I am the Mama

As soon as you leave your home with children, it opens you up to all kinds of comments.  (And of course, there’s comments if you don’t have children, too.  Those are way worse!)  You get all kinds of advice…how to dress them, how to discipline them, how to feed them.  I’ve had people tell me that I should be breastfeeding when I’ve been giving a bottle, people who told me I should give a bottle when I was (very discreetly) breastfeeding, people telling me that I should spank my child who is acting like a normal 2 year old, and people tell me that I’m being too tough on my kids when I remove a privilege for misbehavior, people who told me my baby needed a hat when it was 60 degrees out and people who told me fleece was too much when it was below freezing outside, people who told me I should get a babysitter to go grocery shopping (like the groceries aren’t expensive enough) and people who criticized me when I was happy to be able to grocery shop without my smallest “helpers.”  Seriously, I am not making any of these up.  It’s as if people lose their filter completely when they see a person with a child.  And then there’s the comments about the number of children I have.

When I had just one child, especially when he got past the infant stage, I got all kinds of comments from strangers about how I needed to have another one so he wouldn’t be an only child.  This was really painful for me because we were trying.  Shooting up hormones every day in an effort to get pregnant and insensitive comments about adding to your family don’t mix.  I said some very nasty things to people I didn’t even know…but really, who was the rude one in that equation?

Then when I had 2 boys I constantly had people saying things like “Too bad he wasn’t a girl.” or “Guess you’ll need to have another one so you get that girl this time.”  As if I wasn’t thrilled to pieces that I had another baby simply because he had a penis.  Considering all I went through to get pregnant and then all the drama involved with that pregnancy, I was just glad I had a healthy baby.  Genitals simply didn’t matter to me.

And then I got pregnant with #3.  Something of a surprise but certainly an incredible blessing.  And I allowed myself to hope for a little girl.  OK, I admit it.  With my first, I didn’t care.  I figured we had more chances.  With my 2nd I was just happy to be having a baby, any baby.  With my 3rd (and last) I wanted a girl.  I wouldn’t have been devastated if it had been a boy.  I might have allowed myself a momentary disappointment and then accepted that God’s plan was for me to be a mom of boys.  But we all know what happened…it was a girl this time, and there was much rejoicing.  Because no matter what, the plan was for this baby to be our last.  Boy or girl, that didn’t change things.

Yet people assume I’m done because “you finally got your girl.”  But there’s also the people who tell me “you need 1 more girl to balance it out.”  Really?  Because we all know you can just snap your fingers and pick the sex, right?  Yes, I’ll certainly get right on that!

But my favorite comments are the ones that make it seem like I’m single-handedly repopulating the world.  Like the guy who told me I had a whole “herd” of kids at Lowe’s the other day.  Really?  A herd?  Like animals?  Or the woman at Walmart who thought she’d tell my friend (who also has 3 children) and I just how awful it was to have kids.  In front of our children.  The people who tell me I have my hands full.  The people who I have never met in my life who ask me if I’m having more.  Oh, yes please!  I’d love to discuss my reproductive choices with you, complete stranger!  It is mind-boggling the insensitivity and rudeness we encounter every time we take our children out.  These 3 children, who I think are the most incredible things that ever happened to me, open me up to more scrutiny and criticism than I ever would have thought possible.  I think I need a T-shirt…

I think there’s a market for these…what do you think?

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