Quatromom, I think not!

I’m no shrinking violet but I like to think my mama raised me right. While she never outright said the phrase, “It is not appropriate to ask strangers personal questions”, I learned by her example that there are just some things you don’t ask about in mixed company. I thought everyone knew this. After the birth of my twins, I learned otherwise.

It was as if my twin pregnancy emitted pheromones that attracted total strangers that felt compelled to ask inappropriate questions or make inappropriate comments. They would look at my pregnant belly, and then left to right at my two older kids and ask these three questions

- “Did you do IVF or something?”
- “Was it an accident?”
- “Are you freaking out?”

I don’t know if it was hormones, but I always seemed to detect a thin layer of judgment in these questions that I just couldn’t put my finger on. I wasn’t going to ask these strangers to help with midnight feedings, change diapers, bath the babies or pay their college tuitions. Why the fascination? Why the need to ask me these questions? Why the need to freak me out even more than I was freaking out and then ask me to own to it?

I just read an article in Time Magazine’s May 18th issue called The Breedy Bunch. How cable’s megafamily reality shows captivate parents and push our social buttons. Basically, the article says that the shift to smaller families in the U.S. makes families like mine (with more than 3+ kids - - ooooh, so shocking) a novelty so the idea of seeing families of 8 or 14 or 18, in the case of the new TLC show called 18 Kids, a complete and total train wreck that cannot be missed. He goes on to say that “These shows offer drama, cute kids and sweet, sweet judgment.” Can’t we leave judgment to our friends on American Idol?

What the article also smartly points out (big ups to James Poniewozik) is that “It takes a village to raise a child, they say. But how many of us have the guts to raise a village?”

So, enough with the annoying questions and shocked looks (Wow, I may still have some post-pregnancy hormones coursing through me.)! I take responsibility for my mid-sized village, the good, bad and the ugly, and no, I am not freaking out, at least most of the time.