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Do you think society holds single men and women on a lower level than married people and/or people with children?

I've noticed this in my own life. If someone has to leave work early to take their kid to soccer practice or ballet lessons, it's rather expected that I, or some other single person, should pick up the slack. We're often expected to work holidays like Cmas because we have no kids so it's assumed that Cmas isn't that meaningful to us, (even though we have our own families) and we're often asked to work overtime to get stuff done because our boss knows that we have no child at home to feed and no spouse to tend to.

Many single people resent this attitude. As if we don't have valid and worthy lives of our own just because we have no solid partner or no child to raise.

Then there's the "when are you gonna get married?" stuff. Do men get this as much as women do? It's like you're not a real person if you don't have a "significant other."

What do you think?

I completely agree RG..... It drives me nuts!:-5 :-5

I find it to be the opposite, that at work those who have to leave for children's health issues are highly resented. It is all right if the single ones who partied too much take Monday off with a sub. The ladies in the office help me when I must leave for an emergency at home, which is less and less now. But it does happen, and I really get the flack the next day when I return from those who did coverage. Of course, they never thank us when we do it for them...............

No I don't think so. But this single life is for the birds. I've begun to think of marriage again. Someone to come home to, and sex.

I agree with Red.

If you don't have children, you don't seem to be as important as someone else.

There is a girl in my office who claims she can't work midnight shift because she has a 15 year old. Now, I would understand that she wouldn't want to leave him home alone in the middle of the night, but nearly her whole family lives in a two block radius from her. :-5

And then there was a girl whose husband got shipped over seas and she had a small child. She got put on a pedestial because her husband was near Iraq but her mother kept her child everyday until her off days. There was no one for her to go home to!

Childless people have families, too. All my babes miss me when I'm not home. :-1

I feel like every time I say, "I am 30, single, no kids, never married" that I either have to follow that with "and straight" or "but I've been asked three times". Otherwise I cut off half the dating pool just out of first impressons.

KB.;636364 wrote: I feel like every time I say, "I am 30, single, no kids, never married" that I either have to follow that with "and straight" or "but I've been asked three times". Otherwise I cut off half the dating pool just out of first impressons.


So men get it too then! That's comforting to know. I understand your irritation though. It's the assumptions.

I don't have a big desire to get married, at least not just for the sake of getting married, but man, I wish people would back off.

I hear what you say about having to add that you're straight.

My good friend Lea and I spend a lot of time together and we're affectionate people and we hug hello and goodbye a lot. We don't think twice about it, we've known each other for 20 years.

But I have another, older friend who refers to Lea as my "girlfriend." As in "Are you and your girlfriend going to dinner tonight?" I assumed for a long time that she meant that in the neutral sense. Then it finally dawned on me that she really meant "girlfriend." And that woman's known me since I was a kid and has seen me with a mess of boyfriends even. So I straightened that out right fast.

As for kids, I've actually had people tell me I'm not "serving my womanly purpose" because I have none.

My favorite is how a person can't be a real woman until she's given birth. That one really gets me.

I might be rattling on now...

chonsigirl;636274 wrote: I find it to be the opposite, that at work those who have to leave for children's health issues are highly resented. It is all right if the single ones who partied too much take Monday off with a sub. The ladies in the office help me when I must leave for an emergency at home, which is less and less now. But it does happen, and I really get the flack the next day when I return from those who did coverage. Of course, they never thank us when we do it for them...............


Thank you for giving us another viewpoint, Chonsi. That one doesn't sound too fair either.

RedGlitter;636370 wrote: So men get it too then! That's comforting to know. I understand your irritation though. It's the assumptions.

I don't have a big desire to get married, at least not just for the sake of getting married, but man, I wish people would back off.

I hear what you say about having to add that you're straight.

My good friend Lea and I spend a lot of time together and we're affectionate people and we hug hello and goodbye a lot. We don't think twice about it, we've known each other for 20 years.

But I have another, older friend who refers to Lea as my "girlfriend." As in "Are you and your girlfriend going to dinner tonight?" I assumed for a long time that she meant that in the neutral sense. Then it finally dawned in me that she really meant "girlfriend." And that woman's known me since I was a kid and has seen me with a mess of boyfriends even. So I straightened that out right fast.

As for kids, I've actually had people tell me I'm not "serving my womanly purpose" because I have none.

My favorite is how a person can't be a real woman until she's given birth. That one really gets me.

I might be rattling on now...


The problem is that everyone makes assumptions about everyone else . . . and none of us are very kind about it.

When my kids were small I worked as a full-time helper in their school. I often got patronising comments from the teachers because they assumed I was 'just a mum' and therefore thick! They meant to be kind when they praised me for doing things but I felt patronised because their comments showed that they thought I wasn't quite as brain-dead as they assumed most mums to be! :-5

If you're a stay-at-home mum people are critical of you for not working. If you're a working mum people are critical of you for not staying home to look after your kids! You can't win!

But then if you see someone with a posh house or a flash car you assume they're a 'posh git'! :wah: If you see a manager you generally assume he's an arse*ole (ahem)! Black people are watched more closely in shops than white people because people often assume they are thieves. Teenagers are assumed to be troublemakers. Old people are assumed to be doddery and losing their marbles. Fat people are assumed to be lazy. Men are assumed to be untrustworthy around pretty women. The list goes on.

They are all stereotypical assumptions that we all make daily about other people.

It's sad, but it's part of life. We always put other people in 'boxes' until we get to know them.

When I was at college I knew a chap who was heavily tattooed, had lots of piercings, a shaved head and wore really bizarre clothes. He looked very scary! I used to avoid him until my mate started dating his mate. I ended up chatting with him and he turned out to be the lovliest, kindest, most chivalrous man you could ever hope to meet. He was Welsh and spoke with the lovliest lilting Welsh accent. he used to live at the top of a mountain and told me how he missed coming out of his house in the morning and seeing the mountain tops around him and breathing in the fresh air. He would walk down the mountain to the village to meet his girlfriend who lived at the top of the next mountain. She also came to study at our college and she was a very pretty girl, not the kind of couple you would expect to be together just by looking at them, but both were such lovely people.

I think people catagorise other people when they don't know them. If we all opened up to other people more and shared part of ourselves with them, they would understand our individual situations and be more understanding and less judgemental of us.

Sorry for waffling on.

I noticed today in the local shop that a quarter piece of turnip was only a few pennies cheaper than the whole one. That is very unfair.

I was single ten years between marriages and never found it to be true. I have a fairly thick skin though and may simply have not noticed.

I get that all the time, especially since I have my son now. I hear "YOu need to get married, and have a family" "You need a stable man in your life" "We just want you to be happy, to find the man that's right". Well, for heaven's sake. I'm perfectly happy right now, when I'm dating someone and when I'm not, because *ding* *ding* I'm happy with me. Marriage has never crossed my mind to the extent of seriousness, and I have all the time in the world to think about it. I just tell em it's my life, to butt out....

zinkyusa;636511 wrote: I was single ten years between marriages and never found it to be true. I have a fairly thick skin though and may simply have not noticed.


Or purchased turnip/swede

I don't think any of us are immune to the stupid comments/questions regardless of our situations! :rolleyes:

I've always been the type of person that thought as long as I'm happy with what I'm doing then I don't really care what anybody else thinks. :-6