I just read a story on People Online about Justin Bieber made a joke for April Fool’s day about his wife Hailey Baldwin being pregnant,
Clever, a bit cliche and overdone but good for you Biebs. Way to get the fan base all crazed and pumped up.
Well except it would seem the crazy and pumped up are not really his fan base, but a bunch of people who think his joke was cruel and insensitive.
Ok, what?
Yes, it’s true and not only that, there is some kind of movement to stop people from making fake pregnancy announcement jokes on April 1 because they are so hurtful and insensitive to those who have miscarried, or had or are having fertility issues.
So very PC and unlike anything else going on in this messed up world today.
A call to action to stop insensitive pranks and unwittingly cruel jokes related to pregnancy. Oh my.
I don’t even know what to say to this. Have we become that addled?
Is this really happening? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Fake pregnancy announcements have to be one of the oldest standing pranks of April Fools. It’s too easy really. Should we go back and burn any reference to them too?
I am just gobsmacked people. Is anyone at all wearing grown-up panties these days which don’t ride up and get in a bunch at the slightest provocation?
When did every single thing about every single thing become offensive?
When did harmless pranks on a day set aside for pranking become fodder for people to become so hurt and outraged they think they can ban the type of prank in question from April Fools day entirely?
Why not just ban April Fool’s Day?
Why not just ban having any type of sense of humor or mischievous doings at all?
Nobody would get hurt and best of all no one would be offended.
Consider This:
Every joke and every prank is based on a truth or perceived weakness or similarity of the people it is being played on or joked about.
Making a false pregnancy announcement may be aimed at all the busybodies who so desperately want to know when a newly married couple will put forth into this world their offspring – especially grandparents.
Those hurt and offended need to realize they are not the target of the prank or joke and for the most part I will bet, no one meant any offense or harm in pulling it off.
So stop getting feelings hurt at something that wasn’t directed at or for you and leave it be.
Social media has made it so much harder for the easily offended to avoid getting their feelings hurt. The public way so many things are presented makes it easy to think someone is purposefully trying to take a jab.
Next time you find yourself feeling hurt and offended take a step back and ask yourself why. Was that the intention of it? To hurt YOU? Was it even really directed at you?
Do you really have a right to feel offended? If you could tell the person, who clearly can not empathize with you, or maybe they would not have made the joke, prank, statement, art, music, etc, whatever it is so offending at all ever, would they understand they hurt you?
Everyone has hot buttons, Things they are insecure about or feel stigmatized or feel bad about themselves for. When someone makes a joke or any of the above-aforementioned things that hit that hot button, we tend to look outward to the source to stop the pain of having to feel: different, ugly, stupid, black, white, smart, barren, weak, fat, skinny…
do I need to go on?
The way to stop the pain of these things which offend us so mightily people is not to lash out at the offenders, who in all likelihood have no idea they even offended you, but to realize the source is not them.
It is inside you. You are the source of your offendedness.
Learn to accept yourself as you are and what your circumstances are. That is the truth. That is what is right. No one can make you feel inferior unless you already feel inferior
Rise above it.
And pull up your big kid panties and let’s focus on better things and better days.
We are all human. Bleed the same.
Not hearing about our shortcomings as we perceive them to be will not change that we have them.
Change your perception.
To Your Mental State, whatever it may be.
Running Naked With Scissors 
Okay, buckle up.
I have been the one who was hurt by every single pregnant woman and mother with a child less than 40 years old. No, I did not have a tantrum on social media. No, I did not lash out at women with the ability to do what I could not. No, I did not dictate what others could do in their life.
I did dictate how I would interact and respond.
I did tell a man his “dead baby jokes” were not funny to those who had held babies as they died. No, I did not tell him his parents were never married. I was as deadpan as I always am with such announcements, and I delivered the message with my wry smile which makes you wonder if I am going to serve you coffee or eviscerate you. I never told him not to tell said jokes, and he had asked why I did not find him hilarious. My response was appropriate.
I decided to not go to baby showers. No playdates. No pediatrician appointments. I skipped most every place where I would be reminded of the baby I was not holding. Did I stop existing? Yes, for a while. Once I had necessities which would not wait, I went about my normal life, invisible big girl panties and all.
No one has a right to dictate others’ actions based on how offended they are. No one. Being offended is admitting you do not have coping skills sufficient to deal with the words others say. Instead of fat-shaming or slut-shaming, I would entirely endorse the completely unintentional offending which would coincide with telling offended people what the meaning of being offended is.
Two really red cents,
xxx