To sincerely hope motherhood is not the best thing I will ever do?

[purplebiro]

I'm 12 weeks pregnant, recently announced on FB and an old school friend commented "congrats - it's the best thing you'll ever do". AIBU to really want to reply "I sincerely fucking hope not"?

I know she was trying to be nice and I am delighted about the pregnancy but I am also highly intelligent, ambitious and hard working - if the best thing I'm ever going to do is with my womb, I might as well give up now. AND I doubt anyone would ever say that to a man.

good point mehitabal

I've siad it before and I'll say it again.

Friend said "best thing you'll ever do"

Not biggest "achievement you'll ever have", "give up the rest of your life and devote yourself to your children" "nothing you do in future will have any meaning beside the great wonder of having children"

I wanted children, I really wanted them and worked hard and long to bring DS home, it took a long time to bond with him but once that phase was over I was totally besotted by him. Nothing prepared me for the intensity of parenting, I don't have the same emotional investment in anything else I've ever done. Hence the highs and lows of parenting, because you care more about getting it right than anything else you've done.

It doesn't mean you're good at it (I have no doubt I'm a better accountant than I am parent) and it doesn't mean that I'm unable to separate from DS more as he gets older and start focusing more on my life again.

I find it a little sad that some people have used the opportunity to berate the OP for her opinion but also that some have taken the opportunity to sneer at parents who they think are too involved with their children. I'm pretty sure my sister feels just as sneery about me refusing to use babysitters with DS. She didn't care that I had a child with attachment issues and separation anxiety. She didn't even ask why I didn't use a babysitter. As far as she is concerned anyone who doesn't get a babysitter and go out once a week is a sad loser I think.

I'm out and I'm proud - DS is the best thing I ever "did" and I unashamedly sacrificed a good deal of my social life in order to meet his needs. And whats more I'd do it again if I could.

Yay kewcumber

I just don't see my children as something I do or did. They seem entirely their own fully formed selves selves. I adore them yes, and guide and look after them, but I didn't 'do' them.
But I'm coming from a family where my dad tries to take credit for the wonder that is me and I can't stand it!

JohnFarleysRuskin: "I just don't see my children as something I do or did. They seem entirely their own fully formed selves selves."

Yes, I feel like that too - I don't feel I can really take either credit or blame for my DD! She is her own person.

I agree entirely,but deciding to bring that person into the world was still the best thing I have done.

Op just mark your op down as "twatty things we say before we have kids" coz it really is twatty and you will reach understanding over the next twenty years or so.

The op has made a decision about what she will value more before she's even had the child. It makes me wonder why she has bothered getting pregnant tbh.

I actually feel sorry for her and her unborn baby that she values material things - ie money and what that can buy, which lets face it is the main reason anyone wants to be successful in business, over the joy and love that money can't buy - raising a child. Sad.

I feel sorry for yours too, Eminybob.

The last couple of posts are unbelievably sanctimonious. No, the OP hasn't yet had her baby, and motherhood isn't something you can second-guess from the outside, but I speak as someone who has a child she utterly adores, and whose life he immeasurably enriches, but my all-consuming interest in my work hasn't flagged. If anything, it's heightened. I don't think it makes me any less of a mother to acknowledge that my child isn't my entire life.

I actually feel sorry for her and her unborn baby that she values material things - ie money and what that can buy, which lets face it is the main reason anyone wants to be successful in business, over the joy and love that money can't buy - raising a child. Sad.

What a horrible thing to write about someone. Isn't it a pity you haven't learned to spread your supposed joy and love a bit more and seem to think they can only come from one source.

And theres always other reasons for "succeeding in business" - most people have to work to put a roof over their children's heads, theres also independence, the concept of doing something useful that doesn't involve only your only family, such as paying tax that helps the rest of the society, self fulfilment, providing for your own future when you retire and your children leave home, etc..

