How can I get people to stop asking super intimate questions about my body during pregnancy?
My 5-month-old baby girl is great! She loves to eat, and she loves to sleep—you can’t ask for more than that!
My problem is that other new parents will always ask about said eating and sleeping, looking to commiserate because they’re having problems … and I’ve just got nothing. I’ve worked on making my answers sympathetic and commiserating without really explicitly talking about my baby. Still, very often they ask direct and demanding questions like “How much did she sleep last night?” and “Did you deal with enormous pain and scabbing when you first started breastfeeding?” .
How can I better deal with this? Is avoiding this type of friendship the answer? The absolute last thing I want to do is make other parents feel guilty, so should I refuse to answer if they ask such direct and negative questions? But how do you do that gracefully?It’s always tricky dealing with someone who needs to commiserate about XYZ when XYZ hasn’t given you the same level of trouble, and few people seem to be as triggered when this happens as parents who’ve come across someone having an...
Surely there is something that has caused you some grief or stress about new parenthood—perhaps the loss of certain activities or a particular sensitivity to the smell of a dirty diaper? Lean into it and complain as if it’s a more challenging matter than it actually is. Or just be dishonest and pretend that you’ve had some of the same experiences that these parents want to gripe about. Why? Because misery loves company, and that’s all these friends want from you right now.
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