People’s smug reactions don’t help with tough pregnancy

Adapted from an online discussion. Dear Carolyn: I’m unexpectedly pregnant less than a year after having our first. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this and am working through them in therapy. As we share the news, I am shocked by how rude people are. Lots of smugness about how they “knew I’d want to have another” (I had a miserable first pregnancy, this wasn’t planned) and plenty of horror about how tough the next few years will be (I know).

I’m just struggling so much with putting on a happy face about something that has left me in tears almost every day, when the people I thought were our closest family and friends are being such glassbowls. I wish I could come up with a response in the moment to get across how rude and hurtful they’re being, but I don’t have the energy.

Do you have any wisdom? Please tell me it gets easier to let the comments roll off my back.

– Help Me Become a Duck

Help Me Become a Duck: Why why why does a pregnancy announcement turn people into jerks? Even when people mean well. I’m guilty myself of some instantly regretted classics.

So, I’m sorry.

I hope no one is pressuring you to put on a happy face, not even you. Choosing to carry the pregnancy to term didn’t obligate you to transform instantaneously into a joyous and unconflicted vessel. You made a complex moral decision. Now take, without apology, all the months nature grants you to settle into that decision and its implications.

As for a response to all the conversational bricks everyone’s dropping, I will offer a start for others to workshop below. The one requirement is that it be quick: Wordy explanations sound defensive no matter how apt their content might be. So ... my idea:

To those you trust most to handle it (i.e., not necessarily your closest people), share your frustration. Unburden. To everyone else, say, “Thank you”– that’s it. For everything. If the comments are kind, then it’s appropriate. If the comments are smug/nosy/rude, then, “Thank you!” is a very polite and pointed, “Erf you.”

Have at it, my friends.

And to the would-be duck, be kind to and patient with yourself. You will figure this out at your pace, not everyone else’s. Readers’ thoughts: h CONGRATS MAMA! Of course you have mixed feelings. You deserve nothing less than kindness and support. Please know this internet Auntie is rooting for you, and side-eyeing all those others who can’t find it within themselves to be polite the one time it really matters. Take care of you.

h Reading these chats and your columns continually reminds me that pregnancy isn’t always undiluted excitement and joy for the parents-to-be. Thank you for that.

So, in an effort to be mindful of that, my response when someone announces a pregnancy is now, “Wow! That’s huge news! How are you feeling?” ... and then take my cue from the response. I listen if they go into detail, or go with a change of subject if they choose that. I can only hope they take my response in the judgment-free way I mean it.

Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com.