Surprising amount of Japanese people find going to see their friend’s new baby annoying

http://bit.ly/2GpMsed Shannon McNaught

Childbirth may have been a big deal for you, but it’s not necessarily for everyone else.

In a recent post on an anonymous Japanese diary forum, someone made an entry saying, “It’s so annoying to go see my friend’s baby.” When the author, who describes herself as a woman in her 30’s, was asked by her new-mother friend to come see her child, the author had a hard time mustering up the motivation to make her way over there.

Though the two had been close pre-pregnancy, the author found it difficult to cope with the fact that their days off would be impeded by the new baby. She further elaborated, “If I go to see her, I have to be all, ‘Aww, it’s so cute!’, and that’s annoying. I don’t feel anything for it despite it being my best friend’s child. The whole situation is just annoying.”

While childbirth is a happy occasion for many parents, and often families and friends alike, this anonymous statement, though harsh, resounded with many readers.

“I totally understand this. I don’t like the premise of baby = cute.”
“As someone who doesn’t like children, I find it tough to put on a good show for such a long time.”
“Having a friend say, ‘Come and seemy baby!’ is hard for single people…it’s like they’re showing off their happiness to you.”

On the other side of the debate were commenters who could sympathize with the new mother’s feelings. One argued that a new mother saying, “Come and see the baby,” while the baby still can’t walk or talk is a way of them saying, “Come and see me so that I can talk to someone,” and that mental stress reliever could help out new mothers a lot.

Meanwhile, other netizens responded to commenters of the original entry with mixed reactions.

“It eats up your time.”
“[If you feel that way,] Maybe you didn’t like your friend that much in the first place.”
“I think those feelings are obvious. There’s no merit in being shown someone else’s child.”

The court on this case seems fairly divided. What we can say for sure is that even though Japan is the safest place to have a baby, that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be the friendliest.

Source: Nifty News via Livedoor News
Top image: Flickr/Joshua Rappeneker