Another prime example of whingey navel-gazing by a "journalist"

[emkana]

honestly woman what is your problem?

JonR, you make it sound as if this experiences, though 'worthy of sympathy', is worth less bcs it is written by a journalist, as if journalists' experiences aren't quite valid bcs of their profession/lifestyle (though we don't really know much about the author of this piece, it's possible she isn't a journalist at all). Isn't this what writers are for?

Tis a good thing, surely? Perhaps a more useful thing than someone, oh I don't know, wrestling with more niche experience like losing one's Blackberry in a cocktail while on a beach holiday. Or watching one's son attempting to drink Coke while trampolining. (Though both were, I must add, enjoyable reads.)

I think I suffered from vain "it can't be thast hard syndrom". i had no friends with babies and hadn't seen anyone caring for a baby since my mum had my wee sister when I was 9.

Birth I was prepared for. Bf totally prepared for, practical care yep so ready. Emotional whammy - not so mcuh.

Well, I guess journalists' experiences are as important as anybody elses. But if the balance of personal experience journalism in a newspaper is wrong, then you get journos' experiences at the cost of the rest-of-the-world stories that seem so important from the parochial perspective of the non-journalists.
And I do think it is indulgent of women jouirnalists to write too many 'OMG I'm a mum now' stories. Because it is unoriginal. (I take the point, though, that this woman may not actually have been a journo.)

I read this yesterday, and found much of it to ring true, although I had simply accepted it as part of being a mother when I became one - suddenly you're not the centre of your own universe any more, but that shouldn't really come as a shock. Babies are notoriously needy

The article reminds me of a woman in my ward when DD2 was born. She was sat up in bed drinking tea as doting DH rang all and sundry telling them about their beautiful baby - how she was really good, fed well and never cried (she was less that 24 hours old). He went on to make plans for attending a friend's wedding, how they would be bringing baby with them, staying in a hotel etc etc. Also, apparently DW was going straight back to work, including commuting to London 2 days a week; all grand plans to be implemented immediately.

Cue the following morning...woman weeping into her pillow, baby kept waking up in the night "I tried to feed her, but she didn't want to be fed. I just don't know why she was waking up" . Eventually nurse took baby for a couple of hours so mum could have a bath and a sleep. This was one day into parenthood. She obviously wasn't expecting anything like real life parenting.

Quite enjoyed it tbh. presumably she exaggerated it a bit for the article. and we sure have clocked up a lot of posts commenting on it, if there's not much to it. It is boring reading yet another 'first ever to write about this' article but there is always a kernel of something real in them.

LOL at Victorian nightgown and dying swan.

One thing though. She has friends who have dropped her 'because her life is so much more whole than theirs?' Shome mishtake shurely - because she's not on email any more, because they're terrified of waking her up when they ring, because all she can do is moan, and the only people who will bother to keep their mouths closed while they yawn through your moans about new motherhood are - Ta dah! - other mums?

Kathy...It did read to me like she was screaming like a banshee for a cup of tea, so i assume that was why her DH objected. Personally i think that she cant expect him to bend over backwards for her if she is screaming and critiscising on a daily basis.

What if the boot was on the other foot, my DH hollers hysterically at me to bring him a cup of tea when he is feeding the baby??

Nothing wrong with asking nicely for a cuppa. Obviously if your DH refuses a polite request THEN tis ok to go into banshee mode!!

morningpaper are you kidding with the i love jon ronson? did you not see his wife's posts? it all went suzywong on here this weekend.

he, er, sent me an email whinging about the fact that i'd slagged his writing off on MN. not that he'd seen what i'd written, oh no, that would be too obvious. nope, the whingy prat wrote to slag me off without having seen what i'd said about him, some 'friend' of his having passed on the highlights.

Just before I go off to find the John Ronson threads...

I agree that having a new baby is pretty much like being suddenly relocated to Mars, and that this makes things tough in any relationship. I don't agree that you can blame the arrival of the baby on your relationship problems if you commit such cardinal errors as not letting your husband learn how to look after your baby in his own way, and not making the effort to spend time together.

Its a bit like saying "My grand child has driven a wedge between me and my daughter. Like every grandmother, I told her she was leaving it far too late to wean at 10 weeks, and I advised her not to spoil the child by co-sleeping. Why did nobody tell me that this happens to every grandmother?".

What kicked off here? Where?

Haven't read the thread (sorry) but I think a lot of bad post 1st baby experiences are dowbn to selfish arse husbands and I've written to the STimes to tell them so but doubt they'll print it.

I'VE BEEN ON HOLIDAY

TELL ME ABOUT RONSONGATE

WHY DIDN'T HE SEND ME AN EMAIL TELLING ME HOW LOVELY I AM FOR PRAISING HIS GENIUS?

I ALWAYS MISS OUT

I thought it was quite an accurate portrayal of the shock of the first months with a newborn. Just that it's been done to death. I remember getting really annoyed when a girl I went to school with who'd become a minor celebrity had her first and starting writing articles on what a surprise it was that it isn't just your belly that swells when you are pregnant (gosh!), but there you are.