And I'm guessing there are some women out there who have hobbies and stuff, some of them quite serious, which they enjoy doing and give them fulfillment. I mean fgs we are not sitting in Afghanistan or similar where you are forced to sit in a house talking about children all day and not have a life outwith your family. Honestly, some of these threads sound like they could be written by the Taliban thought police!

It was very refreshing the other day when I was at a conference. We had to describe ourselves to the person next to us-deliberately a person we didn't know-and not one person used their children or job or possessions.
It was who we were were.
People shouldn't be defined by whether they are are a mother or not or what they do to earn money. There is far more to life- and you don't have to give it up for work or family-go out and do it.

You see that's what I absolutely hate about all these ideas of what motherhood should be.
Some women will feel utter unconditional love fir their dcs. It will be 'like walking in a dream' as one pp puts it. Their dc will become their one centre of attention. And it will be all what kew describes.
It's also fitting very well with the traditional image of what motherhood is.
For some women, they will feel the unconditional love, will and do a hell of a lot for their dcs but it doesn't mean their dcs are the only thing in their world.
And finally for some women, they don't quite feel that all encompassing love. They will care for their dcs well, they will love them, probably love them unconditionally but the overall feeling is one of a long, big, hard slog.

And motherhood can be any if that. It's ok. There is no need to compare and have this playground attitude if 'mine is better than yours'. They are different experiences just as valid as the other.

Just as few of us will find the very romantic, 'I found my other half, I still have butterflies 20 years on' type of love, so not all women will find motherhood that rewarding.
So many things to take into account from how the baby was conceived, how hard it was to get pregnant to PND, the environment in which you live to the personality of the mum.
Saying that if you don't think that having a child is the best thing you ever did is not acceptable because you have to, is saying to these women that they are failures. That they are less then.
And sorry but saying that to someone who has suffered very bad PND and hasn't bonded with her dc is CRAP.
Saying that to a pg woman when you have no idea how she is going to react to being a mum us CRAP. I can promise you, no woman who doesn't feel that unconditional love needs to be reminded that she should be and is less of a mother if she doesn't. NONE of them.
The reality is that a pg woman dies NOT know how she will feel and the mothers around her do NOT know how she will feel. She might end up in that first category or she might not. Assuming she has to is wrong IMO.

"Honestly, some of these threads sound like they could be written by the Taliban thought police!"

I know. Some people are being really horrible. Responses to the OP have ranged from condescending to downright rude, and then when the OP gives a robust reply, people say things like, "You seem very angry, OP." Well, of course she's angry - who wouldn't be angry when people are so nasty!

I think the thing that the OP probably finds annoying about the friend's remark is its presumption - assuming that they know better than the OP about how she is going to feel about being a mother before she's even given birth. It's reducing the OP to being the same as everyone else - the idea that the ability to perform a perfectly unremarkable and common biological function is more important than anything we have achieved off our own bat. And maybe the friend did mean it in a nice way, but maybe she was also putting the OP in her place: "You may think you've done well with your fancy social enterprise but actually that's meaningless compared to the importance of becoming a parent."

Yep one rule, one way and you're not allowed to do or God forbid FEEL any other way.

And lets perpetuate ideas about women (the only thing a woman should aspire to is to have children because 'it's the best she will ever do') and what motherhood is (sometimes hard work but SOOO rewarding that you forget about anything else) and how you have to feel (delighted if course and so happy regardless of the circumstances).
Yep. I'm sure that exactly how all people feel

I think the one person surprised would be OP's friend who probably just uttered a meaningless platitude, to be friendly, and it gets over analysed in over 400 posts (probably with more to come!)

What is seen as a platitude as some point can be seen as something wrong years later.
Because most people see it as a platitude doesn't mean it shouldn't be challenged if you don't think it's right.

That's the good side of these threads btw.
Helps challenge preconceived ideas and your view on life.
I think it's great

It does make you scared to open your mouth! One day I expect my off the cuff remark may end up on MN! I wonder if I will dare come on and say 'I felt a response was needed and that was the best I could do on the spur of the moment'!

