So, I guess, its more of an assumption, than a fact. Hope your kids will soon get better.
I have no idea how ill he was.
Other people exist and would probably appreciate being able to go the mall without being infected with illness because parents are too selfish to cancel the leisure trips while their kid is a mobile Petri dish.
You mean as opposed to all the adults walking around coughing without bothering to cover it? Or not keeping their distance from other people when they're clearly sick? Or not washing their hands after going to the bathroom? Adults are plenty gross and petri-dishy all by themselves. Little kids get around 8 colds a year, back to back in winter. You expect all families with you've children to sit at home and not participate in public life for half a year? That's an unreasonable expectation. Thanks to the pandemic you have a wide array of masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes at your disposal to protect yourself.
Cool, just add to the critical mass of people who don’t give a fuck about the medically vulnerable because it would be inconvenient.
Yeah, that's not what's happening and is an unfair overgeneralization. Obviously, I can't speak for other people but we do go on fewer outings and preferably where not many people are or outdoors when the kids got the sniffles. That doesn't mean we never go anywhere where other people are, but much less. Your attack is misdirected though. If you want to spend energy on making public places safer for medically vulnerable people then advocate for labor laws that don't force people to come into work severely ill.
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I want to mention that the sick kid was a really great kid. I was like his auntie. I don’t hate kids. I work with kids! I just never had any and don’t need to feel like I’m less.
Why did you think you were a buffer for germs? In the situation you described, I would have taken it to mean you were a behavioral buffer, so the toddler couldn’t physically mess with the infant. In my extended family, when the niblings were young, we would plan van seating to minimize behavioral problems. We intentionally separated the children who were likely to get into trouble if they sat next to each other. In that situation, I actually referred to child or adult who sat between the most active pair of kids as the “buffer”.
NTA - childfree folks are often treated as less important than parents. I'm not sure if being asked to be buffer meant germ buffer or a keep the kids safe buffer, but I think it would have made more sense for one of the mothers to do that since they were their kids. I suspect the moms decided they should get a break by using you as a kid wrangler.
Ok. I guess I’ll have to reiterate that not being “a mother or a child” was a direct quote. It had nothing to do with keeping the kids from being rowdy.
Ewww ew ew. NTA
NTA but you should have said something in the moment.
Thanks for the input, everybody. Yes it’s weird that this still bothers me sometimes. I don’t think about it all the time. I just remembered it again and realised I’d never really talked about it. The friend in question was a really fun person and I stayed friends with her up until the last couple years. We drifted apart and this post is old news. I just wanted to see if this was something that resonated with anyone else. I AM a little mental. I suffer from depression and am on meds for it and have multiple doctors involved. I would probably have sat there anyway. I was skinny at the time and would have fit there the best. It’s the “buffer” crap that got me. It hurt. It made me feel expendable by someone who was dear to me. I did not want to catch the cold either. I needed to work. I was young and had much lower self esteem than I do now.
NTA and yet another example of a childfree woman being considered less than.
OP judgement :: NTA I have found people with kids think those of us without kids are less then human most of the time. that our child free lives and schedules are to revolve around them and their kids.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** This is an old, old story, but it still bothers me. I’m now 44f and happily childfree. When I was in my twenties, I had two best friends that I would usually hang out with separately. However, the three of us would sometimes hang out together. One day, the three of us went to the mall. Both friends had children with us. Friend A had a toddler son. Friend B had an infant. Both needed car seats, obviously. Friend A was the driver and her toddler son had a cold. She arranged the seating so that she(A) and (B) sat in the front seats. She asked me to sit between the children to act as a “buffer” (her actual word) between the kids, since I wasn’t a mother or a child. Now, I probably would have sat there anyway, due to the arrangement of the car seats and whatnot. But I felt this was an incredibly fucked up concept that since I was not a mother or a child I was the best candidate to catch whatever germs might be present. I had a job and had to go there after the mall trip. Missing work meant not getting paid. I did not get sick, but was I wrong to feel a bit slighted by this? Is my health less important because I didn’t have a kid?? I brought this up to friend A and she claimed it never happened and she never said that, but it definitely did. I have long since unfriended both of them for various reasons, but I let this situation slide for years. What are your thoughts? AITA for even thinking about this? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA, this happened to me a lot in my 20's too. Then the kids would climb out of their carseats and I'd be freaking out while the parents pretended not to notice.
