to find this article on motherhood inFURiating?

[BlooferLady]

Guardian writer in 'motherhood is hell' shock

Disclaimer: je suis TTCing. Erm, for a LONG time!

I didn't want children for years. YEARS! Was violently opposed to it And you know why? Because it looked like one long unending saga of drudgery, misery, isolation and loss of identity and self-respect (I have a large family and thus had the opportunity to observe its effects up close every 18 months or so).

We're TTCing now - hormones and a little wisdom took over, and I would very much like to be a mother. And yet here on MN and in the press I find my old terrors reinforced, and this article sums it all up. Everything I feared is true...

BUT IS IT? By the end of the article I wanted to slap the woman. She complains of her life dwindling to a miserable compressed world of perma-exhaustion, leaking breasts, nappy changes, never seeing her old friends, losing her sense of a professional life, only ever socialising with mothers and mother and toddler groups, bitterly envying women who still go to work, angry with her partner for not helping out round the house...

Someone PLEASE tell me it doesn't have to be like this. I wanted to yell at her, get out of the damn house and DO stuff you moaning bint! No-one MAKES you go to mother and toddler groups - put the creature in a sling and wander round the V&A! Let your partner do a bottle feed in the evening and go out for a boozy dinner! Do some work from home! MAKE your partner help out!

Surely there are people here on MN whose entire character isn't subsumed into the drudgery of being a mother? Who continue to be lively, interested in the larger world, engaged with their friends, interested in their career, happy in their relationships, still maintaining a sense of self and self-respect? For motherhood extends, informs, illuminates their life - doesn't effectively end it! Because if not, I don't want children. AIBU?!

Haven't read the whole thread so sorry if someone else has said this.
As others have said, lots of personal things about you and your baby will influence how you find the whole experience. I think one of the most important is whether you are an Introvert or an Extrovert in the Myers Briggs sense:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

(As I am sure you know, this is a little more nuanced than the popular senses of the words - how noisy you are in social situations - but where you get your energy from: from being alone, or from being with others?)

When you have a baby, you are never truly alone, as you are always at least with the baby, or potentially, as it may demand you at any moment. Separately, you will also find that having other adults around will really lighten the load (even without increasing the adult: child ratio, things just get much easier the more people you have around.) If you like having people around, and derive your energy from this, you will be happy, like the poster who said maternity leave was great because of lunches, buggy-cise, lots of social activity. If you need down time alone, you will never get it. You will probably feel better having other people around a lot than being along with the baby a lot, but this is not the same as being alone - this is like saying you will feel better on an endless treadmill in decent running shoes than high heels, but you are still on the treadmill and it will feel like it. If you need a lot of solitary time to do the things that make you feel like you - whatever your work is, reflective hobbies like solitary creative things etc - your life will be on hold for a few years (I suppose - assuming you ever get it back - I don't know). If you have always happily lived your life in the midst of social activity, working with people, creating with people, etc etc, then you will carry on doing this, in many different ways and on less sleep and perhaps after a short new-born blip, and it will be fine.

I read the article this morning and thought it was a bit dull to be honest although it does flag up the importance of picking your DP carefully if you don't want to spend your life doing all the housework.

I have one DD who is one and am much happier than I was before I was a mum in all kinds of ways I didn't expect. Here is my highly personal list as a counterpoint to the article.

1. I have derived great confidence sinply from the fact that everything has not fallen apart. My DH and I still get on well, I have not become the kind of person who goes to the shops in their pyjamas, I still work and life has continued.

2)The experience of pregnancy, birth and early motherhood has made me feel oddly physically (and generally) confident. Since having a baby, I have passed my driving test and taken on sporting/physical challenges that I would never have done before.

3)I enjoy my work much more, am more ambitious and really enjoy the contrast with motherhood. I think speaking to lots of other mums about their jobs has made me really value the fact I have an interesting job and am paid enough to afford good childcare (and to take the time off that I wanted to). I also find it much less stressful because I am generally more confident and frankly don't have the time or mental energy to worry about the trivial things I used to worry about at work any more.

4. I have more confidence in myself and my decisions because it is more obvious that I have to take the right decisions for me and my family and so I have had to develop a thicker skin to what others think.

