Thanks for the clarification. I could see how sourpuss strangers judging your child would be annoying. They should take some politeness lessons from Maya before opening their mouths again

Fred: I wondered if that conversation would be misinterpreted when I wrote that up. It’s hard to accurately portray interactions on a blog. I’ve had that exact same conversation (minus the mumbling at the end) in other contexts when it was clearly just small talk. I don’t mind that at all, and given the opportunity, I’ll happily talk about the kidlet all day — or even agree that my hands sure are full (in a happy way). The type of person I’m talking about usually walks around looking like they eat a steady diet of sour lemons.

Not to go off on a complete tangent, but I have a similar experience when I tell people my profession (physicist). The normal reaction I get is a look of amazement and disbelief and a reply like “My goodness, you must be really smart.” And while that’s obviously a compliment, the feeling I get from the words and reaction is that I must be some kind of genius freak to want to do something like physics, which irritates me, because I feel like there is nothing more ingrained in human nature, more normal, than to want to try to study and figure out the laws of the universe. So, I suppose, you may feel similarly when people tell you how much of a handful your child must be or how much work it takes to raise a child.