I have a friend whom I’ve had to distance myself from lately. Her kids are grown and no longer live at home. Whenever we talk about motherhood, she is constantly telling me my situation of trying to raise my teens on my own as a single mom “could be worse.”
What I think she means by that is it “could be worse”, they could all be gone and moved out of the house, like hers are. Perhaps she means it could be worse because I fortunately have a job and a roof over my head.
While I get that there are more challenging situations than mine, it doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to have a hard time, or that I should keep it to myself simply because things “could be worse”.
If there’s one thing I’ve realized about life and being a mom, it’s that there are times I simply want someone to listen
There are those out there who say they don’t care what anyone else thinks about them, but I believe when it comes down to it, we all want to be heard and feel valued in some way.
If we are complaining about how tired we are, or venting about the taxing duties of being a mother and working, it doesn’t mean we don’t love our children or we aren’t grateful for our life. Yes, we know things could be worse — couldn’t they always be worse? Everyone knows this, so there’s no need to say it.
My mother used to do this until I started saying it back to her and she realized how horrible it made her feel. Honestly, this phrase is toxic positivity at its finest.
When you mutter those words to someone, they hear, “Your feelings don’t matter,” “You’re ungrateful,” “You’re complaining, and I don’t want to listen.”
It completely dismisses feelings
No matter what someone is going through, if they say it’s hard, it is. It’s not our job to remind others that things could be a lot worse, or that they shouldn’t be having such a hard time simply because we don’t think it’s a big deal.
After all, we aren’t the ones dealing with it. And I’ve noticed the people who dismiss others’ feelings so quickly and say things like this are the ones who seem to get stressed out the most.
If someone is venting to you, and you don’t think it’s a huge deal, it costs nothing for you to listen and say, "That must be really hard"
It’s really that easy. They aren’t asking you to fix their life, and they certainly aren’t asking you to downplay their feelings, so don’t.
It only makes the situation worse and leaves the person feeling like they don’t matter. No one wants to feel that way.
And if you have a friend or family member who continues to use those words, consider not talking to them about your hardships. Chances are, they aren’t listening and they don’t really care anyway — and you deserve better than that.