5)My husband and I are closer because we both have a strong sense of what we're working for and a joint love of our baby.

6)I get on better with my mother in law who has been very kind to me since I had a baby and I value the fact that she obviously really loves DD and wants to be involved.

Obviously none of these are the reason I had a baby but it is worth pointing out that life can change in positive ways for the better and although there are always going to be more challenging days and weeks one can pick one's attitude towards them to an extent and be grateful for the good times.

Good luck OP!

On the 1950s thing: the author may have wished to read this 1962 textbook, surely enshrining 1950s values?

Which says "the idea that a man should support his wife, hardly more than a generation old, seems rapidly passing out" alongside much else about female employment (and a lot of really gruesome stuff which may make you chuckle but it was 1962..)

love this thread. Fascinating.
Speaking as someone who truly found adjusting to motherhood hard (I dreaded it, and all my worst fears were confirmed and then trumped in terms of exhaustion, pain, struggling to bond, loss of freedom, loss of identity, loss of a good haircut etc etc), I am now two glasses of wine further on in my evening and am thinking the following:
My daughter's face lights up when she sees me. She is a whole, fully formed person, that my husband and I made. We have the immense privilege of witnessing her life, seeing her grow and change and being able to help shape her values and have her shape ours. She coos and sings along when I sing to her. She has whole 'conversations' with me. She has a sense of humour and giggles at some things and finds other things boring. It makes my heart sing with joy just thinking about her asleep upstairs in her cot. Yes, asleep. If anyone had told me in the first few months that I would be on the sofa with a glass of wine, while she slept contentedly upstairs I wouldn't have believed it. It was bloody hard to get here and it is bloody worth it.

Not to mention the fact that your partner belittles you and undermines your attempts at getting your child to be good at school and eating a healthy diet
However if you dont do a good job nobody else will..

You cant keep going to the pub every night for ever

mummyabroad and hairylights, I understand that to people who are ttc or who've been through pregnancy loss, people moaning about aspects of pregnancy/motherhood or saying it is "hell" may be difficult to take, but think you are being a little sensitive.

I have been through recurrent mc and desperately, desperately wanted my dds, and feel amazingly lucky to have them, but I do still moan (a lot!) at times.Going through fertility stuff can be a risk factor in PND.

blooferlady think you are being really thoughtful in your approach.

vezzie is right.
I would just add though that if you do need down time and time alone, even the commute to work with a book can save your sanity when you've a baby at home and just the change of pace between full on baby all night and day (I never had one yet that slept much) to being in an office is enough to ensure some peace and time in a sense alone if you keep working.

I think whether you work or not the hardest time of most people's lives (bar very old age) is when you have very young children and whether you're male or female but it gets much easier. My life now with youngest aged 12 is a picnic compared to when we had 3 children under 4. However even so I still remember so many elements of job - even just memories of 2am breastfeeding in total silence only the baby (or babies in our case) awake and the release of oxytocin (breastfeeding releases special pleasure hormones) as the milk lets down, the gorgeous sweet tiny baby, glowing clear skin, it's health, it's weight, everything down to you (ifyou choose to breastfeed).. or cute toddlers and even much older children. It all is a lot of fun too, not just the hard bits.

Ignoring the initial shock/lack of sleep you get with a newborn, I can hand on heart say I love everything about being a parent. We had a great life pre-babies (more money, social life, travel etc) but we equally have a great life now. Of course it's very different but I wouldn't swop it for the world.

LCN

Greythorne - laughed loads at the bikini line comment. Mine does, but it did before being a Mum!

I did fine until we moved when dd was 15 months. The first 15 were great - good circle of friends, easily balanced part time job with child care and social life, had a ball. (Due mostly to the fact that a load of us all had offspring at about the same time and we shared kids around, and parties went from evening affairs to family affairs where the kids just mucked in together and we all stood round, chatted and only intervened if lives were threatened!). Then I moved, and it has taken ages for me to locate groups, and then find people there who are not already quite busy with their own lives and use toddler group as a small diversion rather than a place to meet other mums (IYSWIM). Mostly I found people friendly enough while there but have found it hard to go the next step up and start arranging to meet people outside of the groups. But we're getting there.

