Too Young To Be A Mum!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

**CrankyAsAnOldMan **: For me, the most interesting point your story makes is that the young woman from your e-mail list sounds like a better mother than lots of women twice her age. Why must people assume that just because someone is young, she is necessary incabable of caring for a child, or that because she’s older, she’ll automatically be a better mom? Doesn’t always work that way, as this admirable woman demonstrates.
And even if it DID always work that way, it’s not a total stranger’s goddam business.
Fairy Nuffsaid:

Heehee. That there is a funny line. :slight_smile:

22

Years ago (1980) I had a girlfriend who was pregnant. She was 25, but looked about 14. We lived in Las Vegas, and her husband was a 21 dealer on Freemont Street.
I went with her once to pick up her hubby from work, and as we were walking out of the casino, hubby gave his wife a hug and a hello peck.
From out of nowhere, this old lady ran up to the husband, slapped him across the face, and started yelling at him about how he should be in jail.
We were like :eek: :eek: :eek:
My little pregnant friend, who was 5’0" and 100 pounds (even at 8 months!) recovered first and called that woman every name in the book and threatened to “bitch slap” her…to the applause of the crowd, who had gathered to watch the “show”.:smiley:

Some people, heh.

23

How did the old woman react?

24

Hey… Im pregnant…11 weeks… always been heavy, I lost about 15 pounds betwwen January and March. But I still had /have a long way to go. So yeah, Ive gained back most of what I’ve lost,(DAMMIT…!) But I havent put on “new pounds” yet.
Although certainly my SHAPE /distribution has changed.

I have only told two people at work. (Closed mouth types) that I am pregnant, and then yesterday In the break room Im trying to decide if I really want to get some pretzels from the machine or not.

A woman slaps me on the belly! Not hard. But Im not sure what she meant.

Was it a comment that I dont need a snack. (Incredibly rude)

Was it a sly hint I might be pregnant? (There was no grin or wink…)
I didnt want to say anything and draw any comments… the room was full of gossips and Im still not announcing anything.

So yes… WTF?

Then again this is the woman who when I barely knew her started peeling my sunburn off my arms…uninvited, unasked, and I was actually NOT peeling the flakes off my own arm.

25

PS, Part of the reason Im not telling anyone is to avoid the “pat pat” and all that crap. Ive never had kids, but Ive seen people groped daily at work. Yuck.

26

I would have told the bus stop stranger to summarily fuck off, myself. But I guess all those hormones make you soft, leechbabe. :wink:

In any case, I’d never have “proven” my age. Why would you? Just a random idiot.

I DO get the urge to touch a woman’s belly when they’re pregnant. It’s so… disarming. But, I’d never do it to a stranger, and I’d always ask even when it concerns a close friend. But it’s way cool to do! :slight_smile:

27

As for the age thing, I once was harassed by a TRUANT OFFICER for sitting in a mall coffee shop. It took a while to clue in with what was going on. I was 26 at the time, wearing polyester navy blue pants, a stripey shirt, and what my brother called my “Mr Rogers Button Up sweater” and was on my way to work as a visiting nurse’s aide.

This was in the hey day of GRUNGE, and if that didnt get through, the near by highschool seemed to be the last refuge of 80’s hair band look alikes.

But the truant officer still tried to “ESCORT” me “From the PREMISES”

So how old did I look? 17? 16? Truant officers are not allowed to harrass 18 year olds…

28

This is good! Can you tell more?

29

I think it was Miss Manners who suggested two appropriate responses to rude personal questions. One is simply a silent stare. The other was the reply, “Why would you want to know a personal thing like that?” Or it may have been Ann Landers or Dear Abbie.

30

Um by post more, what do you mean… the whole story?

31

The next time someone tells you you’re too young to be having a baby, tell them you only need fifty more dollars for an abortion and ask for a contribution.

And now the proper etiquette for how a man talks to a pregnant woman:

1 - The only time you can safely assume a woman is pregnant is when you are actually seeing a child emerging from her body. In all other circumstances, assume nothing and wait for her to tell you she’s pregnant.

2 - Unless you are the father or attending physician, limit all pregnancy conversations to the following topics;

When is the baby due?
Do you know the baby’s gender?
Have you picked a name?

3 - If a group of women with childbearing experience are having a conversation with a pregnant woman, you do not want to stay and hear this conversation. In fact you should actively leave the area by any means necessary, up to and including amputating a limb.

32

Wow, leechbabe. I mean, it was a bit strange to get the “Is she your sister?” comments about my infant daughter when I was 21, but to think that the same thing might happen if I were to be pregnant today? Egad!

(I must look a lot older these days, though. The age difference is the same, but everyone assumes she’s mine, now. Though I do still get carded…except at those places where they say they card everyone who looks under 40. I’m not so sure what that means…)

My own mother was 28 in 1975, when I (and the OP, probably) was born, and that was considered pretty old for a first pregnancy then!

