Here are a few of my favorites:

- Being Hawaiian, I am constantly asked “How do I like America?” Ask any 5th grader and they will tell you, Hawaii is a state PEOPLE!

- Because the Soccer Stud and I play a lot of soccer together, if I show up to play a game without the SS everyone asks “Where’s your husband? Is he not playing?” I usually turn around a start yelling for someone to introduce me to my husband because I didn’t know I had one.

- This one is my favorite! I will run into someone I haven’t seen in a long time or if I just meet some one new and I have my kids with me people always ask me if my children have the same father. I usually tell them it was a really slutty time in my life and I don’t know who their fathers are or if they have the same father because of all the drugs. You should see the look on their face!

But usually, like you, I just smile and try to remind myself that they almost certainly mean well.

Lady, you don’t say that to a hormonal, just previously pregnant woman about her new baby boy! Not smart!

Terry/Mini/Chris: You raise a lot of good questions and points. I *do* think the moms I met were just commiserating, Mini; I really didn’t hold it against them. Just an observation that I’m sure I wouldn’t have even noticed if I was married — I guess it’s experiencing conversation from a different perspective.

I also agree with the fact that we women are often our own worst enemies (like we need THAT). As I think I’ve written on my blog before, the work/stay-at-home “debate,” for example, is plain nonsense — even if we all can back up the stereotypes on both sides with real, live examples. It’s a personal choice, and I know plenty of kick-ass moms wearing each of those labels, including my readers here. We’re all trying to do the best we can for our kids, our families and ourselves(last!). Why other people feel the need to identify one “category” as right or wrong is beyond me.

Why the salesman at the furniture store thinks only married people shop there is also beyond me. That is my personal favorite! And why the priest asked me in the middle of his sermon whether I carried DG in my womb — *that* one he obviously didn’t think through very well! What if I had said “no”? How would he have handled it? I wasn’t mad, just dumbfounded.

But, honestly, I probably would have been so horrified by the question that instead of answering “no” I would have simply smiled and nodded. Works every time.

That’ll wipe the stupid looks off their faces.

I don’t understand the stupidity of the priest who said your grandmother’s funeral mass. Has he never performed a funeral for a youngish person before? Is it in the realm of possibility that you’re widowed, or–heaven forbid–divorced? Has he not ever met a divorced woman with children?

How is he in the position to guide people spiritually if he has no idea of what goes on in their daily lives? If this priest is a Catholic, isn’t that an argument for allowing him to marry? (I’m a Catholic who suffers an approach/avoidance conflict with the church.)

I like the guy’s homily about your grandmother’s soul being in a place she wouldn’t leave, but the rest of it….

And, as for that woman at school, who referred to you as “working mom,” don’t get me started! I can’t stand it when women divide themselves into these silly categories. I have a friend who stays home with her children and is drunk by noon. My sister-in-law works all day in a hospital and races home to help her children do their homework and take them to activities. Whether or not you work outside the home has nothing to do with your quality as a parent.

I am praying for you!

Unfortunately all the tactless comments in my life are not made by strangers, but instead by my inlaws. Awesome. At least I know to expect it.