Why do they do it?
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Category: Have A Baby?
Forum Name: First baby? Second or more?
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Printed Date: 03 April 2026 at 10:26pm
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Topic: Why do they do it?
Posted By: caraMel
Subject: Why do they do it?
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 8:14pm
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Why do strangers think it is ok to ask personal questions when they are baby related?
I know there is generally no harm intended and its just making conversation but it gets on my nerves when people ask me things like "Did you have a natural birth?" and then go on to tell you proudly all about their 40 hour labour with no drugs and no stitches "Are you breastfeeding?" Usually accompanied by a glance at my breasts, to check if my answer is true perhaps? "Is he/she a good baby?" What do they expect me to say?? Couldn't they just ask something normal, like "How are you?" ?? I just wouldn't feel comfortable asking another woman about her boobs or her birth experience unless I knew her reasonably well, yet these people will ask a stranger in the middle of a shop or supermarket or something! Maybe I'm just a bit touchy and hormonal?! ------------- Mel, Mummy to E: 6, B: 4 and: 
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Replies:
Posted By: meow
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 8:50pm
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Weird!! That's annoying.. I can't remember if people did that to me or not, but the number one question that pissed me off was when I had Ella dressed in pink from head to toe - "Is it a little girl or a little boy?" (No offence to boys who wear pink, but I mean, come on!!) ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: james
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 8:51pm
lol ------------- <a href="http://lilypie.com"><img src="http://b4.lilypie.com/nLJ5p13.png" alt="Lilypie 4th Birthday Ticker" border="0" /></a> |
Posted By: ellabellame
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 8:56pm
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i know what you mean!! when i was 9 motnhs pregnant a lady came up to me and asked me if i knew who the father was!!! just because i'm a young mother does NOT mean i'm a slapper. i don't think she realised how offended i was. ------------- |
Posted By: nikkitheknitter
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 9:06pm
| I was pissed off when out in town with my dad and a lady asked if I was the proud big sister. I ended up feeling sorry for her tho as she was so embarrassed. |
Posted By: meow
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 9:12pm
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Yesterday someone rang up re some charity and asked if my mum or dad was home. I said "excuse me" and she kind of stammered a bit and asked if either me or DP was there haha ------------- http://lilypie.com">
http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: james
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 9:17pm
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lol ------------- <a href="http://lilypie.com"><img src="http://b4.lilypie.com/nLJ5p13.png" alt="Lilypie 4th Birthday Ticker" border="0" /></a> |
Posted By: nikkitheknitter
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 9:20pm
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Poor lady. Suffered the wrath of Kat
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Posted By: Rachael21
Date Posted: 17 August 2006 at 9:54pm
Yeah Jack had blue dungarees on and this lady said what a nice wee girl. 
I hate it when people ask you those things only so they can out do you. |
Posted By: Andie
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 7:47am
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Mum used to dress me in blue when I was an infant because she thought I suited it a lot more, so naturally eeeeevryone assumed I was a boy and would comment accordingly! I'm amazed at the questions people have asked you though, Mel! How rude!! You need some conversation-stopper answers up your sleeves: in the lowest voice you can muster... "no I'm not breastfeeding, and didn't have a vaginal birth... baby's adopted as my gender-reconstruction surgery made me look so much like a woman but I just can't take it that far". And Ella - what a crazy thing to say to a pregnant woman... how did you not slap her one?!? ------------- Andie |
Posted By: 11111
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 7:50am
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meow that happen's to my friend all the time cause she has a very young soundign voice she went nut's at the poor lady or she goes yep hang on a min and get's her hubby and he say's "how come you could not talk to my wife about this" they usually aplogise and hang up.
As far as people asking stupid question's I totally agree I have friend's who have triplet's and people have this awful habbit of asking if they were concieved(SP?) naturally I mean who want's to say weather or not they have trouble getting preggy I think that is just the rudest. ------------- Deborah Mum to:   
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Posted By: 11111
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 7:51am
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LOL Andie very funny!!! ------------- Deborah Mum to:
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 8:28am
it must be an ella thing coz i had the same thing when its obvious shes a she!!!! Spesh wearing pink! GAH old men huh?! And also the phone call thing to lol the lady felt so stupid hehe |
meow wrote:Posted By: caraMel
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 10:39am
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Lol Jess and Meow, I got the same thing a lot when my Ella was tiny too and she was always dressed in pink frilly stuff!
