"We live in small town that a lot of youngish ppl live in, and I was at the park last year schmoozing with a woman I knew when we were in high school- she has 3 under 3. During our conversation, she asks me if my kids are playing at the swings and I told her don’t have kids yet. She answers me, 'So why did you move here?' My jaw literally sat on the ground for few min - I didn’t know what to answer, she proceeds to follow that up with, 'Well most ppl move here bc they outgrew their apt….' then I guess she realized she messed up, so she says, 'Oh, x also moved without kids. She was pregnant with her first.' 🤯🤬 I literally could not believe a person could be that stupid, and as an aside at the time I was in the process of starting a different course of treatment and was having a very difficult time with it and it took a lot for me to agree to moving mainly because of this."

*******

Back to Basics rule #1

Don't ask people how many kids they have. (We'll tell you what to say instead in the next post)

Why?

Because of statistics.

1 out of 6 couples are dealing with some kind of infertility (male factor, female factor, both or unknown), and 1 out of 4 pregnancies end in a loss.

That mean that if you are one of the lucky ones to have had exactly the number of kids at the exact times you wanted them, you are an anomaly.

Most people are either struggling to have a child themselves, or someone in their inner circle is. Which means that the "How many kids do you have" question is inappropriate for anyone.

Maybe she's bloated because she's in the middle of fertility treatment.
Maybe his sperm don't work.
Maybe they are dealing with a medical or mental health issue.
Maybe she had a miscarriage or stillbirth and she doesn't know if you're going to react appropriately when she shares that, so she hides it, and feels dishonest when she says she doesn't have kids.
Maybe she had a termination for medical reasons, and still feels heartbroken about it every single day, even though she knows she made the right decision.
Maybe they're in the middle of the adoption process, but don't want to talk about it yet.

And maybe a thousand other scenarios.

Just don't ask.