I was collecting my 10 year old daughter from school and one
of the moms from our class caught up with me. She was friendly and we chit
chatted about the renovations that were about to begin on her home over the weekend.
I listened while she explained how annoyed her husband would be when he
realized she wasn’t going to stop in just one room as he thought. That’s what
he gets for working weekends! And she confided her new color scheme for the
entire house was unbeknownst to him as well. Simple pass the time sort of talk,
the kind you’d expect from some of the moms you don’t know very well on the
daily school run.
As we walked out with our children and their friends she
struck up a new conversation specifically about my daughter. She began by
complementing me on how interesting she was. That she was always very
respectful to adults and very confident when she spoke to them. She seemed to
have something to say and it appeared she was trying to find the words to say it.
She must spend a lot of time with adults, she continued, ‘It must be because
she’s an only child.’
And there it was, the classic only child back-handed jab! I
should have seen it coming. I should have known which direction she was driving
our conversation but I was distracted by mystical tales of her busy life with
two kids including some upcoming deceit involving fifty shades of beige.
It wasn’t the first time someone I didn’t know very well or
at all found it appropriate to inquire why my daughter was an ‘only child’ but
hidden behind casual curiosity always is wanting to know why it was we had just
one.
It also wasn’t the first time that once the topic was
broached how quickly the mother/father/old lady on the street would dive head
first into my reproductive history. I’ve had people on line at supermarkets ask
out loud if I’d yet tried IVF.
Only one? (LOOK OF PITY) … Wow that must be he hard on her?
…No one to play with? … No brother or sister? …Gosh.
And when I answer, actually no it’s okay she’s a pretty
happy kid, plenty of interests, lots of cousins, friends but thanks for asking.
Some talk over me to my daughter asking her would she like a baby sister. You’d
be a great big sister wouldn’t you? Others ignore my answer completely to
finish their horror story of a friend of a friend with cervical cancer… and an
older woman actually Tsk Tsk’d me, complete with waggy index finger, after my
very nice and accommodating response to her very rude and inappropriate
questions.
One time I tried answering a particular nosy question with
honesty. I told her about the six miscarriages I’d had but it was okay now and
actually we felt lucky to have a child.
That was a little too much reality for the grey-haired woman at Super
Quinn at 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon who had just asked me why we hadn’t yet
considered fostering if –(and let me remember exactly.. ) if my uterus was now
barren. She nodded and smiled an awkward smile and slowly turned back towards
the teller obviously finding miscarriage a much more inappropriate topic than
barren uteruses.
Stranger’s comments are one thing but it’s always a surprise
when it comes from a friend. Someone I thought was a good pal once said when I
saw her on the street and she was obviously pregnant with her second child that
she hadn’t told me she was pregnant because she was worried I’d be unhappy for
her because I only had one. She laughed it off as a put-on told me she was
‘only kidding’ so I awkwardly congratulated her, looking hard for the humor in
her joke.
Then there are those who tell us how lucky we are that we
have an only child while they coo at the thought of the serenity of our life
compared to theirs. How it must be so less frantic for you? As if being ‘busy’ is singly related to how
many kids you have, as if a lot of the ‘busy’ we build around ourselves isn’t a
small bit conjured up to fill the time. I usually say something simple like,
Well, I don’t know, we are pretty busy. The response is always incredulous, but
you only have one kid!
Recently I’ve come to notice two and three child families
have become the new large family of our economic times. Growing up in the 70’s
with five kids in my family we always used to say those families were small.
Now they refer to themselves as the ‘gang’ or the ‘tribe’ or some other
uncontrollable mob when they show up to a BBQ or a holiday event. It’s funny
when I think of our neighbors back home who had 16 kids. Our family of five
mustn’t have looked very busy to them either.
What it comes down to is this. I would never ask someone at
a mall waiting for pizza with two small boys at their side; you must be
devastated you never had a girl? Or someone on line at the butcher’s with a
little girl and a boy; too bad your son doesn’t have a brother to play with. I
also couldn’t imagine waiting for a 99 at the ice cream truck and pointing out
to a total stranger with a single child in a backpack; I would begin to
consider adoption if I were you.
It’s been ten years, so now when hit with a probing and
unsolicited comment about our daughter being disadvantaged in some way for
being an ‘only child’ we’ve grown a thick skin and usually find something funny
about it—or at least about the person saying it. But there is always someone
who might feel sorry for her. To them I would say, please don’t. She’s a pretty
happy kid.
And now that you asked, you can leave off the ‘only’ next
time.
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