Tuesday 2 August 2011

Under Pressure

This weekend, I went to a family (in-laws) party where a number of the gathered masses have apparently assumed that because I have married their eldest boy I am now automatically quite pregnant/very pregnant/very much trying to be pregnant. Two months - boom! I'm not sure why they think I would have the first clue what to do with a child if it came out of me, or be any sort of good at raising it. Yet still, comments ranged from the subtle, through the overt to the ridiculous.

I know we are supposed to tolerate this with good humour, but really? I know these people are my family, and I kinda knew this was in the post, but I'm still not keen. I used to quite like these folks. Now I just feel uncomfortable around them. That is a shame.

As the toddling child of a colleague of my aunty-in-law stumbled past me, I wondered if I should come up with a strategy to help the dear in-laws realise just how unsuitable a mother I am. Like....

1. If confronted with any child under the age of 2, push them into the garden pond.

2. If confronted with any child under the age of 5, teach them every swear I know and then get them to recite every one to the oldest/most easily offended member of the gathering.

3. If no children present, simply declare I am stepping outside for a cigarette, then proceed to stand on the patio puffing on a spliff the size of a traffic cone whilst swigging on a bottle of meths.

4. If confronted with any child under the age of 10, get them to join me in the above. Then, when I'm bored of that, push them into the garden pond.

Really though, ladies, is this just me? How do we deal with this? Should we grin and put up with it?

Isn't it all... well....none of anybody else's business?

 Maybe I should play them at their own gane by hiding under an exceptionally large neon orang-utan costume at all times.
Oooh...is she.... isn't she...no way of knowing without tickling me with a banana.....

3 comments:

  1. "Honeymoon babies are all the rage you know" was a comment on my friend's FB just a few hours after their wedding! Pressure!

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  2. (A bit late to the game, but better late than never...)

    My mother (my uber Catholic mother, I might add) has been hinting about grandchildren since before I even had a boyfriend. Ok, first mention here, my first boyfriend was when I was 19, the hints only began around 18 ish. She wasn't hinting at me when I was 14 or anything. Whenever she gets broody, she looks at me and says she'll have to just wait to be a grandmother since she can't be a mother of her own again. I can't IMAGINE what it would be like if I were married.

    As for proving you aren't mother material, here's a poem my father (yes, my father) taught me when I was about 5 and tried to get me to recite at school. My Catholic convent school, which had nuns and everything. Teach any impressionable child this and the pregnancy comments should stop:

    Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
    Jill forgot to take the pill and now they have a daughter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh Crysta, you just wait..... (by the way, your father is obviously a very sensible man)

    Px

    ReplyDelete