Pre-parenting rant: (some) people are the worst
November 24, 2014
Parents say the worst things
Comparing notes with a good friend, we discovered that both our dads cannot resist saying things that make us livid.
When we shared the news about Little Bean, one of his few comments (this one directed to PiC) was: if there aren’t any boys in your family yet, then you should have a boy to carry on your family name.
I cannot even describe what my face did in reaction to that blase, utterly dismissive, and completely thoughtless statement.
So, having a son to carry on your name, was that worth it? Having a son who completely disrespected you most of his life, used you, manipulated you and everyone around you, continues to leech off of you in the most mundane and spectacular ways, who continues to be a trial and a misery to everyone – that’s worth telling your daughter who has carried you for eighteen years in all ways but physically hefting you on her back, and the way you smoke let’s not rule that out for our rosy future – that she should bear a son to carry on her husband’s name since she, her identity, her name, her LIFE doesn’t even bear consideration?
All those years he’s been claiming that he valued me just as much as my sibling (oh thanks, that’s nice to have reached such heights), that he appreciates everything I’ve done and sacrificed, and continue to sacrifice for them, but at the first opportunity, he suggests boys are better. Based… on….?
It’s not the first time he’s enraged me but this is one of the first times it’s been so easy to say that I’m furious with him.
This APW post reminded me of that fury all over again.
Mom had this theory: I was a really angry child because she was so angry and stressed during her pregnancy with me. She regretted not being able to breathe past her frustrations with having to deal with a toddler with no help, selfish and the opposite of helpful in-laws, and the stress of living in a new country learning a new language and building a new life.
My theory is that I’m not an idiot and I’ve had a look around me at this world we live in.
But if her theory holds, Little Bean is going to be born a living, breathing ball of incandescent rage-flame. Sorry, kid. But maybe that will turn into the ability to actually throw flame and wouldn’t that be cool?
People say the damnedest things
You know what’s really fun when you’re pregnant? Even if you’ve never met before that very moment, almost like everydamnone has advice because they know best and also you’re an idiot.
It’s a little easier to ignore strangers. Sometimes. But all people who’ve even thought about having a child feel free to expound at length, going on the assumption that I’m not me and therefore would enjoy hearing utter flipping useless speculation.
Of the WTF variety
“You should have a [boy/girl] because [outdated gender notion about why a boy or a girl is better at this time].”
Girls are better because ….
Boys are better because ….
If it’s a [boy/girl], get used to never saying no again.
Of the It’s Science, didn’t you know? variety
“Oh, if you’re having a [boy/girl] then it will feel like [fill in some old wives’ tale].”
“How far along are you? [Range of months] will be easy, it’ll get hard at [whatever was hard for them].”
“You’ll have a [boy/girl] because of those symptoms.”
Are you sure it’s a boy/girl? This (points at belly) just LOOKS like a girl/boy.*
Now (no matter when they found out) is the best time of pregnancy. It’ll get hard at Y months.
Of the “Oh you’ll HAVE to…” variety
Once the kid’s older and sees friends doing it, you can’t just have cake, you’ll have to rent out a big (museum, restaurant, something preposterous) and host huge birthday parties! How else will you keep up with the Joneses?**
My wife walked an hour a day, every day during pregnancy. You should too.
When’s the baby shower? Why wouldn’t you have one? This is how you get everything you want FOR FREE.
A special little hell on earth
It’s like every interaction is a fresh opportunity for people to treat my pregnancy like their own personal story time.
* Speaking of stories? A friend of a friend – basically a complete freakin stranger to me – was SO proud of herself for, as she tells it, praying a penis onto her friend’s expected daughter after hearing the results of the ultrasound.
“Dear God, I know you know best but if you could just add a little something to Janey’s daughter, that would be great!”
I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t standing there in utter shock as she proceeded to feel me up, cackling over her success. I could have punched her in the face for touching me if I hadn’t been trying not to add stress to friend’s plate.
I don’t care if LB is a boy or a girl, I care if this child turns into a decent human being. The last time I checked, it’s possible for males AND females to be horrible or wonderful. If YOU couldn’t tell your kids no, that’s your problem, not ours. Little Bean is going to have boundaries from the first day ze can understand them. And that’s not at the age of 16. If you say one more word to me about why boys or girls are better, I swear I’ll …..
And this is just the tip of the iceberg so you’re welcome to imagine how annoyed I get with baby-centric conversation.
Maybe this is their way of relating but seriously?