I think it was because she was a little baldy 
Hehe Mummy22 at your friend passing the phone to hubby. I bet that makes them feel really stupid! ------------- Mel, Mummy to E: 6, B: 4 and:
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Posted By: caraMel
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 10:43am
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ROFL Andie! Love it, I'll have to memorise it so if anyone else asks me stupid questions I have smart answers ready. Darn my polite upbringing, I never have the responses I want at the time I want them! ------------- Mel, Mummy to E: 6, B: 4 and:
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Posted By: daikini
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 10:55am
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When Kiya had just turned 3, I had dressed her top to toe in pink one day - glittery tracksuit, skiivy, even her shoes and socks! And a lovely old woman came up to me and asked me how old my little boy was! Kiya looked at her and said "I'm a girl and I'm 3 years old!"
------------- Becca, mum of 2 girls & 3 boys |
Posted By: my2angels
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 12:40pm
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we were at my neices birthday party recently and my sister has a friend who has two wee boys but both have masses of curly long hair and my nana kept refering to the cute wee girls. We kept saying they were boys nana but she didnt believe us and later went and asked the lady how old her wee girls were!!! Soooo embarrassing.
I hated when I was pregnant people would look at my stomach first then you often saw them look for my wedding ring and I really really hated people touching my stomach, spesh strangers, like they have a right to just because I was pregnant |
Posted By: mum2paris
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 3:12pm
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I get that too - especially if i have my hair up for work people always go "oooh you look too young to have kids" and of course since i don't wear my rings etc at work they prob assume all sorts of things.
I couldnever hand the phone to Mike.. he usually hands it to me.. cos his voice is so polite and girly.. he either gets asked if his parents are home, or if they can please speak to his husband Mr Taylor..... PMSL If he rings any company etc, ie the bank or the visa people fo even the power company - whatever.. he always has to go through the full list of details before they believe it's him andhe often gets the coment "we can't actually talk to you about this we can only talk to Mr Michael Taylor" at which point his voice is no longer poilte.. but still sounds like a really pissed of teenage boy. lolololol Oh i am so mean.. but it cracks me up. ------------- Janine and her 2 cool chicks, Paris & Ayja 
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Posted By: lizzle
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 8:07pm
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My grandfather tried to make me wear my wedding ring(it's too big at the mo and slips off) because if I went to hospital and people don't see the ring "what will they think Elizabeth!"
My best story of mistaken thing, was going back to my home-town with dad and the kids. We were at the RSA having tea and some work-mate of dad's came up and started chatting about stuff. he then talked about the boys and Dad said "I'm so proud of my boys" and the guy started to ask him about "starting again" and then asked how his daugher (me) was. dad said that I was me (get it?) and the guy had thought I WAS DADS WIFE!!!!! eeewwwwwwww. I still get the shivers thinking about it. |
Posted By: Andie
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 8:31pm
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Eeew that's so ick and FUNNY!! I worked for my Dad for a couple of summers and heard a customer refer to me as "the missus"... he got put straight pretty quick! I think I was still a teenager at the time, too - DODGY! Ah, Janine, that is some good stuff about your poor Mike's phone manner... oh that's classic. ------------- Andie |
Posted By: aimeejoy
Date Posted: 18 August 2006 at 8:57pm
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OMG Liz! Yuck!! But so funny as well.
I am so sick of men and old ladies asking if my baby is a boy or a girl when dressed in pink! 
ANd Janine, whenever I work people think I'm still a student! Esp, when I've been doing some orientation on the wards and I'm not in uniform yet. Annoys me so much - this is my THIRD year out of uni!  ------------- Aimee Hannah 22/10/05 Greer 11/02/08 |
Posted By: Carmel
Date Posted: 19 August 2006 at 10:05pm
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Yeah we get asked if piper is a boy or girl as well and she always had pink on.
Also I work in a bar and one of our old punters is always asking if I'm still breastfeeding and looking at my breasts when he says it 
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Posted By: james
Date Posted: 19 August 2006 at 10:48pm
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ewww gross old men ewwwwwwlol ------------- <a href="http://lilypie.com"><img src="http://b4.lilypie.com/nLJ5p13.png" alt="Lilypie 4th Birthday Ticker" border="0" /></a> |
Posted By: meow
Date Posted: 20 August 2006 at 12:44am
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omg lmao Janine!! And I am not married, and only have one ring (probably on the wrong finger, I have no idea).. people assume all sorts of things. I get the "you look too young to have a child" thing alot. Need to work out a really good reply sometime.
