“Any plans on having anymore kids?”
“Oh wouldn’t Grayson be a wonderful big brother”
“You’re married now, shouldn’t you think about having kids?”
“You won’t be young forever, now’s the best time”
I’ve had some of the these comments (as well as others) and heard a number of people receive some of the other comments. It’s a real pet peeve of mine and here is why:
It is NO ONE’S business, whether a person or couple are planning on having children. Even if they already have kids, it isn’t your place to ask unless they start the conversion themselves. You can never know what type of situation anyone is in, and children can be an extremely touchy subject.
For Mark and myself, we currently feel that we are happy with just Grayson. He is a wonderful little boy, and we are more than happy as a family of 3. I also find that because of my traumatic birth with Grayson, the thought of having to go through anything like that again, scares the shit out of me. We know people mean well with the question, but when we say we’re happy with one, a lot of people are shocked. But if we’re all happy then who cares?
You could ask someone this question, and they could have suffered with miscarriages or infertility and be desperate for children. This question just brings it all back for them. If they’ve already had a traumatic birth, then they could be suffering from PTSD and comments like this could cause some serious upset.
There are also people, that just don’t want kids. For whatever reason they have chosen that children aren’t for them, and that is completely their right. I always say to people “children are not the be all and end all of life, if you don’t want kids, don’t let anyone force you to feel otherwise” because I love children and I love Grayson to death, but children aren’t for everyone and that’s okay.
It’s okay to have discussions with people if they’ve started the conversation, but if you aren’t sure on their situation then I’m sure there are plenty of other topics you could discuss.
If not, just do the typical British thing; talk about the weather!