The only thing that drives me MAD about being a SAHM is the obsession my dd has with me going to the loo! I haven't weed in peace for Ages! I cherish the time after she's gone to bed because at least I don't have to explain what i am doing every 3 seconds.

Life did change when I had dd - I was exepcting it too, and wanted it too, but she hasn't consumed my life. Rather, she has added to my life, if that makes sense. I still enjoy the things I did before she was born, although I can't always indulge all of them now (time, money etc etc). But now I also look forward to sharing them with her as she gets older.

The one thing I was not prepared for was a slight but constant sense of loss. I love each new stage, I love the person she is becoming, but I also already look back (she is 2) on the baby days and realise that the baby she was has already gone. Sometimes I am desperate for her to grow up faster (mainly so she grows out of wanting to join me in the loo and commentate!) but I also want her to stop growing up any more. I have decided that motherhood has really brought out the contradictory side of me!!!

she had PND I suspect, life goes on ! yes its hard work, of course, but
its worth it

and yes, most women do have to manage careers and the domestics too, and this may well change for the next generation

but agree a depressing article , tomorrows fish and chip paper

We had our DD last November after a long series of problems which I wont bore you with here. Shes lovely.
My life has changed drastically but its just different, not worse. Shes already changed and 'grown up' from when she was born and its fascinating watching her learn new things, struggling with stuff we do without thinking and then being pleased and smiley when she can do it.
As plenty of other people have said, you cant predict what kind of pregnancy or baby you will have, you just have to do your best, cross your fingers, enjoy the good bits and dont dwell on the rough days when it all goes wrong. And son't, really really don't, waste time now worrying about it

Good luck with your TTC

It amazes me every day just how much personality such a little thing can display without the power of speech!

"hmc please dont flame by good friend hairy recurrent mc is a truly devastating thing to happen to anyone and does deserve to be met with total sympathy."

Where did I flame her???? precisely?

Actually quite now!

There will be times when it feels a bit like that. But having dc can be a great boost for your social life in the long-run. I have mainly worked at different jobs since being a mum, always part-time, but I have made more lasting friendships through motherhood than through work. Apart from a handful of OLD friends, some of whom have children and some of whom do not, my close friends now are all mums I met at antenatal, post-natal, nursery, voluntary work for Homestart (for which you need to be a parent) so for me it's been great. Domestic drudgery yes to a certain extent, and an emotional rollercoaster, but a lot of lovely too.

I don't think that the author of that article had PND or that it was a particularly depressing article. It is fairly similar to how I felt when my two were tiny, for some of us that is just how early parenthood feels. It may be that more people are coming out of the woodwork to say that they really find small babies very difficult - I don't think it was a view that was in the mainstream a while ago.

When I was a new mother I was surrounded by people who repeatedly told me that this was the best time of my life, how sad that it went so fast etc etc. It seemed to be assumed only people who were suffering from PND could possibly not love spending all their time with babies. I see some of that here too - views that you only feel bad if you are a negative person, it's her fault for not getting out more, she must be a 'mummy martyr' etc etc

The fact is that some parents don't enjoy the early years, and that that is a combination of expectations, personality, whether the baby is "easy' (and that means different things to different people), dynamics between the parents, family support, wealth, health and a whole bunch of other things no doubt too.

Personally I think that going into parenthood it is very important to explore these things, for parents to think about what realistically is likely to happen, what level of support is available, what roles the parents expect to take, the environment (things to do, available friends, groups etc), and also what options are available if things don't go to plan.

I am a very independent person and I need new challenges. I hate mundane chores, I need my own space for thinking and I'm not good with dependency. So it wasn't too surprising that I didn't find parenting easy, although it wasn't too bad with ds, who was a very straightforward baby. With dd it was a nightmare because she was a limpet baby and I hated that. However even though I knew I wasn't very maternal I still had this idea in my head that I should be an earth mother, and it was hard to acknowledge that being at home wasn't good for me or the children. Once I had, we found a nanny that loved babies and thought ours were lovely, and I went back to work we were all much happier.

They were still two very hard years, and it took a significant toll on both dh and I, but although they felt incredibly slow, I can now look back in hindsight and see that it was a very very small part of parenthood, and whilst we might not be the best parents of babies we were pretty great parents of toddlers, small and medium sized children and pre-teen years seem pretty fun too. We've still got teens, young adults and then adults to be parents of too and I look forward to that as well.

