Give me your two cents...

          If there is one thing that I have learned about society throughout the course of my wife's pregnancy it is this:  We must be wearing T-shirts that say in bold lettering, "Give me your two cents!!!"  This goes for men and women alike, all races, religions, and walks of life.  Everybody wants to offer their opinions on pregnancy, childbirth, and raising kids. 


          Now this is not always a bad thing.  People have been quite helpful and we have gotten a plethora of new ideas.  Also, to a certain extent we enjoy hearing about family and friends experiences and how we can apply them to our own lives.  However, it is the strangers and random folks who have to provide their input that I find odd and disturbing at times.  For some reason, our society allows these people to walk around making random comments, touching or staring at pregnant bellies, closely scrutinizing bodily pregnancy changes, and/or giving advice about the pregnancy and the childbirth situation.  In any other social situation with any other topic this type of behavior would be frowned upon.  For instance, would it be acceptable if someone were to walk up to you on the street, touch your belly, and then proceed to ask you how much weight you have gained.  "Hey, your belly is looking bigger today, how much weight have you gained lately?"  Following these comments, there is always some long soliloquy about their own pregnancy and delivery as if we care.

           There are about three topics that these random peeps like to focus there critique on including what I like to call, "The Are You Sure Prediction", "The Delivery Conundrum", "The Boob Dilemma".

          Let's start with the "Are You Sure Prediction?"  Now this is a weekly occurrence for my wife and I in regular social situations.  It happens at restaurants, at work, on walks, at the dog park, and at the grocery store.  This awkwardly acceptable social behavior is when a person begins to slowly study my wife up and down.  They stare at the belly and in some cases try to reach the hand out and touch the belly.  Weird.  After careful contemplation comes the comment, "what are you having, boy or girl?"  They ask this question despite already having conjured up the answer in their mind after examining the belly.  Of course, we answer, "a girl".  Here it comes, we brace ourselves..."Are you sure?  You should have them check again.  I mean you are carrying so low."  Yes, random person at the grocery store, you are technically medically qualified to provide a second opinion.  I was unaware that you had x-ray vision.  We will schedule an appointment for another ultrasound immediately.  For example, we went to dinner last night up in Tarpon Springs, FL.  For the non-Floridians this is an old Greek fishing and sponging town with restaurants and shops along the boat docks.  We had an older Greek waitress who spoke with a thick New York dialect.  I mean, the restaurant is all blue and white with tacky stuff everywhere.  We are talking a situation straight from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".  She also had the largest ass my wife and I had ever seen in our lives.  She literally looked like the mom in the movie.  She asked what we were having, replied with her expert opinion that we should not be so sure this is a girl.  Also she called Mo's belly pointy and insisted it was too pointy to be a girl...what? I mean, she does have medically relevant gyro and souvlaki training.

    

          The next ordeal that Monica has to deal with is "The Delivery Conundrum".  This is the constant opinions provided by random people about the delivery process.  Every person feels the need to provide unsolicited insight as to whether my wife should have an epidural or not.  Maybe it is just me but giving some advice to someone you don't know that well are not acceptable socially.  For example, "honey you should not get the epidural, you can end up not feeling when to push or not"  Outlandish statements such as, "you have to do this naturally, there are too many negative things that can happen."  Or there is the other end of the spectrum, "Oh you need to have an epidural, there will be a lot of ripping and tearing down there."  Hey...gross and not necessary.  I am not naive, bad stuff could happen but seriously are we going to talk about it with someone that is not a close friend....I don't think so stranger.  The horror scenes that are depicted by some women's comments with no medical background are always interesting.  The big issue is that most people who offer up their own advice have only been part of there own deliveries and have a small scope or perspective. Leave the decision up to each individual person.

          Finally, we get to "The Boob Dilemma". The constant battle of opinions on whether or not to breastfeed.  There is a line drawn in the sand here and the constituents of each side of the issue see no gray area.  The breast feeder's seem to be almost brainwashed with unrealistic expectations.  They insist that my wife must never supplement with formula and never use a pacifier.  The other perspective brings up the silly arguments of it "being gross" or "too hard".  They say, "you will never get any sleep" or "you can't breast feed and work it is too much.  People that my wife doesn't even know love to ask the question, "Are you going to breast feed?"  She doesn't even want to give an answer because she knows it is a loaded question.  Whatever her answer is she is going to get bombarded with unwanted opinions.  All in all, it is just strange that people feel that it is okay to talk about any topics with complete strangers that are pregnant.  I think that there needs to be some more privacy and discretion used in these situations.  We do so in almost all other situations so let's just let these poor pregnant women have their own lives and experiences.