Friday, July 02, 2010

Shut your pie-hole

Dear Perky Young Thing sitting beside me at the hairdresser,

I understand (from the sounds of things) that you're probably blissfully unaware that not every single person can sneeze and get pregnant. And stay pregnant. And birth a live baby. I understand that you're pleased that you were able to have one child and, now, get pregnant with a second one while you're still young. I understand that in a perfect world this makes a lot of sense. You have energy, health and youth on your side.

I get that. I do. And the part of me that didn't want to jam a curling iron in your great gaping pie-hole is happy for you - happy that you get to be young and pregnant and blissfully unaware.

But the crusty, broken-down, 40-year old whose uterus has left a bloody path of destruction in its wake would like to respectfully tell you to keep your opinions about "old mothers" to yourself. She might patiently bite her bottom lip whilst you wax poetic about the joys of being a young mother, but she will come this close to beating you about the head with a full conditioner bottle when you effortlessly slide into an ugly conversation about how terrible it is that Kelly Preston is pregnant at 47.

Honestly, Perky Young Thing, you were dangerously close to getting a new one ripped for you. You are clearly unaware of how horribly insensitive your comments were, and how inappropriate it is to sit there on your pregnant pedestal judging older mothers with such open scorn and smugness oozing from your lips when you have no idea who is in earshot - or what struggles they might have endured to bring a child home. Or not, as the case may be.

My God, Perky Young Thing, what if I'd been pregnant??

You were saved by the hairdryer which finally drowned out your incessant prosthelytizing (which, in case you hadn't noticed, even your own hairdresser wasn't buying into. I should have tipped her too.).

One of the reasons we decided to stop trying was because we are now both in our 40s. After all we've been through we knew, at a certain point, that we simply didn't have the energy to continue and risk facing any additional hardships or loss.

We have become old before our time, Perky Young Thing. But it was OUR choice to make this incredibly difficult and personal decision based on what we've been through, and I will defend to my death every "old mother's" right to decide when she is finished adding to her family.

Now quit your yapping, keep your eyes on your own uterus - and, by the way, stop getting your hair dyed while you're pregnant.

Regards,
The barren, ferocious hag to your right

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I help you beat her? Please?

loribeth said...

You take the curling iron, I'll take the blowdryer. Sheesh. :p People are idiots.

Mrs. Spit said...

I'm with Beth and Loribeth.

I'd like to shove a straightening iron somewhere. . .

Illanare said...

I'm with you all. What an idiot.

Hennifer said...

I think I would have had to let "something" slip. I'm sorry for the experience. I about spit the water out at the hairdying!

Valerie said...

Haha, loved this! I too have felt inclined to beat people up at times.

Like the time when someone told me that her colleague had planned her pregnancy so that the birth would coincide with the slack time of year at her workplace. OK, so it happened on cue. Good for her, I wanted to say, but that doesn't mean she's in control of her life. She just doesn't know that yet.

erica said...

The very clueless seem to so often be the very judgemental. I would have helped hold her down for you and handed you the curling iron. Or slipped her stylist a bit extra to turn her hair extra brassy.

mumstheword said...

Well said!
Too many Perky Young Things with these narrow attitudes... oh they have SO much to learn!

Sherry said...

Seriously, how in the world did you exercise any restraint? I would've been less tactful and given her an education she wouldn't have soon forgotten.