We were letting the kids have a play on the weekend in a playground and another couple walked over with their kids. General hellos and smiles. The man asked how old our kids were and told us how old his were. At that point, I took DD2 away for a sleep leaving DH with DD1 and the other family.
As soon as I left, the woman asked DH how our girls were born.
Do you think that's odd? They started to chat afterwards about other things but it seemed a bit weird to DH and I that the very first question was that. Why does it matter really to strangers?
What have you been asked about parenting and birth that you find a bit strange?
It is a little odd, but sometimes people do ask things because they are looking for some information to help their own situation. I have found that the odd questions I have had (well those that are odd as the first ever question) tend to be from non-native English speakers - partly because their language is more direct than ours (English has a lot of 'fluff' in it) and partly because their English is not so good and they need to just get to the point.
E.g. In the library for bedtime storytime - we arrive say hello to the various people there, one lady says to me (first thing after hello) - "Do you work?" "What type of job?" - I was a little taken aback, but she was an Indian lady who was looking for work. I wasn't able to help much although we happened to be in the same type of industry as the job market is shrinking due to jobs all being moved to India!
So I do think that sometimes people ask not because how you did it matters to them, but because people learn from other peoples experiences - maybe they were after information because new in the area and interested in finding out more about what was available.
I suppose I also come at this from being someone who has come to Australia and didn't really know somethings about how different things work over here, and I have probably asked some odd questions, and maybe some people found a bit personal - although because I am an English speaker I probably 'fluffed' the language up a bit and didn't blurt it out as first question.
Strange questions you've been asked.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks