I read an article today about the drink Brandy Alexander. It has been, since about the 20’s considered a drink that causes babies.
Now that I think about it, if I have twins, I think that is what I’d name 'em.
Really, I’d probably respond with the tequila comment. It’s a funny way to deflect an answer you may not want to give.
My daughter was born 15 months ago, when asked “When are you going to have another one?” My response is “I dunno, are you offering?” Because the real reason I’m not pregnant yet, or comfortable being pregnant yet, is far beyond the scope of casual conversation and I realize that it is just a question, not an interrogation. I’m not so unkind to be able to lash out at someone who really means no harm.
But not everyone considers these questions intrusive. There are many strangers who are happy to talk in great detail about their fertility treatments or their adoption or their hernia operations or their sex lives. You don’t know if the person you are asking considers the question invasive until you ask. If they do, you apologize and move on.
You may be in the early stages of considering fertility treatment and your doctor may be a GP who is going to refer you to someone out of a hat (I love the referrals my GP gives me “lets see whose business card I’ve collected.”) You may want the name of an RE and the best place to get that may be from someone local who successfully conceived. You may not be comfortable with the internet - for some people the very anonimity of the situation makes it suspect - at least if I ask you in the grocery store, I see your face.
Yet if those same strangers are discussing these things loudly on a cell phone on the bus, we’re all offended. Might be a connection there.
Or you avoid the chance of offense by not bringing it up at all. Sure, you can apologize, but the horse is already out of the barn. Fertility is such an intensely personal and painful subject for many people that it seems too risky to broach if you don’t know whether you’ll offend.
Maybe, but some stranger doesn’t owe you that information, and it still seems presumptuous to me to go asking (especially in the case of the OP, when you’re making possibly unwarranted assumptions in the first place).
At best, I might be OK with a preliminary “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question about your babies?” rather than just blatting the nosy question right out.
I have a friend who is about 6 months pregnant with a baby who may not survive to term, and will not live more than a couple of hours after birth. She tells me that she’s at that stage of pregnancy where people look at her tummy, look at her face, look at her tummy again, in a way which means “Are you pregnant?” The expected response is “I’m due in January”–which then might lead into a casual (not too intrusive) discussion of whether she wants a boy or a girl, how her existing children will react . . .
But baby isn’t healthy, and she knows it, and doesn’t want to depress total strangers by dumping on them, and so she ignores the looks. She’s not yet pregnant enough for people to have started actually asking her when the baby is due, but she’s headed that way.
I find birth questions more personal than fertility.
It surprises me somewhat that fertility issues are so “personal” - I thought we were past the notion that being infertile is some kind of big “defect”, but apparently some people do feel that way.
It’s funny, though, b/c we just met FIL’s new girlfriend, and within a few hours she and I were talking about our pregnancies and birth experiences - just one of those things women do.
I get that people are sensitive to these questions, so I don’t actually ask them. But I still wonder why they feel that way. As Fessie said, the “personal defect” thing seems rather antiquated.
I will, however, ask if a pair of twins is fraternal or identical. I find the whole twin thing fascinating.
A surprising number of people ask me that too. Since the twins are a boy and a girl, I usually am too dumbfounded by this question to give a snappy retort.
That is far too close to the truth for me to ever use as an answer!
I’ve only had a couple people ask me if my twins were “natural.” The question I get far more often is, “Do twins run in your family?” and then I’m faced with deciding whether to tell this complete stranger that no, it was because I’m old. :smack: I’m not really offended by the question, but it is kind of personal and awkward.
It is stunning how little people (maybe just Americans) know, which might explain the reluctance to accept evolution. We were repeatedly asked that, and our girls don’t look much alike. For one thing, one has curly hair and one has straight. Their heads are shaped different, also. Finally one woman said, “But, I thought same sex twins had to be identical!” I understood. And she at least knew that identical twins have to be the same sex.
