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?!

ps. no... what's 2 girls 1 cup? My nickname just covers the boys in my house (not including the cat)!

Google it. ACTUALLY REALLY DON'T! Hideous HIDEOUS film thing.

Am meanwhile laughing at the idea of me in stilettos

do me whats my nickname make you think of

Back with my and thanks OP I did get a biscuit too! Baby gone back to sleep and toddler watching Cbeebies playing contentedly.

Agree with Redstripey that things that are worth having do usually involve effort and hard work and sacrifice, and that this applies to parenthood too.

But I still maintain that people who look after children full time should be allowed to have a whine without being called ungrateful or being labelled or having to constantly maintain that they aren't depressed.

To continue with the vet analogy, if the banker-turned-vet went out with her friends and said that her new job was dirty and smelly sometimes, and that she sometimes missed her old job, she wouldn't be told that she was ungrateful by someone who wanted to become a vet, nor would she be told she was depressed.

People judge mothers. ALOT. And that is part of what makes the role so annoying.

tube it makes me crave a nice big pot of natural bio yogurt so it does.

Mos I see what you mean about the 'ungrateful' accusation - and despite my TTC ishoos I don't think I actually used those terms. I really was sort of howling at how unhappy it all seemed, that's all - I don't think I was even thinking along any sort of structured lines, taking into account society's value (or not) on mothers. It's just that everywhere I turned, from the giddy heights (arf) of a Gruaniad piece to a FB status, mothers were desperately unhappy, and actually rather lost. It never occurred to me to think that they shouldn't feel like that because they're lucky to have babies - I just thought, God almighty, if it's that bad why am I bothered, you know? Obviously this thread has set a lot of that in perspective.

Oh bloo you could be toilet bloo rim block but with lady like white gloves on little arms.

Honey on the yoghurt

WHAT AN IMAGE.

doing protest march (re other thread) dressed as a rim block then being naughty (oh I must get a job)

YES! Cleansing the effluvia of the indulgent right-wing autocracy. Attacking the deposits of decades of inaction. STAND UP SISTER!

Yes, you should! I take it you are the alter ego of an established MNer? They seek her here, they seek here, those fungal infective particles seek her everywhere?

OP, I have gradually read the whole thread (!) and agree that you actually haven't used the term ungrateful. In fact you've kept your head and sense of humour which is pretty admirable on a thread this long.

However, other posters on this thread have said the article writer is ungrateful, and I suppose I am a bit sensitive because when I posted here during my last pregnancy about feeling fed up, I kept getting people who were TTC shouting me down as ungrateful. Knowing other people have worse problems doesn't make you feel less fed up with your own situation.

In answer to your original point, in my view, having children is an amazing experience, and I am very glad I did it, overall. But some days / weeks / months are very hard.

I think you will cope better with the downsides having properly considered them beforehand. This thread alone will make you about 1000 times better prepared than I was!

BLimey, I am impressed at your dedication!

Ah yes. I can see how you must have felt - it's the whole 'just a broken arm' thing(you know: the person with the broken leg says to the one with the broken arm "You don't know what pain is".) Equally I can see how someone who really has suffered with TTCing might wheel out the 'ungrateful' line (I'm on my 16th month, but I am young still and disinclined to get too miserable about it unless I have to, IYSWIM)

I know I keep saying it and prolly sound like a right creep, but I honestly am grateful to everyone for posting - and I feel better prepared, and in awe that a forum of internet randoms can achieve that!

Here are another couple of links that tell it how is....

New York Magazine

Spike Magazine's Review of The Mask of Motherhood

novice, in answer to your question, he has HIS list which is work related and he sorts his own car, but I also work full-time and the "my" and "joint" lists rest with me! He has a million admirable qualities but organisation is not one of them.

I allways swore I would never have children!
I have two brothers much older than myself.One brother has 7 children,the other has 6 children.I loved my nephews and nieces dearly and still do but I could see from an early age(7 years old)all the work and worry that was involved and it was constant.But I really loved watching them grow up and developing and I changed nappies,made bottles,played with them,helped to learn them to swim and to learn to read.
So needless to say I have gone onto have children of my own 5 in fact.
Because I could see from the outside that all the work and worry,was more than worth it.All the positives for me well out way any negatives.
And it was'nt they were all sleeping through the night by 2 weeks old and loads of support for me!My oldest did'nt sleep through till he was 2 years old,the youngest I've had sleep through the night is 7months.I breastfed all 5 of my children so I had all that comes with that.My ex was useless to say the least with the children.I was a single mum with 4 children,before I met my now OH(5 years and we've had a daughter together who is 3 years old).But I would'nt change anything.Whilst I was a single mum to 4 children I became Vice Chair of Sure Start and went to College.I'd never have had the confidence to do those things without having had my children.And I tried mother and toddler groups but they were'nt my thing.My Best Friend of 33 years can't have children(which I'm sure in the great scheme of things is a mistake She'd make an amazing MUM) but were still best friends and she loves my children as much as I do.Me and OH still socialize with friends and family with and without the children.2 years ago my 34th birthday and my friends organised a huge fancy dress party for me in town in a nightclub(I went as a Can Can girl)I had an amazing night.I have as many friends that don't have children as one's that do.I'm the same hyperactive,happy go lucky person that I was before I had my children,just now I'm more confident in my abilities and alot happier with my life.The best advice I could give to anyone that was going to become a parent is go with the Flow!Enjoy it it's only as difficult as you make it for yourself!
And don't eat for two and wear a bra all the time.LOL
xx

Thank you so much for posting those Kowloon - I'm reading the first now with interet (and not a little horror). The first thing that strikes me - and not for the first time either - is how vastly superior American journalism is to British journalism. Irrelevant but I wonder if anyone else has noticed....

