Just wish Carolyn would read through the cf forums...

A parent pooh-poohs a non-parent’s sleep-deprivation
Dear Carolyn: I have kids who are 8 months old and 2 years old, so when a childless friend told me she had been sleep-deprived, I just laughed and told her she doesn't know what sleep-deprived is. She didn't say anything about it in the moment, but then later sent me an email detailing health problems she's had related to insomnia and telling me she thought I was insensitive.
I replied, "You're acting like this is personal about you. I'm just telling you, no parent wants to hear a non-parent whine about not sleeping." She didn't reply to that and I had basically forgotten about it, but I saw her yesterday and she was very cold to me.
Do you think I should address this with her again? It's not that I'm unsympathetic if she's really having problems sleeping, it's just that it's fairly ridiculous for her to compare what she's going through to what parents of young children go through.
— "Sleep Deprived"


“Sleep Deprived”: Yes, so so ridiculous, because parents of young children are the only ones whose experiences are actually valid! Yes!
Are your kids named Holier and Thou?
Holy headsmack.
Not only were you awful to this friend, but you also took her patient explanation as an opportunity to be awful to her all over again! And you still don’t see it. You’re doubling down.
There is no suffering Olympics, no gold medal to be won, there is only suffering.
And I’m just telling you (ugh!) that no suffering person wants to hear another person dismiss their suffering as a ludicrous yeah-whatever WHINE. You called a sick friend a whiner. And you did this even though you presumably have firsthand knowledge that sleep deprivation is a form of torture!
But instead of tapping into that to feel some empathy for your friend, you used it against her. Hard.
Please lose the certainty of your place at the top of the experience mountain and work on your empathy skills, stat.
And “address this” with your friend “again” only if you’re prepared to deliver an abject and heartfelt apology for treating her pain as nothing more than the “ridiculous” pretender to your own.
You can tell her you responded so badly because you, too, are sleep-deprived and are clearly not at your best at putting 2 and 2 together.
This part is not necessary to my argument, but I will spell it out anyway: You are not sleeping well because you are caring for little people who do not yet sleep all night without needing your care. This is not only a choice you made, but also — in the vast majority of cases — a temporary state of things, after which you will be better able to rest. In other words, it is not your body betraying you to the point that it’s denying you your ability to do what you desperately need, and not responding to efforts to fix the problem, and with no end in sight. That’s your friend’s current status.
So scoffing at that? Gets a “wow.”

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

NICE!

Due to various health problems I haven't had more than a handful of good, solid, restful nights in YEARS...if some mombie spouts off to me like this letter writer did, can I punch her in the mouth and claim it was the sleep deprivation impairing my judgment?

Sleep deprivation is a human suffering.
A decent person does not discount what your **friend** is going through.
I hope that the Moo's **friend** decides to cut Moo out of her life and find new friends who are considerate and supportive.

(BTW I have multiple disabilities including sleep disorders and would love for severe sleep problems to be temporary instead of permanent)

"You're acting like this is personal about you"


NO, you are making this personal about YOU, so much that you're digging your heels in. Once again a moomie who is the Queen of Suffering and Martyrdom. But she has time to write Carolyn and probably post a million pics of dumb kids on FB everyday.

"I'm just telling you, no parent wants to hear a non-parent whine about not sleeping."

And, no solitary person in the world wants to mention they aren't sleeping and feel poorly then hear their suffering discounted by the martyr. Like saying you have a headache, but someone telling you stop whining becuz they had a headache for a week. Can't you just be sympathetic for a minute, say a nice word and move on?

I guarantee I slept less than most any moo when I was working my high-stress job, and for at least 10 yrs I was getting an unrestful 4 hours a nite if lucky and have to look good, be organized, be ready for anything, and do public speaking the next day, not go thru the motions of my run of the mill mommie life. If I didn't quit, I'd still NOT be sleeping now. (I feel like a totally different person now) Everytime I'd call my moo friends, they were sleeping late, or having 'date night', or eating out, walking around in their PJs all day while taking care of the kids.watching SATC, The Sopranos,still binging every netflix show, kept up to date w/ every trendy show, and fussing with many stupid trends on the 'net, like FB when it started. These are people who are not as stressed as they claim.

