Three Perfect Responses For Unsolicited Pregnancy "Advice"
What to say when people don’t know what they’re saying.
The world is full of opinions. That’s one of humanity’s great beauties. There are so many opinions and ideas and ways to interact with others. But sometimes, those opinions sneak into places and conversations where they don’t belong. And this is never truer than when a woman is pregnant. It’s something TikTok creator @overeatingunderdressed (whom we’re going to call OEUD for the rest of this article) has discovered since becoming pregnant herself... and has come up with three perfect responses to any and all unsolicited or particularly bold opinions.
“When you’re pregnant, everyone and their mother is going to have an opinion on it, and there are three things that have kept me out of jail,” she begins with a laugh.
1. “I’m not looking for any feedback on that.”
Genius, right off the bat. Because I think we can all tell how we could apply this in our daily lives (whether or not we’re pregnant, TBH, but especially if we’re pregnant). For those hoping to see an example of when this would be appropriate, OEUD, offers the following example...
“I tell someone I’m going to sleep training ... and they start going. And I just say, very calmly, very neutral: ‘Oh, I’m not looking for any feedback on that.’ There’s nothing to say back to that. It’s not personal to you! I don’t say ‘I’m not looking for any feedback from you’ I say ‘I’m not looking for any feedback on that.’ It works every time.”
2. “... for you.”
This one might be hard to get out of context but in context it’s another slay. OEUD offers the scenario where one might say “I want to do an unmedicated birth” and someone’s response is something like “That’s crazy!”
“For you. That might be crazy for you. It doesn’t apply to me.”
Say this one out loud or in your head (if it’s just not worth discussing). It’s a nice way of staying firm in your own opinions while holding space for theirs.
3. “What a strange thing to say out loud.”
This is, OEUD admits, the most brazen of the three, but perfect, we think, for equally brazen comments. In those cases, she says, “the other two just aren’t going to cut it.”
“It puts it back on them,” she explains. “Like, why would you say that? What are you trying to accomplish here.”
OEUD says she wishes she had thought of these witty retorts before she was pregnant, but believes they are going to come in pretty handy moving forward through life. We completely agree and will be moving forward with this conversational armor as well.
