January 11, 2007

Fun questions to ask people with kids

Jordana opens up a can of whupass on people who think it's completely legitimate and appropriate to ask ridicuously inappropriate questions of people with more than two kids.

Jordana, trust me: the only get better when after three blonde kids you get a fourth with flaming, curly red hair. Begorah!

I've experienced all of what Jordana is talking about, and then some---there's a terrible divide on our campus among a core group of childless intelligensia and, well, everyone else who is even partially human. One philosophy type even asked me in a snide way what I was going to do when all the kids get older: I replied, "not have my corpse discovered two weeks later by the UPS guy, with half my face eaten off by my surly cats."

Posted by Steve-O at January 11, 2007 07:36 PM | TrackBack
Comments

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?

Posted by: Blair at January 11, 2007 09:27 PM

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?

Posted by: Blair at January 11, 2007 09:27 PM

irish mailman in the neighborhood?

you know they breed like rabbits.

and, uh, the drinking.

begorah, indeed.

Posted by: jdubious at January 11, 2007 09:49 PM

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).

Posted by: Sarah G. at January 11, 2007 10:39 PM

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.

Posted by: Robbo the LB at January 11, 2007 11:06 PM

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.


Posted by: The Colossus at January 11, 2007 11:33 PM

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.

Posted by: beth at January 12, 2007 07:28 AM

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.

Posted by: Steve the LLamabutcher at January 12, 2007 07:49 AM

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

Posted by: Gary at January 12, 2007 08:57 AM

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."

Posted by: DGus at January 12, 2007 10:27 AM

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

That is exactly correct! Thank you.

Posted by: Babs at January 12, 2007 11:22 AM

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.

Posted by: Alex at January 12, 2007 08:59 PM