To loathe inverted-martyrism

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Just a lighthearted-ish rant

I'm sick of hearing /reading people putting others down because they don't want to play superwoman or be a martyr

For example when I gave birth to DD I rested up for weeks because of a difficult birth and all I heard and read on another baby site that rhymes with baby tenter was things like "really, you rested?! After I had DS I leapt up, packed my hospital things away, sprinted home whilst simultaneously Breastfeeding and threw a party for 70 guests that evening." Have read it on a thread today about someone wanting rest after an operation.

Fuck the fuck off!! It's ok to want to relax sometimes and not be a friggin martyr about it all!

I hate competitive martyrdom/ism as well. My mum was past master at it, although, to be a little fair to her, she had some excuse (I've now realised since having my boys).

Whenever anything awful happened to me, it "reminded her" of when she lost her 2nd baby. She used it when my fiancé left me. I got the arse, tbh. I said some possibly quite unforgivable things - like "at least the baby didn't have a choice!" . Thing is, now I realise that Mum had never resolved her grief after the loss of the baby - all sorts of reasons, too long to go into here, but because I had no understanding of the awfulness of it all, it just became tedious that she would always bring it up to show how much worse she had had it than anything any of us could come up with. (I kind of agree with her a bit now - but she's dead, so I can't tell her :( )

But going back to the point in hand - with DS1 I spent a LOT of time in bed, largely because he had a tongue tie and found feeding difficult in any position other than lying down (bonus!) He would feed for up to 2h at a time, so I read a lot while feeding, and dozed. It was blissful (except for the razorblade-through-the-nipple pain associated with him feeding, of course). MIL was staying so she kept the kitchen and washing under control, DH did all the cooking and I just got to be with baby. It was a touch isolated at times, as DH spent more time with his Mum, but meh - better than him bothering me all the time! Didn't get to do it quite the same with DS2, but managed a fair bit of bed rest with him as well

A friend of mine had a CS and needed 2w bed rest afterwards, she couldn't manage the stairs by herself etc., whereas my sister was up and about in 3 days after both of hers - but there's no prizes for being up and about, my sister just felt ok. I think (and it's only based on a sample of 2 so probably complete bollocks!) that one of the reasons was weight/size-based - my friend was very thin, so her scar was easily stretched whenever she moved, whereas my sis was quite overweight so her scar didn't move at all when she did.

I'm currently recuperating from a hip replacement in a whole different country to my children!!! To be fair they don't do the op where I live, but when weighing up options I pulled rank at everyone accompanying me to a foreign country 'for support'. Support from a 1 and 3 year old?!?!
Nope, need to be selfish and focus just on me.
I did the 'superwoman' thing after 2nd birth and then was f*cked for the next 6 months. Next birth I'm following the Chinese and Malay traditions we have here of 'confinement' where you basically stay in bed for a month post birth while a 'confinement nanny' feeds you nutritious soups and brings you your baby to feed and cuddle. Nice.

That sounds lovely, Binky! (The confinement nurse bit, not the hip replacement or 6m being fucked bits)

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sometimes when I moan I just want people to say "oh poor you" and give me a hug.

it makes me feel better.

MIL & DM seem incapable of that.
DM's response is to change the subjet or start criticising, MIL will immediately mention what happened to her (mostly in incomparable or irrelevant situations!) or to someone else (typically a stranger to me)

just why? why can't they be just accepting that I feel shit or scared or in pain or worried or panicky or whatever and just be nice and supportive?
I don't want them to molly cuddle me nor "open my eyes". just hold me, acknowledge my feelings or situation and that's it!
I will then be able to get strong again!

Zing - I know what you mean, my Mum almost never did that, always had a competitive misery thing to say instead. You're right - all I wanted was a hug and a "there there, it will be ok".

well I'm going to hug you now

(hug)

In my defence, I never martyr myself, nor do I heap scorn on new mothers online...BUT:

Three weeks after popping out dd1 in under three hours, I was jogging up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, and bumped into a young couple with a new baby. I cooed, found out he was three weeks old, and gaily gestured to my own newborn in her carseat underneath the spot where my husband was rock climbing. I swear that the poor woman was practically limping, and looked at me with a murderous glint in her eye. Quite right too, but I was just being all enthusiastic...

I had dd2 at home, and was in the local supermarket buying champagne within two hours of her birth. With both of them I was on a high for weeks.

I got my comeuppance though. Years down the line, I'm still only forty, but I seem to need a bloody nap every day, and can't get my arse out of bed or myself out of pyjamas before lunchtime. God knows why, but I think the long haul of children has actually turned me into a slug.

