Uhm, I get asked that with only one child. Is that appropriate, I mean to be asked something like that when you only have one child?

Uhm, I get asked that and I have only one child. Is that appropriate, I mean to be asked something like that when you only have one child?

irish mailman in the neighborhood?

you know they breed like rabbits.

and, uh, the drinking.

begorah, indeed.

It's even more fun with 3 dark haired children and a blue eyed blond boy, with the added bonus of the said blond being a twin with the only girl in the bunch. As I like say, she took all the coloring and kicked him out first(yes, she is the baby by 9 minutes).

Buh-lieve me, with three girls, we get the "well, don't you want to try for a boy?" query - either explicit or implied - all the time.

I have three sisters and a brother. I have 24 nieces and nephews.

My oldest sister has 11 kids. She experiences a level of outright bigotry that is pretty rough.

On the flip side, when you've been married a long time and have no kids, all you get is "What, don't you like kids?" or "Why haven't you tried IVF?" (With no knowledge as to whether or not you actually might already have done that.) Or you get regaled with stories of, "OH, well all you have to do is..." Or the ever popular, "Well, I have X kids and let me tell you, you're not missing anything." Or the even more popular, "Why not adopt like Madonna or Angelina Jolie?"

So I think the moral of the story is: People are idiots who somehow think your personal life = their business.

I try to remind myself that they generally mean well - but that's really probably a lie. I think they just don't think before they speak.

Beth---I got a variation on that last year at a meeting at work. Someone was asking about the ages of the kids, and I said "9, 7, 3, and 1" and the second in charge blurted out "What, missing one in the middle--not very symetrical." We hadn't had a miscarriage, but it was a stunning thing to say nonetheless.

Great, now I have the voice of Graham Chapman in my head: "Look at them, bloody Catholics, filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can't afford to bloody feed."
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/mol/m-04-i-2.htm

We have 9 (one adopted), from age 25 down to 6 months. It used to bug me when people asked those stupid questions--irritating mostly when the questioner thinks he's being funny and doesn't realize that he's the 47th person to make that lame joke ("You DO know what's causing these babies, right? Ha ha ha!").

But now I find it easier to assume they mean well, and I enjoy the opportunity to be a sign of contradiction against certain forces in our culture--the anti-child forces, the forces of compulsory sterility, middle class materialism, excessive seriousness--and to be a sort of commercial for certain goods that are being suppressed: children, family, marriage, hope for the future, love, full-blown undiminished sex, humanness.

Maybe next time someone makes a snide remark, I'll say, "You're welcome! We're breeding the workers whose payroll taxes will fund your social security benefits."

We're breeding the workers whose payroll taxes will fund your social security benefits."

That is exactly correct! Thank you.

I have four kids so I've heard most of the standard comments: "Don't you know what causes that?" ,etc. As a guy, it doesn't bother me; in fact, it only massages my ego. Most people who say such don't mean harm; rather, they are just, well, fools who don't know better and have a complusion to utter whatever feeble thought passes through the old brain-housing group. Pity, not scorn, is the proper response.