Are Pregnant Women Indeed Smug?
By GlindaThese two ladies are very cute indeed, and while they have some not-so-kind things to say about pregnant women, I’ll take this video with a grain of salt.
I do have to agree with this duo of “Garfunkel and Oates” that there are indeed some very smug pregnant women out there. It also drives me crazy when people say, “Oh, we have a name picked out, but we’re not telling.” Why not? If you have it picked out, then why in the world would you be keeping it a secret. A friend of mine who pulled this stunt told me that it was because she didn’t want to hear anyone saying something bad about the name. As in, “Jean? Ohmigod, I went to school with a girl named Jean and she never ever washed her clothes!” But, they might say that anyway afterwards, and if you like the name, then what do you care about someone else’s negative name associations? Because NOBODY is immune form the negative name associations.
And listen, is it wrong to be happy that you are pregnant? Although I do have to say that throughout my pregnancy with the Munchkin, the overwhelming feeling I had most of the time was panic.
I have a bone to pick with them on the “all I want is a healthy baby” reply. Why is that so hard to fathom? That little section of the video is the only part I think is in poor taste. I think that “healthy” pretty much means I don’t want my child to be limbless.
What say you, residents of the off again/on again Manolosphere? Are pregnant women smug? There are a couple of curse words that might make you want to think twice about viewing at work.
(somehow the previous post on this was deleted, and the comments mysteriously went over to raincoaster’s “Irish Bull” post, so I’m just chalking it up to weirdness)
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 am
Well, I am eight months pregnant and OH SO NOT SMUG. My ribs are being pushed in the opposite direction that they were made to curve, the bottom bone of my pelvis is popping apart in 5 different places (literally), and my femurs keep falling out of joint (apparently my body is producing an inordinate amount of the hormone relaxin). Oh, and my mother, who was going to come and help me out in a couple of days, has just been exposed to swine flu. As has my father, sister, niece, and brother-in-law, so the only help for me is for my husband to take the day off work, which he will do, because he is wonderful, but it also adds guilt on to the various poppings and snappings of my body.
OH SO NOT SMUG.
Sorry, just needed the vent.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Certainly we can’t say they are all smug, but I love how this song captures the essence of the pregnant women who are smug. And, although I wouldn’t say I was smug (but maybe I was! Maybe that’s what other people thought!), we only told a few people the name we had picked out for our second kid because frankly, telling strangers only invites them to comment and I had no interest in hearing their opinions. So it’s not that I cared if they didn’t like it, it’s that I cared not to hear about it.
I have to say, since a certain A-list blogger has been pregnant, I find myself unable to read her blog without cringing these days.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:34 am
That’s no way to talk about our friend Glinda! (I kid, I kid!)
May 4th, 2009 at 9:51 am
(re-posted from other thread)
I also used to roll my eyes at the “as long as it’s healthy” cliche from expectant parents, but shortly after I became pregnant, a friend of mine lost his 3-year old daughter to cancer. You always assume that your kid will be perfectly healthy, but then it hits you like a ton of bricks that some people DO have kids who have horrible conditions, some of them fatal, and there is absolutely nothing that makes any of us exempt from that. So that’s when you start saying “as long as it’s healthy”, and you really, genuinely do mean it, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
As far as the name thing goes, I can sympathize. We were thinking of Jake for a boy, and I told a few friends, one of whom said that her parents’ dog was named Jake, and to her, Jake is a dog’s name, not a person’s name. Maybe it’s the hormonal hypersensitivity, but it really did spoil the name for me a bit. We’re still considering “Jake”, but it’s hard to get that comment out of my head.
But yeah, some women are definitely smug, when they start acting as though having a baby overshadows any other life event or accomplishment. I’m very, very happy and excited that I’m having a baby, but let’s be realistic here: I’m not curing cancer, climbing a mountain, or becoming a head of state.
I do smile when I feel the kicking, though. It’s such a goofy, unusual situation, and so very novel to me, and it’s just really damn neat to feel that early connection with this tiny little person.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I have to agree with La Petite Acadienne, in that my best friend had a baby born with multiple birth defects, who died before his third birthday. When I was pregnant last year, I didn’t bother hoping for one sex or the other, I just wanted a healthy baby. Alex was a sweet, wonderful baby and little boy, but sometimes he suffered and it broke all our hearts.
We didn’t tell people our name choice because I know people who announced theirs and had their choice ridiculed and ruined for them. Yes, I know some opinionated people. Sigh. I loved our choice (Aurora Jane) and we didn’t want to have to find another.