30s TTC Inc: Rolling out BESH practice across our flagship monthly diffment projects - Blue Sky thinking for a paradigm shift vis-a-vis droids and wooden spoons.

[Muser]

We're getting serious this time BESHies. Welcome to the Palace, where the emphasis is on sophistication. Cast your eyes over the plush carpet, admire the oh-so-carefully worn leather armchairs with sidetables and little green lamps. We have the Bonds of the ages as barstaff, waiting to serve martinis and the finest champagne.

To your left you'll see the Pit, which hopefully we won't be needing much. To your right the Cave of Gloom, and straight ahead we have our special space for the 2WOOFL. You'll find beanbags and gym balls there, the walls have been specially painted to allow you to write your symptoms up and wipe them off if they disappear. It's all the rage for Blue Sky thinking these days. And there are donuts and coffee to keep you going as you try to shift that paradigm.

Thanks Cunty.You've made me think. What I'd really like to have are a couple of boisterous hilarious little boys who we can take sailing and to rugby matches and grow up to be slouchy, grunty yet charming teenagers who adore their mum. I've never been one of those women who NEED to reproduce, but I'd like to. The baby part is quite secondary, even though I'm sure it will be lovely. If it doesn't happen then I can see us in twenty years still being the same as we are now, but twenty years older. That's not a bad prospect - we can be a cool aunty and uncle. What you said about rather having the experience than living to regret not having it is just the same as me.

I don't know what I'm saying really. I think you misunderstood me Scorps - it wasn't that I was thinking necessarily about delaying TTC. It's whether we were suited to TTC and parenthood at all.

Hello Fred. Hello beshies. Hello cunty. cunt my lovely, that is more normal than you think (well I think it is anyway.) It is just another one of those things that in the 'conspiracy of mums' is generally Not Talked About. Same as when I admitted to not having an instantly perfect adaption to parenthood... blokes, once realising they weren't gonna be judged, admitted having felt similar at the start about 80% of the time. However I think I've still only met... maybe 2 women apart from me who did anything other than look on in shock.

I felt like a fucking monster. And it is fear of people seeing you as a monster that keeps wimminz from fessing up to these 'imperfect' thoughts.

I'm not a monster, and I love my kid to pieces. That doesn't mean I've never had any doubts or wondered if I was making/had made a mistake. Luckily I was allowed to keep him cos these days he is The Best Thing.

(fuck that was long winded)

aries even if you did time the baby for sometime in the 'right' 6 months they do somewhat continue to be a bit hard work...so I do think your summers would be hard...and your description of life avec bebe BEAUTIFULLY described the early days for me n mr gin. It is hard. But (naff alert) it is completely worth every lost brain cell, every broken night's sleep.

oh and....

hope that helps luvver

I'm hearing you all the way down the track airy, loud and clear.

Having explained all the above to a chum, I got accused of over-thinking it today - like it's something you shouldn't give due consideration to! But perhaps there's a grain of truth in it - perhaps sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and see where life takes you. There is a danger of never taking risks in life in case you're not cut out for it, but you sound like you could really embrace the whole thing with a positive outlook. I can't get past the sheer weight of responsibility and lack of autonomy and that's what's doing me in. Need to see it how you see it perhaps.

Thanks Ginsters. And your little charmer makes me want a little boy even more! He's beautiful.

And thanks for being so honest everyone. You hear so much of "Oh it's the best thing you'll ever do" etc. It makes you wonder whether it could possibly be the same for everyone. I know for a fact that my mum, too late, found it wasn't the best thing she would ever do and that fills me with menkul and angst as well.

I'll stop with the memememe now.

Aries this may sound really stupid so feel free to ignore, but is there any way that the uncertainty can take some of the pressure off ttc? As in you've said you'd like kids, but if it doesn't happen it's not the end of the world and life would still be good, so can the 2WOOFLing and stressing about whether it's ever going to happen be set aside for a more laissez faire "if it happens it happens" type approach? (Not suggesting you're particularly stressy).

I suspect that in reality being that laid back about it is more difficult than it sounds, and it certainly doesn't answer the question about summer babies and coping, but I think Gin's covered that better than I ever could.

The conspiracy of motherhood Gin talks about scares me a bit: if and when I get that far I fully expect to struggle with a tiny baby, and being surrounded by people who either take to it like a duck to water or won't admit they don't sounds nightmareish. It's good to know that not everyone finds the whole thing wonderful all the time.

it doesn't always, at every moment, feel like the best thing ever. Sometimes being a parent is shit.

But the love thing is pretty fucking amazing.

I reckon this is a Legitimate Thread Topic for people of our age and intellect and life experience so it's not really mememe. If we can't be honest with each other how can we ever hope to unravel our feelings in a safe, non-judgey environment?

