Mom-to-be rebuffs looks, comments

Dear Miss Manners: I am 25 weeks pregnant with my first child. My husband and I are thrilled, and have made a decision not to find out the gender of our baby.

Since I started showing in the last few weeks, I’ve noticed how people think they have free rein to make comments on my body and appearance.

I know most of these comments are innocent and mean no harm.

Most comments allude to these people trying to guess the gender of our baby. I even had two women look me up and down and then make their assessment out loud: “Your legs don’t look any bigger, so it must be a girl!”

Shouldn’t these women know better than to judge pregnant women’s bodies? Not only is it rude and something they probably wouldn’t say to someone who isn’t pregnant, but it really makes an impact when you’re already self-conscious about the way your changing body looks.

Is there a way to stave off these comments nicely? I don’t want to cause problems with a snarky comeback.

Gentle Reader: Snark is all in the delivery. Miss Manners asks you to remove it from your voice when you give these people the satisfaction of what they really want from you: a request for advice.

“Really? Did you find that the size of your legs were a credible predictor of your baby’s gender?”

Dear Miss Manners: On a recent flight, when a fairly large gentleman sat down next to me in the middle seat, I squashed myself as close to the window as I could. He spoke to me and, as I turned to face him with a smile, I was hit by a horrid cloud of his extremely bad breath.

I responded to his question and quickly turned my face back towards the window to find clear air. His breath was so bad I felt nauseous and did not want to embarrass myself by losing my in-flight pretzels. What to do in this situation?

Gentle Reader: Bury your head in a book and then politely say, “This plane air is so stale that I find myself in need of a mint. May I offer you one?”