As the housewarming unfolds, the carefully arranged harmony begins to unravel, exposing the raw emotions and complex dynamics that bind this family. The sister’s generosity in providing caretakers for her nieces and nephews is a testament to her love, but it also sparks a poignant reflection on the disparate burdens they bear. In this charged atmosphere, joy and sorrow intertwine, revealing the profound depths of resilience and the quiet struggles that define their lives.
I (28f), have 4 siblings, one of them being disabled. The other three have kids, this post is about A(35F) and B(32F), A have 4 kids (17F, 15M, 14M, 9F), the younger 3 have severe physical and mental disabilities.
B have 3 (12M, 7M, 2F), the oldest and middle have the same disabilities as my older sister’s children, and the younger have down syndrome. They are both SAHM, all the children are in the disability programs my country offers but there is not much money left, after all the medical bills of therapy and meds they need.
Their husband’s have ok jobs, but with the severity of the children’s disabilities it is hard to go by.
On the other hand, I am single, child-free by choice, went to university, totally debt free, have a masters, and work from home in my dream field. Last month I bought my first house.
I invited my family and friends for a house warming this Saturday. I paid for two caretakers to care for their children so they could come. Everything was fine and fun. Until the end of the night, my friends had already gone home, and it was the three of us.
They started to talk about me setting down, marrying, and having kids, since I bought a house. I remembered that I didn’t want kids. This talk circulated several times. Until they asked me why foi the tenth time.
I told them, besides really not wanting to have a child, I love my freedom, I love the life that I already have. Thinking about our family DNA, that is a high chance of having a disabled child, that means more work and sacrificing, I don’t want to sacrifice myself.
I want to have money for hobbies, to take care of myself, for expensive clothes and hairdressers, to travel, to live and not just survive. I love them, they’re great mom’s but I don’t want to make the sacrifices to be the same, I would be an awful and spiteful mom, and no one deserves that.
From everything I said, the only thing they listened to was about not wanting a disabled child. They went on a spiral about how much of a blessing their kids are, how I am an egotistical bitch, and so much more.
They blocked me on social media, and aren’t answering me in the family group chat. My mom called to give me a speech about how my disabled brother (36M)was a blessing in her life, how he is a gift from God, and uninvited me from christmas because my sisters won’t come if I come.
I called my brother (39), his two children are adopted. He admitted a long time ago this was due to the high chance of disability in our family. He told me my delivery is rude, but they also suck, they should know not everyone wants kids.
He encouraged me to apologize because I know how they are.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) expressed a clear desire for a child-free life, valuing personal freedom, financial independence, and self-care, which conflicted sharply with her sisters’ expectations that she should follow a traditional path, possibly motivated by their own demanding realities.
When confronted about her choices, the OP clearly stated her reasons, including the perceived sacrifices and the genetic risk of disability; therefore, the core question remains: Is it justifiable to prioritize personal fulfillment and freedom over familial expectations, especially when the expectation involves significant, life-altering commitment like parenthood?
Here’s how people reacted:
**Also, I’m fairly critical in a way that might hurt the very people I don’t intend to hurt if it’s misread, if you’re struggling right now with anything to do with child rearing, best skip over my post entirely.**
On the other hand, if you’re a child-pusher (one who thinks people SHOULD have children and shoves that view down people’s throats) who happens to have found your way onto this thread, maybe this is what you need to hear to learn compassion and understand that some choose to be childless precisely because they care about children.
As someone who experienced profound incapacitating pain from puberty through menopause with blinding migraines and cramps so bad I would black out (broken bones came nowhere near the intensity of the monthly migraines and cramps), I would consider it child abuse and torture to pass my genes on.
I’ve been told I’m selfish for this.
As human beings we have an obligation to do the best for any child brought into this world and that also means striving (without crossing the eugenics line or consent line) to take enough personal responsibility to maximize the likelihood of a healthy child, to do otherwise is child abuse.
Individually many people do this and many people try, and sometimes despite efforts it just doesn’t work out. The child in any of these cases is not at fault, and yes, in all cases the child is a blessing.
