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?!

oh Peabody you misunderstand a little I think - I don't want nothing to change, not at all - of course I know that things will HAVE to change and that's fine and good even, Lord knows my character could do with some amendments - i just don't want to miserable, and I'd like to be ME. Does that make sense?

And I agree with Greythorne too, all of it.

You willmchange. You will start to consider what is best for yhe family, how things affect your child. You will essentially grow up.

Many 'choices' families make these days are tough ones. Whether working or not. Childcare costs, long working hours, unsympathetic boss vs frustration, loneliness, exhaustion at home.

This is just how it is. What makes up for it is your child. Yes it's bloody awful sometimes but you will cope because you will change. It's a tough road but you will be better for it.

I'm usually pretty understanding, but I sort of want to give the author of that piece a brisk shake and tell her to pull it together. People have been having children forever. Quit whining. "I worried long before I had children..." yeah, 'cause that's productive.

If your DH is not doing his fair share, tell him. If he doesn't listen, you've got bigger problems than a milk stained tshirt, m'dear.

To be fair I only skimmed the article...it was unbelievably boring.

Prunn and Greythorn thanks so much for everything you put. Am reading it all TWICE :)

Oh and another vote for everything greythorn said :)

Cheerful it was dull wasn't it? THAT's why your career ain't taking off love: you can't bleeding write

Mine are 4 and 2, so I am right in the middle of a very intense period. My life has changed much more than I ever expected.

There are a lot of factors that make a difference to the extent that motherhood takes over your life.

Do you have extended family support? We have none and that means the only way dh and I get a break is by giving it to each other - this causes conflict and resentment at times.

What are your children like? DS was an easy baby. Life with him was bliss - I could go out lots. I spent a year having coffees and brunch. Then he turned into the toddler from hell and I couldn't take him anywhere, including many toddler groups. I was very isolated for two years.

How many children you have. It is much easier to get on with life with one child than two or more.

I have found that once I had two children, especially two talking children, it is almost impossible to think about anything except them when they are around. They talk, demand, tantrum and angst constantly. This is exhausting, it makes it hard to think my own thoughts and be myself. I am expecting this will calm down in the future, and I am looking forward to that.

If people truly understood what parenthood was like before having children, then I think far few people would ttc. The thing is that everyone either doesn't realise or tells themself it will be different for them - that everyone else is having trouble because they are just a bad parent.

"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!"

YANBU. I didn't have any support or help from my now ex-husband but I still got the hell out of the house and went to the museums and galleries, worked, went to the gym while baby and toddler DDs were in the creche and went out in adult company and have never been to any form of toddler group in my life (my idea of hell).

You make it what you want it to be and despite what many will claim you don't have to change your life completely.

It won't seem like a battle though. I look at DD, the most perfect, perfect creature and her needs, wants and happiness come first over mine without a second thought. I always used to be quite selfish so god knows how that happened! I'm not a martyr by any means, but I guess years of evolution lead us to this point in order to perpetuate the species. I don't feel some great battle over this. I know DH feels the same and that just makes me love him more too.

Your attitude to work may change, that doesn't make you less 'you', or less engaged with the world at all. I think sometimes women are made to feel ashamed if their priorities shift, which is a shame. I know mine have radically shifted and I feel happier for it.

One of those really annoying articles where the meeja type talks about her own experiences, finds a few anecdotes of similar experiences, and then presents it as evidence. It's crap. Ignore it.

You can thank the people who agree with you all you want - it won't make a difference to what will happen later. It will be easier or harder depending on variables you can't control or decide on now.

What you want to know you wont know until you ar a mum! For me, making the decision to be a mum meant I put my children and their needs above mine - especially in these early years. I would like to go out and not wear breastfeeding bras sometimes but I stay in a lot and bf (just two examples of things important to me that's all ) because my babies need me around and for me bf is an important health thing I give to them (again just two examples, this is not a bf debate!).
I go to toddler groups because my kids like them etc

Motherhood is the most challenging, draining and exhausting thing I have ever done. The lack of sleep is awful and motherhood ages you but the love a mother has for her child is like nothing on earth and we mums do belong to a secret club as we see things differently for having had children and it makes you look beyond yourself

You won't have any time for you for a few years but that is normal

I found it pretty hellish for several years, if I'm honest. And loving them made it even worse as I couldn't do the obvious thing and just walk out.

I am a journalist.

I didn't write the piece.

I am not, as it happens, a bimbo.

That's not necessarily true, tryingtoleave. There are of course variables you can't control but you can decide not to turn into the kind of miserable zombie described in the article - or at least if you find yourself sliding into it you can do something about it. And you should for the sake of your child as well as yourself.

The other thing is, it's different all the time. Some days are sheer luxury and some are a grind.
And I agree there is no point in second-guessing what it'll be like and what you'll be like. Also factor in what the baby will be like. They are not blank canvases, upon which you project the features you like in a person. They have their own thing going on, too.

It hit me about three weeks after DD1 was bronze. DP went out to acpub quiz and I had to stay at home. And I realised the buck stops with me. I am a mother. This is what it means.

Motherhood is special. You would walk through fire for them. Even go to toddler group.

"I would like to go out and not wear breastfeeding bras sometimes but I stay in a lot and bf... I go to toddler groups because my kids like them etc"

hairfullofsnakes, you seem to be the complete opposite of me and between us we may have explained the two outlooks. I neither breastfed nor, as I said, did I ever attend a toddler group. My view was that I would far rather my DDs didn't have these things and I had some element of autonomy in my life than I went down the toddler group/breastfeeding bra/stay at home and BF/wash cloth nappies route and seriously resented my children because of it.

I made the right choice (for me that is, I'm not criticising yours!) and if I had my time over I wouldn't do anything differently. It may not be for everyone but there are options and, as I said, life doesn't have to change beyond recognition.

'born' even

I am a WOHM with a professional job. My Dh works very part time. We have 1 DC who has 50% nursery 50% at home with dad. They do lots of stuff together (2 or 3 groups a week, and sometimes another at weekends). Our DC loves his very good nursery. It is working.

I enjoyed maternity leave but went back to wrk FT when my son was 7 months because that seemed the best plan for me and my family.

Oh and I am still breast feeding Dc who is nearly 3 (largely becaue he is v keen on this) and we co sleep. Wouldn't suit everyone though.

Oi you tryingtoleave I ain't thanking people because they agree with me, woman! I'm genuinely chuffed people are taking the time to talk to me, whatever their opinions!

Thanks for being so honest, motherinferior.

"Even go to toddler group". Arf!

Dammit NormanTebbit, I was eagerly awaiting pictures of your three week old orange-suntanned DD! :o

I didn't read the whole article because...well..I couldn't be bothered. But she just sounds like a miserable bitch using a newspaper to have a big old moan.

Motherhoods great. In a few months I'll no longer be a full time mum and I'm gutted. I don't care if I miss out on nights out with friends, when I do go out I appreciate it so much more. For every shit moment, where I haven't slept and am overtired and DDs sick so have to stay at home and cabin fevers taken over, well there are so many more amazing ones.

All the mums I've met since having my DD are interesting, funny, lovely women who all still have their own personal goals - but accept the fact that family comes first.

She wants to start appreciating her life.

And Valhalla, you have articulated very neatly what I think (in my pre-emptive way of course - I realise it's a bit hubristic to be worrying about as yet non-existent babies ) - that I would want to live in such a way that I didn't resent my children. Because - and make NO mistake about it - to someone like me, watching from the outside, a lot of women DO look like they resent their children. There's that whole martyr thing that I'm sure they don't mean to convey, but which to a disinterested bystander is really very unappealing.