Venting about classmates with families...

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OK, I am getting sooooo sick and tired of my classmates thinking that just because I don't work, have kids, or a husband..I have no problems. When did having problems only become exclusive to family life. I suffer my fair share of problems that drastically altered my grades first semester and was on the brink of failing..battled severe depression because of my problems and barely passed on...Im not going into detail about my personal life, but its just mind blowing how many of my classmates have this ONE SIDED VIEW ON life, its almost sickening....

Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.
When I was single and childless, I hated listening to other women talk about their husbands and children. I thought married women were so stuck up, and I thought they felt that they were superior to me just because they had husbands. And I thought women with children were the most boring people on earth.
Well, I've never thought women w/ husbands were stuck up. It's not exactly tough to find a man to marry. Getting through nursing school was a lot more work than finding a spouse. :chuckle.

I have to say that listening to parents talking about their children can get extremely boring and tiresome to the childfree (actually, it can get terribly boring to those with kids, too ;) ).

It's always the same....well you know. I'm not trying to be mean, but it's just the way I feel. Most parents sound very similar. The stories they tell about their kids all sound alike, IMO.

I did not have my child until I was 35 and I did not get married until I was 42. So I spent two decades as a single woman, alone, with no man or children. It drove me to depression, because[i'] I really wanted to have a family that whole time[/i].

I am sorry that you felt that depression. It is a horrible feeling to have to experience.

On the flip side, there are many woman that have chosen to remain single and childfree or married and childfree and are extremely happy with their decisions. I work with a lot of them.

There are a lot of men and women that are not married and/or do not have children, but this does not mean they don't have a "family".

Many people have sibiling, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc., that are their family! Other people have a very close group of friends that they are closer to them than their own blood relatives. These friends are their family.

Having kids can be rewarding and they can be destructive. As my years as a nurse, I've witnessed both.

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

Wow, lots of resentments about others going on, isn't there? It's an interesting sociological phenomenon I think...

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Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.
Wow, lots of resentments about others going on, isn't there? It's an interesting sociological phenomenon I think...

Ya, the old quote that states something like "People with kids and people without kids feel sorry for one another".........

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Specializes in L&D, OB Triage.

I think the resentment only comes because each group thinks it has it harder than the other and there truly is no way to measure. We all have our own "life crap" to deal with which may add to or take away from our nursing school experience. To me it is almost like the working mom versus the stay at home mom debate. Each one makes valid points, but neither has it easier than the other and neither should be attacked for their decision.

Boy this subject gets me riled up! :)

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Truth be known, I was always jealous of the stay-at-home moms in my program. They were able to send the kids off to school, then study. Their grades were always awesome. I was working 36-50 hours a week just to pay my bills, plus going to school, plus spending time on homework.

That being said, once I became engaged, I found out how much work it is to just have another person in the house. We shared chores, and FH was able to get groceries if I was busy with classwork, he was able to cook dinner so that I could study longer, and so on. But still, I felt bad that I was taking away from our "us" time to study. It was even worse on the weekends that we had his son. Then I felt doubly bad for being a horrible person who was missing out on "parenting" time.

I don't think anyone has it easy, per se. I think that there are pros and cons to each situation, and until you've been in both, it's hard to see the other side of the fence. Sometimes, the grass is greener, but there are often brown spots. :)

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Specializes in L&D, OB Triage.
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Sometimes, the grass is greener, but there are often brown spots. :)

or it's astroturf!! :)

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As a happily single woman with no children....my favorite question is, "Do you have any family?" to which I often answer, "No, I was hatched from an egg."

I know that they mean to ask if I have a husband and children....but I find it somewhat insulting that, that is the only definition that counts as "family." Oh and I do go on to explain that I do have family, just not a husband and children.

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

If you knew what they meant by their question, why were you still insulted?

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If you knew what they meant by their question, why were you still insulted?

First of all, I did say I felt insulted...I didn't reason out that I was insulted....people feel what they feel. Knowing what they intended to ask, doesn't make the question less insulting....it just means I know they don't intend to insult, but are doing so inadvertently.

But I felt insulted because their question implies I don't have family. I answer as I do to point out how rudely they phrase their question...in a kinda funny way. There are a lot of definitions of family...if they want to know if I'm married and have kids....they should ask that.

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

They were probably just trying to break the ice and get to know you. Maybe you should give them the benefit of the doubt and try not to read too much into what was most likely small talk.

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I hear ya! I graduated in May and there were people always whining about having to do so much with kids. I myself don't have children. I lived with an 89 year old grandmother with dementia who needed frequent care and a developmentally delayed brother who is epileptic. Just because people don't have "children" doesn't mean they don't have issues.

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Some things are much harder when you are single than when you are married, and I think sometimes, after people have been married for awhile, or married very young, they forget that.

I still remember struggling to pay the bills on my salary alone. When people are married, they pay the same rent/mortgage, whether there is one person living there for 5, same for electric, water, gas, cable, internet, etc.

I got no tax discount b/c I was single...my car insurance was high b/c I was single.

If I had studying to do when I was in college before I couldn't say, "Oh, honey, could you mail off checks for the bills, pick up the dry cleaning, get the oil changed and go grocery shopping for me? I'm really busy."

Nope, when you are single you don't even have someone to take out the trash or put a single stamp on a bill for you...you have to do all of that yourself. When you are sick, you have to fix yourself something to eat no matter how high your fever is..or you don't eat. I'll never forget one day having a fever of 104 in the middle of the night, discovering to my horror that I was out of any and all meds (unusual, b/c I usually keep a small pharmacy at my home), and I had to get dressed, get in the car, and drive to an all-night grocery store while dizzy and sick to get something.

In some ways, it's more hectic, just in a different way.

not even close...sorry..

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