I have resisted replying to this because it is so irritating and so scornful in its implications, even if the intention was to develop empathy. It's not about the author of it bc a lot of people say things like this. So, a thread.

The main thing is that parenting is hard. It is. Kids! They take a lot of time and attention. They can be exhausting, especially if you're an introvert in a small space and you define parenting as "constant attention."

If parenting is burdensome, it may be constructive to see that there are other ways to parent. Asking kids to watch each other - developing responsibility - is one. Challenging them to entertain themselves is another. Hyper vigilance is not parenting. It's tiring. Europeans ...

.... especially French people, are masters of instilling independence in their kids by making them figure things out for themselves and to be responsible for their own entertainment. American parenting is about constant attention which tires everyone.

Home-schooling no doubt makes this need for constant entertainment much more intense for parents. But kids are people too - they need time away from parents to learn to be themselves. Give them the gift of time for themselves without you.

But more importantly, let's talk about this idea that single people have no lives and no one to take care of. That's patronizing and it's nonsense. Single people have friends and family they cannot be with.

Having kids is, it should be obvious, not the only kind of family responsibility. Single people can be caretakers of family members too (ahem.) They are aunts/uncles. They take care of elderly parents. That is hard and emotional work and unlike kids, you can't leave them alone.

Single people also have strong social ties to friends, family and community -- often stronger ties than parents of kids have, because they're nuclear-family centered -- and those sustaining ties have been severed during lockdown.

So for single people, there is more likely right now to be a deep sense of isolation that is far more destructive (as we know) to mental health than the parenting issue of being around people all the time. Entire social support systems are gone. Touch is gone. Talk is gone.

There is a persistently patronizing idea from parents that their lives matter more than anyone else's bc they have kids, and that everyone else who is alive must, in some sense, be joking. It's a toxic kind of martyrdom. Your life is not more important than anyone else's.

To suggest that some people are more worthy of life than others - which is what this toxic parenting belief really is - is obviously nonsense. There are single people who help and sustain many others daily.

It is, for instance, toxic in the extreme to ask people -- all in a quarantine lockdown -- to justify their personal pain to you because you have kids and you think your pain is unmatched. People don't owe you that. Therapy would be helpful for thoughts like that perhaps.

All in all, it's probably far preferable, if feeling a lack of empathy, to have a deep conversation with a therapist or engage in meditation or write in a diary rather than choosing to aggressively imply that no one else but you matters in a global lockdown.

Mainly stop erasing the lives of other people on the assumption that only marriage or kids makes a life meaningful. Single people are caregivers and/or have *chosen* families. Deep, solo isolation is not better than having to talk to the kids you made. Let's all chill.

Also, because this is an important point: If you are feeling terrible, and hate your life right now, that's natural. What's not natural or okay is to lash out, belittle others, and devalue the meaning of their lives to make yourself feel better. Boundaries! Super important.