Most "Say What?! Wednesday" posts are about cute / funny / incredible things our kiddos have said. I have a ton of those these days...but I'm going to share a couple of the crazier things that have been said to me lately...
My guess is that most parents of multiples experience some pretty random comments on a weekly basis. I personally have gotten a lot of "What did you name them?" questions lately. I can only imagine that folks are sorely disappointed to not hear a Bonnie / Connie-type rhyming duo.
***
I thought I'd heard them all, until we had a gentleman in the house a couple of weeks ago, installing some new shades. He saw the girls in the den and asked if they were twins. Then he followed it up with, "Are they adopted?"
Wha???
I cannot begin to ever imagine asking that of someone! I was stunned!!! And then I had to fumble for an answer..."No, I gave birth to them two and a half years ago," I managed to say. How bizarre!!!
***
I was on the phone yesterday, answering a series of questions, one of which was my occupation. "I stay at home with my children."
"Oh, so you're a housewife," the woman rephrased for me.
Not usually at a loss for words, I was again taken aback. Does that sound a little 1950-esque to anyone else???
[And then I looked around for a hidden camera...perhaps she somehow saw me vacuuming in my pearls and heels...]
"That's a rather outdated term," I told the lady (who surely really cared about my feelings).
What is the going term these days?
***
Ah, well...at least I can count on the comments of random strangers for some random entertainment!
Ticker
16 comments:
Oh wow. Seriously, the things people say. Why in the world would that guy think your girls are adopted? Plus, what would it matter if they were? The craziest thing anyone has ever said to me was when the girls were about 6 months old and I was at Lowes looking for deck stain. The guy helping me asked, "did you pop those two out or did you have a c-section?" I have never been so shocked!
Oh my! That's a very bold conclusion to draw!
Maybe he thought you were too thin to have bore them yourself? :) Who knows?! Maybe that's why he installs blinds, rather than sell them. The whole lacking people skills thing....
As for the lady on the phone. She's just jealous that she has to come to work and speak on the phone all day, rather than stay home with her lovies.
I believe work-at-home-mom is the term used now :)
Here from 123 Blog!
It never ceases to amaze me the things people say!
I also have twin girls, and at 13 months you'd think that I would let the stupid stuff people say kind of roll off my back, but I don't. I found myself fuming at a lady last week who casually pointed at my girls and said, "double trouble". And when people remark at how different my girls look, I want to smack them upside the head and explain the whole fraternal twin, two eggs + two sperm scenerio and ask them where they were on that day of biology in high school. But usually, I just politely smile. :)
I'm also kind of amazed by the SHOCK and AWE reactions of twins. Seriously, twins are not rare these days, at all! I'm going to the doctor this morning with them, which requires me to wheel them with the double stroller through about 5 waiting rooms (just the way the doctor's is set up). Betcha I get at least 4 people exclaim, "twins!".
:)
The things people come up with... I think for the most part people have good intentions and don't realize how bizarre their questions are (except of course for the woman who asked me if I was the grandma!!!) As for the housewife comment... I thought the term was stay-at-home mom. Someone asked me once if I was a housewife and I said something along the lines of "No, my husband does some of the work, too."
You are a domestic goddess! Housewife... hmmph!
When my twins were two weeks old and within ounces of each other, I had someone ask me how far apart in age they were. For some reason she didn't GET that they were twins so she looked stunned when my husband said, "Four minutes!"
Yes I need a definition for myself. My cousin calls me a DHP (Domestic House Person). I don't like the terms unemployed, housewife, SAHM, or freeload which my nephew referred to me as! The audacity of people!
As for a quick response, I usually mutter "Are you rude?" Seriously, people have no filters! What would it matter? How you stay so reserved is beyond me!
I'm a stay at home mom. A housewife (to me) implies a wife who stays home and doesn't have kids. Very fifties... I agree.
And the adopted thing is CRAZY. Your kids look like you! I could perhaps understand wondering (silently) if the girls were a different race or looked more like their father. Or if one was blond and the other dark haired. But even then, most kids look more like one parent than the other. I would never assume that ANY child were adopted, nor would any normal person ASK aloud. What if someone hadn't told their child they were adopted yet?! How crappy to find out from some stranger in the grocery store.
I cal myself "retired."
(Ha. As if.)
Best question I ever got when I was out with the kids: "So, what did mom do to get the day off?"
@James, that person is RUDE!
Mandy, I don't know - that man clearly has NO filters and is he crazy?!
As for housewife, I think a lot of SA'ns still call themselves that. I could be wrong. first of all it's VERY unusual to have SAHMs here, only really for very well off people.
I think Cat reads your blog? She can correct me...
Some people! I mean really?!?!
Housewife...ya, I'll take Domestic Diva anyday!
I think the proper title is "domestic goddess." You can get business cards. :)
People say crazy things. I think I got used to it after the 34th person asked me if my boy/girl twins were identical. lol
I've always thought the term housewife sounded odd, even before I began staying at home with my kids. I married my husband, not my house. Raising my children, not cleaning my house, is my job (and a much more challenging one than my corporate one at that). I find the term outdated also, and I don't care for it when people "correct me" when I fail to call myself that. I noticed that term on a form a few weeks ago and thought, really??
As for the adoption comment, that guy must have been blind in addition to being rude. Crazy.
OH you just crack me up!!!! Hhhhmmmm... "housewife"?????? I kinda like "Domestic Goddess" myself!!
Are they adopted? huh? so weird!! SOmeone recently asked me what we named our twins and wondered if they were rhyming or matching or something. ha!
People definitely say the weirdest things sometimes, and ask the most inappropriate questions too!
I'm not a fan of housewife, either. Domestic goddess sounds good to me! :o)
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