Perhaps juji_mojo outfit resembled a local private school’s uniform. Or the truant officer’s idea of a school uniform.

33

If it looked like a school uniform … and there were no private schools in my home town… it was the UGLIEST uniform possible.

The way it all unfolded…

I was drinking my coffee in a mall coffee shop, dressed as stated above, with my big bag o’ stuff (white shoes, gloves, binder, casefiles etc.) Maybe I was reading a newspaper too.

Big uniformed dude comes up and says “What would Mr Mumblebalabaloo say if he knew you were here?”

Juji " Mr Who?" Genuinely puzzled, I couldnt make out the name and it meant nothing to me.

Big Dude “Dont get smart with me missy. You know you aren’t supposed to be here.”

Juji. “Is there a problem, officer?” Still not getting “it” but not being tone deaf, Im aware things “ARE NOT AS THEY SHOULD”

Big Dude “The mall is off limit during school hours. Spare or not, you can’t be here”

juji “School hours? You think Im supposed to be in SCHOOL? Im twenty six, and finished university” (Okay, that was a lie, I dropped out in third year, but what’s it to him?)

“Thats a new one. Come on, you have to leave. I will escort you to see Mr Mumble…” He grabs my shoulder and tries to get me to stand.

“Seriously. Let go. Im 26 and NOT a student.”

“I have heard them all. Lets sort this out at the office.”

I had to get my wallet out of the bag and show him my driver’s license.

He left, but said he’d be watching for me, and he was sure that I must have my sister’s ID.

Yes in retrospect I should have raised a stink about it, got him in trouble, etc. But at the time, I was still asking WTF? and just thinking about finishing my coffee and going to work.

34

Whoa! As a former security guard and someone who works with the public, I can state unequivocally this was BIG mistake on his part. He’s damn lucky you weren’t inclined to “raise a stink” about it. Stupidity of this magnitude has cost people their jobs before.

Plus, if you were my wife/girlfriend/sister/daughter, I’d be pissed if some big mook grabbed you and tried to hustle you out of some place you had a perfect right to be, just because you looked young. What an insufferable blowhard! And then the nerve of the whole “you have your sister’s ID” b.s. He was wrong; you knew it and he did too. But GOD FORBID he apologize. Dick.

I can’t understand why hearing about this episode pisses me off so much. Maybe because I always put a lot of effort into being professional when dealing with people, and I have a BIG problem with people who put their hands where they shouldn’t. Grabbing people and trying to push them around should always be an absolute last resort for security personnel. Doing otherwise indicates he wasn’t smart enough even to do a job that entails little more than standing around in a uniform.

35

‘Gee, Officer, do you think you can read my driver’s license better AFTER I shove it up your ass?’

I wouldn’t have even shown him the ID. Just let him physically remove me from the mall, and then press assault and kidnapping charges against him in the aftermath…

The story is priceless, and he’s a Grade A asshole. Thanks for sharing.

36

She slapped a pregnant woman’s belly.

I sure hope she was unaware. My goodness. You have to be a messed up person to think THAT’S okay.

37

Let’s be smart about this. If someone’s pregnant in public, they usually did something. That means I get to touch.

38

Let me run this by you:

My girlfriend and her friends convinced me to whip them into shape via martial arts. So we’re in the park and I’m having everyone doing ab excersizes with their partner punching them twice in the core of the abs after every set of ten. Her friend, C, had spent the previous weekend and the following weekend partying/drinking herself into another galaxy and had now taken fifty shots to the gut. She found a little later that she was two months pregnant.

What an unbelievable set of circumstances.

39

Theres this girl in one of my classes,Donna, and She’s 15. She had a baby last year. I didn’t know this until I saw the outline of her stomach. I commented to my freind about how she looks like she’s pregnant, and he said "No, she already had her baby, she’s got “preggo-belly”. I think that sucks… I’ve been freindly with her, and I asked her about it, no nosily, but you know, “how are you doing”? Apparently she was raped, and her mother wouldn’t let her get an abortion. Her baby is now her “sister”. Really kinda sad… I feel really bad for her. I don’t think Kids should ever have kids… My mom had me when she was 18, and I know how hard it is having a young, single mom who’s only source of income is her job at the Bar.

40

I wonder, too, if part of this stems from expectations that we have of motherhood and how mothers are supposed to act. If you are old enough to be a mother, then you are too old for long hair, jeans, ponytails, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, sneakers, whatever. :rolleyes:

After I had my daughter, I avoided even going near a hair salon for a long, long time, because I heard horror stories from other women about how stylists would pressure and insist that new mothers wanted short hair because it was “easier to take care of.” My hair was pretty long, and I liked it, and had no trouble taking care of it. It eventually grew to waist length before I decided to donate it to Locks of Love last year. So, yeah, if you don’t look and act like someone’s picture of the typical mother or the ideal mother, especially when you are pregnant or have a newborn, you are somehow suspect in their eyes.