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The Top 3 Worst Questions I've Been Asked As A Parent

June 11, 2021
Never comment on a pregnant woman's size...especially if she has a sword
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Lauren_Nolan

There's something about being pregnant, or having small children, that causes people to think its perfectly acceptable to ask inappropriate questions. Here's the worst three I've been asked in my time;

1. Wow, you're so big - is it twins?

With both of my pregnancies I got asked this a lot, and it was always very unwelcome. Now when I look back I probably overreacted a bit but I was so fed up, especially with my first pregnancy. I was overdue, it was summer, I was miserable and incredibly cranky. I got really annoyed with an elderly gentlemen for this comment in the supermarket but seriously; don't comment on people's size ever - even when they are pregnant. Maybe especially so. If you say we look big we worry that the baby is too big, and giving birth is scary enough without contemplating a giant monster baby exiting your lady hole. If you say we look small that's also a worry; we will worry the baby isn't growing properly. So the best way to comment on a pregnant person's size is simply - don't. When I got home and ranted to my husband about it he said, "he didn't mean it as a bad thing - you are big. You're nine months pregnant, you're supposed to be. Its not like he's saying you're fat." But it was my body he was commenting on, I already felt huge (I really was!), and I didn't need a stranger to remind me how massive and uncomfortable I was. And of course it wasn't twins; despite my massive girth I was pretty confident there was just the one in there.

2. Do they not make dummies anymore?

We were on a plane to Tenerife for my husband's 30th birthday with baby Francis, who was nearly six months old. Take off was surprisingly fine. I'd researched how to avoid ear popping, I'd packed a new book and toys, and was still breastfeeding so he had an unlimited food supply on hand. But four and a half hours is a long time for an infant, and by the end of the flight I was pacing up and down the aisle with him. It was hot, airplane air is so dry, and baby Francis hadn't napped and was very cranky. So whilst I was pacing up and down with a crying baby a passenger asked me 'do they not do dummies anymore then?' I just laughed politely and kind of shrugged, but it was quite rude and incredibly unhelpful. Dummies are a lifesaver for many parents, and how I wish I'd had one on that plane, but we'd made the choice to not give Frank a dummy past about three months old, because he started spitting it out at night and waking us up anyway, and once it had outgrown it's usefulness at night we wanted to get rid before he became too attached. For parents who don't use one at all - fair play, because you can't deny that they aren't great for teeth or speech, as a multitude of studies back up. A different passenger then boldly asserted that Spanish children don't cry, and although I haven't done any extensive research on this I'm pretty sure that's nonsense. And telling a clearly stressed parent about this random (false) claim on the meekness of Spanish babies isn't going to quiet my own baby. Alas - he didn't seem to notice we'd entered Spanish air space and simmer himself down accordingly. Thank goodness for the lovely lady behind us who fashioned a rattle out of the empty wine bottle and some peanuts; he played with that garbage toy for about 45 minutes, which is 40 minutes longer than the new toy I'd bought him. Be like the wine lady, always.

3. Are you going to try for a girl?

asking a Dad if he wants another kid but he knows they can't have more children. It's a deeply personal question and one that can cause real pain. And it also puts the recipient in an awkward spot where they have to decide in a moment whether to lie and say something non-committal, or open up to a stranger or colleague and say 'yes we desperately want another child but we are having trouble conceiving'. If you aren't sure on someone's situation - don't ask them. As we have two boys we get asked a lot if we plan to 'try for a girl' and it pisses me off. It implies that we were disappointed not to get one of each (which we weren't). It implies that a third healthy boy would be a further disappointment (it wouldn't). It's not OK to assume that the choice to have more children would ever be motivated by the sex of the child, or that the baby would be any less loved because we 'already have' boys.

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.