Ethnomethodology Lab

Norm:​ Typically, when pregnant women are in public they are at least in their mid-twenties. It is
against the expected norm to see a pregnant teenager and people often react very badly to it
because of that.

Hypothesis:​ I expect people at school to give me weird looks and whisper to their friends about
me. In public I expect people to avoid me, stare at me, or come up to me and ask invading
questions. I am prepared to get a more realistic look into the judgments that teen mothers face on
a daily basis.

Setting:​ I wore the pregnancy belly to school for two days and out to do errands.

Witnesses:​ People at school, teenagers, teachers, administration, and random adults at the store
saw me breaking the norm.

Reactions:​ The people who know me and knew it was fake thought I was crazy. Many people
told me, “I would never do that.” Despite them knowing I wasn’t actually pregnant, I felt a lot of
judgement from them. People who didn’t know it was fake judged me. Teachers were actually
some of the biggest judgers. They clearly disapproved and were highly disappointed. Students
tried not to look but couldn’t help themselves. Many people asked my friends if I was pregnant
instead of asking me. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, people around school were talking
about me. My friend on the bus told me that she heard people in her 3rd and 4th period say
things like “Did you see that girl who’s pregnant?” “If another person in our class gets pregnant,
I swear…” “She’s like -- actually pregnant!” The second day I wore it was the most surprising.
At lunch, my friend texted me from across the cafeteria to come show her friends my belly. As I
walked over there, six tables of boys said, “Oh ​shittttt.” ​Additionally, while I was standing there
talking to my friend for about ten minutes, about 100 people were staring at me. ​Tons​ of
students, teachers, and even the cafeteria staff were giving me dirty looks, staring, and
whispering. I was surprised by this. I was expecting people to stare and judge me but I wasn’t
really expecting it to affect people. People talked about it in their class periods and all over the
school. People actually cared, teachers genuinely worried about me.

Reason:​ I think people reacted this way because it’s weird. Seeing a person at school who’s
pregnant is always huge news and everyone knows about it. People are also drawn to drama and
something to talk about. It is unfortunate that people are so judgemental but that is human nature.
When people see something out of the ordinary, they form opinions on it and feel the need for
their opinions to be heard. Everyone has opinions on everything and seeing a pregnant teen is
asking for those opinions to be formed but that does not make it fair.
Consequences:​ I only acted as a pregnant teen for a few days. Some teens have to live this, every
single day. The judgement never fades. A teen girl is pregnant for nine months and as those
months progress she gets more and more judgement and then after that time, she has her baby
and the judgement only grows there. People judge her about her parenting, her education, her
housing, her finances, her sexual choices that led her to that kid and so much more. You become
socially isolated and feel like the public doesn’t accept you because you made a bad choice and
resulted with a child.

Feelings:​ I had a lot of fun. I felt constantly judged and in the beginning I felt super ashamed and
wanted to hide the belly but as time progressed, it entertained me and I was able to have a lot of
fun with it. I made up a due date, the gender, and name of the baby. I talked about it as if I was
actually pregnant. I am a maternal person so it was no surprise that I had a lot of fun with this.
However, I couldn’t have done this experiment last year. I was filled with social anxiety and
feeling so judged would have brought me to tears. But now, what is fun for me and what makes
me happy matters far more to me than how people will react to me or my actions. I enjoyed this
experiment. However, being judged everyday by everyone would have gotten to me if I had
actually been pregnant because I would have been hormonal and I wouldn’t have had such an
easy “out” like just, taking off the belly.