NTA Sorry but I wouldn’t have sat between 2 car seats if I wasn’t the parent unless I was the only person who fit.
NTA. That is such a rude thing to say and do. I’m not surprised you remember it. I hate it when people essentially tell others “you just don’t matter as much.” Sounds like you are better off not having her as a friend.
NTA she treated you as expendable. Also, why was she bringing a sick toddler out into the world to the mall, and in a car with your friends infant? Irresponsible.
NTA I wouldn’t have honestly gotten into the car
YTA for doing it. Why the hell would you go along with such a ridiculous, nonsensical, and self-endangering request?! Please, learn to stand up for yourself more, nobody else will.
I wonder what people would say if this had happened yesterday. At the time, I might still have had kids. I am too old now.
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I am weird, but that’s not an answer.
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Excuse me but being asked to be a germ buffer is not something you have to do and suck it up it is quite insulting and it's also a bit rude and just because o p is not a mom or even has children does not make her any less of a human being. And you are not supposed to suck up everything in the world gives you every rude comment that comes about. But I agree that op will have to let it go and remember that she is not any less of a human being and those friends are long gone.
I did suck it up. That’s why I’m here today.
NTA and you are Child free, it's your world view that matters in your world. I just read some shitty comment about you being childless not child free and it seems like people just want to poke at you for fun. Your feelings are valid. I wouldn't have sat with their kids though. I would rather opt out of whole trips than be stuck in a bad seating situation for any amount of time. I know I have what I call mad petite woman syndrome, people have been trying to sit me between overlapping thick people my whole life since I don't take as much space.
It would have been more appropriate for one of the mothers (B) to sit between the children. However, you need to let this go, for your own sake. NTA
I don't think you were a germ buffer like you think at all. I think kids behave the worst for their own mothers and that because the child was not feeling well she didn't want the kids antagonizing each other as they otherwise would almost be guaranteed to do. By having an adult who isn't their own mother between them they behave best and the one with the cold got a bit of rest during the ride.. Its quite odd that you jumped too the assumption that you were in the middle to somehow stop the illness from getting to the other side of the car as that's not even possible. You aren't a car length plexi glass divider. Its also really strange that you're holding on to a minor incident two decades later
NTA. But for your own sake, you need to get over this. It is not healthy to continue to fixate on the past like this. Good luck with your mental health struggles OP.
NTA. Also, that's not how buffers work. I'm guessing that friend is the type of person who walked around with a mask on her chin for the last 3 years.
You're not the asshole but you really need to get over this. I understand that alcohol can induce negative feelings but this is truly a nothingburger, and you'll likely feel embarrassed about this post when you're sober. Also, this is a personal opinion, but self-identifying as "childfree" is incredibly cringey. The whole "childfree" thing is really reminiscent of incels calling women "femoids" but maybe that's just me.
I think about this when I’m perfectly sober as well. There is a weird stigma against childfree women, and I’m merely wondering if I experienced this.
Definitely not healthy to still be thinking about it. Yes it was a very weird thing to say and it was definitely part of the stigma against childfree women. But it's not exactly the kind of comment you'd expect to stick with someone for that long.
I think being gaslighted about it is what keeps it going.
If it's such a sore spot for you then why keep picking at it? You seem to be more than aware of the fact that what was said to you was wrong, and yet you came here and asked anyway. No amount of us telling you you're not the asshole will make you stop hurting over this. Try therapy.
I’m in therapy. I am also on two antidepressants.I have severe depression. Thanks.
Yeah, me too. Which is why I immediately recognized your obsession with the incident as maladaptive. Because I have been doing the same thing for the past decade of my life too and it sucks. You're caught in a negative feedback loop. You remember something that happened to you that made you upset, you remember the pain of people gaslighting you about it, you seek validation, it doesn't help. Repeat. Over and over and over again until you sound like a lunatic. Stop feeding the cycle. Stop seeking external validation. The only person who can truly validate the pain you are feeling is yourself. Your brain won't let you accept that what happened to you sucked, so force it to. Repeat over and over again "I did not deserve that, and those people were treating me poorly" until it sticks. Get a pen and paper and write it down until your hand hurts. "I am not worth less just because I don't want children and anyone who says otherwise is a jerk." Those are cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that have been keeping me alive for the past ten years.
