Why is it that people believe it is an acceptable practice to rub the round bellies of pregnant women? In my irritation towards the strangers who accost and rub me, I googled "don't touch my pregnant belly". Some great stuff came up. This is my favorite:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/185648810.html
But I did not find a polite Miss Manners way of saying, "Keep your hands off me, or you are liable to loose them". I am not really that far along (20 weeks) and not really that big, either; I've got months of this left in store. And I'm feeling much too full of ire to submit to the pawing of strangers. Friends only, please. Have any of you had this problem? How did you solve it?
8 comments:
Here are two takes on it...
http://tinyurl.com/6gb3gs
And another one, which had multiple unrelated questions in the article, so I felt it best to present the limited bit here.
Dear Prudie,
I am thrilled to be expecting my first child and have just started to really show. I have been fortunate to not have experienced any morning sickness, but have developed a slightly irritable personality for the first time in my life. I can rein it in most of the time. However, I face one increasingly recurring problem that causes me to be instinctively rude almost immediately. I can't stand people, especially mere acquaintances, touching my stomach without invitation. The only person I like rubbing my belly is my sweet husband. I like people, just not having their hands all over me. I don't chop off fingers, but I do jump back and remove the offending hands and tell them not to touch. This results in aghast faces, but I think it's awful for people to assume they can touch a pregnant woman's belly at will and expect it to be welcome. As I still have months to go, I just need some suggestions on how to politely tell people that I am not the Pillsbury Doughgirl. Also, can I get a plug in here for a public service announcement letting people know that they should always ask before reaching for a pregnant belly?
—Hands Off, Please
Dear Hands,
Here's your announcement, and of course, no one should be touched if they don't want to be. Having said that, I have a big but about big bellies. Seeing a woman bursting with new life is so lovely that it can be an almost uncontrollable impulse to pat her belly. I remember feeling really warm toward the (almost exclusively) female hands that reached out to touch my growing baby. The touch was always accompanied by good wishes or another woman's memory of her own pregnancy. Can you try to think of these well-meaning hands as a communion that's been going on since humans became human? When you remove a hand (and isn't it rare for the touch to last more than a moment?) as if it is a dead carp, you certainly get your message across. But if you could relax about this, you will find it is truly a self-limiting problem. In a few months your belly will be yours again. But you should prepare yourself for the time when everyone who patted your stomach is going to want to hold your irresistible baby.
—Prudie
Hi, this is your husband's cousin's wife, Kari. There is kind of a long line of relation, but it's there. I am the opposite of all of the pawing people...I even refuse invitations to touch people's stomachs. This girl at work, who I didn't even know very well, told me to feel her stomach, but I was like, "Uhhh that kinda freaks me out." What's with people that are down with strangers' bellies or down with strangers' hands on their bellies? Just know that I won't invade your bubble. Just wear a shirt that warns and threatens invaders.
Nope your on your own. I never had a problem. Maybee you have an invisible sign on your forehead reading, "Rub my belly". Good luck on that matter.
This is hilarious!...and I will make sure that I don't rub your belly!!!!!!!!
I personally don't have a problem, but frankly have never really been presented with the issue. I was just contemplating why: Westerners are a bit more reserved about boundries, I somehow always seem to place MY hands on my belly so that there is not room for other's to touch when I see them eyeing my large form, maybe I'm not a cute pregnant belly.
Advice: try covering the area with your own hands or at least staying out of arms reach so that it would really have to be a deliberate movement for someone to paw you.
And Mel, I need your address now so I can send some blue your way, I am getting pretty expert with the boy prep, although I must admit I had way more fun with girl stuff, boy just kinda seems to blend, but that may because it is the second.
I never got you the bread recipe. Visit my blog at thesixgardners.blogspot I have the recipe posted under April 2 "Confessions".
I added you to my blogger friends. Hope that's okay.
Hi Melanie! I have a coworker with this SAME problem. Random people on the Subways are always touching her belly. Even Martha, whom you would think had all the manners you could ever want walked by her in the hall, wacked her belly a few times pretty hard, and said, "When is that thing due?" Wow. I don't think you can escape it. My friend Linsey just had a baby and said only homeless people on the subways really take interest in it.
Also, I never replied about this, but Seth Nielson is in my ward in NYC. That is how I know him. He is really good friends with my roommate.
My favorite is when people touch the belly and say "OH! I felt the baby move!" when I know that the baby did not move, because he is in me and I can feel every movement. That always brightens my day! To get people to stop touching my belly, I cross my arms and just look crusty around strangers. It keeps people from approaching. I've been going swimming a lot lately due to heat and discomfort on land and now my problem is kids staring at my protruding and dancing belly, because I wear a bikini for the fact that I live in Texas, don't care, and nothing covers my belly anyway! It's awesome! (and probably frightening to the children!)
Post a Comment