** This is hard NOW. And not one bloody minute of it has been easy or better than any other minute.
Don’t get me wrong, people sharing their stories as just that, like Leah did here, I’m all for. I love hearing other experiences. But NOT in that completely presumptuous, “you need to X, you should Y, because I know better obviously” kind of way.
It’s the strangest phenomenon that the moment people know you’re pregnant there’s just no chance that, possibly, I might still be a person. My only interest in life must now be the expected child. I have transformed into nothing more than a vessel for Little Bean and there’s no higher favor they can confer but to share the universal knowledge to end all parenting because they had a kid, once.
Of course, the biggest concerns that I have have nothing to do with stretch marks or whether we have a boy or a girl, or anything mundane. There are far greater things, Horatio, the chronic health issues, financial preparation, LIFE! that will and have had a huge impact on the pregnancy and child-rearing experience.
Thankfully, not everyone has showered me with unwanted opinions. Some people are wonderful at offering support while still talking like we’re both humans who have individual experiences, kids or no.
I never realized the blessing of growing up in an all girl family. These attitudes don’t enrage me on a personal level, because I just never experienced that. But they do enrage me.
I can’t believe, of all people, someone from YOUR family would dare say things like this.
T’s parents have an old rocking chair that has been in the family, and they plan to give it to us, because he is the only one carrying on the family name. Despite the fact that his first-born sister had her first child 2 years ago and is pregnant with the second. And she lives ~30 miles away, we live 2000. it makes me feel… icky.
You wouldn’t think it’d come from my family after all this, would you? And I didn’t expect it either. All my life I’ve been told that of COURSE girls are equal, other fools might think differently but we sure don’t. More than anything, it was a slap in the face because for so long, I grew up thinking that I was valued by my family, at least.
I’d feel the same about being the recipient of the rocking chair for that reason :/
Gai, you are completely right to be angry. The assumptions people make about boys/girls are maddening. Remember your anger when LB comes along and channel it to discover his/her unique talents and support them.
Our son – now 16 – clamored to visit battle fields and play with toy soldiers as a toddler. We peaceniks gulped … and took him. Using history, we turned the conversation to civil rights and government duties and oppression.
Turns out, he’s not a gun-toting menace to society but can plan wonderful strategies on his football and basketball teams. I think that’s connected to his early interest in what people might have assumed was violence. And I’m grateful we trusted ourselves to guide him in what we were unsure of!
Moral? Relax. You’re turning into an adult when you love and nurture a child. It’s a bumpy road – as you know from family stuff – but it’s your road to travel.
You’re obviously very smart and self aware. Protect that part of yourself so you can protect LB. Reply with patience when people make stupid comments. Tell them politely of your views. Tell them not to touch your bump. You are teaching others how to treat you. It’s tough at first but gets easier. And their opinion doesn’t affect your parenting.
Very sadly, you may never get the family support we all crave. They aren’t as aware as you. And everyone wants to feel validated. Push back a little and you may discover them simply parroting what they’ve heard. That’s surprising for we independent thinkers but you know it happens.
You’ll do fine! You are already worrying like a parent does! And you’ll learn not to waste energy fighting battles that can’t be won. It’s endless. Let them do their thing. You focus on bringing up a balanced, healthy child and marriage and you’ll be okay.
I don’t think a mother’s stress in utero changes a child but it def does as the child grows. I had a lot of changing to do after children. Teaching them rather than screaming at them, listening rather than dictating to them and constantly remembering to slow down and enjoy them. You may be less bossy than me but we all grow and change, even in adulthood. Humbling.
Remember that you are smart, strong and caring. Show your child(ren) what you are capable of and lead with that. You’ll do fine.
Thanks for your thoughts, KR.
I’d say that I (and speaking on behalf of child-free friends, others are too) am an adult with or without the raising of children, but I’ll agree that there’s a lot to be said for learning to grow with the kids. It requires a world of skills, some very new!
Isn’t it crazy what people say? I’m sorry you have to deal with that. I know people are trying to be helpful, but man, does it really excuse total ignorance and/or saying crazy sh*t?
I actually don’t know what the hell some of these people are trying to do with the stupid gender BS but NO THANKS.
It must be really hard to be suspended between cultures whose thinking is so different. I hope you’ll be able to resist depression and anger brought on by old-fashioned and irrelevant remarks.
{heee!} That would make me so mad I’d talk the hubby into having the kid’s last name legally changed into a compound of both parents’ family names: Smith-Wong or some such. Would that drive Dad nuts or not?
