Written by Kirstin Stokes Smith | Judging by the title of this article, you know where this is going (so buckle up!). Let’s cut the introductions and get straight to the point. Not every mom chooses to have more than one child. I’m a mom of a singleton and I couldn’t be happier about it. The comment I hear the most, and dislike the most too, is the first on my list of things to never say to a mom:
1. “Are you trying for another one?”
After they meet my boy, a variation of this is, “Is it just the one child for you then?” (I’m always tempted to respond, “Yes, I didn’t want to be greedy,” or “I wanted to save some for other mommies.”)
Some of us gain lots of weight during our pregnancies. I gained over 40 lbs with my son, 18 of which I lost after I had the baby. The rest was all me. I was one of the lucky mommies whose “baby weight” slipped away from breastfeeding, but it didn’t happen overnight. I was reminded of the compliment I disliked most when I read Babbble.com’s article about mommy etiquette:
2. “That top is so flattering on you… It really draws the attention to your eyes.”
… And away from the rolls on my waist, right?
One of the smartest articles on new mommy-dom I’ve read is Erin Zammett Ruddy’s “The Worst Things You Can Say to a Woman Who Just Had a Baby.” I wish I’d read it 12 years ago (or, that she’d written it back then). Zammett Ruddy hits hard straight out of the gates when she talks about the (seemingly) pathological need people have to instruct new mothers to:
3. “Enjoy every second of motherhood!”
Zammett Ruddy says she recently responded to this exact comment on a friend’s Facebook page by writing, “Some seconds (or even minutes or hours) can really suck. But it does get better!” Wise words.
One of my favorite lists of things not to say to moms is Amy Shearn’s “Stay-at-Home Moms: What You Should Never Say to Them.” As a Stay-at-Home MOM (SAHM), I’ve heard nearly every statement on her list, but my favorite (and the one I hear most often) is:
4. “It’s great that you can afford to be at home.”
I’m not going to lie, it has been great to be at home with my boy and I’m 100 percent pleased with my decision to leave my career to raise my boy without the interruption and the thrall of the office. As Shearn aptly points out, “You don’t know why or how other people deal with a one-income-life… Sometimes it means the…budget will be adjusted (read: squeezed) accordingly.”
So it was the little things we cut from our budget. For example, I gave up my newspaper subscriptions (thank goodness for online news!) and my season tickets to the ballet to make ends meet. I’ve only recently joined the paid workforce in a big way, and now that we have a bit more disposable income, I’m looking forward to joining my working mommy friends on their Girls’ Weekend trips!
Last, but not least:
5. “You’re such a MOM!”
Thanks? I think? I’m never sure if it’s a compliment, an insult, or a backhanded compliment – my favorite kind. Whenever I hear it though, it reminds me of the night my sister was sleeping over and we were laughing and talking into the wee hours, keeping my husband awake. When he came out of the bedroom to tell us how late it was (and how loud we were being), my sister said to him, “Oh Dan…you’re like the dad at the sleepover!” The three of us laughed about the comment the next day and we’ve continued to laugh about it for years since (my husband, a dean at a university, occasionally refers to himself as “the dad at the sleepover” among his colleagues and the faculty!).
Whether you’re ‘such a mom’ or a ‘dad at a sleepover’, you’re the grownup. You’re in charge, and people depend on you. There’s something satisfying about that, and, say what you will, I wouldn’t have it any other way.