Pregnancy Perception
11.11.2011 This sounds paranoid, but there's a certain invisibility that comes with being pregnant.
As in, you're the prego lady with prego brain with the prego waddle. People don't hear you or see you or deal with you the way they would if you were not growing a person inside your uterus. You're a vessel for human life. People may respect that, but they don't think you're going to get down to brass tacks. They think you should be at home, barefoot, rubbing oil onto potential stretch mark zones. It's a pregnantism of sorts.
This has been on my mind recently during stories or interviews or meetings with people who are forming their first impression of Vicky Nguyen based on Pregnant Vicky Nguyen. It's a temporary state of being but leaves a lasting memory.
It's sort of easy to dismiss the pregnant lady in her "delicate condition." Which is not how you want to be perceived when you're doing a serious interview or when you work in a business where perception is as close to reality as it gets.
It didn't really bother me during my first pregnancy, mostly because I was too busy getting used to the alien invasion. But this time around, I'm noticing more than my navel and it's made me take a look at how I perceive pregnant women.
It's not pretty. I'm not accusing anyone of anything I haven't already thought. And probably 10 times worse.
No one takes pregnant women seriously. Pregnant women are just that. Pregnant. That precedes anything else about them. And the bigger they get, the less likely you are to see or think about anything besides that enormous pregnant-ness. There are those of you who will say pregnancy is this beautiful thing, and it is. But it's not one's normal state of being. Not even close. And that's distracting. It's easy to dismiss a pregnant woman. Oh her? She's pregnant.
With the exception of Michelle Duggar, the woman with a reality show about her giant family who is now pregnant with her 20th child, most of us have spent much more of our waking hours interacting with people when we are not pregnant. So it's natural that when we're in this "different" state, people treat us differently.
Some women really thrive on that attention and feeling like they're in a spotlight. I'm just looking forward to emerging on the other side of February with a healthy baby and not looking back on the previous 9 months.
Pregnant women are rendered irrelevant to a major degree. Agree or disagree?
Reader Comments (6)
Dear Vicky,
I am sure your indisputable and truthful feeling is a “hormonal” state of being and it too shall pass. You are one of the amazing, beautiful, and respectable “news person” that I truly admire. I follow/watch/ you not because the physical beauty in you but the “things” you do transpire in you that cannot be seen. I hope you will have a healthy and peaceful pregnancy and your family enjoy this bonding period of 9 months plus with you thoroughly.
Go Vicky you are almost there!
Secret admirer:D
Disagree. I think our perceptions of ourselves sound the loudest in our heads and we feel weird. I say "we" in real time because I've got another son or daughter growing in the fetus form in me too.
BUT I have a much different career than you. I'm a teacher. Six year olds take me the same way whether I'm pregnant or not, so there's that. I don't NEED to be taken seriously in the way that you do. Maybe if I did I would recognize a big difference.
Now is just the best time. Treasure it! You're glowing! (Just freaking kidding. I agree these "isms" are a bunch of damn hooey.)
Kim: Thank you for your kind words. The countdown is on!
Kristin: Your last line made me laugh--SO true. Congratulations on your second baby! Are you having a boy or girl? KIDDING :)
I would comment Vicky, but I am still laughing at your "lady flower" comment! 8-)
Try being taken seriously working at a body shop with 40 men and 3 women when you are the mother of 5.....pretty much you are just the crazy lady with all the kids that sits up front. Believe me, wether currently making the children, or raising them, motherhood changes us, but contrary to what ANYONE thinks of us in either state, we are stronger and more serious for it! Love you lady!
Well said Mrs. R!