Procreation

I wrote this over a decade ago. I felt sure that I'd shared it on the blog already, but I can't find it. One of my friends (young, pretty, pregnant with Baby #5) shared an article about how many expectant and young mothers didn't feel that society supported them. "I'm with you, sister!" was my reaction, even though I'm so old now that my daughters are the age I was when I had children in grade school. "Young" is far behind me.

Takeaway lesson, folks: there really is such a thing as "none of your business." Please don't ever be the busybody in the canned goods aisle.

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Two times in my life I have been totally unprepared for everyone around me to have such strong feelings about my life, and to express those feelings so frequently and strongly. The first was when I was getting married. I could never have imagined that others would be so emotionally invested in the color of my bridesmaids' dresses or what flowers I carried. People I barely knew would be vehement about what I should and shouldn't do. People who had planned their wedding with more attention to detail than went into the moon landing were apparently not burnt out by it, because now they wanted to do the same to mine. This came as a complete shock.

The second time came close on its heels – the birth of my children; especially the older two, since they were born during the first two years we were married. I had been somewhat prepared for our families and close friends to have strong opinions, but even then I was unprepared for those opinions to be foisted upon us with such zeal. And I was completely unprepared for total strangers to feel so invested in my choices. If someone had tried to warn me, I would not have believed them.

The first time a total stranger walked up to me and my pregnant tummy in the grocery store and demanded to know, "How old are you?" I thought they were an anomaly. I also thought, silly me, that when they found out that I was an adult and married, they'd feel rather silly and maybe even apologize. Nope.

"How old are you?" was inevitably followed by, "You're too young to be having babies!" Even now, years later, I cannot fathom what these women – it was usually women – thought these pronouncements would do. I was quite obviously past the stage for abortion to be an option, even if I agreed with abortion and even if such a discussion should be brokered by total strangers in the canned goods aisle. Did they want me to suddenly realize that I didn't want the baby or babies and give them up? Were they hoping I would resent the child for taking my youth? What result, exactly, did they hope this conversation would produce?

My sister in law tried to make sense of it by explaining, "When I see someone doing something that I think is wrong, I feel it's my job to educate them." Aside from the fact that I find that stance to be extremely presumptuous, how was I supposed to feel "educated?" I was the age I was, and the baby was clearly coming. I couldn't make myself older or make the baby disappear. If the conversation would ever have been appropriate, it would have been before I got pregnant. I'm also still and forever convinced that it is simply not the job of total strangers to start those kinds of conversations, before, during or after a pregnancy.

              A girlfriend of mine said, "It's not as if you're on welfare." Even if I was, why would that involve people I'd never met before and would never see again in my personal decisions? They weren't social workers handing me information about classes, they were busybodies who should have left me alone to buy my food in peace. Would being on welfare mean that everyone else was entitled to walk up to me and make pronouncements?

It became harder and harder to greet supposed humor with any kind of civility. Every time someone said, "Have you figured out what causes that yet?" they acted as though it was both wildly witty and original. It was neither. I was delighted by the response my husband gave when a coworker said it to him after we'd had our second daughter – "Yeah, but is that any reason to stop doing it?" I swore that would be my standard answer from then on.

I did start saying, with a smile, "Apparently not," when I was told I was too young for childbearing. It often caught people off guard, which was a bonus.

I could not believe how many strangers asked me about birth control, or offered birth control advice. I got the distinct impression that they thought I was somehow unaware of contraceptives and their use. It's just unacceptable to expect a complete stranger to discuss such things with you, unless you're a health care professional and they are your patient. It's also unreasonable to imagine that because someone is pregnant they are ignorant.

It's just as unreasonable to assume that someone having a baby hasn't thought it through. Even if that were true, that's another conversation that should only take place with those you are close to, and before a woman is pregnant. Once the baby's on the way, it's "ready or not, here I come." Yet people wanted to engage me in those conversations – or rather, deliver those lectures - while I was picking up laundry detergent, assuming that they were somehow enlightening me. It was maddening. "Do you realize what it costs to raise a child?" people would ask. Of course I did. I also knew I didn't need the total sum in cash in order to take the baby home from the hospital.