And I've just counted and there are 9 to 13 poppers on my 4 month old's sleepsuits Oscar must be huuuuuge.

oh help I'm with Pruni here I'm afraid. Some of it rang true for me too. The stuff about being shell shocked and feeling totally alien to each other and the baby taking up all of your love and time, and the resentment that the partner gets out and you are at home with no sleep and sore boobs and a dirty house. I quite liked the article.

Well I'll just don my bullet-proof vest for a moment and say this:

This weekend I reached a low point in my marriage. Since the birth of my first son, things just went off the rails and it's slowly deteriorated. Who's done the most, who's doing it right/wrong, inequality, lack of affection with all the affection going onto our children etc.

Then I read that article and everything she said about the anger and not communicating etc was just like our relationship. Her reference to there being an elephant in the room that neither of you are prepared to acknowledge was SO true for us.

So I used the article as a way to communicate with my DH. I passed him the magazine, told him to read it and then let's talk about our relationship.

We ended up having a really good heart to heart during which lots of really sad stuff came out. For example, he said to me that he thought I'd fallen out of love with him. And honestly, I have felt that way since my first son was born and have been carrying the guilt of it for a long time. So I admitted to not feeling in love and feeling guilty about it.

And we've now put a plan in place to try and resolve some of our problems. It already feels a millions times better - mainly because we've acknowledged the bloody elephant in the room and just in doing that, have made it go away.

So regardless of whether this person's writing is crap and she sounds arrogant or whatever else, it was the exact thing both DH and I needed to read to jolt us into resolving our issues. So I thank her for writing it.

It probably would help some mothers to read that they aren't the only ones who feel shellshocked and miserable with a newborn even if they are middle class and able to be a SAHM cos Hubby earns enough to keep them. But equally, this sort of whining is v irritating to people whose experience of early motherhood is more about desperately juggling bills and begging relatives to cover enough childcare so you can get back to your shelf-stacking shifts and actually afford to keep your phone connected...

It's timing that determines whether this feature works for you or not. If you've just had your first child, it could be like reading your own thoughts. And if your children are older and your marriage has survived, then it's a bit "yeah, we know all that."

I remember when Rachel Cusk's book about motherhood came out, lots of reviewers criticised the whinging. And really most of them had grown up children or teenagers and had forgotten what it was like to despair of getting out of the house in under an hour.

Message withdrawn

JoshandJamie: The book "The Mask of Motherhood: Why Becoming a Mother Changes Everything And Why We Pretend It Doesn't" (Susan Maushart) is brilliant about the gatekeeping thing ("You are doing it wrong" - will result in a wife that does everything) and I found this really helpful. I REALLY TRIED HARD to avoid telling DH ANYTHING about babycare with both children. It is SO easy to criticise but you WILL then end up with sole responsibility for the child. I was really aware of that.

DH and I had a lot of up-and-downs in our relationship beforehand, and had been through couple's counselling - I think that really helped us accept the disruption of having babies - we had the tools to deal with conflict in a way that we wouldn't have been able to do if we had had a 'good' relationship all along.

we had terrible money worries madamez and were massively in debt. the bit in the article about her dh having posh lunches and suits did not ring true for me as my dh was driving 200 miles round trip a day to work down a lift shaft! But some of the other bits did.

Thanks Morningpaper, I'll definitely take a look at that book

"As soon as Jamie arrived the next morning, it began. ?No, don?t hold him like that. Now you?ve made him cry.?

Its not just that you end up doing all the work if you talk like this, you completely undermine your partner as a parent, and that is wrong.

Exactly MP - her article basically says "I had a baby, I was a right cow to my husband and oh dear, our relationship's gone down the pan"

She didn't have to speak to him like that.

true madameplatypus, that's a very good point. my dh isn't very brilliant in the practical department (in fact he had a bullying stepdad who did all the studly drilling and furniture-building thing so he actively despises it). so before the baby was born he and i had to have a chat about the fact that i wouldn't be telling him what to do with the baby, that he'd have toread the books and get advice from other parents same as i was doing.

if we hadn't thought of that in advance it would have been easy for him to feel undermined as i have a lot of experience with babies and young children but as it was he was/is a brilliant hands-on father from teh beginning. and sometimes we both have to bite our tongues and remember that while we may have different methods of doing things our aim is always the same, to keep dd safe and happy. i'm a bit shocked by pruni's stories about her pas, tbh, i'd say most of my pals (with the odd exception) have had reat support from our husbands and partners.

So you think asking DH to cut dd1's toenails (she was ooh 3 months or so) standing over him while he did it directing him then loosing the plot when hedidn't cut them in a striaght line is classed as gatekeeping(hangs head)

And possibly shouting"you have mutilated my daughter's foot!" wasn't one of my finest moments.

In my(weak) defence he has no big toe nails due to ballsing up his own feet so i was a wee bit concerned.