Sunday, July 29, 2007

What does it take to embarras you?

We're all self conscious to a certain extent. Most of us are fairly easily embarrassed too. However, once you've been pregnant and endured multiple visits to the gynae and finally popped the baby out with the whole 'world' watching....it takes much less to make you embarrassed. So here's an example of how I didn't feel anything when normally I would probably have squirmed.

A standard conversation with an Indonesian mother goes like this:
Indo Mom with baby on hip: "How many months?"
Me with Aaron hanging upside down: "11, nearly 12."
Indo Mom with baby still on hip: "How heavy?"
Me with Aaron over one shoulder: "About 10kgs."
Indo Mom with baby STILL on same hip: "What formula do you have him on?"
Me with Aaron in a Superman pose: "Oh, my own milk."

Then this morning....one Indo Mom went further:
Indo Mom: "Really? How much milk do you have?"
Me with Aaron finally on hip but touching his toes: "Enough"
Indo Mom now leans over, sort of pokes at my upper chest and says: "Not very big"

She meant no harm though...and people here don't know what personal space is so....

5 comments:

Jean-Luc Picard said...

What questions to ask!

NomadicExpat said...

I am howling in laughter!!!

Amanda said...

The people are REALLY straight forward here. I just laugh and bear in mind that they are not trying to be mean :)

NomadicExpat said...

It's just a cultural difference, and I know they dont mean anything, but it's darn hilarious! If I borrow your kid and pretend to be the mom, they probably poke at my boobs and say that I must have a lot of milk! :-P (err... geddit? ;-))

Bliss said...

alrightie now! that's funny. my boobs (non-preggers) are A cup. no one could believe how juicy and plump my daughter got from breastfeeding. and they were all jealous when i lost my baby weight in one month. oh the joys of nursing...