Not sure she did Dueling, but some of us contributing to the thread did - in a crazy and insensitive manner

Who was it that said that motherhood is hell? was it actually in the article (I missed it if it was), or was that the OP's inaccurate and inflammatory paraphrasing?

An awful lot of the article resonated with me. The writer isn't saying that motherhood is hell or that it ruins your life or that she wishes she hadn't had a child or anything like that. She's saying that modern ideals of equality within a marriage can be challenged and strained in unexpected ways when a baby comes into the mix. That's all. It's true, it's interesting, and it's worth talking about.

Someone early on in this thread said that it was sad that she never mentioned love in the piece. She did. She wrote, "The uncertainty I'd felt about having a child had vanished ? I loved my son ? but a new emotional complexity took its place: despite this love, I came to resent motherhood itself. The coexistence of these two apparently contradictory feelings defined my days."

Such a shame that a woman can't write about the 'emotional complexity' of her experience of motherhood, without being called a bitch, a whinger, and a moaner, and without other women saying they'd like to slap her or that she's insensitive and cruel to admit to ever having any feelings other than 24-hour gratitude.

x-post Dueling and hmc. I thought it was just me. No, she never said motherhood was hell.

Absolutely Cloudydays, I wondered if I had read a different article to some others!

I can completely see what she means yet to some it seems like this is an attack on motherhood or an attack on SAHMs. It clearly isn't

I want to respond to the OP too...

"Someone PLEASE tell me it doesn't have to be like this. I wanted to yell at her, get out of the damn house and DO stuff you moaning bint! No-one MAKES you go to mother and toddler groups - put the creature in a sling and wander round the V&A! Let your partner do a bottle feed in the evening and go out for a boozy dinner! Do some work from home! MAKE your partner help out!"

it's not all like that for sure. I TTC for almost 3 years and had a baby through IVF. I have luckily found being a new mum quite easy. Breastfeeding has been fine, I can cope with the lack of sleep, I accept that now DH is back in work I have to do all of the daytime nappychanging and baby entertainment. However I still had (have) moments where I feel a bit shitty. I do get out of the house and go to various groups but there are days when I have nothing on and some of those days can be hard, specially if the baby is grumpy and I am tired. I am EBF and so my DH can't give a bottle until I start expressing - which I plan to do later. I asked my husband to clean the bathrooom 2 weeks ago, he still hasn't done it. rankly I can't be arsed to march him up there and make him do it.

Thanks again to everyone for taking such care and time to contribute. Wish I could respond to all but can't. In haste, though -

hmc I can't see evidence of your having flamed anyone, pal. Not sure that that's especially reassuring, but there it is!

cloudy I am sorry you felt my OP was inflammatory. I am not sure if you have read much of the thread, or any of my other posts (I hope you won't mind if I say I suspect not!) but certainly the whole tone of this thread has not been like that at all. I certainly haven't called her a bitch - I would never call another woman a bitch without some serious provocation. Neither have I called her insensitive or cruel, nor have I demanded "24 hour gratitude". If I may be so bold, your precising of my contributions and my OP have been as inaccurate and inflammatory as you have accused me of being! What I have said throughout is that I have observed a huge amount of writing/taking - both in weekend broadsheet commentary which some wise posters have urged me to avoid and in RL - that speaks of early motherhood in such desperate terms one wonders why anyone would bother. I have been pleading - out of a personal need to hear Good Stuff - for tales of happiness and contentment, rather than this awful grinding sense of resentment and unhappiness and loss of identity.

She does indeed have the right to write about the complexities of motherhood: indeed, it is essential that she does, in some respects. Equally however I have the right to express my terror that the family I've longed for - without success - for so long, will prove infinitely more miserable than even I, in my endless pessimism, have come to suspect.

Dueling congrats on your baby :)

I know what you mean about suspecting you've read a different article - I have said this a few times upthread but I can't imagine anyone would have the time or inclination to read it all, so here goes again: I do see that the thread concludes with a really interesting debate about equality and roles etc., but because if where I am/my previous feelings on motherhood/the whole TTC biz it was this particular aspect of it that made me go bang.

that the article concludes, I mean