Liz - haha! Once I was about 14 and was walking with my dad who was visiting NZ with my little sister (who would have been a baby then) and we went into a shop where a woman asked him how he and his wife were doing.. omg almost threw up.. i mean, come on, I was FOURTEEN!! And my dad... ugh let's stop there. ------------- http://lilypie.com">
http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: Jennz
Date Posted: 20 August 2006 at 7:23am
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When I was at uni I went down to Wellington to visit my parents and met my Dad in town. We were shopping and saw some friends of his wifes- they were a bit abrupt but I didn't think too much of it until I got a phonecall from Dad that night. Apparently the lady had called his wife saying she had seen him out with someone- basically telling her she thought he was having an affair!!!! Ewwww!!!! I mean my Dad is younger (I think I would have been 20 and him 41) but good god!
I used to always get the 'is it a boy or girl?' thing too- when you can't see her because of the pink glare coming from the pram I think its pretty obvious. Some people... ------------- Jen, Charlotte 7 & Kate 3 
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Posted By: AnnC
Date Posted: 20 August 2006 at 12:02pm
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There another thing is when you are pregnant people automatically think its okay to touch your belly... now it doesn't bother me if it is a family member or close friend but when its just someone off the street its a bit weird.
------------- Ann 
Also Mum to Josh (15) and Brooke (10) |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 20 August 2006 at 12:05pm
| AnnC - I was lucky i never had that problem lol i think i had a permanent pissy look on my face lol that and i wore a "dont touch" shirt when out lol |
Posted By: Red
Date Posted: 20 August 2006 at 12:39pm
| I was about 15 when my half sister was born, and I remember being out and someone congratulating my dad on becoming a grandfather, so funny looking back, although I don't think dad thought it was. te he. 14 years later he still isn't a grandfather! |
Posted By: caraMel
Date Posted: 21 August 2006 at 3:19pm
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Gah, I hated people touching my belly unless they were friends or family! I always thought I should have started rubbing theirs or something to let them know how uncomfortable it made me, but I wasn't brave enough, lol.
------------- Mel, Mummy to E: 6, B: 4 and:
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Posted By: nikkitheknitter
Date Posted: 21 August 2006 at 9:15pm
| I had a really annoying adult student in my class who (when I had to leave class to go and get Hannah because she was screaming the house down) asked me why couldn't my husband go and get her. I laughed loud and proud and she didn't speak to me after that for the whole semester!!! *muahahaha* |
Posted By: caraMel
Date Posted: 22 August 2006 at 11:22am
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Good on you Nikki! I hope she wasn't speaking to you because she felt really stupid after putting her foot in it! ------------- Mel, Mummy to E: 6, B: 4 and:
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Posted By: busymum
Date Posted: 22 August 2006 at 8:07pm
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I hate people touching my tummy too, it gets more sensitive the bigger it is too!
But my biggest pet hate question is "was it planned?" I mean, what can you say to that? You HAVE to say yes. If you say no, what story will get around them and/or the kid when it's grown older? Grrrr -------------  |
Posted By: nikkitheknitter
Date Posted: 23 August 2006 at 9:20am
heheheehehe Hate to think what story Han is going to get when she is older 
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Posted By: Andie
Date Posted: 23 August 2006 at 10:56am
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I agree, Busymum - that's a blimmin rude question to be randomly asking people! I would ask a good friend, and would talk about our own family planning with friends, but that's it. I wouldn't want people who weren't close to me to ask though. I might be really wrong on this, but wouldn't the whole 'suprise' thing mostly be a factor in the early days, when you realise how life is going to change so much and have to adjust to it all? I mean, the result of a planned or not-planned pregnancy is still the same... motherhood!!! Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this, any ladies who've been 'suprised'! I've so far avoided the belly-touching from strangers. Maybe they can tell I'm fully prepared to rub their tummies right back. I'll almost be dissapointed if I don't get a chance to now! My sis tried to identify what was what (head, back, etc) in my belly while I was minding my own business doing the dishes - being a first year vet student she's suddenly a genius on every topic known to mankind, and there's no arguing with her superior understanding of... well, everything! She didn't believe me when I said the midwife is only just now able to tell how baby is lying, and there's no way us non-midwifes could tell what's what in there yet (anterior placenta). I was being rubbed and prodded like a farm animal... grrrr. ------------- Andie |