Nothing nearly as outrageous or hurtful as the various idiotic and outright mean comments about biracial and adopted kids, but still occasionally jaw-dropping: The number of people who felt entirely comfortable observing that S2 (born when D was 13 and S1 was 10) “must have been a mistake” - or worse in a way, “an oopsie baby” or a “change of life” baby. Nope. (As it happens, D was the surprise, only in that we didn’t think we were quite ready to start yet.) In most cases we just laughed it off, but I had one acquaintance who really couldn’t let it go. Even when I was so tired of it that I looked her in the eyes and told her that I had lost a pregnancy not long before S2’s and we’d realized how much we did want another child - even then, she came back with something along the lines of well, that makes a nice story.
Much more amusing were the occasional times when D was pushing S2 in his stroller and got the side-eye from people who assumed she was his mom. We lived in a pretty small town then, so it really only happened in places where nobody had any idea who she was, like airports.
@college_query Yes with two curly girls we got asked if it was natural all the time when they were little. DH’s response was “No, I spent two hours on that this morning”. In truth we were lucky if we had chased them around the house with a pick and a spray bottle. But I know people just wanted to comment on it and that’s what came to mind.
DD’17 especially still gets comments as her hair is long, red, and curly like Merida’s. When people say they like her hair, she says, “Thanks, I grew it myself.” Or, to the guy who just said, “Your hair…it’s like…red. And curly” all you can do is say yes it is…
Not once, but twice, has someone said, astonished "OMG! You look just like that woman…Jane Goodall! (One was a young man working a fast-food drive-through, another, the child of a friend who hadn’t seen me since she was little). Which is odd, because, though I have her coloring and “outdoorsy” look I don’t have her bone structure at all! But I’m happy, so delighted to hear it, because as a child all I dreamed about was wanting to be Jane Goodall (and/or Margaret Meade). In the end, I did live within a day’s walk of a tiny primate reserve in Sierra Leone (Peace Corps) and spent many happy hours there.
In a condolence card after my father died: “we all think our parents are going to live forever but they don’t”. (Thank you, Captain Obvious). And shortly after we moved to our neighborhood one of the neighbors came over to introduce herself and she kept going on and on about how nice the woman who used to live in our house was and about all the nice things she did. I resisted the temptation to sneer and say “it’s a whole new ballgame now, lady.”
When D1 was a tween, she was holding her dad’s hand while walking in front of me with D2. We were all a bit dressed up because we were going to a party. A guy walked by, looked at them and said to her dad, “Nice.” (like you scored with a younger woman). I was going to smack the guy.
This thread is too much! Yikes!
My MIL once told me, after about 18 years of marriage to one of her sons, that she’d been worried she’d never grow to like me, so wasn’t it a surprise that I turned out to be her favorite.
Strange comment for a few reasons:
I hadn’t ever realized she wasn’t especially crazy about me (either she was a good actress or I’m a little dense – or both).
She said it quite pleasantly, like I’d be so delighted to hear that I was the favorite that I wouldn’t begrudge the first half of the statement.
And worst of all, my three SILs were in the room at the time! Only one heard it “live,” but it was discussed later.
Since MIL was usually pretty nice, we decided it was an aberration, likely a combination of advanced age and too much truth serum (aka Manhattans).
Well, if we’re going to get into things mothers and MILs have said . . . .
When I was in HS, I had a boy friend for three years. Nice fellow; we broke up at Thanksgiving of freshman year.
During our HS years, my sister got married, as did a cousin of his.
Years later, my mother told me that because of all the wedding talk, the BF and I had discussed eloping. When I told her that No, we never discussed it, she said, “Don’t lie to me, VeryHappy! I was there!”
Really, we never discussed it!! My mother had superior powers of projection.
So, I became pregnant with D while in grad school. H (not “H” at the time, though we were very committed) was finishing undergrad. We were both 23. Admittedly, not the smartest way to start out. But we did, and have done really well, with professional careers and two great adult kids, plus grandbaby.
All that being said, the number of people who asked me “Why aren’t you getting an abortion?” was jaw-dropping. (I’m pro-choice, by the way. But that’s what “choice” means!)
@college_query, @bjscheel, I have natural curls, and D was born with a full head of beautiful curls. (My DH’s hair is curly, too; it was a running joke that he’d divorce me if I ever gave birth to a kid with straight hair.) When she was a toddler, we were in a restroom somewhere when a stranger started screaming at me about how horrible I was to subject a child to getting her hair permed just so she could look like me.