I'm gonna have to look up Carolyn's answer, hopefully she told her she was being a clod.

OH, that was her answer. I thought that was YOUR answer to stupid moo. LOL Maybe I need some sleep after all.

I like the childless person in this letter. She is a fast learner. She has caught on that her (likely former) friend is miserable and her best bet is to stay away. Of course, the dumb moo wants validation on what a jerk she was.

Of course moos expect you to pour sympathy and empathy on them like a fire hose and always be there for support, when they whine about their self-imposed problems because what else do you have to do? You aren't a parunt.
They expect everyone around them to give them sympathy and empathy, it isn't personal, you were just within earshot. Some even go so far to demand this from strangers: they hold workers in captivity who aren't able to walk away.

Or the whole series of "must be nice" passive aggressive comments which always follow when you attempt to give the conversation a positive tone after the negativity/one-up-man ship about parunting:
Must be nice to be able to sleep in, work out, eat a meal or go to the bathroom undisturbed, whatever.

They just spin it back to them and belittle your attempts to make the conversation positive.
You really can't have an intelligent or productive conversation with such people. They will always try to pull you down to their level of misery.

And they wonder why they often end up single? Can you imagine being married to someone who acts like this all the time? Imagine you are the working spouse in this scenario and your SO stays at home. He/she hates parunting and whines and is passive aggressive about it in every interaction. It is just a big battleground. So much for relaxing, enjoying life.

At least the friendship is optional.

I actually like Carolyn's response. THANK YOU for bringing up the point that Moo's lot is a CHOSEN CONDITION when health ailments are not.

It makes me mad as Hell when Preggers demand all this special treatment for their "disabilities" and they want to be on par with people with involuntary health ailments. Excuse the fuck out of me, but sick people do not ask to have disabilities and pregnancy is a CHOICE. Same with the sleep deprivation that goes with squirting out a kid.

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And they wonder why they often end up single? Can you imagine being married to someone who acts like this all the time? Imagine you are the working spouse in this scenario and your SO stays at home. He/she hates parunting and whines and is passive aggressive about it in every interaction. It is just a big battleground. So much for relaxing, enjoying life.

Anyone who is really paying attention can see that parunts themselves are the worst advertisement for parunting. Most of them look miserable and they act petty, jealous and miserable. If you are open to observation, it's not hard to see.

The brain-dead WannaBes could be observing the same, but they lie to themselves and tell themselves it will be different for them.

Before I got on proper meds for my thyroid, I had extreme fatigue accompanied by insomnia. I was so tired every single day that I honestly thought I was dying. Still, as exhausted as I was, I would have mustered the energy to slit the throat of any breeder who dared look me in the eye and tell me I didn't know what tired was because I have no brats. People would hassle me about it too, telling me I was lazy and "didn't you sleep enough?!" Bitch no I fucking didn't, I spent 12 hours rolling around trying to sleep.

Breeders think they have the monopoly on tiredness and while I don't deny they're tired from dealing with their completely voluntary life choices, they aren't the only ones who are tired. Not by a long shot. People suffer insomnia, or they work long nights at their jobs that involve more than ass-wiping and laundry, or they're hospital employees in a pandemic on 24+ hour shifts without sleep because people will die without them, or they're any number of on-call professionals who have to haul themselves back out repeatedly to deal with people's shit at retarded hours (paramedics, ER doctors, veterinarians, morticians, firefighters, etc.).

This cunt could have sympathized with her friend because if she's such a tired mombie, then she knows how much sleep deprivation sucks. But nope, she chose to be a bitch and completely undermine her friend's exhaustion and make it into a pissing contest. And unlike insomnia, breeding-induced sleep loss is secondary to a self-inflicted lifestyle choice. Nobody wants to be an insomniac, not to mention that Moo doesn't seem to get that there's a difference between not being "allowed" to sleep due to brats and being exhausted, but somehow unable to fall asleep.

I hope she loses her friend over this. If she can't simply say, "Hey that really sucks, I'm sorry" and has to act like her loin droppings entitle her to exclusive rights to universal tiredness, she doesn't deserve any fucking friends and the friend doesn't deserve to associate with such an asshole.