Once in a while, I'll do a post about pregnancy, as it is a pretty significant women's issue. I have never been pregnant. In fact, I haven't even been a woman that long, but my ever developing opinion on how I like being a woman provides me with endless fodder for this blog. So, dear reader, my inexperience is your frolic.
This video has been (kinda) sweeping the internet. It's been brushing the internet. The performance is by Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, comedic actresses and musicians who write short songs, videotape themselves performing them, and post them to youtube. At last count, this video had 56,454 views:
I tend to agree with Lindhome and Micucci, who perform under the moniker Garfunkel and Oates. Pregnant women are entitled to some special treatment, what with the fact that they are prolonging the species and all, but sometimes, they tend to act a bit more entitled than they deserve. But that's easy to say, having never been pregnant. When the time comes, I'm sure I'll have my man run around the house and town getting me pickles and pate and cheese and bacon at ungodly hours (for the record, I crave those things at 2 a.m. now). But, the difference is that he'd be in it with me, eventually part of the parenting experience, but not phisically encumbered with pregnancy. So he would owe it to me. Strangers on the other hand? Not so much. What Garfunkel and Oates are commenting on is the tendency of previously occupied (with work, art, etc.) women to suddenly deem their old activities worthless perhaps because they are struggling with the fact that their identities are about to change and have not yet resolved that for themselves and try to do so by convincing themselves and others, particularly strangers and brief acquaintences, that they are awesome.
I'd like to be completely clear, if people offer you help because they know you are having a hard time, that is another thing entirely. A friend (who is pregnant) recently joined in on a trip to NYC for a bachelorette party. She is not smug. She is awesome, a trooper. She kept up for as long as she could. Her approach to pregnancy is perhaps the most clear-viewed I have ever experienced: it is as new to her as it is to those around her and the discussions about her state reflect that. If more pregnant women were honest about what they were thinking and experiencing instead of holier-than-thou, videos like this would never be made.
