A popular ‘mummy’ blogger’s candid post urging people to stop asking couples when they are having kids because you might not know what is going on behind closed doors, has gone viral after thousands of women responded in agreement to the sentiment.
Writing on Facebook, Adele Barbaro aka The Real Mumma, wrote: “Trying to conceive isn’t easy unless you are a highly fertile 17-year-old, that could fall pregnant just by talking about it. The odds of conception and retaining a pregnancy are actually pretty shit, topped off with the huge amount of people that are reproductively challenged with polycystic ovaries, endometriosis etc etc. And I was one of them…”
She lists three reasons she used to give when she was asked what was going on, including “we are just enjoying being newly married” and “I’m just focusing on my career right now”, and also highlighted that for many the constant pressure of being asked makes things more difficult.
“So, next time you go to say that ‘throwaway’ comment to the newlyweds or the couple that have been together for ten years, be sensitive,” she concludes the post. “Don’t ask them when they are having kids. You never know what’s going on.”
Her comments echo a sentiment shared by Chrissy Teigen in 2015, when she admitted that she and her husband John Legend had been struggling to conceive and were trying IVF and were sick of fielding questions about their family.
“It’s kind of crazy because I can’t imagine being that nosy to be like, ‘So, when are the kids coming?’ because who knows what somebody’s going through,” Chrissy said at the time.
“So anytime somebody asks if I’m going to have kids I’m just like, ‘One day you’re going to ask that to the wrong girl who is really struggling and it’s going to be really hurtful to them and I hate that. Stop asking me’.”
Journalist Katherine Ormerod also recently shared her own thoughts on the subject in an article for her website Workworkwork.co, in which she explains that she didn’t share her pregnancy on social media immediately out of respect for those struggling to conceive as she had done.
“While we couldn’t be any happier, posting this message on social media is certainly bittersweet, because for the ten months it took me to conceive, I found it increasingly hard to stay upbeat as every woman I seemed to know or follow on Instagram effortlessly produced one bundle of joy after another.”
The Real Mumma’s post has been shared 56,000 times to date.
This story originally appeared on Grazia