As a species, collectively, we’ve failed children given how many are born with drug addictions, fetal alcohol syndrome, genetic suffering that could be avoided, neglect, kids trafficked as drug mules or sex slaves, kids made into soldiers.
Frankly my honest answer is that collectively as a species, until every child on the planet has a good home, with parents who love and care for them as something as sacred as a child SHOULD be cared for, we have no business as a species having more.
Individually, yes, some people are wonderful, exceptional (and they could have been wonderful, exceptional, to >!children who are now dead from a ruptured crack bag shoved up their backside to transport it!<). Collectively, as a species, we've failed.
If we can’t open our hearts to the children most in need, due to favoring our own genes, we’ve failed.
I am to a degree a hypocrite, to a degree, protective of kids, from myself. I have some pretty severe mental health issues, it would not be good for a child to spend any prolonged period of time with me and see me at my worst. I can guarantee I’d be a better parent than many in the world, but that by no means makes me in any way, shape, or form a good parent. Love and a desire for the best isn’t enough, you have to be capable of it, you have to WANT to be that person and have the capacity TO be that person, and follow through being that person.
The child deserves nothing less.
Be that as it may, you also have to weigh your own imperfections with the potential risks of putting your child into a broken foster care system or adoption system.
All humans, every last one of us are flawed, but some folks also make their own flaws out to be worse than they are, and my post, taken wrong, could devastate someone who is a lot better as a parent than they think they are. I don’t want to do that either. My post reads initially like a call to perfection, it’s not, that’s not achievable.
More like careful weighting of pros, cons, abilities, chances of passing on something that might cause the child to suffer needlessly, economic capability and fallback plans.
But, humans, children, even neglected are survivors, and some beat the odds, and those dark odds can sometimes make the child more compassionate as an adult than a child who didn’t have to struggle (and sometimes the opposite, can cause one to close off….me, I say the right words maybe, I hope, about what should happen, but emotional reality, I’m one of the closed off rage-prone ones though I’ll do my best to hide it).
I was once friends with a woman who was told she would never have kids. So when she got pregnant to a guy she’d been dating for only a few months, she felt it was a miracle and kept the baby. The guy promised to be a caring and attentive dad and partner despite them barely knowing each other and offered to move her into his apartment, which she did. She had an amazingly easy pregnancy, surrounded by family who were excited to be doting grandparents and aunts and uncles, and everything was smooth sailing until the baby was born.
That’s when he partner began to withdraw from her and the baby, her family abandoned her and showed utter disinterest in the kid while fawning over family friends’ newborns, and she slowly began to lose her sanity, feeling like she’d been tricked as she struggled to parent. Since she’d never imagined she could parent, she was entirely unprepared, and all the help she’d been promised by the women in her family just never came despite a lot of begging and pleading on her part.
A big part of why we stopped being friends is because she expected me, someone who’s never wanted kids and still don’t, to pick up her family and bf’s slack. Day in and day out, she would be complaining and crying to me about being a new mother, and then would turn around asking me when I was going to get married and have kids (ignoring that I didn’t want either things), all while calling me selfish for not devoting all my free time to helping her.
This wasn’t a kid with a disability. Because it doesn’t matter, parenting is hard no matter the child. Parents with disabled kids know better than anyone, since their kids literally have special needs that go above and beyond a typical parent’s responsibilities. So your sisters know better than to be offended, they should get where you’re coming from. They’re just mad you’re breaking tradition and resent your freedom, that’s it, and the fact your family is siding with them tells me where that tradition came from, so there’s no talking sense into anyone. Just accept you can’t change their minds and live your life.
I struggle with my brothers disability and how much it has limited his life and freedom. That’s not to say I’m not thankful to have him because he is truly amazing and a ray of sunshine. There are things that no one thinks of that will be devastating for you and a potential future child. My brother always talked about “when he gets to drive he will do xwz” and having to finally sit him down and tell him he’d never get to was heartbreaking. We had to deliver the news that killed his dreams. Things like that pop up all the time and it can be very emotionally draining. I still hurt thinking about that and that was 15 years ago.
