When Does Fertility Bragging Go Too Far?

Am I just #TRIGGERED, or is it good to have some humility when talking about how easily you get pregnant?

Photo by Alicia Petresc on Unsplash

Pretty recently, I wrote about the doom and gloom attitude toward pregnancy and postpartum (especially in my circles) and the tendency to overstate the downsides and dangers of pregnancy, as well as the associated dogma that you’d have to be absolutely demented to want more than two children. My argument was that while we shouldn’t lie about the downsides of pregnancy and childbirth, these scary possibilities also shouldn’t be used as a mechanism to dissuade women who otherwise want children.

About a week after I published that piece, Mom Twitter serendipitously hopped on the latest trend: sharing positive stories of pregnancy and postpartum. This was prompted by someone essentially saying what my article had addressed: so much of what we hear is negative, and it would be great to hear some positive stories to make pregnancy and postpartum seem less terrifying. Since this trend began, I saw countless posts of women sharing stories of their easy pregnancies, their pleasant deliveries, and their precious babies. 95% of it really seemed like women just wanting to share something uplifting, positive and encouraging. I commend them!

But then there’s the obnoxious 5%, as there always is. One mom went particularly viral for insinuating that any problems during pregnancy, including birth defects, are the mother’s fault for not adequately preparing her body (she scoffs at the idea that any birth defect could truly be up to chance, by putting “genetic” in scare quotes). Not that anyone should be surprised, but this mom was hawking some kind of nutrition e-course along with the groundbreaking statement that we’ve been “lied” to about fats and meat being bad for you. On the bright side, I appreciate that she was willing to time travel here from 1998 to set the record straight.

This woman’s mom-shaming then opened up a new pandora’s box—women trying to counter her fearmongering with stories about how they did nothing to prepare their bodies, and they were still blessed with effortless fertility, easy pregnancies and five healthy babies. What began as reassuring stories turned into posts about whoopsie pregnancies after already conceiving many children, or a cheeky nod to how Sex their marriages are (“All he needs to do is LOOK at me and I’m preggo again!”) And you know what? I get what they were trying to do, and I’m sure they weren’t trying to be assholes, but it bummed me out.

Psst…last day of my annual subscription sale!