Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Original poster

“Did you have some help”

181 replies

Legomanships · 01/12/2019 16:42

AIBU to find this response to us telling our friend we are having twins a bit rude?

I can imagine I may (possibly) be a little bit hormonal etc, but I feel like this is a weird response. It wasn’t said in a jokey way, and was the only thing she said before saying she was on her way out.

My husband also thought it was rude, but he might just be agreeing with me to make me feel less stupid.

OP posts:

chouflour · 02/12/2019 19:38

“Are they twins?” was my favourite actually. They’re two babies exactly the same size dressed alike and I’m breastfeeding both of them. YES.

MumOf1plusBump · 02/12/2019 19:38

Yep it's rude but be prepared to get a lot of it. My friend, who has twin newborns get asked all the time by strangers!! She actually said to one of them, sorry I'm not comfortable talking with strangers about how my husband and I concieved

AFairlyHardAvocado · 02/12/2019 19:41

@drspouse

Adopted child here - ugh "real" is so rude isn't it!

Have you ever met your "real mum"?
Well I've known her for thirty years so...
Oh I thought you were adopted?
Yes, by my mum.

Still happens now!

FeeLock28 · 02/12/2019 19:44

Legomanships Ha ha - my sympathies! In my twins club only two women had had assisted conception, and they were happy to talk about it. My daughter, as a teenager doing her Saturday job, mentioned she was a twin and was asked how much we had paid for herself & her brother. She was pretty perplexed, as was I, until I realised what was meant.

I find it odd that women's bodies appear to be public property generally, and never more so than when we're pregnant. Frankly, I'd be tempted to snarl (possibly politely, possibly less so) that it's really none of anyone's business.

Congratulations, and all the best with it!

Aglet · 02/12/2019 19:52

I would have laughed and bigged up my man's expertise!

Happyandglorious · 02/12/2019 19:57

My sister was asked that all the time when she was pregnant with her twins. People say very intrusive things during pregnancy and after.
My husband brought in some chocolates to work when my daughter was born and over small talk with a very random male colleague was asked: "so, did your wife need stitches?"
People are bizarrely curious and rude

ScrommidgeClaryAndSpunt · 02/12/2019 19:58

We had this as well. My standard answer was "no, all our own work, and just as well, as the clinics don't accept IOUs, shirt buttons, or pocket lint".

But this all paled into insignificance beside the woman who saw me and Mrs Scrommidge carrying them to the car to go home after the month they'd spent in SCBU after they were born and exclaimed "Oooh, they don't look real!" Yeah, cheers for that, missus. If it hadn't been for the said SCBU, they probably wouldn't have been. Idiot.

dreichXmas · 02/12/2019 20:00

You will get this a lot OP.
Alongside do twins run in your family?
Are they natural?

And even if they are boy and girl, are they identical?

Balmoral23 · 02/12/2019 20:02

Lucky you. Twins are great. I really hope you enjoy your pregnancy, it’s a very special time. I have identical 11 year olds that were conceived naturally. You’d think by this age people wouldn’t care how they were conceived and nor does it matter. Still people I’ve only just met will still ask if we had IVF. It’s irrelevant, it’s no ones business but yours, should you wish to share. Once they’re born you’ll get a whole raft of other stupid questions... two identically looking and sized babies and I was regularly was asked, ‘Are they twins?’ On one occasion I said they were actually triplets, but I’d left one at home because we couldn’t afford a triple buggy. Which one do you prefer? Seriously? And most recently, over lunch in a new place of work, a childless male colleague I’d never met wanted to know how I’d breastfed and what my milk supply had been like. He was absolutely serious and I really struggled in not choking and answering...

Middledistancerunner · 02/12/2019 20:06

I guess I’m in the minority but I really don’t mind being asked such questions - I think they are just harmless attempts at mindless small talk.
I wouldn’t have thought deeply about twins before having them, I guess a lot of questions other people ask stem from their lack of experience.
It seems that most people think boy and girl twins can be identical, so I smile and say no.
The most common comment I get is ‘oh, you have your hands full’. I tend to say ‘it’s good to be busy’. Because it is.

I believe that’s it’a nice to be nice, so I don’t get the annoyance others seem to feel. People rarely mean to hurt, although I’m sorry if you and other PP have been.

I say stupid things all the time.

I am probably asked about how they are convinced quite often, but because it doesn’t bother me in the slightest, I don’t really think about it. I’m 38, so the twins are here because I’m old. I’m happy to admit to this because I’m ageing by the day. Dying my roots is fooling no one. . There isn’t a moisturising cream in the world that’s going to help me at this stage. That’s what four under five will do to you.

Fowles94 · 02/12/2019 20:07

I've only known 4 set's of twins and they were all 'natural'. I don't understand why people feel the need to ask without it naturally coming into conversation.

Courtney555 · 02/12/2019 20:10

@Middledistancerunner

I completely agree. I'm never offended because I see it as mindless small talk too.

But I have had my eyes opened on this thread as to scenarios that it's actually quite inappropriate, in ways that would have never occurred to me before.

sunshinemode · 02/12/2019 20:30

How about... No but if you’re offering once they get here that’d be grand

ActualHornist · 02/12/2019 20:39

"Nah just shaggin'" was my response the few times I was asked this

Superdyke66 · 02/12/2019 20:53

Brace yourself, OP: you're likely to get plenty of similar questions and possibly far more intrusive ones. I had triplets and you'd be astounded at what people (usually other women) feel they have the right to ask.

Onthetrain75 · 02/12/2019 21:01

I’ve got twins. You’ll get loads of this, along with all manner of other, quite annoying stuff! I’m afraid you’re going to have to grow a slightly thicker skin...it’s going to be hard work for a few years!! Good luck.

Kate0902900908 · 02/12/2019 21:12

She is jealous. It must be something she wanted or does want.

GrumpyHoonMain · 02/12/2019 21:16

Why are you taking offence to the IVF part? Plenty of young and older women need it. Conceiving twins via IVF is not the problem here, it’s your friend thinking he has the right to comment on and judge your reproductive history

eaglejulesk · 02/12/2019 21:20

It was rude, but people so often are. Don't worry about it, just enjoy your pregnancy and the twins when they arrive. Unfortunately we always meet people who are very different from us and our ways, it's not worth spending valuable time thinking about what they say.

Elementalillusions · 02/12/2019 21:23

My sister is 31, is married, has a toddler and is currently pregnant with twins.

She has been asked way too many times if they are ivf babies.
She works in a client facing role and is asked the question at least once if not twice a week.
It’s so unbelievably rude, what on Earth makes people think it’s an appropriate question is beyond me, she has started replying with “no. were your children IVF babies?”

Sandals19 · 02/12/2019 21:35

"Have you found out what's causing it yet?" (fil on hearing about my 2nd pregnancy)..

Was that intended to be funny though?

Sandals19 · 02/12/2019 21:41

I tended to think only women git inappropriate, nosey, ridiculous questions like these until a make acquaintance told me his secretary commented to him that "shouldn't he and his wife be having their second by now".

(His wife has a condition,big that's the right word, whereby she doesn't ovulate every cycle, perhaps once in three month's so any pregnancy was going to take longer to conceive than an "average" person ...i have no idea if he was forced to explain this to his secretary, but the intrusiveness, inappropriate-ness, and presumption of what she had the right to comment on blew my mind.

Sandals19 · 02/12/2019 21:42

*got

Sandals19 · 02/12/2019 21:42

*make acquaintance

Sandals19 · 02/12/2019 21:42

*male, autocorrect is so irritating at times

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8