Pondering the "How come" ..

I agree that it is totally inappropriate to ask someone if baby was planned or a surprise. I'm pregnant, it wasn't planned and I've been asked this a few times. What am i meant to say? "No, we're not ready to have a child but we don't have much choice so we're going to have it and hopefully everything will fall into place..."

While I'm on the subject how come it is seen as okay to say to a pregnant woman "God, you're MASSIVE, you're clearly eating for two, are you sure you're not having twins, ha ha ha..." Can people (if they feel the need to make a personal comment)not just say "you look well" or "pregnancy suits you", etc.

Another "how come" issue that has been bothering me lately is how come it is okay to say to someone who has one or two sons already "are you going for a girl?" This is my first baby so I'm not in that position but my sister in law was pregnant with her third after two boys and I was amazed at the number of people who thought it was okay to tell her that she must really want a girl. She had a third boy as it turned out and then people would say things like "ah sure, you can try again".
 
Interesting.

On a slightly different note, Im sick to death of people asking me when Im going to start having children since I married 18 months ago. Im not interested in having children, and if I was - how do they know that Im not in an awful state about not being able to conceive or something?
If I drive to a social occasion and dont drink people nudge nudge wink wink me and look pointedly at my stomach, if I gain so much as a lb people look pointedly at my stomach, if I mention that I have a headache, an upset stomach, had food poisoning, etc....people smile and ask me if im SURE its only a headache, food poisoning etc....

And best of all - when I tell people I dont want to have children, some of them patronise me and say things like 'you just havent reached that phase yet, all women want children!' or 'go on out of that, you dont mean that!!'.
 
Pregnancy - default setting is not to draw attention until 100% sure, then say congrats, maybe when are you due or something harmless like that. Whether its planned or not is way too personal a question. Speculating on what gender they must be hoping for is also naff. On the recently married slagging, we used to do a bit of it (harmless intent) but I then stopped, and thats the new default. Turns out those being slagged now have kids (phew!).

Slagging off rich people: seen as ok due to Irish begrudgery, zero sum game theorists - if they have it they must have taken it off you, closet communists - all property is theft. Some rich people are arrogant/obnoxious and their conspicous consumption and displays of wealth and air of superiority are genuine causes for ire - or maybe thats the begrudger/inferiorty complex in me talking ;) In general they are seen as people who can take it, they've chosen to put themselves in that position, and at the end of the day people are a bit cowardly and know that a lynch mob of well heeled folk are unlikely to lay siege to their premises - rightly assuming they'd have better things to be doing.
 
truthseeker said:
Interesting.

On a slightly different note, Im sick to death of people asking me when Im going to start having children since I married 18 months ago. Im not interested in having children, and if I was - how do they know that Im not in an awful state about not being able to conceive or something?
If I drive to a social occasion and dont drink people nudge nudge wink wink me and look pointedly at my stomach, if I gain so much as a lb people look pointedly at my stomach, if I mention that I have a headache, an upset stomach, had food poisoning, etc....people smile and ask me if im SURE its only a headache, food poisoning etc....

And best of all - when I tell people I dont want to have children, some of them patronise me and say things like 'you just havent reached that phase yet, all women want children!' or 'go on out of that, you dont mean that!!'.
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We have dealt with the same for years.

I fairly shut one of them up who actually had the neck to bluntly ask
"Why don't you have children?"

I responded "We have decided not to have any - what about you - why did you have children?"

When she laughed nervously and said she just wanted to I told her that I didn't think it was a very mature attitude for what should be a very serious decision.

She didn't like it. :)
 
Caveat said:
We have dealt with the same for years.

I fairly shut one of them up who actually had the neck to bluntly ask
"Why don't you have children?"

I responded "We have decided not to have any - what about you - why did you have children?"

When she laughed nervously and said she just wanted to I told her that I didn't think it was a very mature attitude for what should be a very serious decision.

She didn't like it. :)
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Have you had the "ah, that's a pity" answer?
 
A friend of the family once asked a large(ish) lady when was she due, to be told very icily that she wasn't pregnant-:eek:his policy now is to never assume until he can see them being wheeled into a delivery suite........


daithi
 
When a couple are 'walking out together' the questions are, when are you (a) moving in together (b) getting engaged (c) getting married.

When they get married the questions are (a) when are you having a child (b) that child must be lonely being the only one so when are you having a second and (c) Ah, two boys or maybe two girls sure maybe you could try again

and the answer to all of the above is



Mind your own business :D
 
Purple said:
Have you had the "ah, that's a pity" answer?
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Don't think so, but I think I'd need to spice up my responses if faced with that one.

Maybe just sneeze all over their faces or something, that should shut them up. ;)
 
Caveat said:
Don't think so, but I think I'd need to spice up my responses if faced with that one.
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Sometimes I just say 'Are you mad? Children? I didnt get up til 11am this morning, why would I give that up?'. That usually shuts them up as they havent had a lie in since prior to having children and they are in a permanent semi stupor from the lack of sleep.
 
Caveat said:
Maybe just sneeze all over their faces or something, that should shut them up. ;)
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Believe me, if they have kids, a sneeze in the face is NOTHING.

I look forward to the day when all I have is a sneeze in the face.

:D
 
DB74 said:
Believe me, if they have kids, a sneeze in the face is NOTHING.

I look forward to the day when all I have is a sneeze in the face.

:D
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LOL. so, so true. Spoken as someone who has been up all last night being vomited on. :(
 
Vanilla said:
Any bodily fluid that a child can biologically secrete, will, at some point, be deposited on their parents. And far too frequently.
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And it's surprising at how quickly you cease to care that these are now part of your general attire.


truthseeker said:
That usually shuts them up as they havent had a lie in since prior to having children and they are in a permanent semi stupor from the lack of sleep.
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True...all too true, but only from my perspective it's a very small sacrifice for being a parent.

Having said that, I don't agree with the parent secret society code whereby you get told how great everything is until your first comes along and it's at that point people educate you on just how bleedin hard it is. yeah bit late now for this information.
 
Vanilla said:
Any bodily fluid that a child can biologically secrete, will, at some point, be deposited on their parents. And far too frequently.
Click to expand...

You can judge the height of a persons children by the snot marks on their trousers.
 
DB74 said:
I look forward to the day when all I have is a sneeze in the face.
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There are no economic constrains on how much toilet roll people can use in our house but despite this the youngest used one single solitary piece of toilet roll to clean her bum today. In addition said piece was scrunched up. Then while cleaning her and all advice not to touch anything just had to put hand to hair.....

But not as bad as the time a sibling put hand in nappy to taste it.... that was definitely worse..... Don't mind vomit in comparison.
 
DB74 said:
I believe it's called "positive discrimination" - God how I hate that phrase
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Pity that you haven't bothered to find out what it means before deciding that you hate it, because you clearly don't understand it.
 
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