Salon: Pregnancy article and letters it provoked

The original article
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/05/05/skinny_pregnancy/index.html
was a slightly whiny story written by a pregnant woman who's complaint is that she felt guilty over not gaining weight while pregnant. I read it and thought, "OK, whatever." Then this morning I read the letters about the article
http://www.salon.com/mwt/letters/2004/05/13/cathy_katrina/index.html
and after reading them, I thought, "What the hell?" Am I the only person in the world who was not nagged by strangers while pregnant? No stranger tried to rub my tummy without asking; only one person ever even asked to do so (I let her; she as a co-worker and we shared the same OB). One letter writer said:

What Onstad apparently doesn't realize is that her weight, or lack thereof, was never the issue. The issue is that pregnant women become public domain no matter what. We don't get a say in that.

It's a rare outing with my toddler that doesn't include a well-meaning stranger pointing out how close my children will be in age. More rarely, I'll be asked if we "meant to do that." People feel free to scrutinize the contents of my grocery cart. I've been chastised for climbing ladders, for raising my arms above my head, and once, for flagrant cola consumption.

This bullshit has never happened to me. Did it ever happen to you or your wife/daughter/etc?

I think some folks feel like they have a right to comment on your pregnancy. But I didn't feel like people went overboard. Most of the people were cool about it, except for people at a meeting (Mon) I was at the week of my due date. ( Fri.) They were eyeing me with alarm as if I were about to blow. They were probably right, I probably should have taken off work sooner. :)

However, people touching my son ( like his toes when we were in a store once) when he was a baby bothered me a little. I don't think babies are public property and you shouldn't really touch other people's children without permission, no matter how cute they are.

touching my child without permission is a worse offence than touching me, absolutely. Me, I can hit and stuff; all the baby can do it projectile poop (come to think of it...) :-)

I was 28 when we decided to have our first child. We knew that we wanted a big family so I chose to have my kids close together. I can't tell you, with each pregnancy it got worse. I was bombarded with "do you know what you are getting yourself into?" Or "Do you know what you are doing?" They would ask personal questions like how much we spend at the grocery store, etc.

My husband has played in bands since before we got married. When I was pregnant I would go to some of his gigs. I would frequently get the "stares" like a pregnant woman wasn't allowed to go to a bar, dance and have a soda.

With my kids this close in age, we are always asked "are all them yours" (yes, phrased like that).

when I was pregnant, and it happened all the time to most other mothers I've known as well. I sometimes felt like I was a walking billboard; I finally began to lose it in my seventh month because I was tired of people thinking they had the right to tell me what to do and how to do it and to watch what I did and said, etc., just because I was pregnant. It was NONE OF THEIR FREAKING BUSINESS!!

I don't know why you didn't experience the joy, also, maybe where you live had something to do with it.

But, I am a native New Yorker. Maybe I redeveloped "The NYC Stare."

I am so sorry that so many folks have put up with this. Man!

and i'm not even pregnant..

I had to go to a conference when I was 8 months pregnant. Being relatively short, I was all baby and visibly uncomfortable. I was shocked at the end of the day by the people who would literally push me aside at the convention center to beat me to the shuttle bus or try to push in front of me to get a cab first!

Here I was with 30 extra pounds of weight on my small frame, feet swollen, waddling along as best I could, and very few people had any courtesy to offer me the nearest cab, for example.

Not that I expected to be treated like a diva, it was my choice (in a way) to go to the meeting in that state, but come on folks, what ever happened to common courtesy?

But not ha-ha funny. Your point about common courtesy is well-taken.

I was chubby and rather crappy looking due to excess nausea and vomiting for the first 20 weeks to varying degrees each time (didn't gain a ton of weight during pregnancy except the last one, but messed me up metabolically for years). Rarely did anyone so much as hold a door for me during that time in my life. I largely felt invisible most of the time.