My mailbox is feeling bloated. No sooner did the election junk mail end than the holiday catalog avalanche began.
I’ll admit I do get a degree of pleasure trying to figure out how I got onto some of the more obscure mailing lists. But I also want to know why I get so much kid-oriented marketing material. Someone clearly has not been doing their demographic homework.
Which bring me to this week’s topic:
People who assume you have children
It’s Whiny Wednesday. I deprived you last week, so feel free to air your post-Thanksgiving grievances, too.
I get this a lot – people assume I have children. If it’s someone I will never see again, sometimes I just go with it and don’t even bother to correct them. My dry cleaner thinks I have kids…I’ve never said anything one way or another. Sometimes I even find it kind of funny.
I love it when people think I have kids, I feel so normal.
I hate it when people think I have kids, I feel very weird.
Like – only having kids is normal.
Am I not normal?
I also constantly have people assuming I have kids: the dry cleaner, a delic person at Whole Foods, etc. One woman asks me how my daughter is every time I see her; I always gently correct her, but the reality of the matter doesn’t seem to stick. A cashier at Target asked me the other day if I was on my way to get my kids after I shopped. I find it almost kind of eerie and a bit emotionally distressing, but I just try to graciously smile it off…
I have to write fast but will probably come back to post again. My whine today the annual family Christmas picture email came today. They don’t get it why it is painful, we don’t understand why it is a celebration for them but we are the ones that have to swallow our hurt and participate
I have had a falling out with my father many years ago. I saw my paternal grandparents 20 yrs later and of course, they asked if I had kids. I proudly told them I had 3 boys. I neglected to enlighten them that these boys had 4 legs and were furry- but I did not lie…my dogs are my kids. I got quite a chuckle when years later, these “grandkids” were included in my father’s obituary. I feel like it takes a lot of extra energy to constantly justify that I do not have kids and then the awkward silence that follows implying I am not like the rest of the world.