yes they are. Some (an i mean only some) of the comments i have had when people find out and/or ask if i am expecting another baby…
1. you must be crazy
2. are you mad?
3. are you glutton for punishment?
4. Its going to be busy in your house!
5. You need to watch the TV more!
6. Surely this isnt planned?
7. Its irresponsible bringing another child into times like these (that one was from family too!)
8. Big families are a drain on the environment.
9. oh. my. you are insane
10. You are an intelligent person, how can this happen? (oh yeh, im not kidding!)
all of these apart from maybe one or two have been said to me on more than one occasion too!. These past couple of days it got me really hard, particularly because some of these things have been said by people who will be related to our new baby, it got me very upset, swinging from being really fuming about it to just wanting to crawl into a corner, hiccup, sob and stick two fingers up at people.
Its hard after a while to take these sort of comments, initially i kind of expected it but recently i have just been hurt by it particularly because it has come from some friends and family. It feels so personal, it is after all not only my body and state of mind that people are questioning, it is one of my children, a very wanted and welcomed piece of this family. I dont see any of my children as a 'punishment.' I am ridiculously thankful for each and every one of them and overwhelmed that I am fortunate enough to have had the babies I have with relative ease.
I accept and know that times are hard these days. We work hard to provide for our family and we actively seek out and try to learn the best way to parent our children so that they may grow into people of influence, that in this crazy and messed up society that we live in there will be some that stand for something different, something genuine, honest and true.
Being honest, im tired of it, tired of putting on the 'ha ha ha' face when people exclaim "OH MY ARE YOU MAD!" One lady said this to me at a toddler group and i said to her 'No not mad, blessed" and she got all defensive, like i had offended her?? or maybe id just made her see how insulting it is?
You know 'cos really would you say that to someone in any other circumstance. If someone had cancer and decided to have a different kind of treatment than what is 'usual' would you say to them "ARE YOU MAD?" I doubt it. Okay this isn't a life or death situation but it is personal and it is a big life decision that we did not make without thought or consideration and im fed up with people treating it like we did.
Some of the comments like the environment and the irresponsible thing…yeah well, they are the ones that get me most wound up and i have a host of counter arguments for them that have charged round and round in my head over the past couple of days and i had thought of running them off here but, really why bother? People who make generalised statements like that rarely have knowledge of the facts and so it hardly seems worth wasting the type. so i wont.
Ben and i were talking earlier about someone who we told and they said 'wow its going to be busy in your house!" (one of the less insulting ones i suppose) and Ben said 'maybe she couldnt think of anything to say?'
and i said 'how about congratulations!"
i don't know, maybe i wish sometimes people would stick with 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all' <sigh>