It would be far more cruel to have kids due to being pressured all the while knowing you couldn’t be the parent that they needed. Some people can handle it, and others can’t. There is nothing wrong with that and making a smart decision based off what you know about yourself is the most empathetic and responsible thing you can do.
You really stepped in it, my dear. Your heart wasn’t mean and you didn’t mean to hurt them, but you did. You should apologize for that.
Remember, sometimes half the truth is sufficient to answer some questions. This was one of those times.
Edited to add: your sisters are assholes too for internalizing your personal feelings and making your honest feelings about themselves.
It’s too bad that your family is so defensive about it, but given how you seem to have stated it, they’re out of line, not you. Even parents who love their children fiercely can have forgivable moments of pondering single life; and with your particular constellation of siblings, I’m sure you stand out as that example of how their lives might have turned out. Again, not to disparage them or their children; just to recognize that that road not taken often seems pretty attractive when it’s no longer available.
Enjoy your life. If your family can’t appreciate your solid reasoning and genuine pleasures in the life you have, then enjoy it without them.
I am the mother of nonverbal disabled child and she is literally the light of my life, my favorite human being on this planet. That said, the hospitalizations, ambulance rides, close calls where you sit outside the room while the medical team tries to stop the seizures and intubate, praying to God not to take her… It constantly breaks me.
I do not blame anyone for not wanting to sign up for motherhood. Even if it is because you worry about having a specific genetically-linked disability occur. You are talking about hypothetical children that do not exist. You are not talking about your nieces/nephews and the worthiness of their existences. Deciding not to have a child that doesn’t exist is not wrong. Deciding you don’t want your child that DOES exist just because they are disabled would be wrong. It is a clear distinction.
BUT, that is incredibly easy to say as the already mom of a special needs child. Had I been asked before I had kids, if I would want to have kids knowing they’d be born with disabilities, I would have said no. My entire life revolves around my boy and advocating for him, and I love it and wouldn’t change it but oh my god, being aware that that is not the life you want DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN ASSHOLE. And for them to make you feel that way is absolutely insane.
Both me and my husband have high functioning autism and we’ve decided not to have children because of how difficult it is for even us to navigate in the world. There’s nothing selfish in prioritizing yourself and recognizing the fact that caring for a disabled child is incredibly difficult and more often than not, requires sacrifice.
Your siblings are trying to make themselves feel better about the choices they’ve made in their life and though I may be overstepping, I wonder if they actually sat down with their children and asked them how they felt about how things were going.
Your mom and siblings have to get to the mindset that your choices are fine, just as their choices are fine.
Just don’t make a negative association with disabilities though. There’s nothing wrong with being disabled.
Secondarily, I have chronic pain and I don’t think I’d be a good mother, because I can hardly take care of myself. I’m only squeaking by financially at the best of times. I think these are also valid reasons.
It is what it is. I don’t want kids of my own. I don’t want to foster to adopt. Some people just don’t want kids. The end.
Your approach wasn’t bad either, I don’t think. I get it when you keep getting asked if you are ready to settle down and have kids when you don’t want any. It gets tiresome answering the question over and over again when they know the answer already.
I think your sisters and mom are jealous of your freedom without having someone to care for for the rest of your life. And your mom telling you to not come to christmas and YOU need to appologize is just wrong.
They kept asking. They were just waiting for you to give the answer you did, because they wanted to feel better than you after the choices they’ve made. All they really wanted was validation — they weren’t asking in good faith or because they care about you. The resulting drama is so over-the-top (you got disinvited from Christmas?! By your own mom?!) and ridiculously unfair.
Your life choices are just that, yours.
Sounds to me like you’ve got your head screwed on right.NTA.
It is not an easy life and one of many sacrifices. It is perfectly OK for you to decide it’s not for you.
I have a disability, if there’s a chance I can pass it on I wouldn’t have children, I won’t anyway but it just reinforces that.
You asked you about it multiple times. They just didn’t like the answer. They suck. I would not apologize.
Your sisters need to mind their business.