I was like you, worried about what a child would mean to my life (that I loved). And now I have my baby, my life has changed completely. I choose to have my life revolving around her needs and I am very happy to do so.

I loved my life before, I love my life now. And as I understand it, I will love what my life will become when DD will no longer be so dependent on me.

Someone once told me that the 1st year of baby life, both you and baby are getting used to "not being pregnant". Once I saw it like that, I did not mind the extreme dependency in the early months.

OP

Late in the day, but yabu to find the article "infuriating". You may find it bewildering but why does it infuriate you? Many women share the experience of the article's author. Many do not.

And it's highly naive (and patronising) to talk about wandering round the V&A/letting your partner do a bottle feed. You may find the logistics of going to the V&A (assuming you live in London) overwhelming with a screaming baby in tow. You may be too shattered at night to want to go out for a boozy dinner. Etc, etc, etc.

Life with a baby and children can be fabulous but it is undoubtedly not the same as life before - for better or worse, or just different.

Good god Tinkerbell your parent/s must have 18 grandchildren

I have a good analogy, which I'm a bit afraid of. As those who know me know, and as I said upthread, we started my own business which has resulted in a tremendous loss of income and security. I don't feel I can legitimately complain about the lack of money though, because it was our choice and we made it happen and we wanted it. Would having difficulty and misery after a long time TTCing be similar? In that you wouldn't want to be seen complaining or finding it very hard, because you were known to be trying for ages to get pregnant. My BIL and SIL have IVF twins and they both work full time and are permanently exhausted, but they don't moan. i wonder if this is because they feel they have to be seen to be grateful all the time for what they've got. Tricky.

I think you've struck on something really important Aries. I think when you've been TTC for a long time, and you're relatively thoughtful and observant, there is time, you see, to think of all these things. A child is not just a sudden unexpected occurrence but something longed for and dreamed about. So that the juxtaposition of that dream, which might have gone on for years, and the reality that others talk about in often very negative terms, can seem really jarring and quite frightening...Interesting about your BIL and SIL. Although as I think on it more and more I think the greatest factor isn't ease of circumstance but character. I don't mean that people who are quite vocal about their difficulties are somehow weak or in the wrong, just that some of us are by nature stoical and cheery and some of us aren't. It's all part of life's rich tapestry and I don't think anyone would wish for us all to be the same. And I guess you and I won't know for a while which we will be!

Oh stop your bloody moaning, you!

TBH Bloofer, the people I know who've struggled hardest in the first few months are the people who've had fertility issues (and I include myself in that number). When you finally get your longed-for baby and it isn't all loveliness but bloody hard work and a bit soul-destroying and lonely a lot of the time, I think it's a lot more difficult emotionally than it is for people who've conceived at the drop of a hat. And probably haven't had quite such a long time to think about it!

I don't think there's anything you can do about it but it got easier day by day for me and now it's utter bliss 99% of the time (my DS is 4). The thing to remember really is that children are babies for a very, very short time and they're young people for an awful lot longer. :)

I was grinning at that Aries then, Christine - I agree with all you said there. And many congrats on your son :)

I am a sahm and although my partner and I do run a business together I am sahm to all intents and purposes and only work when he is home.

I have been sahm for 18.6 years

I am totally happy and fulfilled - I am very very busy and have incredibly bright stimulating friends who are also mothers at varying stages of parenting.

A lot of my life is what others call drudgery but I LOVE homemaking and try to enjoy making the house beautiful even whilst tip toeing amoungst the dirty knickers and galaxy wrappers. I fight with my teenagers, with the best of them but am lucky to still have young ones who are much easier (imo) and help balance the family.

I do not feel the need to justify or explain myslef in RL and do not feel looked down on for being a sahm.... I do however, feel it on here. I am a bright and intelligent woman and in no way do i feel mind- numbed by this experience. i am also delighting in my teenagers' being feminists and respecting my being a sahm.

Danny Baker ( not my idol but these words stayed with me) said parenting was 'relentless' and i do agree. DP and I both came from broken marriages and highly dysfunctional families and I do sometimes wonder if we relish ours so much because of this

DP has a great career but is also very hands on and very much involved int he day to day upbringing of our children ( school runs etc) he can be very soppy philosophical about it all and frequently utters'makes it all worth it' when we are just watching them play or pick them up from school.

Hi nota. Pretty much most things Danny Baker says are all right by me :)

I know to a certain extent it doesn't much matter what I think or precisely what I meant by my OP, because things have moved on so much since then. But I sort of want to make it absolutely clear that nothing I said was to the detriment of being a SAHM - I truly don't have an opinion on it one way or the other, and am simply grateful that we live in a time when women can make that choice. All I was railing against was what I thought to be a pervading unhappiness, regardless of the choice to SAHM, or work from home, or work full time or part time. The women I was getting (perhaps unfairly) riled by seemed/seem unhappy (often desperately so) regardless of their life-choice, IYSWIM. I think it genuinely a Poor Show that you feel looked down on on MN for being a SAHM and in my slightly needy way wanted to make it clear that I'm no one of the looker-downers. I was 'looking down' (rightly or wrongly: and WRONGLY howls most of MN ) on those who seemed mired in unhappiness and discontent and disinclined to do much about it.

Your DP does sound very soppy philosophical