It occurred to me last night that I have become one of those people....the patronizing kind.
It started with turkey talk at my MIL's house. I was sitting at the dining room table with J, DPB, BB, B and M---D's uncle, cousin, cousin-in-law, cousin and brother-in-law. We started talking about cooking the Thanksgiving meal and prepping the turkey. Now I have never prepared a turkey in my life and don't really have a desire to. DPB made the comment about how gross it would be to jam one's hand up a turkey's rear to pull out all the innards. This is when I made the comment to DPB, who is young and a newlywed with no kids, that, "Once you have kids, that won't be so gross."
And this statement is more or less true. Lots of things go out the window when you have kids. Like modesty. Once you've had a baby and had the whole hospital check on your ya-ya and squeeze your nipples to help you breastfeed, you aren't quite as body shy. Then when you have a toddler as your audience in the bathroom every time you have a bowel movement, you lose shyness about that too.
And your gross tolerance goes waaaayy up. My hypochondriac tendencies throughout my life made me squeamish about all sorts of body fluids, including my own. Until I had kids. I have been peed on, shat on, thrown up on, snotted on, and bled on. Sticking my hand up a turkey's rear, particularly a dead one, is not such a big deal.
BUT, I still always hated it when people said things like this to me before I had kids. Like I lived in a bubble. Like I was just a baby myself who didn't know crap about crap.
So when it occurred to me last night that I had said this and probably come off like a jerk, I felt badly. It's like realizing you are turning into your mother. You don't want it to happen, but you kinda can't help it.
1 comment:
Oh, I so relate to this. So much I am cringing. I always hated it when I had just one child and people used to insinuate that I wasn't a real parent because I only had the one. Now I TOTALLY feel that way about people with one kid...and occasionally let it slip. I always feel bad afterward.
However, Jeff is truly horrible about making fun of people who complain about their one or two children...and he doesn't feel bad about it at all. He makes fun of us back then. And he acknowledges that everyone with 4 and 5 and more children is probably rolling their eyes at us. But at least they don't SAY anything...
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