The Household COO

Here’s another couple that had to adhere to the superstitions about “no renovations and no moving house” during pregnancy. Pantang is the word used to describe people who hold on to these beliefs as rules they have to follow in life otherwise something bad will happen. Here’s one context in which you would use it:

“They’re pantang about such things.”

I used to laugh and scoff about such things but in the interest of keeping the peace, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. I still remember the first time I related a story about a colleague who also didn’t believe in such superstitions…

When my colleague’s wife was pregnant, he told me he quietly hammered some nails in his new house so he could hang up some pictures. We had a good laugh about it and I related the story to the hubby thinking that he would appreciate the humour. The last thing I expected was to be slapped back with a statement like, “That’s seriously f***ed!”

My first thoughts were that he felt the superstitions were “seriously f***ed”. When I clarified, I later realised that what he meant was that he thought my colleague was “seriously f***ed” for going against the beliefs. I was too stunned for words but I learned quite quickly after that day how seriously some people took their pantang beliefs.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 9:50 am and is filed under Pregnancy, beliefs, pantang, superstitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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