Eh, Maybe I'm Feeling Inspired.

Okay. So I've been wanting to ask this question to the masses (well, all 18 of you) for a VERY long time now. About 3 months.

After spending an UNREASONABLE amount of hours reading my latest obsession, I am feeling a renewed burst of brutal honesty coming on. So here it goes:

I’m just wondering…. Is there an age when people quit asking you questions like, “Were you on birth control?” and "Is this baby an accident?" when they find out you are pregnant? I am just wondering because I started so young that questions like that were almost expected… I was seventeen years old when I first got pregnant, and I knew that was going to be everyone’s first question (and let's face it, no one feels they need a filter when speaking to a knocked-up 17-year-old). I wasn’t offended by it, just mildly uncomfortable.

Now, I am twenty-four years old, having my third baby, within a 4-year marriage. Why am I still being asked this question? I find it irreverent and rude, not to mention completely unnecessary.

What are they doing, trying to narrow down the list of available birth control options they are willing to try? Is it something like, if I say, “Yes, I was on birth control,” they are going to say, “What kind? I’d like to avoid it in the future”? I can’t see any other reason for asking that question!

Maybe it is just out of habit. Like, “How are you?” is always followed by “fine” or “good,” even when you are spiraling down into the depths of despair. Maybe I have given them so much opportunity when I was young and single to say whatever they want to me (because everyone knows the laws of manners and etiquette when speaking to someone don’t apply to people under 21) that they just simply can’t let the dialogue change.

The person who most recently asked me this question (but don’t be fooled into thinking she was the only one) is my age, and also had children young. She has two of her own. Perhaps she is used to the dialogue because that’s what everyone has said to her, and she doesn’t know what else to say about my having three children at age twenty-five. I don’t blame her for this, and I don’t resent that she asked me…

I am just wondering if at some point you reach an age or stage in life when people stop asking inappropriately personal questions about the circumstances of your child’s conception. Or perhaps it's a social status thing. Maybe you have to be a certain type of person to avoid these kinds of intrusions into your personal life.

Or has our society just evolved into this place where everyone can say or ask anything they want without running the risk of having to feel any guilt or embarrassment over it? Probably.

For some reason getting pregnant again (true with my second and my third babies) also opens the flood gates for people to say other offensive things to me. Like asking the same question about my OTHER two babies. "Was _____ an accident?" (Let me warn you now - if you ever refer to any of my children as an "accident," you and I will have unpleasant words.) Or, "I thought you should give Josh up for adoption because you were SO young and so obviously not ready for a baby..." This statement is usually followed up by something that is supposed to pad their comment... something like, "But you're such a great mom now!" As if I'm going to want to punch you any less for thinking I wasn't good enough for my son (and telling me to my face about it 6 years later) because you said I'm good enough for him now.

I'm just wondering... does everyone receive this kind of disregard for etiquette, or is it just the ones who committed teenage pregnancy crimes?