BOF

@ slug.

you mean sleuth, surely!

Aw thanks Zing - have a ((hug)) yourself as well!

No competitive birth stories from me - although I do get this sort of crap all the time, having an 'invisible disability'. And also, as someone said, from the mean-mouthed hag in my head (named Fucky Nell, I have to get some sort of revenge.)

BUT BUT BUT! Does anybody remember the MNer who gave her partner a blowjob about 5 seconds after her baby was out? Beat that, overachievers!

My MIL is the best at this much like she is the best at everything else. Housework, childcare work she had it harder but still managed to renovate a house by the time DH was three months old and seemlessly managed work and childcare to perfection at all times. My high stress high stakes job was no different to her work in taking in a lodger after all. I find the best thing to do is imply her memory has faded over the years.

My friend who's family are from Pakistan had it worse though. Her DGM told her that women went off into the woods to give birth and were expected to come back with both the baby and a stack of firewood. Suspect DGM was having her on but she was outraged.

Garlic, are you serious?!?!?! Bleurgh!

I do garlic still think it was a lie, do you?
She was just trying to prove herself to be cool but she ended up looking knobbish.

I've had a horrendous birth and a straight forward birth and if I'd only had the straightforward birth I could not possibly have imagined how much harder the recovery, mentally and physically from the horrendous birth was. It's like comparing apples and oranges. People should learn to keep their gobs shut.

Sorry, but I'm finding some of these responses just as smug and annoying as the competitive martyrs. Many new mothers simply don't have anyone to look after them and the house while they sit and cuddle their baby for weeks. Dad at work and no-one else close enough, available enough, or willing enough to help. Pretty common scenario, no?

Well that's not being a martyr then is it? I didn't have hardly any help but I wouldn't make someone that had more help than me feel like shit for it.

I'm just of those who had support. I don't begrudge them theirs, I just wish I'd had some.

No I didn't have much of a choice other than to just get on with it but I was lucky that I could do that and I would be very careful not to criticise women who were able to rest up. I think it's great for them.

It's a bit like this difference:

MIL and DM's sister had broadly equally difficult circumstances when they were bringing up their kids. MIL takes the view that we have it easy these days with all our labour saving devices and stuff. DM's sister says she's glad she doesn't have to bring up kids now because of traffic, internet dangers etc etc (notably staying away from the idea of harder and easier).

Guesss which one is nicer to be with?

One had to turn up eventually . Sarinka, I did feel trapped and claustrophobic after my c section. Couldn't bloody move without seering agony, though, so I didn't have much choice but to turn into a 'couch-bound lump', as you so delightfully put it. Are you my mil, by any chance? She does that too, the sympathy followed by the martyrdom. 'Oh yes, you must rest, you've had a major operation. Of course, I had two sections and was up doing the gardening after 12 hours, in my generation we didnt have any choice...'

My personal mn favourite was a thread about disabled loos, where a poster suggested that a woman with newborn twins was being unreasonable to use a double pushchair while out and about, and therefore need to take it in a disabled loo. She should instead do what any normal, moral non-lazy lump would do, ditch the pushchair, and strap a twin on her front and one on her back. She could then use an ordinary cubicle like everybody else! God forbid she be entitled to any special consideration for having newborn twins, the entitled cow.

When I had my first child - I had a very long difficult labour and birth - My daughter was in special care for a week. I sort of withdrew from the world - and once home I don't think I got dressed for 2 weeks! I looked after the baby and did nothing else.
After my second child I was up and about within 24 hours and full of energy.. I did not plan to be the way I was either time - but I don't consider what I did the second time to be 'better' than the first time.
Just the way it was.

And as for the 'sometimes if you have no support you just have to get on with it' - actually no, sometimes you sink. With the best will in the world, I could not have got my two other kids to school/nursery after my c section. I physically could not have pushed a pushchair for 2 1/2 miles for a good three weeks after my section (infection, etc, bla bla bla). If I'd had no support, my kids could not have got to school, simple as that. And the house would have sunk under a tsunami of old toast and unputaway toys.

Can't you see how unhelpful your choice of the word 'wallow' is, sarinka? It doesn't help the point you are making. It's just goady.

Wow, sarinka, you don't have much sense of irony do you . Anyway, you are quite right, you are superwoman, and I am a wallowing weakling. Anybody who doesn't sit professional exams at 8am after a sleepless night feeding a newborn, with an infected c-section scar, should consider themselves told.