You would think that by the time of your third pregnancy, you'd be immune to all the idiotic things folks say when you are pregnant. After raising kids for 15 years and working with pregnant moms for almost as long, I should be indifferent to the shameless crossing of boundaries that the general public has with pregnant women. Instead, now that I'm expecting my third child, I find myself more irritated than ever with the bizarre patronizing advice, comments and innuendo one gets walking around as a large tired swollen pregnant woman.
At first, I thought I could be patient. When the chipper twenty something at the 'national upper middle class coffee chain we all hate ourselves for buying at' said to me “can I ask you a question,” I braced myself knowing it was pregnancy related. However, as I’m ordering my small coffee, my belly practically resting on the counter in front of her, she asks "I thought pregnant women weren’t supposed to have caffeine?"
Bless her really, the poor thing doesn’t quite have the courage to point blank say “coffee” but I smile and reassure her that the occasional cup of tea or coffee during a pregnancy isn’t going to hurt my baby - and in fact could quite possibly do a lot in preventing a complete meltdown on the pregnant mothers part. After all, a little bit of flexibility from the ridiculously rigid food recommendations of pseudo nutrition that we have here in the US has got to be a good thing - but that's a subject for another blog.
Of course it doesn’t stop there. The bigger you get, the more folks feel allowed to open their mouths and have some drivel fall out of it. On another occasion when it was about 103 degrees out in a nasty humid August, I decided to get a milkshake. So I walk in to the same upper middle class shop and order "the strawberry and cream milkshake please." The boy at the counter repeats my order.
"You want the banana strawberry smoothie?"
“No, I want the strawberry and cream milkshake thing.”
“But we have a banana strawberry smoothie - it's much healthier.”
What I want to do here is grab his shirt collar and with gritted teeth say "Give me the damn milkshake, and f*%! the healthy smoothie,” but instead I just clarify that I would like the strawberry milkshake as I requested. I wonder who in the world he would suggest the healthy smoothie to besides pregnant women. To be fair, he did at least have the good grace to then ask if I wanted whipped cream...
What I find SO annoying about this is that I don’t see him ask the very overweight person if they want the healthier version, or the growing kid. Or really that they make comment on any ones else’s order except pregnant women. That my gestation is somehow public domain for every food, behavior, and action judgment to anyone around me, I take issue with.
And then of course, there are just the idiots that cant keep their mouth shut:
"Wow you are BIG!” I hear, as I’m standing on the subway platform. As I turn away from the leering man, he asks me how much longer until I give birth. Stupidly I answer that I'm due in about six weeks.
"Wow-you are going to POP! That is going to HURT!”
It's hard to believe, but I am directly quoting, I swear. Who are these people in my city who think they can butt into my business?!
My advice: please keep your mouth shut when you see a pregnant woman and just offer her your subway seat.
