The other day I was at my friend Tamra’s house with my children for a play-date. “I have stopped telling people Tyler’s real age” she told me “because I can’t take all the comments.” After she tells someone that her son is nearly two years old, she is forced to withstand the following commentary: “He is so tiny!” or  “Really? My two year old is twice his size!”,  or my favorite, “Are you sure he is normal?”

These interactions became so difficult for her to bear, thus she chose to avert them completely by lying about his age.  I am no stranger to this tactic, for it is the very one I employed when I was pregnant with my second child. However, no one ever accused me of looking too small. I make big babies and my belly, as everyone loves to point out, gets ginormous.

Personally, I never comment when I see a woman who appears to be pregnant. After once making the mistake of congratulating a post-partum friend on her “pregnancy”, I have learned to keep my mouth shut. Furthermore, the thought of approaching a stranger and commenting on her protruding belly is unfathomable to me. I mean…how do I know that she isn’t pregnant but has a gigantic, inoperable, abdominal tumor???

In my seventh month of pregnancy with my first baby, the comments I received ranged from mildly disturbing to excruciatingly unbearable (it is no coincidence that I clocked an eight pound weight gain that month!) When I arrived at my synagogue for Yom Kippur services I was greeted by Cantor Sarah with a “Holy crap! You have doubled in size since I last saw you!” This was particularly upsetting because I had seen her just ten days earlier on Rosh Hashannah.

When I was at Costco shopping for toilet paper, an elderly man approached me, rubbed my stomach, and said, “You will have lovely triplets.”

The worst of all occurred at Whole Foods Market, in the hot food section. It was a Sunday evening and the store was packed. I ran into my friend’s husband who took one look at me and almost keeled over. “Wow” he said, eying me like I was the Freak Show Exhibit at the circus, “You are huge. You look like you are going to explode! Any day now?”

“Actually, I have two more months to go,” I reluctantly admitted, dripping in shame.

“Good God!” he exclaimed, “There is no way you will ever make it that long. You look like you are going to pop any second. How much weight have you gained?”

I was stunned. In whose universe are you allowed to ever ask a woman this question? Oh yeah, I was pregnant and normal social standards clearly did not apply. My body was  an open target for any assault.  “I really don’t know,” I answered. This happened to be the truth. Once my weight reached 150 pounds on the doctor’s scale, I stepped on it backwards with my eyes closed and begged the nurse to not reveal the number to me under any circumstances.

“My wife only gained 15 pounds when she was pregnant! Can you believe it? 15 pounds!” I didn’t tell him that I had gained that amount in my first trimester. “I would say you have gained at least 25 to 30 pounds by now.” He was gleeful.

They called my number, and I went to the counter to order my food. “Take it easy with those enchiladas!” he burst out laughing, “You don’t want to explode.”

I went home and sobbed. “I still have two more months to go!” I told my husband, completely distressed. “If I am getting these comments now, what are they going to be like next month? I am not going to be able to leave the house!” Little did I know how true this was. By my eighth month of pregnancy, my maternity clothes no longer fit me. All my tops became half- shirts as they hiked further and further up my rapidly expanding tummy.  Not a cute look for a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy in November.

Yes, I know I should’ve sucked it up and “fucked my feelings.” I am sure these comments were intended to compliment me in some perverse way. But it’s hard to fuck your feelings when you’re used to being cute and thin and your body becomes a replica of the Pillsbury Dough Boy overnight! Throw in a healthy dose of those gnarly pregnancy hormones and despite my best intentions, I became a hyper-sensitive, emotional, whale during my entire pregnancies.

After enduring the humiliation of having my body constantly critiqued, judged, and condemned throughout my first pregnancy, I decided to try another approach the second time around. As soon as I began to show (which was approximately two days after I conceived), I had my pat answers ready.

“When are you due?” is one of the most seemingly benign questions, but within it lurks the most dangerous of traps. For when you actually reveal your due date to someone, you open yourself up to a whole array of criticisms.  The most memorable one I received was, “How weird! My best friend is due in May also, but she is so tiny compared to you.” I learned to side-step this completely by answering, “Sometime in the spring,” then abruptly changing the subject.

When people approached me and remarked, “You are huge!” I would give them a big smile and enthusiastically say, “Thank you!” They usually got the point.

It is strange that people feel free to assess a pregnant woman’s body so blatantly, when they would never make a comparable comment to a woman who is merely overweight. There is something about being with child, whether inside your body or out, that entitles people to say whatever the hell they want.

When you see a woman with a toddler running around the park, she probably does not need to hear how her child is too big or too small for his age, as she is trying to keep him from flying off the slide. “He is so cute!” is always an appreciated sentiment.

When we venture out in the world pregnant or with our small children, we feel vulnerable. What we need is kindness, not a critique. When you run into a pregnant friend who looks like she is ready to give birth right there on the street tell her, “You look beautiful.” No need to ask her when she is due. Whose business is it, anyway?

By the way, I am pleased to report that I actually made it all the way to my due date two times without popping or exploding, thank you very much.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 1:31 pm and is filed under 1. Angst Mom Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.