Letters

"I think we need to return to some good old-fashioned boundary drawing." Readers agree with Lynn Harris -- people are rude!

Jun 23, 2005 | [Read "So, Why Aren't You Knocked Up Yet?" by Lynn Harris.]

I enjoyed reading Lynn Harris' article. I am interrogated every time I visit relatives, mostly as Harris observes, by their neighbors and friends. My personal favorite: I told a neighbor that I wouldn't consider children for a few years (not sure I want them, more interested in finishing grad school and getting a job), and he called me foolish and advised my husband, who also doesn't want children yet, to sabotage my birth control. It is certainly strange that these sort of invasive -- and in this case borderline criminal -- comments pass for friendly chat.

-- Candice Morey

Lynn Harris' article made me smile. I had almost forgotten about the gabbling pack, having just celebrated my fifth wedding anniversary. (Everyone who knows us has already asked.) But a few weeks ago, my husband and I attended a dinner party where we were seated at a table with three other couples, all well into their 70s. The meal was delicious and the small talk cordial ... then the lovely woman to my husband's left asked him if we had children. He replied no. She asked how long we'd been married. He replied five years. She asked if there was a problem, perhaps? At this point, all other conversations had stopped and I noticed everyone staring at Bill and me. He mumbled, no, no problem, we just decided not to have children.

Cutting through the deafening silence, I chirped out that we basically had dorked around until we were too old. The woman asked how old I was. Forty, I replied, and I am not interested in squeezing out a baby at 40. It's just how I feel. The silence turned stony at this, and everyone frowned. Someone else icily informed me that woman are having babies well into their 40s all the time now and I shouldn't be so close-minded. Bill and I looked at each other, then looked at our plates and gave dessert our absolute attention, but the mood was definitely shot at that point. I realized that evening that Lynn is right: The questioning never stops. All right, menopause: Full speed ahead!

-- Denise Stauber Baikie

Thank you, Ms. Harris, for perhaps salvaging my day. I read your article just minutes after suffering the attention of yet another well-meaning curious idiot wanting to know when my nonexistent baby is due. So I can sympathize.

In my case, genetics and a surgery mishap have conspired to funnel all extra weight into my lower abdomen, so yes, when I put on a few pounds, I do tend to look pregnant, I guess. And then the comments begin. This morning a co-worker I barely know stopped me in the mailroom:

Her: Are you expecting?

Me: Expecting what?

Her: A baby?

Me: No.

Her: Oh, I'm sorry, (gestures toward my stomach) I thought you were.

Sometimes the well-meaning idiots recover from their faux pas with disturbing ease, sometimes they stammer and blush for minute after excruciating minute. I tend to stand in silence and let them suffer. After all, suffering is how we learn, right? Also, pregnancy is an emotional issue for me, and it is easier for me to recover from whatever sadness and humiliation this stranger has brought crashing down on me if I channel all that emotive energy into silent fuming and the perfection of a tolerant but dismissive facial expression.

But I am only childless, not heartless, and so as a courtesy to well-meaning idiots everywhere, let me offer the following bit of advice: If you have to ask, don't.

-- Victoria Herd

I agree that there seems to be a loss of boundaries, and that any question/comment seems to spring forth from people's mouths without any forethought into whether it is really any of their business. I've dealt with it myself on numerous occasions, like the biddies that approached my mother to offer their condolences on the fact that I'm not married yet and to compare me to my senile older great-aunt who never married, or the ex-boyfriend's mother (whom I'd not seen in years) who patted my arm sympathetically and told me "it would happen for me someday." There are dozens of more instances where this has happened, and each time I hear those words come from people's mouths I cringe and then plaster the fakest smile I can muster on my face. Because to show any sign that you aren't the happiest person when someone has made a comment like that clearly means you are a broken, sad person and that gossip will spread even faster than your lack of marriage/babies.

I have several friends who are married and I've witnessed most of them get the baby question on their wedding day, I see their smile dim just a bit before they laugh it off. I wish people would learn to keep their mouths shut and realize that everything in my life is not their business. Perhaps I should hand out your article the minute I see that look on their face and know they are getting ready to launch into their litany of questions.

-- Suzanne Burkey

Whenever I hear people complaining of unsolicited advice and/or privacy-invading questions, I am reminded of Miss Manners' recommended reply: "How very kind of you to take an interest" (to be repeated as necessary, tone varying from sympathetic to icy). For some reason, I seldom get such questions anymore.

-- Midge Coates

I, too, have recently ended a long and entertaining singlehood with a marriage to a member of the opposite sex. We hadn't made it through the reception before the baby questions started, and we hadn't made it out of the hotel before the baby questions were really on my nerves. I am not fortunate enough to have a family who has maintained a "saintly silence" on the matter and have endured hounding, heckling and absolute torture at the hands of both our parents on the question of when we will be producing grandchildren. I have a medical history that may or may not allow me to be a parent. I also don't know if having children is something I desire, as I have not ever felt the apparently overwhelming need for children that my friends have described for me.

However, I have finally come up with an answer for those prying asses who have no business prying into the state of my womb. I simply reply, when asked how long until I spawn, "Well, I'm not able to have children and my medical condition makes us undesirable as adoptive parents. " That shuts them up right quick. Nobody has asked yet what my medical condition is, but I figure I can come up with something suitably horrible on the fly, if needed. A rude question does not deserve an honest answer.

-- D.L.L.

Next Page: "Why are we not calling this rude behavior into question?"

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