to get annoyed when people talk about "getting your life back"?

[SuiGeneris]

it might be just a turn of phrase, but I get exceedingly annoyed when people ask "when will you [stop breastfeeding/leave your baby with a babysitter and go out for the night/put the baby in his own room], so you can get your life back?"

My old life is gone. Now I am a mother, we are a family and the old life is no longer relevant, I don't want it back. In fact, I very much like my new one.

So, AIBU to get quite so exercised about what is probably just a turn of phrase?

Just because I've had a child doesn't mean I've lost my life, having children is part of my life, its not a new life and I have no old life. This is my life! =0)

Different people will see this differently, but I agree that the presumption that your child is just an inconvenience to you is offensive. I thought very carefully about becoming a mum, I gave up some things, but gained a whole lot more. It's not martyrdom, it's a very positive change of lifestyle, which I came into with eyes wide open. In my old life I was in a hedonistic downward spiral that would have destroyed me in the end. Settling down and having a baby made my world a safer and more rewarding place.

People wouldn't automatically presume you wanted your old life back if you changed jobs, left a partner or moved to a new town.

I think YANBU. It irritates me too. I had two older dcs -12 and 9 when I had dc3, now 22 weeks. I've had a number of people tilt their head to one side and say sympathetically how hard it must be coping with a new baby when I'd got used to having my life back. She was planned and wanted and I'm delighted with her and was miserable in the last few years when it looked as if we weren't going to be blessed with a third dc. As for my life pre ds - I can't remember it very well. But have no desire to go back to my drunken, debauched days. It would like going on holiday somewhere I'd been before when there are lots of other places I haven't been yet.

YANBU- I feel the same about 'but don't you want your body back' re: BF too.
No, thanks. I like the way we do things. Just because I cosleep/breastfeed/SAHM doesn't mean I don't have a life and interests but I don't spend my weekends in the pub and/or out at squat parties taking drugs these days. My life has changed .

I think it's just one of those trite little phrases people like to say when they can't think of anything intelligent else to say.

is trite phrase,but cant live life wholly through dc either.i think is meant in sense of complete dependency gradually reduces

women do need some autonomy and roles that isnt child/family related.for majority of women that is work

much as i love my dc i was glad when they slept through night,stopped bf and weaned as it felt less arduous.and incrementally it did feel like getting something back

returning after mat leave also felt a bit like getting bit of autonomy/responsibility back. not only being mum

I don't think my life before DC's was meaningless. It was simply different. I enjoyed it. And yet I am now also enjoying my life with my DC's. (Admittedly I am enjoying it more now that they are both at school and I have got loads more time to myself to do things I want to do )

"Certainly- I, for one, am not a mummy martyr at all. DH is very supportive and does more than his fair share, including bathtime every night and changing/caring in the morning, so I get time to do the things I like (read, cook, come on MN...) "

That's why you are enjoying it.

If you have one child, who is still a baby, have "help" in the form of a DH who is around enough to do that amount of stuff, and still have "me time" (read cook MN etc) then you already have your "life back" - some of us dont get to do any of that, and have to do all the other stuff as well, for older and multiple children, and school runs, etc etc. It gets harder, is what I'm saying. And you get older. So whilst you might not be bothered about your "old life" now, 10 years down the line, if you didn't have that support, and went on to have other children, you might be a little bit in need of a break

I don't think you are being unreasonable.

Life changes. Each stage that you leave behind you can't get back, and you shouldn't want to, because you can't live in the past.

when you were single, that was your life. when you married, that was your life. when you had children, that was your life...

What is "getting your life back"? What is 'your life' ?

Before you had children?
Before you had a husband/partner?
Before you owned a house?
Before you had a job?
Before you left school/college/uni?
Before you were out of bloody nappies?

If getting your life back = not having someone rely on you so much, or want so much from you, or dictate your movements then that's called being dead, because from the day you are born until the day you die someone, somewhere, owns you! - parents, school, boss, mortgage provider , kids, parents again...

That's life. You don't get to please yourself. You get to have a bit now and then that's you, but it's not your life, it's more that you fit it in around your life.

Porcelain, Hecate, mollycuddles, The RealChopin, WoTmania, MrsJones: exactly. You have all shone light on the same point, from different perspectives.

The point for me is that DS is very much part of our life now, he was very much wanted and sought and we would not want life any different. Of course we are lucky that there is two of us to parent him, that we have help and flexible jobs that, to a certain extent, can be made to fit around our parenting duties and a calm, sunny child who sleeps a night. We fully realise how lucky we are and also understand that others make other choices or have less of a choice, and so may wish more strongly to have bits of their old lives back.

But for us, life is good as it is, and if anything it was our old lives that we would have happily discarded sooner in favour of the current arrangement. When people who know us (and in some cases know how longed for DS was) to suggest that we should want to get our lives back suggests at beast careless use of a trite phrase...

YANBU. I also get sick of the presumption that DD is some kind of inconvenience holding me back. I don't find it hard at all to be the mother of a single easy-going child.

I echo what Bonsoir and RunAndBeMum said.

I was in the baby cocoon for 2 years. I co-slept, breastfed on demand for 21 months (still feed but it's sporadic) had a long maternity leave of 16 months (husband became a SAHD) until I went back to work three days.

I breastfed for every nap, every day, every 2-hour waking at night and those long two-hour half-asleep feeds from 5am.

I didn't have a cot, still don't have a pram. I carry her everywhere.

