The Stranger Comment That Makes Me Cringe

There are a lot of things strangers say to parents that come off as judgy, meddling or just plain stupid. The worst, of course: When are you due? When you are not, in fact, due … ever. (Been there and not wanting to be there again is the number one reason I’m attempting sit-ups these days.). But another cringe-worthy question has been coming up for me a lot lately and I want to discuss. Here’s what I’m talking about:

I was on the security line at the airport with my four-month-old baby in the Bjorn and a friendly woman started chatting us up …

Friendly woman: “Oh, he’s so cute. Look at his eyes! What a big boy. How old is he? He’s soooo smiley. I love his boots!”

I smiled and nodded and answered all of her questions. We kept chatting. She told me about her grandson and how he isn’t as big as my boy yet and finally, about five minutes in, it happened…

Friendly woman: “So, what’s his name?”

Me: “Um, well, actually…she’s a girl and her name is Molly.”

Then this poor woman back-peddled and apologized and I had to make her feel better. “I have her in gray so it’s my fault,” I said (there were some pink stripes on that gray, but still, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.) I guess I should have corrected her right away. I wasn’t trying to pull one over on her. I was just trying to avoid the awkwardness.  (In the bagel store the other day, an old man and I had a lovely conversation about my adorable “son” and all went well since he never asked for “his” name). But with this woman it went too far which made it even more awkward and I felt like an idiot/liar/weirdo. Whoops!

Let me clarify: It doesn’t bother me that people occasionally think my kid looks like a boy. I don’t like a whole lot of pink so it’s going to happen. And she’s my third so I know it comes with the territory. One time, on a train, my then-18-month-old son was leaning over the seat and the woman behind us said, “What a beautiful baby GIRL!” She was so confident in her gender assignment that I couldn’t correct her, could I? But here’s my issue with the sex thing: It’s awkward for everyone involved and completely avoidable. Can’t they just ask? Or are they worried that that’s insulting? Would you be insulted?

I think some people do get genuinely peeved when you call their kid the wrong sex, but I know the stranger feels worse…. At a birthday party recently, my brother-in-law said, “Oh, what a big boy!” to a woman who was carrying around her giant baby. And she said, kind of snippily, “She’s a girl” and then walked away. My brother-in-law felt so embarrassed he wanted to leave the party (we helped him laugh it off…by making fun of him). Of course the alternative, which I do, is frustrating too…and cavemanish…and grammatically incorrect: How old? So cute! Good baby? What’s their name? Anyway, I’m curious: Do people ever call your baby the wrong gender? Does it bother you? Do you correct them? Do you ever guess or do you ask?