Toward the end of my pregnancy, I sat down to a sushi lunch with a friend. The teenage waitress delivered my bento box with a side of judgmental sass: ?Should you really be eating here"? she asked, eyeballing my stomach. I wish I?d said, Should you really be offering unsolicited advice on a topic you clearly know very little about" or As long as your kitchen is clean, Health Canada says I?ll be fine or even The North American ban on sushi during pregnancy is considered a racist insult in Japan. Instead, I meekly thanked her, albeit sarcastically, and filed the incident among many more irksome comments I?d received over the past nine months. The fact is, most pregnant people hear all sorts of ridiculous and insulting remarks, and it can be hard to know how to respond. Here are some of them?and how to deal. ?OMG, Look at you! You’re huge!?
Variations on this gem include the ?ready to pop!? assertion (at six months, not welcome) and the old ?are you sure there?s only one in there"? Uninvited commentary on your bigger-than-before body is so common and ubiquitous that Amy Morrison, the brain behind the hilarious website Pregnant Chicken, compiled a full list of clever pregnancy comebacks to ?You?re gigantic!? Among them, ?Holy shit, you too!? and ?It?s actually a litter of puppies.? If that kind of sarcasm isn?t your jam, Morrison suggests you bite your tongue just a bit and go with something a little less combative (but that still gets the point across), li...