'In the trenches'

[saraclara]

AIBU to think that referring to early motherhood as being 'in the trenches' is pretty crass? I've always hated it, but this week it's particularly jarring.

Being in the trenches meant sheer terror, millions of deaths (around 3m died in the trenches) and many more injured and traumatised for the rest of their lives.

Comparing wrangling toddlers, to that, just seems deeply inappropriate, imo.

I mean, some women literally do die as a result of post partum psychosis, post partum depression and labour related ptsd... the early stages of parenthood can also lead to the 'death' of a marriage. I think in some cases it's quite applicable. It can be extremely tough, physically and psychologically.

I don't think that's to minimise the horrors of what soldiers went through in the actual trenches, but just to recognise that that is a very tough, demanding and in some cases dangerous period of parenthood and it needs to be given more attention.

Literally how do you put your shoes on the right feet in the morning?

Have you been in the military and what war(s) did you fight in?

Yanbu. It makes me cringe. We’ve become soft soft and whingy

It didn’t mean sheer terror constantly. It was also boring and lonely and a daily grind doing something hard where you could lose all sense of yourself. You don’t get to define it as solely meaning sheer terror based on what - never having been there. If that’s what it is to you, fine, but it’s looking for offence to wilfully misunderstand the parallels and the way language is used to express our experiences. Pick another hill to die on, as they say.

I've never thought about it before but you're right really. Amazing how most posters think it's fine but will moan about someone saying a person "lost their battle with cancer"-as if it's totally literal and it means they weren't fighting hard enough 🙄

except.. YOUR post was that YOU love motherhood, had it easy and how dare people complain it was anything but blissful, or something like that. It's only "a small part" when you have no experience of it.

My reply wast that your experience is irrelevant, doesn't give you the right to make judgements about other women, that motherhood can - and does - send women to hospital and to the morgue. It might be dramatic, but it's factual. You might want to educate yourself, the numbers are easily available.

And if people want to use hyperbole to describe their situation, talking about the plague and the trenches, who cares what you think anyway. You are entitled to your opinion, but that opinion doesn't matter one bit.

No one would see a woman with child birth injury or PND complaining about being ill and reply "you're in the trenches!" you are not even making any sense here 😂

Ultimately your opinion is just as irrelevant and doesn't matter to anyone but you. It certainly doesn't matter to me.

Nobody mentioned "how dare" anyone anything. Yet more drama! 😂

au contraire my friend. I have a number of colleagues who think they are doing very important work. Sad but true.

we can still point out that your smug "motherhood is easy, how dare you complain" is wrong and a ridiculous statement to make.

Wait a few years, and you'll change your mind once you are fully in the trenches 😂

Of course! You're a "Just you wait!" type! Lol! 😂

Ultimately everyone's post on MN is just their opinion and doesn't matter. Shall we all go home?

…really? 🫤

I don't know, you'll have to ask @ThatChristmasMug, she's the one who started with the whole opinions are irrelevant bollocks.

But tbh the way people behave on here it probably is best we all just go home 😂

My second baby put us through absolute unbridled hell, I was a physical wreck, my mental health was already in shreds and then one of my parents unexpectedly died when he was 8 weeks old. It was without a doubt the hardest, most fucking awful time in my life and has left me with PTSD. It absolutely was something I had to endure and survive, mentally and physically. So while it’s nice that you’re having such a lovely time, please try to recognise that your experience is not everyone else’s reality.

I think everyone needs to accept that parenthood is different for everyone and very much dependent on your baby’s temperament, sleep and feeding.

My little boy is almost two now and we are far past that “survival” stage - but he has always been low sleep needs and starts the day at 5.30am. My friend’s baby was sleeping 5 hour stretches from the day he was born and now, aged 2 wakes at 8.30am. Im not complaining, I’ve got used to our routine, but I am doing three hours of parenting before her eyes are even open!

Your DS2 sounds like my DS2! People who haven’t experienced that really have no clue

I agree with you in so far as it is a massive exaggeration that disregards the reality of what the trenches were like. Soldiers didn’t die solely from combat, they died from disease caused by the atrocious conditions. The mother of a young child has to really let the housework go for that to be comparable.

But I’m guessing the comparison has a personal resonance for you because that type of exaggeration is common. For example we say something is “murder” when of course it is absolutely no where near as bad as murder.

It's an expression, not a comparison.
Not a hill I would die on, it would be very disrespectful to people who happened to have died on hills.

Real

I often say "fuck me with a cricket bat", naturally I don't actually want to be done by a cricket bat. It's an expression. People say exaggerated things all the time to get a point across...it's part of the magnificence of the English language.
"We had to park miles away"
"It's torrential out there"
"I am completely skint"
"I'm starving"

Bumping up a zombie thread! With one word - real. What is real?

Oops ! I was meaning to do something else Deary me !

It's just a metaphor. I remember my granny saying I'd 'been in the wars' when I hurt my knee or similar.

We know how hellish the Western Front and the FWW was. But it's in the tradition of so many hyperbolic metaphors in the language, and I don't take any offence from them.

Fighting on all fronts
Picking your battles
Losing the battle but winning the war
Blitzing things
Blowing (something/someone) out of the water
Etc etc

Quite language can be a mine field