Beaten Only By “When Are You Having Kids?”
Posted by Moose on October 24th, 2007. Filed under: How To.“So. Are you getting married?”
I always wondered what it feels like to have your brain leak out your ears, drip down your arms and puddle on the floor in a sticky pile. Now I know. It feels not unlike having your stomach turned inside out and jabbed with a pencil while you sit awkwardly next to the partner in your discomfort hoping he knows what to say. He doesn’t.
Unless you live in a compound, stroking your shotgun and repairing your generator with a corn cob and plug of chewing tobacco, you’re bound to be both the instigator and the recipient of awkward questions. If you’re lucky, you won’t have to deal with both in the same conversation. If you hail from a plantation and were raised to float down sweeping flights of stairs with a dictionary atop your elegant frame, you probably know how to guide the conversation like Jessica Simpson guides her lip gloss. But when the awkward hits, most of us can only manage to withdraw our hand after reaching for a large bottle of gin.
After careful consideration, I’ve devised a solution to help all of us.
If you’re ever tempted to ask someone about something they want and don’t have; want and can’t have; don’t want but are fully prepared to rip off their left arm so they have something to beat over the head of the next person who asks; will make them prefer sweet, sweet death at the bottom of a gin bottle to thinking of an answer – here are seven things you can do instead:
1. Save the whales.
2. Ask for five dollars.
3. Kidnap the guacamole and hold it for ransom.
4. Read Foucault.
5. Learn how to spell Foucault.
6. Design a heat-guided missile system on a cocktail napkin.
7. Ask the sprightly octogenarian at your left to join you in a spot of tango.
Related posts:
October 24th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Blessed screaming jesus, enough with the baby questions, already! Sorry…but really, is it their business in the first place? or the wedding question? MYOB, people!
So, could you tell everyone I might encounter what the 7 things are? Because the next time I’m asked, I might just give someone $5 to change the subject. And this could get expensive.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:12 am
So, yeah, when are you having kids? Have you been wedding dress shopping lately?
Ugh. I’m so glad I never had to deal with that crap, having gotten knocked up quite young and unmarried. That puts a damper on those questions pretty quick.
Oh, and I see you are reading Water for Elephants? Isn’t it freaking awesome? I loved it so much.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Oh, I really liked Water for Elephants. Until it was over, and then it seemed like sort of a let down. I’m not sure why that is either. While I was reading it, I couldn’t put it down. No spoilers! Maybe I was just sorry it was done?
Oy, that’s an ugly question. Either one of those really. I’ve been lucky that nobody has ever asked me either one. No… wait… I think I blocked it out. My college BFNF (best friend not forever) and her Mom used to hound me about having kids. I swore that I’d never do that, but then fast forward 10 years. I was talking with my husband’s coworker (21yrs old) and she said something negative about kids. I found myself asking “so you don’t plan on ever having any?” She shut me up pretty quickly by over sharing a medical condition. Ugh. I’d have paid $5 to be able to take the question back.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Sooooo, when are you two skids getting hitched?
Bwahahahahahahahahaha. I kill me.
This coming from the person who kept referring to your boyfriend as your husband ALL BLOGHER WEEKEND.
Next up, knitting the Schnozz a pair of baby booties.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
If only I had $5 for every time someone has asked us when we’re getting married… I could afford to go somewhere far, far away from everyone who asks us when we’re getting married!
October 25th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I so feel your pain, Amber. Imagine being from the South when you, on average, start hearing that very same vomit-inducing question at the ripe age of 19 when the most serious relationship you’ve ever had is that guy from college who you used to repeatedly hook up with drunkenly on the pool table at the close of every Fiji soiree (speaking about a friend, OF COURSE…). Jump ahead to 25 when all of your friends from home are on Baby #2 or 3, sometimes marriages of the same number, as well, you finally do bring a boyfriend home to Tennessee, all of the town’s 19,000 residents eagerly waits in the wings of the sole Interstate exit to catch the first glimpse of He who finally won your heart, or better yet, calmed you down – at least briefly (is this feeling a little Desperate Housewives to you?), he gets along swimmingly with your friends and family thus prompting them to inquire even more, is already 33, well past prime marrying age in the minds of most of the Bible Belt’s residents, you’re giving up your fabulous job and life in New York to move to San Francisco with him, living together in sin (as they would call it) for a second time…THEN (and here I wish I could insert “and only then,” but it’s just not true – this was going on long before him) that question really becomes second nature. Sigh. And my mom wonders just what exactly provoked my most recent trip to rehab (kidding on that last part, but the rest is fairly accurate).
