ok, have had a bad couple of days with kids asking awkward questions, and i just want some feedback about how others have dealt with the same sort of questions.
yesterday, DH and I took our niece and nephew shopping with us. Nothing out of the ordinary there. have been taking provera three times a day, and forgot to take them before we left yesterday morning, so grabbed a couple to chuck in my bag. DH popped them out of the packet and i took them while i was driving - i didn't think my niece had noticed. after lunch i again had to take meds (metformin and the provera) - again, just took them while we were walking around, so not particulalry noticable. anyway, my little niece is 6 - and she asked me if i was very sick. i asked why and she said "people take tablets when they're sick, and you have had to take lots of tablets today - is there something wrong? are you sick?" - i was floored - i didn't know how to answer - i didn't want to tell her nothing was wrong - she'd then wonder why i was taking so many pills for no reason - and i didn't want to tell her it was about AC - that's too much for a kid to understand! Anyway - ended up telling her that there was something a little bit wrong in my tummy and i had to take the tablets to help it - thankfully it was enough! she's a very sensitive little girl that had lost a great uncle due to illness and a cousin in an accident in the past week as well as her dad being on the other side of the coutry for the past couple of weeks - so the last thing i wanted was for her to be worrying that there was something wrong!
Today - DH's nieces came out for lunch - things were pretty good until they were getting ready to leave then the younger niece (6) asked "aunty BG, do you have any children?" - i just looked at her - and her sister answered for me "of course they don't, or there would be a kids bedroom and there would be kids here." ok, question one averted. given another minute to think about things, questions two comes out - and again i was floored "don't you like kids?" - i answered that of course i liked kids - and asked if there was something i'd done to make her think i didn't - her answer "no, but if you like kids, you should just have kids - that's what married people do."
in isolation, these questions are pretty inconsequential, but they've been bugging me - and i was wondering if anyone else had encountered similar and how they'd reacted - with adults it's easy - if they know about the LTTTC/AC thing, they don't really ask - if they don't, i just tell them we're having lots of fun practicing, and it will happen when it happens - you can't really say that to a kid!
Fortunately, I haven't had that sort of question come from our niece or nephews. I'm glad you posted this as it at least gives me a chance to prepare myself for the possibility and prepare a response - not that I'm ever any good at delivering said response when under pressure.
Perhaps you could tell them that you enjoy being their aunty so much and having your own children would give you less time to be aunty BG, and you don't think they'd like that... but that creates problems when you do get pregnant "are you sick of being my aunt now?"
Being a teacher I do some times have to face the questions of "do you have kids, Mrs BW?", which is always followed by "why not?" or "don't you like kids?". Depends on how I'm feeling on the day as to how I'll respond - can be anything from getting snappy and sending them back to work without an answer (don't like doing that, but on the bad days, it's all I can do), or laughing it off with a comment along the lines of "I spend all day here at school with you lot, why would I want to go home and spend even more time with kids?". Sometimes I'll have another student in the class say something like that and I'll just laugh and agree. I do work with much older kids, though, so it's easier to laugh things off and not being related to them, I can do that. I have noticed this year that they are much more reserved about those questions - last year we had a staff member lose two babies, her students knew, and they know that's why she's not working here this year, so they do seem a little more subdued this year.
Dealing with kids questions when TTC/AC
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