Like Friar, I think its good to examine what the underlying assumptions behind certain platitudes are.

I try not to use them too much, coz the way I see it, at the end of the day, life is like a bowl of cherries, I dance like no one is watching and love is all you need, really.

Mehitbel6 but is that not what challenging ingrained sexist attitudes are all about?

Couldn't agree more hackmum.

I do find a lot of that stuff you read on FB re "being a mummy is the best job in the world", "being a mum is the best thing you will ever do" really stifling. And a bit fake. I mean it is possible to feel love and not have the need to constantly broadcast to all of those around you.

I also have a bit of a problem with those people who don't have loving parents, for instance, those whose parents died when they were young, or who were in foster care. By pedalling the parenthood is the best thing you will ever do line, you perpetuate that not only are women only defined by giving birth, but that children are only defined by how loving their parents are, not as individuals.

I don't think anyone is seriously disputing the fact that the original remark was a thoughtless platitude from a probably well-meaning friend - what is being discussed is the whole body of thought that reduces women with children to their status as mothers, whatever else their lives are about in terms of work, activism, relationships etc AND the social pressure that still expects women to pay lip service to the notion that their devotion to their children is the single aspect that gives their lives meaning, and that their ambition or commitment to other things flags as soon as they see a blue line in the test window.

Some women do feel like this, clearly, and are entitled to do so without being denigrated for their choices, but women who don't feel solely defined by their status as mother should be equally respected without being billed as neglectful, materialistic or chilly careerists. I think it's refreshing to see mothers on this thread speaking out against this misogynistic cliche.

TheFriar - Some women will feel utter unconditional love fir their dcs. It will be 'like walking in a dream' as one pp puts it. Their dc will become their one centre of attention. And it will be all what kew describes.

If you thats the gist that you got from my posts then I have seriously mislead you.

DS was adopted, I had a real problem bonding with him and had post adoption depression (which is believed to be more common than PND), he has separation and attachment issues which a serious of illness of mine when he was a toddler when I was rushed unexpectedly into hospital didn't help, he is also being assessed currently for executive processing problems as a result of his institutionalisation. I'm really no example of anyone living the dream. It was and still is at times incredibly hard work particularly as a single parent. I still sit and cry on my own in an evening after a particularly difficult day so its not like its been a romp through the daisies and I've forgotten all the difficult times now that I've bonded with DS - because I'm still living in the difficult times.

Also no-one has said the only thing a woman should aspire to is to have children because 'it's the best she will ever do' except you! I didn't adopt DS until I was 40 - I have half a lifetime of aspirations and achievements before he was in my life some of which I am very proud. And I set up my own business after DS not before.

But I don't mind seeming uncool by saying that all of those things don't give me half the pleasure I get from watching DS play the baritone (badly) at his school concert. It isn't unremittingly the best thing I've ever done and it certainly isn't the easiest thing I've ever done but knowing that at times I have helped him become the developing person that he is is a huge source of pride and joy to me (apologies to those of you who feel this is wrong - DS seems to be very happy when I am proud of him for all sorts of things ).

SO yes - I'm happy to sit on the sappy "raising my lovely boy has so far been the best thing I've ever done camp" but that doesn't equate to "Oh its all rosy and anyone who struggles has to go sit on the other side of the room in the failure camp". Because nothing could be further from the truth.

JohnFarleysRuskin - "love is all you need" said no adoptive parent EVER!

Anyway I'm off to get the house tidied so that my lovely boy can be Centre of my Universe for one day. But as it's his 9th birthday tomorrow I'm sure you'll all forgive me!

kew this isn't what I meant. Of course there will always be times when our dcs are our centre of attention. Completely.
Of course sometimes are hard too.
That's a reality for most parents.
But you do find that looking after your ds satisfactory and rewarding and exciting don't you? And that helps you get through the though times.
What I'm saying is that for some parents there isn't that many 'rewarding, satisfying' times that can can cancel the hard times.

Anyway, I hope your ds will have a lovely b'day! Enjoy!