October 25th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Okay, this is what I read in the Oprah magazine. You say, very brightly, “no, we don’t have any plans to get married at the moment, but I can ensure you’ll we’ll let you know when we do!” Then you smile and change the subject.
This is what I do instead: “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hahaha! Um. Uhhhhh. So how about those Giants?”
October 26th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Here is what I say, and it is guaranteed to flabbergast 80 percent of people, which is pretty good, huh?
“Actually, I am boycotting marriage because I am a believer in gay rights. I don’t think I should get married until EVERYONE can get married. I think it would be like eating at a segregated lunch counter in the 1960s.”
People just sit there with their mouths hanging open. But it is true, in my case. It is what I believe. And with no one asking me to get married anyway, it’s not like I have any tough moral decisions to make.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Catheroo – you should ASK for five dollars. Say you’re starting a baby fund. When you reach three million dollars, you’ll consider procreating.
Superblondgirl: I have to admit, I haven’t started Water for Elephants yet. I’m going through a phase where I pick up a different book every night, read 10 pages, and put it down again. This says nothing about the books and everything about my inability to focus.
Jhianna: The thing about these questions is that the vast majority of them are well-meant. And if the person knew it hurt, they’d be horrified. And we all do it. I think that recognizing that is the best way to navigate the Awkward. But the whiskery biddies who DO want you to feel uncomfortable deserve anything you can dish out.
Kerflop: See, I found that endearing. And I would pay good money to see Schnozz’s face when you present her with hand knit booties. Save it for BlogHer ’08. And warn us so we can have cameras ready.
One Smart Cookie: We should pool our fivers and buy a tropical island in the Caribbean.
Kristin: My heart stopped reading your story. At least the only people who care in my case seem to be related to me. I need an antacid.
NBB: Oprah is so…well-meaning, isn’t she? What I need is for Oprah to follow me around and deflect the questions for me. Then she’ll give me a free tub of Hope in a Jar. There will be no hidden message in her offering.
Suebob: I may steal that. Because that is SWEET.
October 28th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
how come smokey the bear never had kids?
Every time his wife got hot he’d hit her with a shovel
October 30th, 2007 at 12:01 am
(Happy to be lucky number 11, Moose.)
There was a time when I would have hissed and recoiled from the booties as if THEY THEMSELVES could get me pregnant. Of course, now that the old snip-snip has been performed (TMI? You started it), I’m invincible, and would only laugh heartily at your attempt to impregnate me with jinxed yarn.
My theory on people who repeatedly ask about marriage is that they just want everyone else to share their discovery that marriage isn’t the magic answer to every relationship problem they’ve ever had. I know plenty of unhappily married people who expected their lives to be perfect and now want everyone to throw on a sparkly white dress just so they don’t have to be the only chump in the room.
Well, that, or the fact that people are obsessed with the next step no matter what it is. Which is why you should start asking married people with children when they’re getting divorced. Ha!
October 31st, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Schnozz – LOVE it. I recently ended an engagement and honestly, never has there been such sweet relief. It has also prompted me to wonder WTF I was ever thinking in the first place, thinking that my ex was decent marriage material (at the moment at least). And what I remember most vividly was the heat I was getting from an old, close friend who recently moved back to the area. She had gotten married right out of college and was on baby #2. And looking back, I am pretty sure that she really wanted me to get married because she was desperate to have me join the club. She’s never lived life as a single girl and I think she must wonder what she’s missing. Too bad I didn’t realize that at the time.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Funny! We chose NOT to have kids (not that we don’t like kids or couldn’t have kids, we just didn’t want to…). We used to get that “OH, you can’t have kids?” thing all the time! After 10 years of marriage, we are pregnant and NOW get, “OH. Was it planned?” (It WASN’T btw, but these are the same people that gave us the how-sad-you-can’t-have-kids look before).
*sigh*
WTF?!!?