Soon-To-Be Mom of 4 Takes to Instagram to Call Out Pregnancy Shamers
You might have heard of “fat shaming,” or when people bully others who may be overweight. But have you ever hear do pregnancy shaming?
Pregnancy shaming is essentially the same thing—when others criticize a pregnant woman. Perhaps it’s because they look too big to someone, or perhaps it’s for a different reason, like one soon-to-be-mom experienced.
Anna Strode is currently pregnant with her fourth child and enjoys posting pictures to her Instagram account showing off her bump. But for a short period of time, there was a lull in her photos.
She recently addressed in it a post. “You may have noticed I’ve been a little quiet on Instagram the last 7 or so months,” she wrote. “I’ve been busy and sick but also a little anxious when posting. Why?! Because over the past 7 months I have been criticized, judged, and blatantly questioned why we have chosen to have another baby.”
It turns out that she was being hit with countless online trolls sharing rude comments with her such as, “STOP HAVING BABIES” or “Wow, surely you’re not pregnant AGAIN.”
She acknowledges that this was very much a planned pregnancy—despite others believing it wasn’t, and that she will still get to enjoy all of her children, despite what others are trying to tell her.
“Yes – I do believe in contraception. YES this baby WAS planned. And YES, I thoroughly enjoy my children even though they are close in age. I LOVE it in fact!” she told her haters.
Strode has a pair of three-year-old twins and a one-year-old, but has always dreamed of having four children. “For as long as I can remember, 4 just seemed like the number for me,” she said, adding that she’s thrilled they will all be so close in age and will hopefully get along with each other well.
And yet, people of the Internet just feel the need to share their own feelings on having four kids—and most of the time, those feelings are not very nice ones.
This was honestly pretty baffling for Strode—what was it to others what she decided to do with HER children?
“I don’t understand why us having another baby would worry anyone so much?” she asked. “Anyone would think I asked the ‘pregnancy shamers’ to wake all night and feed my baby, change dirty nappies, entertain my toddlers. But no, nothing will change for them so why the negativity towards me and my family’s choices?!”
Amen!
She ended her post with a piece of advice we can all learn from: “I’ve decided some people are just negative and that’s that… you can’t please everyone. Be kind people, please be kind.”
Have you heard of “pregnancy shaming” before? What do you think of how this mom-to-be responded to the haters?