My father was not that way — in fact, he was strangely feminist, given his other proclivities to bigotry. But after my mother died he remarried a woman who was a total freak show. She would come up with the most astonishing things, among them that our son was “overstimulated,” that we were wrong not to give him guns to play with, that not feeding him McDonalds was under-nourishing him, that we were teaching him to be queer by giving him an appreciation of nature and growing things, and on and on. They were all just pot-shots at me — had nothing to do with what she thought, if she had a real thought in her head at all.
LOL! Once she made some snide comment about someone growing a few veggies in their yard. It made me so mad I dug up a big plot in the backyard and filled it with vegetables and herbs. Nya nya!
Few of the veggies grew. I worked my self ragged for very little. And the old lady was too dense to get the point, anyway. The real point being, I suppose, that it doesn’t do one much good to get exercised about these things. It’s all part of the static of daily life. White noise, as it were. phbbphbbt!
I can very easily avoid depression by horrible comments but anger? Nah. This is always going to infuriate me to some degree. It’s good motivation, I work best when enraged 🙂
It is fun topping someone’s ridiculous notions with even more ridiculous responses with a straight face, though. Mom was an expert at driving people into a tizzy when they’d set out to do that to HER… I think I’m finally learning the ropes.
I was congratulated for having a boy “my very first try.”
Good grief.
:faints dead away!:
I guess I’ve been “lucky”? I don’t look pregnant because I’m a bigger gal and I think people are afraid to ask me if I’m pregnant when I just may be fat. So, no strangers have come to offer me advice at this point. My family and friends have offered some but certainly nothing compared to what you describe above. And yeah, I’d be livid too. Also, when people asked me if I’d rather have a boy or girl (before we found out), I would say “doesn’t matter to us, they both have pros and cons, and besides a lot of it depends on how they’re raised”. And pros/cons to me meant more of what I felt I could relate to them about, but really boys can do crafts and girls can be into sports (and sometimes more than the stereotypical gender!) So, yeah I’d have something to say to anyone who thinks having one is better than the other.
No joke, PiC is about 100X better at crafts than I am, and he’s also an athlete. The notion that people can be complex and not uniformly adhere to stereotypes should not be so astonishing.
I didn’t get as many comments until it was fairly obvious, and even then, the more circumspect would only hint, “Are you … Can I ask … ?” It’s just those who are inclined to be offensive who assume and go for it. I hope for you that those folks stay clear of you!
Your last paragraph was right on target with not only pregnancy but life as a mother as well. I had a hard time transitioning after my son was born. People would walk in the door say hello to the baby, grab him from me and walk away. It’s like your identity doesn’t matter much before and after your child is born. Suddenly you become either someone who needs to hear a lot of advice or someone who isn’t even in the room as everyone stares at your beautiful child. Just par for the course I suppose.
I… don’t know who does that but that feels incredibly rude! And so you’re saying this just keeps on happening. I’m really glad that I do have friends with whom this isn’t the norm.
The part you mention at the end, where now the assumption is you’re just the gestational vessel for future LB, I keep getting that sense from everything I’ve read. That is, it seems like every food/drink/life decision you make from months before conception through breastfeeding has an impact on the kid. It’s maddening. And so, did you eat a soft cheese once? Take a sip of wine? Try a cup of tea? Then you may have caused irreparable harm (apparently). It’s like we have to just spend our life just eating lots of vitamins and kale otherwise we might be at fault for anything that goes wrong in the future.
Sorry, apparently I”m a bit ranty right now, too.
Sorry that people are saying super dumb things to you. I really wonder if there’s a way to get people to stop saying things like this, where you just yell “SHUT IT DOWN” and walk away. We should work on something like this 🙂
It really is rather infuriating. It’s interesting how many people try to convince you that their opinions really matter: you SHOULD have a glass of wine, it’s not that big a deal. You’d better NEVER eat X/Y/Z otherwise DOOOOOOM.
Thanks but I’ll decide for myself whether or not I’ll expose my kid to whatever the hell I choose to ingest.
Hah I love the idea of an automated bullhorn with a few options: NOPE NOPE / SHUT IT DOWN / BEGONE WI’ YE!
With those boy/girl things they say, they’re always the dead opposite with my kids. It’s funny because then they’ll sometimes backtrack when I say that they’ve got my kids backwards. There’s so much confirmation bias.
p.s. http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/ask-the-grumpies-why-does-the-patriarchy-think-it-owns-pregnant-women/
Confirmation bias EVERYWHERE.
I think I’d lose my shit if someone tried to say I was “public property” because I’m pregnant. Absolutely lose it.
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