Put a Hat on That Belly

For anyone who has never before had to deal with random strangers walking up and telling you what they think about your eating habits, fitness level, or choice of outfit, pregnancy is a wake-up call. The headline for this week's Time Ideas essay by 38-year-old new mom and Time's editorial director for health, Siobhan O'Connor, says it all: "When You're Pregnant, Everyone is Suddenly an 'Expert' on Your Health." If you've ever been pregnant, or stood within earshot of anyone who has been, you don't need convincing about the truth of that statement.

Pregnancy seems to give people you've never met (and some you have) license to ask you totally inappropriate personal questions, or make comments about what you should or shouldn't be doing—or just shoot dirty looks at your espresso. 

Another wake-up call: This doesn't just happen during pregnancy. Don't get my husband started about the number of people who've stopped us on the sidewalk to point out that one of our kids was missing a sock. Because when they were infants, both of our toddlers always kicked their socks off in the stroller—but now here I go explaining and apologizing. And you, dear reader, weren't even asking! The "put a hat on that baby" cliché is alive and kicking (pardon the cliché).

O'Connor's essay is on-point, and also gracious. She writes: "I appreciate that, as a society, we can mostly agree that harming a child is among the worst things you can do. I suspect that that's part of what undergirds the casual judgment of pregnant women, the same way it undergirds the casual judgment of moms. But that doesn't make it any less paternalistic, and it doesn't mean the judgments are based on facts."

Exactly: The comments may have a protective instinct at their core (if we give them the benefit of the doubt), but they're ultimately condescending to women. And it doesn't matter if some of us have earned what we hope is a smidgen of wisdom, dammit, from our over-35 years on earth. 

Another gracious point in O'Connor's essay: That a healthy pregnancy is a gift, and if anything goes wrong, the guilt that women face can be unbearable, even though there is nothing they could have done that would have made a difference. Those comments from well-meaning, or not-so-well-meaning strangers aren't just annoying. They can cause much more damage than they're setting out to prevent. Taking nominations for T-shirts we can wear that tell people, politely and gently, to back the F up!