"Why don't you..."

I was lucky enough to be one of those rare women who didn't start 'showing' their pregnancies until practically the 8th month.

Meaning I had less than 4 weeks of unwanted attention. People patting your stomach (anyone ever heard of the word ' personal space'?), asking whether I was having a boy or a girl, and numerous unsolicited horror stories about childbirth that would have made Stephen King proud.

All this, however, did not prepare me for the barrage of well-meaning, but mostly ill-timed, advice that came in all forms from the mildly-irritating to the downright-lunatic.

If I'd been given $1 for every single time I heard "Why don't you...", I would be a rich woman now.

When David and I decided that Pepe and Riggs would sleep in the room with Charly, there were more raised eyebrows directed at me than I would have gotten wearing last season's Manolos at an art gallery opening in Chelsea. The dogs would bite her, she would bite the dogs (germs!), she would get all sorts of diseases, it was irresponsible....etc, etc, etc. The ones who stayed politely mum had such a huge thought bubble over their heads that I wanted to tell them to just come out and say it.

This was just the beginning of the barrage of comments and yes, even criticism, that I've discovered gets directed at you with all the subtlety of Typhoon Frank the moment you become a parent.

Why is it that the moment you have a child everyone thinks they know better than you? During the first quarter of Charly's life, I was told that the baby was too fat (where was her neck? wasn't she becoming a little too tubby?), her male-sounding name would give her a complex and cause gender-confusion, did we want a boy - was that why she was not in pink 24/7?, she needed socks the minute the temperature dropped below room temperature (try this on a baby who hated wearing socks and mittens)...and on and on it went. In my recovering-from-a-c-section haze, along with the pressure of planning the baptismal party in less than 3 weeks to the day we brought the baby home, I soon developed a way of zoning out (think of your favorite peaceful place and transport yourself there) which soon became a hardened mask to protect me from buckling under the weight of all the advice.

Two years later, I am still getting hit with it, but I've now developed a sense of humor (and this blog) to keep my wits about me.

I've learned that parenting is something which everyone will always have an opinion on. Best of all, I've learned to keep my mouth shut and not argue back and defend my parenting style. After all, Charly is healthy, happy, knows her Matisse from Van Gogh, her Gucci from Hermes, hiphop from jazz, and most of all, loves, loves, loves to read. Pepe and Riggs are her best friends and they have not bitten each other. Despite her guy-sounding name, she is a girly girl who says 'yuck' when handling wet clay. Yet she is also rugged enough to put on her favorite baseball cap backside forward.

The bottom line: we all know our children best. And because no two children are alike, you can only take what you think will work and screen out the rest. And pray, pray, pray.

Yes, I do give mommy advice, but only when asked or when comparing notes.

And yes, I do resist the urge to pat pregnant women's tummies and ask if it's a girl or boy.