‘Are you pregnant?’ No, but thanks for the compliment

Cayla Dengate with her son.

“How many months pregnant are you?” she asked, smiling sweetly, as if it was just the two of us. A man carrying a hulking TV camera focused on me, filming cut-always for an interview I’d just done. The office temp had been roped into the scene, to act natural and have a chat while he filmed us.

But there was one big problem: I wasn’t pregnant.

Some say being mistaken for a mum-to-be is one of the worst insults you can throw at a woman — and a faux pas worse than death for those brave and stupid enough to say it — but I disagree.

All women get their fair share of accidental insults, especially parents of little kids (Mum, will my teeth go brown like yours? Why do you have lines on your face? I love your squishy belly. Your ankles have dinosaur skin). And let’s not even mention the parents of teenagers.

So why is a mistaken pregnancy the worst insult of all?

I think it goes deeper than simply suggesting a woman’s belly looks big. The very question makes assumptions about the role of women in our society. Are expecting women considered beautiful? Of course! We fawn all over mums-to-be. We call them radiant, glowing, the literal embodiment of fertility goddesses. But as they fall into the “adoration” category, they also fall out of the “available” category.

Put bluntly, if you’re pregnant, you’re not available to be impregnated. If you’re up the duff, you’re not on the hunt. It signals that you’re off the market more clearly than a ring on the finger or a tattooed initial on the wrist.

There’s a subtext that reads, “Now that you look pregnant, no one will ever find you flirty or sexy”, which is fine when you really are pregnant and would gladly trade an amorous interaction for a plate of wedges and a 20-minute nap.

It’s obviously a dangerously outdated idea to suggest the role of women is to be attractive and snag a man, but not so for my grandmother’s generation. And culture has a way of holding on to legacies. Just two generations ago, pregnancy was cause for dismissal at work, so once a woman was “with child” she’d be let go to start a life of housekeeping and popping out kids who would wear sailor suits with starched collars and be seen and not heard.

And me? I grew up watching Bewitched after school, where an infinitely powerful witch chose to ensure a hot breakfast was on the table every morning for her husband. Or Impulse ads where women smell so good that giddy men race off to buy them flowers.

‘Freeing’: Cayla Dengate enjoyed the social aspect of being pregnant.

Today, the workforce has obviously changed. Smart companies support their staff — no matter the gender — to have families and return to work on their terms, because there’s an understanding that careers and lives don’t end when you become a parent.

And culture has changed, too. But there’s still an idea that women should be gorgeous and fit, maybe not for the male gaze any more, but there is virtue attached to youth and beauty.

For me, being pregnant was the first time in my life that I didn’t feel self-conscious about how my belly looked in clothes, or whether my outfit was too tight, too baggy, too slutty, too boring, too dour. Suddenly, none of it mattered. If Beyoncé and Rhianna have shown us anything, it’s that pregnant women can wear whatever they damn well like and the world will coo and smile.

For those glorious months, I lived in a bikini, my galaxy of a belly soaking up the sun and adoration of strangers. It was the first time in my adult life I could show a lot of skin and not be considered provocative.

Men my own age mostly ignored me unless they were new dads themselves and would bound over to chat about birth plans, baby names and stroller choices. It was freeing. As soon as I was showing, I felt like I was in a totally different category. Someone to be protected, helped, smiled at. Celebrated.

But I was in for a rude category switch. New mothers are not the same a pregnant women.

With a body that is both swollen and deflated, wired and exhausted, they can be accused of looking both sloppy and slutty at once. And if you don’t have your baby with you in public, get ready for the “when are you due?” questions.

Cayla Dengate with her son and daughter.

These days, I’ve been through it all. I was young and cute. I was pregnant twice, and I’ve settled into this body of mine. I’ve developed a thick skin, or should that be a freckled, stretched skin? It’s a skin that’s often adorned with texta scribbles, unicorn stickers and sticky kid fingerprints. A skin that is gripped tightly by cozy little bodies in need of a hug. A skin that represents home to my kids.

The truth is that I no longer care whether I look desirable or not. You know why? Because I’m loved unconditionally. By my kids and my husband and my family. It took two kids to realise my self-worth never came from how strangers saw me.

So, back to the moment with the woman and the camera man. I told her with a smile that I was not expecting. The camera man didn’t flinch. She was mortified, but honestly, I should have followed up by saying, “Thanks for the compliment, I must be glowing.”

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