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?!

Whereas there is crapness, you can do something to guard against some of it. I occasionally find real happiness when with a group of old friends, most of whom have children, when I do really feel that I am both me and a parent.

But a lot of the rest of the time I'm basically alone in a crowded room of non-parents (or pretending we're not) or of adults who bred when I did.

So do ask your partner to share (it will be easier for moat men-far less pressure), but also do what you can now to babyproof friendships, do everything you can to make activities you like babyfriendly (which is often a real fight with family, friends and institutions). And don't do what I did and move away from all this to be near my partner's work.

And best of luck conceiving.

Yes, I'm afraid it is drudgery for a few years. I found having kids a complete shock to the system but you do get used to it and things improve as they get more independent. Mine are now 14 and 12 and I still marvel at the fact that I've produced two lovely, decent human beings.

Get used to it, that's life.

Florence, I think you are looking for offence here. Clearly the OP has not started this topic in order to offend people, and unusually for AIBU, this discussion has been grown up and reasonably civil, as well as frank. It is clear through almost all responses that other people feel that too. It's a shame you feel the OP has offended you, but it is not her fault if what she has said has touched a raw nerve with you. She hasn't said anything impolite to you, in fact has bent over backwards to explain what she means clearly and politely. I am in a similar position to her, and am finding the posts here illuminating and interesting, which presumably why the discussion was started.

oh Florence . I don't think there's owt I can do or say that will persuade you I'm anything other than an offensive old sow, so do you mind awfully if I don't reply to you? Not in an ignoring sort of way, but because I am not looking for a fight, and it sounds to me as if you could do with being cheered up, not wound up.

Cheers Aries.

ginge "Get used to it: that's life" should be printed on a poster to replace all that Keep Calm and Carry On stuff!

Adela, maybe it is correct that the difference is that the crapness is more evenly divided. But that means that one individual (usually the mother) has less crapness to bear. And for me - and maybe this is selfsih, but this is who I am - this means I don't have the overwhelming feeling of resentment that I would have if I were the one bearing all the crapness while my partner pursued his previous carefree life. Probably for some people this wouldn't matter. But for me, I just wouldn't be able to cope with the jealousy and the resentment I would feel.

And thanks Adela :)

I like your point about babyproofing friendships. I have managed to convince myself that if I do get pregnant I'll lose my friendships but there's no reason for that is there . I mean presumably I'll still leave the house at some point

The other thing to bear in mind, I guess, is that money has an awful lot to do with any ensuing crapness. People have mentioned cleaners and holidays to help with the first year. While I would never begrudge anyone that, as it is in my opinion a massively sensible use of your resources, not everyone can afford those lovely things. Far from it. People say that money can't buy happiness - it's always been my view that it can buy security and contentment.

Thinking about this more, there's a huge question about bc in my opinion. If you choose to bc and ego are by default the primary caregiver and spoc for the child - you can't very well call foul when/if your partner doesn't't step up to the bar. Bf by its very nature keeps you "chained to the kitchen sink".

Bc = bf
Ego = ergo

You'll have to explain bc to me Ski

Are you on your phone perchance?

Ha ha ha - great minds.

OP I think you have spectacularily missed the point of this article!

No it doesnt have to be like this -especially if her husband had pulled his finger out and had actually done his share.

She didnt want to go to the V&A she wanted him to take his fairshare of the chores and childcare rather than carrying on his life as if nothing had happened .

I note you use the phrase helping around the house and Make your partner help out this impies the chores,childcare and housework are all her responsibility and he is being generous in taking any part in it!

crip

Sympathise (literally) entirely-simply couldn't have done the childcare I do unless I felt the basic principle (practicalities aside) was always equal care, and had a partner who understood because they'd done it.

I think what I was trying to say, in relation to the article and the OP, was that there is a danger in focusing narrowly on the family and the divisions of labour within it, as if this solves the necessary and unecessray frustrations if resolved fairly. I've been at times sole carer (my partner out-of-the country for several months), main carer, equal carer and really do-very-little carer, and have found that my happiness and ability to cope has centred much more on which other adults I was around than on the way I divided childcare with my partner.

Sometimes I just think we get overly interested in our own families, and forget motherhood (and parenthood) is made outside the home to (hence why SAHM is such a bollocks term I just won't use it...)

Pony you're sort of like the braver version of me, in some ways ... I do think that about EBFing. I quite often read threads from despairing women setting out misery as per all the above, and I think - well, yes. But that's your choice ?

That being said a fair few mums have popped up on this thread and EBFed but got out and about and were very happy, so I am coming more and more to the conclusion that it's more about your character and tastes before pregnancy than anything else....

Personally I took the article as an illustration of people who planned to have children and wanted them and gave birth to them then talking about not enjoying it after all because of the what they describe as the thankless nature of it all, rather than literally wanting to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum and dividing childcare 50/50. And personally I too was looking for responses saying "You know what? It is hard. But it's also bloody brilliant." Which may have been what the OP was also after, I don't know.

SarahLund :

a) GREAT name. You must be dead excited about tonight.

b) I don't think I missed the point: I know that was in there, it's just that it wasn't the point that leapt out and ran me through with all the malice of a big fork, IYSWIM. The other point was there too!

c) God almighty. That is so far from what I believe that I am thinking of running myself through with a fork anyway. Just goes to show how spectacularly what one says can be misread

This last comment was to sarah btw.

Aries I sort of specifically mean the V&A; isn't that absurd? i think because it's a very precious place to me and when I go there I imagine showing it to my child and insisting they love it too. So it has become a personal sort of touchstone for whether I'm living 'my' life or not.

But yes. That kind of is what I was after....

Could you not do this in the Imperial War Museum? Or the National Portrait Gallery? Would it all fall apart?

BlooferLady, also keep your well-developed sense of humour. One of the most rewarding things to me in parenting is having a chuckle with the children about things. They both have different but a great sense of humour and we do giggle about stuff along the way (although laughing 'at' them would be an absolute no-no!)

Excellent article. Sums up nicely how I feel. Thanks for linking to it OP

Bloofer lady

Well, yes and no. Breastfeeding at night gave my partner a lovely sleepy rush, so she'd want to drop off immediately. Babies didn't, so I spent many 'lovely' hours settling them. Similarly, given how demanding breastfeeding (or pumping for EBM 'freedom units' is), why can't the non-birth partner do everything else when around?

Don't really wish to comment on what my body can't do, but the article didn't seem to me to be arguing for a particular model of sharing, bf or otherwise, just that the basic idea should be that non-birth partners do something, and that the starting point for what should be 'everyone does the same', and movement from that pragmatically decided, rather than 'one of us does everything' and the other 'helps'.

Victoria not the author are you?

onetoomany that is BRILLIANT. A brilliant image! Though I have to admit I am not at my absolute wittiest when sleep-deprived

Lawks! I could never comprehend taking children between the ages of 3 months to 4 to the V&A! That's asking for a whole world of trouble. Oh OP, i'm sorry but when you have a child your life becomes a massive round of boring drudgery. I thought like you too before ttc, I didn't get it. You won't either until it happens. No disrespect to you intended

It's difficult and boring with one but once you have more than one child it's, it's......well; yeah

3 months to 4 years i meant