We were at a gathering recently, Brooke and I and Dean, and someone said, pointing to Dean, “Aw, he is so cute!” to which I responded “Aw, thank you.”
Thank you for what, exactly?
Maybe I’m thinking because Dean, being a month old, won’t say it for himself, my ‘thank you’ is on his behalf.
No, no…I am taking the comment as a compliment to me. And why am I doing that?
The person nods at my “thank you” in response to her compliment of my son and continues to smile and we talk about how the lack of sleep sucks but well, you manage.
But what if she responded to my “thank you” with “Noooo no no… he’s cute in spite of you.” I would without a doubt laugh out loud, just for her having the balls to say such a thing. Realistically she would never say that. But she might be thinking it.
Which brings me to the deeper question. What does my saying “thank you” in this situation—someone complimenting my child’s attributes—say about me?
One of the base issues here, I believe, is that we are generally not very good at taking compliments. You might know what I mean. Someone compliments our hair, our tan after a vacation, our thinner waistline—anything having to do with appearance—and we deflect.
We might respond with a quick “aw shucks thanks” or worse, “oh thank you…you look good too!” Like oh yeah I’m sure the complimentor really felt that one from your heart, when you shot a generic compliment right back at them in response to theirs. But we do it involuntarily. It is hard to say a simple ‘thank you.’
Why? Maybe we haven’t noticed the change in ourselves (questionable), or maybe we were expecting the compliment (yikes), or maybe we think we don’t deserve it (worst of all).
That said, this situation here—thanking someone for a compliment of my baby—is different. It’s like we don’t know what to say. If someone compliments my child’s cuteness and I just shrug my shoulders and say “yeah”, while that’s kind of funny, it might come off as rude. And we hate coming off as rude, especially here in the south. So we might come up with something like “That’s nice of you to say” or “I appreciate you saying that” (odd).
More than likely, what is going on in my brain circuit in that split-second, is I’m taking the compliment as a compliment of myself, if an indirect one, and I’m saying thank you for it. Why am I taking it as a compliment to me? Well, because I helped make him. And I’m thinking by way of complimenting my child’s appearance, the complimentor might be complimenting my own to some degree. This is of course horseshit if not conceited, but when I say “thank you” to this compliment, I feel that is exactly what my thank you back to them implies.
Why is my instinctive reaction to say thank you? Am I alone in this? Surely not. But it is a strange position.
Do people say thank you when someone compliments how cute their dog is? And if so, is it because they believe it’s an indirect compliment to the dog owner, i.e., “hey man you can really pick ‘em out of a brood!” or “wow you have great taste in breed selection”. I think dog owners do say thank you in response to someone complimenting their dog. But why. I suppose same as above—they view the statement of the compliment as a reflection of their good qualities, of something they did—I picked this puppy out, me.
We are not good at direct compliments, so what makes you think we’ll be able to handle a supposed indirect compliment very well, either?
About a week later I was at the gym and one of our friends said, “Brooke looks so good already after having the baby.” Guess what I said back? That’s right. You know it. I said: “thank you”. What? I suppose the silence needed to be filled with words.
I only hoped she didn’t hear my thanks before I followed it up with “yeah, I’m just glad my kids have her genetics.”
She laughed, I laughed, we ended the conversation and went about our day. And while I sat down to write a blog inspired by the conversation, she, without a doubt, never once thought of it again.
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