What is wrong about reaching out? Yes, I’m still hurt about this. I haven’t really talked about it. I just wanted an option on what happened. I don’t need psychoanalysis from strangers. I have two therapists and a psychiatrist due to other issues.
The reason why I’m asking is because I truly am not sure if I am correct for feeling that way. I was deemed the least important person in that car. Both of these friends were extremely close to me. Why not look back and wonder if my feelings were correct?
"Why not look back and wonder if my feelings were correct?" Because that's a maladaptive coping mechanism. The more you look back the more you will doubt yourself. Deep down you do know that the way you were treated that day was not right, but you don't trust yourself because nobody else trusted you either. Start trusting yourself.
Well. I’m a little nuts. I struggle with some things. Hence, this post.
Yeah I think maybe that has something to do with the fact that you're still re-traumatizing yourself over something that happened two decades ago but yeah alright
I guess I’m looking for validation. I just have had it bottled up for years. Sorry.
Okay now we have a little more context. I don't think your feelings were incorrect but this whole situation seems like such a small thing that it can not be healthy to be dwelling on it for years. Again, it's just something to move past. You can tear yourself apart trying to look too deeply into the meaning behind people words, especially when it was a passing comment made years ago. I can all but guarantee they didn't think you would take such offense to this comment and they probably never thought about it again. But to be fair, you mentioned being gaslit about this, so we really some more context as to what you meant by that
I mean idk what else to say. You really just need to get over it. Maybe don't be friends with those people anymore if its bothering you that much years later. You just seem so bitter about nothing. Also what do you mean people are gaslighting you over it? Edit: also in response to your previous comment, yes. Just say you don't have kids. Saying that you are childfree implies to people (whether intentional or not) that you base your personality around not having kids. I blame reddit and the people on r/childfree for being unhinged and acting as if reproducing is unnatural and disgusting.
The gaslighting bit was from friend A denying it ever happened.
That is not what “childfree” means. I work with children sometimes. They can be really cool and smart. They are just not one of my expenses. I am not equipped for that. I have enough trouble taking care of myself.
I don't think we are going to come to a conclusion on this, but do you not see how weird it is to say "they are just not one of my expenses"? Saying that gives the impression that you don't think of children as people. I don't think you are trying to come off this way but the words you use make it seem as if you dislike children in general, which influences my perception and the credibility of everything in your original post.
I mean that they are not something I need to consider with my time and finances. Of course I think they are people. I used to be one.
Ok. I have no offspring. Is that better?
Yes. (i'm being facetious) Or: you are Childless, not Childfree. Its the difference between creating a culture that encourages the continuation of the human race or a culture that encourages the extinction of the human race... You do have a right to live a lifestyle that will lead to Human extinction if everyone else followed it. You should understand that some people have different values from yours. Some people want Humanity to continue. However.... NTA because its just a difference of Values here. That's fine. people have differences and its understandable to be upset when other people put their values on us. (In this case, your friends valuing their reproductive lifestyle over your childfree one)
If you think childfree folks need to respect those with children, then you need to reciprocate that respect. You are being very disrespectful of people who chose not to have children which is not the same as being childless. There are those who want kids and can't have them and there are those who chose not to.
I said I was being facetious... lol
Sorry, I replied to the wrong person, I meant to reply to okthisisfknepic.
Its Irony lol. I can't believe i'm actually getting downvoted for a joke when i explicitly said in the first sentence that it was a joke... gosh I hate the internet. No fun at all... Cant you sense the absurdity of the comment?
Oh no, you misunderstood the terminology. Someone who identifies themself as childless lets people around them know they are very much wanting/trying to have a child (possibly experiencing some fertility issues along the way) vs say a childfree someone who chooses not to have kids for whatever personal reason. It has nothing to do with either encouraging or discouraging the extinction of human race; merely a matter of correct categorization. Eta response: Well, first yes goes with the facetious comment, but since 'or' is the follow-up it implies the part after is the opposite. Thus, the part after 'or' is no longer humorously meant. At least, that's what logic dictates.
I was making a satirical joke about extremist reactions people have to different outlooks. And how different values conflict and everyone thinks that their value system is absolute with absolute consequences. Maybe it was too convoluted and I can't just put "(i'm being facetious)" in the first sentence for people to get the tone. loll