She's even born on my birthday -- this Saturday I didn't get a look in as it was her day (I went to bed on my own at 9.30 as I was just too tired (and emotional )

My life has changed forever. I loved not always in the quotidian, but in broad-brush sense the intensity of caring for her and sleeping with her and just being close to her all the time. I worked my chores and cooking around her. My husband feels the same and he became a SAHD out of choice (actually he does 2 night shifts to keep his hand in so in some ways can appreciate how ragged I got)

But. There were times when I would have chewed someone's arm off to get my child in her own bed and asleep knowing that she wouldn't wake crying in 45 mins or 2 hours. That I could go somewhere with my husband and not half one ear half-cocked expecting her to cry and me to have to feed her grudgingly to sleep for another hour.

My relationship has suffered. Not deeply, but I am more bad tempered (lack of sleep), I have less balance, hardly see anyone (don't do the mummy circuit) and when I've finally wrangled my kid to sleep I am all passion spent. We just get into bed then watch a bit of a film and fall asleep. I hardly have sex (bit of a problem when you're ttc a second) and have even had flashes of jealousy as my husband has given his ALL for that child and there's not much left over for me.

I feel that I am on a treadmill sometimes. I accept that this is life with a small child and know that this time of a lack of balance won't be forever. But it's very hard sometimes, especially when you are running on empty because you are tired (did I mention I get up for work at 5.45am?)

I would NEVER EVER think ill of a woman who said she wanted some time to herself or with friends. Having that feeling even if it doesn't hit you until they are older toddlers doesn't negate excellent mothering skills.

I had my baby in Singapore and had a housekeeper who could babysit (with expressed milk) and was attached to her (so I felt comfortable leaving her to go to dinner) and I had a much more varied life in her first six months than from 6 months to 2 years.

Anyway, I'm out this evening with an old contact as my husband is taking our daughter to his parents. This was only something he did when she weaned from feeding to sleep. I shall get tipsy and enjoy myself. And I won't flagellate myself for it.

I think people are talking at cross purposes here.

To some people, "getting your life back" means giving care of the young child to others, weaning early, so you can pretty much life child-free evenings.

To others "getting your life back" means demand feeding ending and co-sleeping ending so that you can have a rare night off.

It is a glib phrase though, but not as bad as 'happy mum=happy baby'

YANBU, I also think life goes through phases and we might as well enjoy them as they come along.

I am always a bit at the idea that if you enjoy being a mother and do not regret the pre Dcs days you are a martyr. I cannot think of anything in my "previous life" that I miss so much really (except going to the loo in peace). That said, those who manage to organise themselves a night out while their DCs are being looked after are not committing a sin either.

I think that otchayaniye is right. We do understand this sentence differently , acording to our sensibilities and life experience.

Look, I dont think "getting your life back" means wishing your son away or fast forwarding till he's 18 or whatever.

I think you are overthinking it.

Gory09 - also, eating nice things openly without having DS1: 'what are you eating?' Me: nothing DS1:show me Me: no DS, I'm not eating anything *quickly swallowing illicit treat thereby ruining enjoyement of it.

yanbu.

it is annoying, dd, 20 weeks , is my 4th, i have 3 teens too. babyhood goes so quickly enjoy it.

would be interesting to see how people would react if tables were turned and 'mummy martyrs' were to say 'stopped bf, going out, so soon?? oh my dont you miss your BABY!'

Bluephone, no, probably not but it is highly annoying to be told that I need to do something for me by people who know nothing about me or be told that 'oh, bet you can't wait til they start school and are out of your hair', or get referred to as 'just a SAHM' (I'm not. I do voluntary work too)

sprogger - but often it is critical. It is often accompanied by comments about mummmy-brain and being boring etc.

"*quickly swallowing illicit treat thereby ruining enjoyement of it."

I did not exactly forgot this one as much as not dared writting it thinking I was the only person in the world doing it!

I loathed that baby cocoon phase. I felt as if my life had been not so much lost as blasted away, leaving this fat knackered isolated person to cope with the new life.

I love my children. But I also very much love the fact that I can now - nine years on from my first baby - do stuff I just couldn't, for reasons of both logistics and energy, even three years ago. I can sort out - I can find, dammit - a babysitter and go and sing on Thursday nights. I can go out with my children without spending the previous half hour running around like a demented serf. Yes, part of my life is back and I like that.

I was one of those people who couldn't wait to "get my life back". DD is 6 weeks old and i am now realising that i will never be the old me again and thats ok but it doesn't stop me feeling jealous of DP for being at work all day while i struggle to even get a shower most days. Also can't wait to go out and get insanely drunk but i know i'll probably feel guilty for leaving her.

I think it's just a case of finding a balance between the old you and the new you. I loved my old life, and as much as i love my new life i kind of miss the freedom i used to have!

hehe, Gory09 I have dark chocolate in the cupboard and I put it in my mouth with my head behind the cupboard door so they don't see me [hgrin]

WoTmania, I cannot do that, mine regularely follow me to see what I am doing (they know me well)and if they are not in the same room as me, they seem to have some sort of "wraping sensor" that alerts them at the slightest noise of opening a wraper of any kind. I wish I would think about pre-unwrapping some stuff while they are asleep sometimes, would definitely be helping!.

Someone used the word "balance" before and I think ultimatly that is pretty much all it comes down to, for me going out with DH and the Dcs is all the balance I need as I feel the need for entertainment more than the need for solitude and peace IYSWIM. For others the only way to feel that balance is to do that without the Dcs arround to refresh their mind a bit.