'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 don't think anyone actually thinks motherhood and being in the trenches are ontologally identical.

It's a metaphor and hyperbole. A linguistic device. That's all.

😂😂

These sort of hyperbolic terms were devised by the MC insta mums.

In the trenches
Pulling up the drawbridge (isolate yourself, don't answer the door but expect meals dropped off)
Quagmire of motherhood
'Just us' family (don't allow elderly MIL for Xmas)
Boob monster

Loads more but it's been a long time since I looked at such pages

I haven't thought about it with this word op, though I think now that I have I will be aware of it more. I like that language evolved, but I also appreciate the origin of words. For me, your post reminded me of how I feel when someone says they've been "slaving" away at something or working "like a slave". I've always been really uncomfortable with that for the same reason.

Exactly. It’s a metaphor.

And not an entirely inappropriate one, as one of the reasons suggested for such high proportions of ‘shell shock’ (what we would now term PTSD) during and after WWI was because men trained to the hypermasculine act of killing other men were in fact in the trenches forced to spend long periods immobile, something much more associated with women’s lives. And, interestingly, their distress emerged in conversion disorders like mutism, blindness, paralysis, when it’s overwhelmingly women who suffer from conversion disorders.