New mum clubbing

[MrsG841]

A friend of mine has just become a first time mum and her LO is 6 days old.

She messaged a few us to organise going clubbing at weekend.

AIBU to think that she shouldnt think about this at such an early stage?

It's one of my pet hates, drunken mothers

What have they got to do with you?

When you have children you just have to find different ways to let off steam

No, YOU might have to. I can drink if I want to, thanks all the same.

Can everyone just fuck off with the "mothers need to do this, mothers shouldn't do that" bullshit? Get a life and mind your own kids and your own business, and leave everyone else to do the same.

don't really understand this attitude that mums somehow deserve to get hammered if they choose to.

I know, and what's with these mothers thinking they can leave the house, have outside interests and social lives??? Jesus, they'll be wanting jobs and the right to vote next...

It's one of my pet hates, drunken mothers! It's possible to have fun without alcohol

There are many reasons not to drink to that point. Health, need to drive on the morning , not screwing up plans for the next day or being useless at work.

But that surely applies to PEOPLE not just mothers.

The idea though that being a mother means you can't go out to a pub and a night club or indulge in any alcohol merely because you are a mother is ridiculous.

We had a baby we didn't die.

Are you sure you are a friend OP? Pregnancy and birth can be a traumatic experience. Her wanting to go on a girls night out may be her way or letting her hair down. It's one night...I would prefer a spa and a cream tea but each to their own.

It's one of my pet hates, drunken mothers!

One of my pet hates is nosey, judgemental cunts.

These days I'm virtually teetotal myself, but I'd hate for anyone to think all of us non-drunk getting people are as awful as you are.

All the stuff about bonding and the maternal instinct is cultural. It's made up because it serves certain wider needs in society (basically that women are not fully people and exist for the benefit of others at present it's based on the idea of women being loving and self-sacrificing and obedient, so they can be paid less.).

There have been plenty of times/cultures/social classes where the woman was expected to devote far more attention to her husband than her child. There have been cultures where the husband could kill the newborn (quite legally) if it wasn't the desired sex, or if he suspected it wasn't his chiild. There have been culutures where women were expected to give birth, then get up and go about their work - taking a first baby with them, sometimes leaving a youngest-of-the-family baby in the care of older siblings.

Some women do prefer to spend a lot of the early months quietly, with their babies. Some have had a more physically challenging time than others and need more rest for themselves (though, often as not, if they have other children and a lazy male partner, they don't get the rest and just have to muddle through somehow). Some feel fine.

But it is not anyone else's business to tell another woman how to be pregnant and how to deal with a newborn (well, as long as she's not leaving it out for the recylcers to take away or feeding it gin).

Yes of course it's cultural. That's why the vast majority of mammals keep their young with them for weeks or months after birth. Cultural pressure from the other animals, innit.

Maternal Deprivation Studies

Attachment Theory

Cultural ffs.

It's one of my pet hates, drunken mothers! It's possible to have fun without alcohol

Yes, you sound like a bundle of laughs [zzzzzzzzzz]

I've been on MN long enough to know that the desired default option for some mothers on here is that they are so hermetically bonded with their baby that it becomes impossible to put them down even long enough to go to the loo and they wear that martyred badge with pride. Obviously others choose to find a way to retain an albeit small part of themselves as individuals and are not subsumed 100% into mummyhood. Ne'er the twain shall meet.

OP, if you want to be a good friend, would it not be an idea to go clubbing with her to ensure she is ok rather than further hoiking up your judgey pants?

Yes of course it's cultural. That's why the vast majority of mammals keep their young with them for weeks or months after birth. Cultural pressure from the other animals, innit

You may not have noticed, but we have somewhat evolved away from our animal cousins. We don't lick the bairns and keep them in caves or nests, neither do we eat them if we can't be bothered with them.
How does comparing us to animals help?

Some people feel awful a week after birth, some feel great. I was still physically recovering, but mentally was great. I had no desire to go clubbing a week after (and would have struggled physically, and hare clubbing), but went out pretty much every day out of hospital, went for evenings out with friends (albeit non drinking and with baby), less than a week after giving birth (section). Not everyone feels a wreck. I had more sleep after birth than before, and yes I was bleeding - so what, I do that every month.

There is so much better judgement I'm this thread. The baby is well armed for, had two parents, so why all the mummy martyrdom.

Wow. This thread is insane!

We don't lick the bairns and keep them in caves or nests, neither do we eat them if we can't be bothered with them.

Ohhhh...I've been doing all this totally wrong, in that case...

The baby is well armed

A Texan, then?

We don't lick the bairns

I licked my wee ones head when he was newborn coz he smelled so good

It's one of my pet hates, drunken mothers! It's possible to have fun without alcohol, don't really understand this attitude that mums somehow deserve to get hammered if they choose to.

Thanks, kisacat . I think this is probably my favourite post on this entire forum.

I couldn't disagree more, but thoroughly enjoyed the lunacy in your post.

Essie, both those studies are just theories and don't stand up to much examination. Just engage your brain for a minute or two - if no one but bio-mother can care for a newborn, then every baby whose mother died during or shortly after childbirth would also die. Some do (if the probelm is lack of medical care or something genetic, for example) many don't.
Its convenient to insist that mothers are walking incubators who must be shamed for trying to claim any autonomy, but all this Only Mum Will Do stuff goes straight out of the window as soon as it becomes necessary for someone's benefit other than the mother that the mother of a newborn do something other than lie there nursing.

Blueskyrain
There is so much better judgement I'm this thread. The baby is well armed for, had two parents, so why all the mummy martyrdom.

Because some subsume their self permanently into mummy martyrdom, it's their raison d'etre. Must be hell when the little darlings eventually move on and out. What's left? Ah, of course, grandparent martyrdom

Ah yes. Just theories. Like evolution, or gravity. 😂😂

Neither study says babies will DIE without their mother, by the way. But it is optimal. The baby monkeys with a fake mother (ie made out of wool) had developmental and behavioural issues, and the ones with no mother or substitute died.

Bonding and attachment is crucial for development. It has been proved in hundreds, maybe thousands of studies in the past 100 years or so.

It is utterly ludicrous to say that maternal bonding is made up cultural nonsense.

I am still laughing at 'just theories'.

I cant be the only one hoping OP comes back to find out if the 'clubbing' went ahead.

Ah yes. Just theories. Like evolution, or gravity

Not very like those theories, no. Not sure why you're laughing, surely you know not all theories are equal?
Psychology theories are not quite in the same league as the Theory of Relativity. There is a reason it is one of the soft sciences.

I theorise daily that if I bashed my boss over the head with a plant pot it could look like an accident, assuming the coppers dealing with it are blind and/or bamvoozled by my big boobs.

My theory doesn't carry the same credence as any of Darwin's or Einstein's. More's the pity.

@joshlyman you are my hero- Texan indeed!

Hard/Soft sciences doesn't mean Good/bad science. It just refers to the methodology.

Psychological findings are just as well researched and proven before publication as any other science. Psychology isn't bad science.

Attachment Theory is just as much accepted fact as the Theory of Relativity, or evolution.

Have you thought maybe she isn't coping well? It might be a good idea to ask her privately if everything is ok and that you are a bit concerned as it's very soon to want to leave a new baby? There's always a chance that there's nothing going on and she actually just wants a night out - which might not be seen as normal for the majority but we all parent differently and doesnt meen she's a terrible mother! Either way i think you should just support your friend and spend some time with her.