10
Jul
2011
Top 5 Comments New Mums Would Rather Not Hear
I’ve just rounded out 6 months of new motherhood (actually the second new motherhood, if you know what I mean) and Kate 6 weeks, so I thought it would be timely to give you my list of top 5 things new Mums don’t like to hear.
- When are you due? I think we all understand why this is number 1. No need to draw a picture. Only marginally better than the straight out, not quite as innocent and far more direct, “God you’ve still got quite a stomach, when does it go down?”
- Is that your grandson? GUTTING. I saw an actual real life exchange of this very nature. “No, this is my son” came restrained answer through gritted teeth as veins visibly throbbed in the neck. As a helpless bystander to this train wreck I mentally tried to stop the words as they came out of the offender’s mouth and jam them back in from whence they came, visualising myself goalkeeper style diving to catch them before they reached the victim’s ears. Alas, there was no hope. Those words slammed like a freight train in to new mum’s stomach so hard you could almost hear the air knocked out of her.
- Shouldn’t the baby be sleeping through the night by now? For some people, like Kate, this is a welcome opportunity to brag about his or her baby sleeping through the night from 6 weeks old due entirely to their faithful adherence to the principals of Gina Ford. For most sleep-deprived parents, however, it’s just a moment when you’d like to punch the person asking this question in the face but not before you’ve explained that of course, yes, they should be, and indeed would be, sleeping through if it weren’t for your burning desire to wake up in the middle of the night and wake your sleeping baby for an unnecessary and unrequested feed.
- Oh he has your <insert unwelcome and previously unnoticed physical feature you were until now unaware you possessed>! Any delusions you still held about your better features are smashed pretty quickly when the gates open for an uninhibited discussion of your gene pool. For example, “Oh his face his just like yours; it’s so perfectly round you could put a clock arm on his nose and tell the time”. So not the razor sharp cheekbones and visible bone structure I hoped I possessed then? Or, “Look they both have your big mouth”. It seems they have not inherited the Angelina Jolie luscious full mouth I imagined everyone envied me for. No, just a disproportionately large mouth cavity. And speaking of physical features..
- OMG your breasts are massive. On the one hand it’s nice for the usually flat chested to have their breasts finally grab some attention for something other than their conspicuous absence. On the other hand the surprise in peoples’ voices just reminds you how much smaller they were before and soon will be again. I imagine for generally large breasted people it’s just more of the same thing they’ve had to deal with all their life and for the normally perfectly sized it’s a brief and possibly enjoyable period of seeing what it’s like to be “busty” without wearing a wonderbra. Hopefully for them the busty period also coincides with summer so they can wear crochet string bikinies, low cut dresses and generally very little.
Very amusing and some useful tips for the non-mother readership.
On a different but not unrelated note, what is the correct etiquette when one is sitting on the tube and a lady hops on and one isn’t sure whether she is pregnat or just carrying a few extra pounds?
Very good question David. If someone is carrying a few extra pounds they probably need to sit down even if they’re not pregnant. I have an approach I use if I want to give someone my seat but not embarrass them. (This is especially handy in the prickly area of giving up your seat to “the elderly”. I once saw a woman politely decline a seat offered to her and after a several minutes of reflection ask, “excuse me, but how old do you think I am?”. Awkward.) In these cases I get up as if my station is approaching and then pretend I was mistaken. You need to draw on the artist inside to pull off this small pantomime successfully but it’s worth the effort.
So timely. Got asked yesterday how old Edie is (11mths) followed by ‘and you have another one on the way?’. I blame the American food…
Ouch Mill. You could also blame the complete inability to find any time for yourself when you have an 11 month old. Not exactly easy to pop off to the gym. On the other hand VERY easy to finish off plate after plate of rejected food from the fussy little buggers. I blew out when my kid was 11 month old for this very reason. Well, I also discovered chocolate covered oreos, but that was only, like, 45% of the problem.
My worst favourite was being asked when she was 3 weeks old, “So when will you start trying for the next one?” Umm…? Tomorrow?
I love that they think you would even think about sex 3 weeks after childbirth.
Great post. Some people should just not open their mouth unless they want to say: What a gorgeous baby -well done!
I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been asked if the baby is sleeping through yet. This one annoys me the most! I tried Gina Ford and bub refused to sleep when she said so. Funny how the experts have all the answers for ‘perfect’ babies.
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