Fakers Piss Me Off, But Also Intrigue Me
Acronym of the Day
H.O.M. – Higher Order Multiple(s); i.e. triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, etc.
For any regular person reading this, it will seem so unthinkable. (And when I say “regular”, I mean someone without HOMs. Those of us with large multiple births have learned it’s just part of the experience.) The freaky thing is, on a REGULAR BASIS, people appear in our HOM world who are pretending to have multiples. I know! It just sounds too crazy to be true, doesn’t it? But when another quadruplet mom calls me from across the country and casually says, “That person on your Facebook? She’s a faker.” it doesn’t outrage me and destroy my trust in the world as it probably should.
A brief education: if you look over on the right-side widget bar, you’ll see an icon for M.O.S.T. This stands for Mothers Of SuperTwins. This is one of the two well-known national multiples groups in the US and is headquartered in New York. The GrandMasterMom of MOST is Maureen. Anyone with triplets or more can join, but when you join you are vetted to make sure you qualify for membership. (Fakers who are reading this can keep moving; I’m not going to be giving any strategies for weeding out the weirdos. Suffice it to say that with one or two questions, Maureen can usually tell if there’s something hinky going on.) Doesn’t seem like you’d need to be “checked out”, does it? What weirdo would lie about this? Plenty.
I’ve always been interested in psychology, and if I ever go back to school I’m gonna do a research paper on People Who Fake Multiples. Some of them do it for money and donations. There was one couple on the news that claimed to have had sextuplets and received large amounts of donations when their Chamber of Commerce solicited on their behalf. Another sextuplet hoax on the news had gotten all sorts of stuff–a new washer and dryer, gift cards to the grocery store, clothes–when they made announcements in the media that they had had sextuplets. There was a woman online several years ago who joined some of our conversations asking us to donate baby clothes to her because she was having quads. She wasn’t.
Other people must do it for the attention. Whether they’ve told people close to them or are just posing online, they get wide-eyed admiration and wonder from most people, and an instant friendship with the hundreds of real HOM parents around the country and world. People are constantly asking how the pregnancy is going, when the babies will come home, how the babies are doing, and how the faker is holding up. Because those of us living the life know how hard (physically and emotionally) it can be, a phony can expect lots of positive reinforcement in the form of encourgement and compliments. I wonder about this group. Does their facade indicate a tendency towards mental illness? Sometimes it’s teenagers who are playing a role. Does this put them at a higher risk for other dishonest behaviors?
Maybe some people are just bored. They think the idea of it sounds fun, so they create their own history and situation, like they’re playing a game of The Sims–HOM Edition. I wonder if these people are really dishonest, or just feel like they’re part of a role playing adventure. There must be a certain group who are just nuts. Maybe they convince themselves that it’s true. That must suck when they get around to their due date.
I can’t write this post without including a brief description of a person most HOM moms are familiar with: the Tummy Man. Apparently, there is some guy out there who is really turned on by large, pregnant bellies. (Unfortunately, I’m not married to him.) From what I’ve been told, he contacts women who are expecting multiples and tells them that he has a wife who is also pregnant! And, OMG, she’s at the same point in her pregnancy AND expecting the same number/sexes of babies as the woman he’s talking to! Eventually, he confides that his wife is extremely concerned that her belly is abnormally large/small/stretched/whatever and asks if the new friend would mind sending him a picture of her tummy so that he can compare and help put his wife’s fears to rest. I’m sure most pregnant woman would feel some sympathy–we all probably deal with some body issues during this time. I think he’s gotten a nice collection of tummy shots. Makes you wonder what his mother did to him that this is his sexual fantasy.
