Why do strangers feel it is okay to rub your belly?

Oh wow does this strike a never with me, I have 5 kids, two grand sons and have worked with litterly hundrends of pregnant women through the years. It was a big sore spot with me, I get the wonder of pregnant bellies I love to feel babies moving inside their mom. However If I get the ugre, I ALWAYS ask FIRST, and not just some stranger in th store... it is usually a family member, or a client. When I was pregnant, I always had a huge belly, and folks I never knw would touch me, sometimes coming up and rubbing my belly and then saying something like Oh can I feel your baby morve????? I would go off and tell them NO, Don't touch me. Now don't et me wrong I am not a rude person and I can usually do things in a very tactful way, but not that one. The other pet peeve of mine is strangers touching my babies... EXCUSE ME, I dont know you, and DON'T touch my baby....... grrrrrrr. now honestly, have you ever had someone come up and touch your belly when you are not pregnant? I think that was another reason I got hook on carring my babies in a sling, it gave me a bit of prtection from stranges when they were nw borns if we had to go out. Folks often thought it was a purse or shopping bag of some sort, unless they heard the baby cray or coo or polk thier head or hand out. (plus I could nurse descretly and no one even knew) I digress, I vote for a universal rule. HANDS OFF unless you are INVITED to rub / pat a pregnant belly or touch a baby!

Can't help but smile while reading your post. Just realized that they do do that sometimes. While I was pregnant though, I realized that I tend to hold or caress my bump a lot.

not sure why I never rub a pregnant woman's belly and never feel compelled to do so there is no specific reason. I just don't feel like touching anybody's belly aside from hubby's :) and that's just when we are playing and teasing it could be that in certain culture this is allowed or probably encouraged for some reason

People believe it's good luck to touch it. But with me, I don't do it to others, and when someone wanted to do it to me, I just went back, didn't let them touch.Only my good friends and family. Just stay away from me...it's me, my body. You can say your skin is very sensitive, so please, don't touch...

It really never bothered me, but i would never do it. I always wonder why they do it though. What goes on in their head. Another thing though that got annoying was look at the baby. Every time you go somewhere 'He's so adorable he's so tiny'. I was okay with it the first few months. Even up till today my 22 month old turns heads. He is a toddler not a baby. And people still make gender mistakes. Hello he is wearing boy clothes and his hair has been cut short enough to realize its a boy.

I love that you wrote this. I thought the same thing throughout my whole pregnancy. It ranged from people I worked with, family, friends of friends to just plain strangers touching my belly. I also started holding my belly in public without even noticing it. When I see a pregnant woman I cant help thinking how cute they look, but i couldnt imagine myself just walking up to them and touching their stomach, it baffles me that people had no problem doing that to me! I got that plus all the 'useful' advice on parenting I was getting from strangers too. Its cute but at the same time, mind your own business? lol.

In our country, people are quite superstitious and they believe that pregnant women carry around with them a certain kind of luck, so they would ask to rub the belly of the mom with hope that some of that "luck" will be passed on to them. Here in our office we have this agent who will always go to my staff (when she was pregnant) and rub her belly before she goes off for sales call. I didn't believe in stuffs like that so I found it funny. Glad to say that after two pregnancies, I haven't experienced having strangers rub my belly yet. Maybe I don't look that approachable to them, good for me then hehe

Oh my gosh!! I hate this too. I don't understand why people think it's okay. I saw a shirt recently that said "Now that you've rubbed my belly, it's my turn." How funny would that be if you turned around and started rubbing their belly right afterwards?! HAHA LOL.

This is a REALLY strange phenomenon, LuvBrOwn ... and I noticed it during all four of my pregnancies, too! Usually nobody took the remotest bit of interest in me, but all of a sudden there were strangers prodding me in the supermarket queue! What's with that? Our right to privacy seems to fly out of the window! Also, when I had the babies and took them to town, the little old lady brigade seemed to think they had the right to give me advice - such as my milk must have dried up, because the baby was crying. Give me strength!