The woman who took the cake was the one who marched up to me as I was putting my oldest in a shopping cart. I had a huge, protruding tummy; I was about seven months along, which would have made my older daughter ten months old. This woman planted herself right in front of my cart, so I had to stop to avoid hitting her. She looked pointedly from my baby to my tummy and back again, and finally up at my face. "Well, at least you're done now!" she said, none too kindly. I was flabbergasted. At that moment I found myself speechless. Later, when people would say such rude things to me, I would say, with my best sugary smile and voice, "Actually, we're planning on more." It was absolutely none of their business, but I enjoyed returning the favor and making them uncomfortable. And, it was true.

We had to wait seven years for the birth of our next child. It was not our choice to wait; it was just a biological hiccup. I hoped that, since I was approaching thirty and therefore too old for the "you're too young" speech, that people would leave me alone. I was wrong.

I've always been a peacemaker, and my husband has a deep dislike for confrontation, but the older I got, the less I was willing to put up with this sort of rudeness without making a reply. When I went to a family wedding with my body swollen with my third child, my cousin looked at me and said, "Oh, you're not, are you?" I brightened as though he'd just given me a compliment and said, "That's right! I am!" I kept smiling and looked expectantly at him, as though I thought he would congratulate me. I knew better; he's stubborn and a father of one. I just wanted him to squirm a bit.

When a niece and nephew came to live with us, the comments from strangers intensified. They look very much like our own children; we had little blond stair steps. The first time they lived with us, I was pregnant. The second time that baby, our third, was one year old. Most of the comments were simply snarky and rhetorical – "Well, you've got your hands full, don't you?" Sometimes they were out and out rude – "What were you thinking?"

We were in a mall in California during a vacation when a woman reeking of alcohol walked up to me. Looking at our four little blond children and my very pregnant self she demanded, "Wha' are you gonna do wi' anuzzer one?"

I looked her right in the eye and said, "Love it."

She looked puzzled, but couldn't think of anything else to say. She wandered away, and my husband came up to pat me on the back. "Good answer, honey, good answer," he said. I felt as if I was playing "Family Feud."

When I told this story at home, one response I got made me just as angry as the original comment. "Just explain to people that you're a foster parent," the listener said. "That way they'll admire you. They'll know you're part of the solution."

I know the speaker meant well, but that made me angry. "It is nobody's business whether or not I gave birth to those children!" I told her. She couldn't understand why I thought so. To her, explaining that two of them were with us temporarily was the perfect idea. It just made me angry.

When someone asked how many children I had, I said five. Whether or not I gave birth to them, adopted them, or simply babysat them for an afternoon, it was totally unacceptable for anyone outside of a very small circle to say anything at all to us about it. After all these years, I still cannot fathom why a complete stranger would feel the need to walk up to me and express disapproval. I don't walk up and douse their cigarettes, dump their alcoholic drinks or ask if their tax returns are accurate.

                I felt much better about another friend's response to the story. I was telling her why I rejected the idea of explaining that I was a foster parent. "Well, of course!" she said. "Isn't the whole point to make them feel like they belong? Why would anybody want you to single them out that way? Think of the damage that would do." Exactly.

               Another instance that made me see red happened when I was expecting our fourth child; believe it or not, it happened more than once. People would look at our family and not be able to understand why I was pregnant. "But, you already have your boy," they would say, as if having a male child was the only reason for procreation. I wanted to slap them.

When I had our second daughter, I was in the hospital for five and a half days afterward. One of the night nurses was never outright rude, but it was obvious that she was a bit dismayed by attending to a 21 year old mother of two. One night, she began to tell me that it was wrong to have more children. She recited a litany of ills plaguing the Earth. Then she explained why she and her husband were childless. "The world is such a terrible place. We feel that it would it be wrong to bring any more children into it."

I smiled sweetly at her and said, "Really? My husband and I think that our children may be the ones to fix some of those problems."