Interesting about your mum - and interesting to even CONSIDER that it might not be the best/most rewarding/important thing you ever do (despite society frowning on that attitude I'm sure). I'm sure women are often brainwashed into thinking that it has to be the most rewarding thing you ever do. Would they put that onus on men do you think?

I hear you Occy. It's a very valid thing to ask. This has only just happened to me today! I look at myself every month and when the droid arrives and I'm disappointed, that must mean I want it, doesn't it? I wouldn't mind about jogging on for quite a few months in a relaxed way (well I don't think I would anyway), but my age is starting to prey upon my mind. Someone said on the OTHER ttc in your 30s thread (hisssssss) about fertility at 35/36 etc etc etc. Maybe it's a purely biological panic, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm sorry - I'm contradicting myself at every, single turn.

Oc you will find support. It is just that a lot of women seem to think expressing any unhappiness=being a bad mother, and they are scared of being judged.

Or maybe I was just too honest about the whole thing.

The other thing though, is that the really hard bits fade away to nothing after you get through them , whereas the good bits keep shinin' on. Which means people sometimes forget that they ever had doubts/really struggled/considered running away...

Cunty - I haven't had a huge amount to do with you yet. But for the record, I think you're ace!

cunty I remember talking to mr gin about just that after moo was born. If you have a really happy life before the baby, it can actually feel like the opposite of the 'best thing ever' when you have a small shouty handgrenade chucked in the middle of it....

aries hands off mah woman...

I do worry a lot about whether I'll be a good mother, but not so much about if I'm doing the right thing.

Weirdly, what I've been worrying a lot about recently is work. Part of me would really like to not work at all for the first years, until school starts. We could probably make that work financially, if we were happy not to have fancy holidays and such like. But I worry that friends will look down on me if I do that. And it jars with my feminist self. I also worry that actually I'll find looking after a child incredibly dull and want to go to work. And in that case maybe I am a bad mother.

Can't win!

shux

I hope that feminism's given us the ability to make choices about what we do (as opposed to being shoehorned into staying at home bringing up kids) rather than meaning we all feel we have to work no matter what. One of my friends has quit work now she's got a little one, and I admire her for saying that she (for now at least, I don't know her long term plans) wants to be at home with the baby rather than chasing her fairly high powered career.

I suspect that whatever choices any of us make there'll be someone who'll judge us for it, and we really can't win. Which brings it back to making the best choices you can for your own situation at the time.

this fred used to home to such debates quite often, back in the days where VAG and co were still around...

On another note, highly recommend the BBC4 programme on Fatherhood, think you can catch up in iPlayer if you missed tonight's. It was incredibly moving, lots of people who'd grown up in the first half of the 20th century talking about their fathers. I cried a lot.

Dammit, I was going to watch that.

I agree with Occy - I think feminism ideally should have given women the choice about whether they want to be a SAHM or a working mum, and not have to face a load of cat's-arse-mouth, judgey-pant types, making decisions about what sort of person or parent you are. Why should you go back to work if you don't need to, or if it's not right? Why should you stay at home and feel stifled and swamped, if you and your family will be better off if you work?

I think I reached the conclusion that I would regret not having a child much more than I would regret having one. Perhaps a bit reductio ad absurdum, but got me to the first stage of thinking about TTC.

I agree that's what it should be about. But there is a lot of cats arse mouths around. Especially in the middle classes, where the "so what do you do?" question is loaded with all kinds of judgment. Plus there's my general sense of wanting some measure of financial independence. But next to that, my work does not fit well with part-timing, and in many ways it would be easier for me not to try and force it. From the women I know in the office who do work part-time, either they never do anything interesting, or they do a 45 hour week while being paid for a 21 hour week. Neither of which appeal. But neither does putting a 1 year old in nursery 5 days a week if I could afford not to.

Having it all? Having a massive guilt complex more like.

In a menkul update. I have really odd cramps. My lower back feels kind of numb all over. Not like normal droid cramps at all. Can't decide if it's just the position I've been sitting in or droid symptoms or god knows what.

Aren't those Hogwarts spells?

I think the thing is - and I bet our Mama BESHes will agree - that none of us know what type of mothers we will be and how much we embrace the 'clique' of motherhood. Everyone knows I'm obsessed with having to be a Mum, not just wanting it, and I dream of throwing myself into all the cliches; NCT classes, baby sign language, being a SAHM, etc., but who's to say that I won't actually find everything outside the lovely child a huge bag of arse and end up going to work F/T and putting the baby in nursery all week and who's to say people who are ambivalent or who want a baby to impact as little as possible won't become the most cliched type of Earth Mother around? So much uncertainty on ever level in this TTC lark.

And AryanNation, Cunty is abso-fucking-lutely fab and the voice of reason (help us, Jebus!). And a top snog too

Ok ok! I was agreeing!

I'm trying to confusingly write a post about feminism, and that men don't have to make a choice or be judged for whichever choice they make, but am failing, so think I will just go to bed.