Then when she was a little older (7 or so), the tattoo chokers were all the rage. She had one, and a stranger again came up to me and asked if it was a tattoo. I held my tongue but almost said, “yeah, lady, I tattooed my 7 year old because I’ve never seen a passing fad before.”
And now one that’s not about her - when I was in middle school, a classmate wouldn’t sit next to me on a bus for a field trip. She told the teacher that she couldn’t because I was damned to burn in eternal hell. I’m Jewish.
My MIL was sitting at my kitchen table at Christmas time, along with my mother, and some of my kids (probably late teens and early 20s at the time.) It was not a big family thing, just people sitting around visiting. When the subject of abortion came up, she said that if it had been legal in the '50s, she would have…DH is her only child. Um, yep, no surprise to me, but thanks MIL for showing the rest of the family who you really are 
S had terrible excema as a baby due to yet to be diagnosed food allergies. A woman ran up to us in a mall and asked me “What’s wrong with his face?”.
Another thing I’m asked quite often- are your eyes real? I have light blue eyes. I’ve been asked many times over the years if I was wearing colored contacts. Given my fair complexion and blonde hair it shouldn’t be a stretch to believe I also have blue eyes.
My parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe and we spoke their native language at home, but outside we spoke English. When I was in fifth grade, we moved to a new neighborhood. There was a girl my age who lived on the same block—she came over with her mother to say hello. We were in the yard and my mother was asking me to do something and she wasn’t speaking English. The newcomers walked into the yard—the mother spoke with a really loud voice—“Hello, hello. We are your neighbors. Do you understand? Do you speak English? You must speak English. What exactly are you?”
Who knows if that would happen today??? I did end up becoming friends with the girl down the street. We reconnected at our 45th high school reunion.
@Bromfield2 - Your post reminded me of a teacher I had in elementary school. I have a very ethnic sounding first name that was butchered by everyone. I vividly remember on the first day of school politely correcting her mispronunciation and her telling me that in this country, it was pronounced X. There were two “famous” celebs with the same name and everyone managed to pronounce their names correctly but from then on, she called me her “American” version of my name. It happened in like the 2nd grade and I’ll never forget it because then it stuck. The following year a friend starting who knew how much it bothered me, started calling me a nickname, and I’ve been that ever since.
When my son was a baby, we brought him into a store in the car seat. He had very curly hair. The woman at the counter remarked as to what a cute baby girl we had. We nicely said that he was a boy. She turned to my husband and said “Are you sure?”.
As to names, my DH’s last name is not difficult but is usually pronounced incorrectly. When my son was little he and DH had an argument about how to pronounce it because the teacher’s and friends all pronounced it incorrectly. Later, we were out with son’s GF’s family after graduation. The person reading the names to hand out diplomas had pronounced son’s last name correctly, but the GF’s mom very sincerely asked me if I was upset about the way it was pronounced and I was totally confused until I realized she had it totally wrong.
Minor in comparison to the nasty remarks some are subjected to, but somewhat amusing to us!
Other comments I’ve recalled:
When I was in 8th grade, a lady at church commented to my mom, in my presence, “Isn’t MLH pleasantly plump?” with a big smile on her face.
In 7th grade, my gym teacher told me, “You know, MLH, if you lost some weight, you would be able to do gymnastics better, like the other girls…”
One of my college profs was my dad’s colleague. At a university party, the guy told my mom, “MLH doesn’t seem that bright when you talk to her, but when you give her an exam, you can see how smart she is.” I was kind of annoyed Mom passed along the comment!
Mine is also along the lines of adoption. In a group a lady who knew me quite well looks at the lady next to me and loudly says. “Well, I would NEVER adopt a child is I planned on working. That is being an irresponsible and terrible mother. Working and having children is just abuse to the child. There should be a law against it.” My mouth is still open.
One more when I was a child. The kids in the neighborhood (all catholic except me - we lived one block from a catholic school) told me I was going to burn in hell because I wasn’t catholic. The nuns told them so and it was ok to be mean to me because of that!
My D dresses my adorable GD in unisex clothes, and people assume she’s a he, all the time. So one day D put her in her usual non-gender outfit, but with pink socks. First comment: “Why did you put pink socks on your handsome young gentleman?” If I could post a picture, you’d see there is nothing particularly “boy” about her face!