Stop Assuming Women Are Pregnant

Carlos Pascual. Getty Images.

Here's something: I'm sick and tired of people assuming that every woman is pregnant these days. I don't know when or where this started, but you can't even walk to the store for condensed milk anymore without someone saying "I don't mean to pry, but is your wife pregnant?" What the hell man? I don't know. I doubt it. 

When you're married and in your thirties, some switch is flicked where everyone you know starts assuming that every woman is pregnant. What is this? How insensitive is that? All of a sudden, people become incredibly nosy. "Are you guys trying?" Oh, you mean are we having unprotected intercourse which ends when I snow-blow her vaginal walls with fertilizer and then stay indoors for a few minutes until my member deflates and slips out like a wet football through a punt returner's nervous hands, at which point she holds her ankles above her head like she's trying to fart at a sleepover? 

Feels like a topic we shouldn't be discussing here in the Sam's Club checkout line.  

Ladies, you're leading this charge, by the way. All it takes is for you to see some other lady drinking a non-alcoholic beverage and instantly the alarm signs go off. Clearly, she chose that sparkling water instead of a dirty martini because she's in her first trimester. What a good mother. It's so much harder to love a child with a short nose, underdeveloped jaw, thin upper lip, and the epicanthal folds indicative of fetal alcohol syndrome. Such grotesque signifiers of a mother's selfishness and lack of restraint. She couldn't go a few months without a cocktail, dooming her offspring to be a soft five all its life? For shame. 

It's the worst at weddings. If my lady takes a single sip of a non-alcoholic beverage, every single person immediately starts winking at each other like they know the answer to another team's family feud question. Show me… PREGGERS on the big board! I've had people pull me aside for a confidential conference. They always preface it with "I don't mean to pry" or "forgive me if this is too personal, but…" 

It is. It is too personal. We'll fucking let you know. Ever heard of social media? Aren't you aware that the second we've passed the twelve-week mark, we're posting a stupid sonogram picture followed by some blustery bullshit of us on a beach where we both have our hands on her belly to make sure you know, HEY—WE'RE PREGNANT, NOT FAT. SEE THE HANDS? THE HANDS ON THE BELLY? THAT MEANS PREGNANT. I'D NEVER DRAW ATTENTION TO MY WIFE'S BELLY LIKE THIS IF IT WERE A CONSEQUENCE OF HER INABILITY TO PUT DOWN THE CHEESE AND CRACKERS PLATTER.  

And the pithy caption: "Looking forward to a new member of the squad, coming Summer '24!" or "We're gonna need a bigger boat!" if you're on a boat or own a boat, which is truly preposterous. There are so few boats that would lose their seaworthiness as a result of a newborn coming aboard. If a five-pound infant somehow tips your vessel from safe to sinking, your boat probably wasn't safe in the first place. I can think of no scenario where you would, in fact, need a bigger boat due to having a child. Don't you dare say kayak—they're toys, not boats. 

Anywho. That's my rant for today. Let's stop assuming women are pregnant simply because they're not guzzling beers through a whiffle ball bat. For they might simply be battling alcoholism. And in either case, it's not our business.