Parents putting kids into a box

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My "best friend" is always talking about her life and how great it is. Always talking about financial and materialistic stuff which I am starting to find quite boring. She ways she doesn't want to do research anymore because finding out more about the nature of reality is too depressing. She tells me I should stop. She thinks that because life is a certain way for her, that that is how it must be for everyone else. When I told her about Asperger's she just says to me, "I think you just want something to be wrong with you." She of course doesn't know anything about Asperger's. But me, I have issues finding a job and I have issues finding "happiness" in material possessions and gain. I could make a ton of money and still be upset about the state of the world. I still live at home because I have failed at getting a job. I'm still working on it.

She's always talking about how she wants to have a kid. I can't see her ever having a kid just because of how I've seen her throughout life and the things we've talked about. I asked her what she would do if her kid ended up being like me? She said that she would try to help the kid. But OF COURSE in the end that it would NEVER happen because her and ___ are "very independent and determined". I didn't say anything back because there's no point in trying to defend myself here but what I did start thinking about is how she's already got her unborn child put into a box and that's sad to me. I experienced this growing up. Not fitting in to what my parents wanted/guessed (I'm assuming) I would be. It's kind of got part of me f****d up. Like, I almost don't know who I am because of it. Because I tried to make other people happy my entire life for the sake of avoiding conflict and stress and being called disrespectful.

To be honest it pisses me off that people want to have kids but that they don't give a s**t about changing the world first and making it a better place to live. I don't understand why people have children. I feel bad for kids.

If you try to change people, you're just going to hit a brick wall every time. Add to that, you alienate your friends and end up nowhere. I would just as soon tell people this is who I am. Accept me for who I am. Set a good example for others to follow and if they see me as a good role model to follow then I feel humble that I can please people.

If people wish to have children, it's their choice. Who am I to say otherwise. Personally I don't particularly like children and have no wish to bring them into a world that is self destructing, but I don't intend forcing my views onto anybody else.

I sort of realized in my early 20s that the world probably would resist all efforts to change it, that it's probably always been a sad and broken place and humanity (and also humans; they aren't always the same thing) have gone on anyway. So I went ahead and had kids.

Notwithstanding, there are days when I look at their dear, beautiful, imperfect little faces and wonder what they hell I was thinking, bringing new lives into this horrible hellpit. I sort of think maybe everyone who thinks wonders this from time to time.

As for your friend-- How old is she?? That sounds like pretty typical ambitious young I-have-never-had-to-admit-really-struggling-with-anything-person crap. It's hard to put up with that shallow-looking naïve cocksure behavior. If you've been through struggles it's grating. If you're going through struggles right at that time, it's downright painful.

If it helps any, I think it's sort of like what they call "whistling past the graveyard." She's actually kind of scared-- you know, there might not be ghosts or zombies or whatever in the graveyard, probably there aren't, but then again there might. There probably aren't. Everyone "knows" there aren't. But, well, maybe... And anyway walking past the graveyard reminds you that you're gonna die someday. It's creepy. So you whistle.

She's probably not going to flop and flounder. She's probably not going to fail. She's made it so far. But then again, well, she might. And the knowledge is always there, somewhere, that sooner or later the Adversity Fairy is going to find her. Someday... someday... Will she be up to it?? What will she do?? Will everyone desert her?? Will failure mean that she IS a failure???? On and on and on...

And so she gives herself a pep talk and tells herself why it won't happen.

It will. Someday. It might take the form of a special-needs kid, or a devastating illness, or a long spell of unemployment, or a bout of mental illness, or a catastrophic accident, or something else. She knows in the back of her mind that it's out there, and it's nebulous, and it's scary, and she has no idea of how to even begin facing up to it...

...so she thinks about why it won't happen, and gives herself a pep talk, and says the stuff she said to you.

She might be "progressing faster" in life than you are...

...but in some ways you are already bigger and more experienced. You've seen the Boogie Man. She hasn't met hers yet.

This best friend sounds like she's only interested in herself. Dump her and find someone real.

Read the thread title and thought you were talking about parents putting their children in literal cardboard boxes... aspies rock

Yeah, me too, when I read the title I was actually upset that people were putting their children into real boxes.

When I've read the title, I've immediately thought about the pretty little pink box with the word, "Normal" that my mum's been trying to shove me into, since I was three. I feel that parents should just let their children be instead of putting them in a gendered coloured box with the word, normal on it.

My experience is that almost everyone who doesn't have kids puts their future kid in some kind of a box.

We all have an ideal of how we want our kids to be. Almost everyone who doesn't have kids seems to have the answers to all parenting issues and almost everyone who doesn't have kids feels very confident in passing judgment on the choices and decisions of people who have kids.

The cool thing is, that once you have kids, most people realize they didn't know crap before they had kids and they look back at their self-important, mocking ways with a bit of shame and embarrassment. Some persist with their previous false beliefs, but honestly, I think that is the minority. Most parents I know do things that they swore they would never do and allow things they swore they would never allow. Some parents are blessed with the kid they always "wanted" and some try to "make" the kid they wanted when it isn't what they got, but most parents come to some degree of understanding that what they idealistically thought before they had kids is not going to match the reality of parenting.

Your friend sounds like a pretty typical young woman. There is nothing wrong with being a typical young woman. But there is nothing wrong with NOT being a typical young woman, either. If she has been your best friend for a long time, she will probably always hold a place of value in your life, even if where she fits on a daily basis changes. But if she is recently a "best friend," perhaps you need to look elsewhere to find someone more compatible. Compatibility isn't about wrong or right, its about finding someone you actually enjoy spending time with, even if you disagree on some things.