Quit Whining – If You Are Single and Have No Kids I Don’t Want To Hear Your Complaining

Summary: Parents have no patience for listening to their single, childless friends complain about their life.

At a recent family gathering my sort of brother-in-law (I say sort of because my partner and I aren’t married) and I started talking about parenthood and how it just completely obliterates your pre-child life.

“I just have no patience for single childless people who complain”, says my brother-in-law,”they can do what ever they want, whenever they want!”

“I know, before I had a kid I used to think I was busy. Ha! What a delusional fool I was.”

“It’s so funny. They come into work on Monday and complain about how tired they are from partying all weekend, or about how the two movies they saw sucked, or how crowded the plane was on their way to Vegas. Partying? Movies? Vegas? What are those things? I haven’t had an unscheduled minute that didn’t revolve around work or family in over 6 years! Do you hear me complain? No. There’s no time to complain! I just do it because it needs to be done.”

And that was just part of the rant. He was clearly on a roll and it was a joy to watch. And he’s completely right. Childless single people have no scale. They’re like teenagers. Everything’s a crisis.

I’m a cat lover. I grew up with cats and I’ve always had one. Before our daughter came along my partner and I would actually talk about our cat. We’d mention the funny things it did or just reflect on its personality. The day our daughter was born the cat fell out of my conscience. Not completely off, but somewhere between remembering to take out the trash and brushing my teeth. And when she started scratching my daughter because she refuse to concede territory when she was taking her cat nap, I was ready to give her away or put her to sleep if necessary. It’s simple. You fuck with my kid, I will knock you out. I don’t care if you’re my cat.

Fortunately my cat saved herself by learning to just stay outside until she knew my daughter was asleep and immobile. She had no idea she was one scratch away from being banished from the family.

Then it hit me. Only childless people talk about their pets. Once you have a kid your pet is non longer a source of pride or entertainment. They are just another thing to deal with.

And that’s just the beginning.

Your free time just evaporates. Spontaneity dies. If you don’t schedule sex with your partner, it’s not going to happen. If you don’t schedule a time to see a movie, you won’t be seeing one, ever. If you don’t schedule a time to go grocery shopping, you will have no food.

The weird thing is you just adjust. At a time in my life when I have more reasons to be complaining than I though possible, I don’t think I’ve ever complained so little. And it’s just not me either. Parents, as a group, seem to be the most even keeled people on the planet except for seniors, who more often than not, are  parents as well. The highs are not as high, but the lows are not as low either. You perspective on what problems are real and what are imaginary becomes sharpened.

You grow up, big time.

So after I’ve worked for 12 hours straight since 4am, and I’ve fed, bathed, dressed, read to and put my daughter to bed, and I have just enough strength to Tivo through an episode of Top Chef before collapsing into bed, I really don’t want to here about how tired you were from the concert you went to last night or that your boyfriend that you’ve been dating for a whole three weeks is driving you crazy. Know what? I haven’t been to a concert in six months and my whole family drives me crazy. And I have no way to escape because we live in the same 750 square feet of home and our lives are bound together by blood.

This is why I have no patience to deal with self-indulgent, childless, single adults complain about their life. Go get a life first, then we can talk.

File Under: Childless Single Adults Complain to Much


2 Responses to “Quit Whining – If You Are Single and Have No Kids I Don’t Want To Hear Your Complaining”

  • Sarah Tena Says:

    Right on!! I can’t stand my childless friends, fortunately I don’t have that many!

  • Straight Dope Dad Says:

    Sorry, but thanks to many of you who feel that being on the internet means the basic rules of civility no longer apply I’ve deleted all your comments and closed the post. I was more than willing to let people strongly disagree with me, but the majority were only interested in name calling and had no desire to have a conversation. So now they are all gone. Comments are a courtesy. I’m not required to entertain nonsense. So instead of behaving like adults most choose to act like children and like most children who misbehave, they lost their privileges. Which means only my voice is now represented on this page. How sad and self defeating. I know some of you feel that provoking me to delete the comments was a victory but in reality it was your loss not mine.