Do people treat you like you've lost your intelligence upon having kids?

[eggybreadandbeans]

Hi everyone
I've just joined up. Something's been bothering me for a while, and I'm hoping this might be the online community to connect with on this.
I have a gorgeous, scrummy boy, who'll be two in June. He's absolutely lovely, and - despite some trying toddler times - I love him, and being his mum, to bits.
Even though I was the straight A student at school and showed much promise of becoming an impressive this or that career-wise, I always knew I wanted to be at home with my child(ren) as a priority - at least until they started school. After uni, I threw myself into charity work - a family tradition! - and before I knew it, was 25 and pregnant. So I kind of hopped off the career ladder before I'd really started climbing.
We now have a business, and luckily, I have been able to stay at home with my son as I wanted to and still do odd bits on the business during nap times.
However, lately, I've noticed that: (1) a lot of other mums I've met are now going back to work seriously - part- or full-time - so I'm feeling a bit left out of something I didn't think I even wanted to be a part of; (2) since we've recruited at work, my jack-of-all-trades skills have become redundant against the specialisms of new staff - so I'm wondering what am I actually capable of other than being a mum; (3) a couple of remarks our staff have made suggest I'm really a bit of an amateur at this work lark and would be better off sticking to being "just a mum".
So I feel like I've gone from this person who everyone (including myself) expected "so much" of (in the conventional career sense anyway), to someone who, at 28, is "just a mum" (not my words). Old school friends, teachers and now our staff look down their noses at me as if, by having my son at 26, I've failed career-wise; as though I clearly couldn't hack real, grown-up life - that I couldn't make it at anything else, and that I can't be that bright after all. This gets to me so much. (I know I shouldn't let it, but I'm a sensitive soul and it does.) I've chosen the way things are; nobody seems to understand why I would have made these choices.
I was labelled "bright" from my first to my last day of formal education; it became my identity. And now, I'm realising that I've been given the "young mum who has nothing better to do with her life than push a pram" label. So I suppose I'm feeling a bit lost as to who I am and how I define myself, and confused about the whole career thing.
Sorry - getting a bit deep and meaningful. Usually happens in the small hours.
Do any other home-based/young mums out there get the same looks/remarks/labels from others, or have similar issues with their identity? Have any of you found yourselves being treated as though you've lost half your intelligence upon having kids?
I know the answer lies in feeling confident in myself and the choices I've made - in my intelligence as a woman irrespective of grades/awards/job title/promotions, and in my capabilities as a mum. Just easier said than done, I suppose.
Am just venting really - and not all that articulately, at gone 1.30am! Suppose I just want to know if anyone else feels the same?
Thanks ladies. Wishing you all lovely long weekends.
eggybreadandbeans

Hi EBAB
Well to me it sounds as though you are a very accomplished person: Being a great mum ( and loving it), running your own business and still being up at 1.30am!
You hit the nail on the head when commenting on your own confidence as I think that is what it is all about really.
I have a soon-to-be 1 year old and must confess that I feel really dumb sometimes.
Not to mention boring!
I'm going back to work in 2 months and am dreading it not least because of my plunging confidence levels.
But if we define ourselves by others' view of our capabilities (especially if many of these people are childless younger people who have no idea about what parenting is all about) then we are going to be disappointed.
I chose a family friendly career over a high-flying non-family friendly one and have got used to the inevitable question "Oh, are you just a ....?".
But I actually don't really care what other people think of my career choice as long as I am happy with it.
Anyway, I'm rambling too and it's 11am here (in Oz).
Could you go and do some further education/training?

Hey Eggy! I think it's just par for the course tbh! I'm not really a young or old mum (I don't think at 33) but I know exactly what you mean. For me DH and I decided long before I got pg that if we were lucky enough to have kids then I'd stay home as long as it was financially viable. That's what I've done, DS1 21 months and no 2 due in Oct. My career was well established and I had moved a reasonable way up the ladder but I decided to take the time out. There are times when I feel like spouting about my 'previous life' and my qualifications etc but I usually manage to bite my tongue.

In my previuos life I was a teacher and everyone but everyone comments on how cushie a job it is "...doing half days and loads of holidays" at first it really peed me off then I just used to sarcastically agree. Any teacher worth their salt knows how wrong those people are! I think this thing is a bit the same. TBH I thought being a mum was going to be a doddle compared to working full time - how wrong I was! I love it but its bloody hard work. So my point is try to just smile to yourself and think "You wait n see!"

Soz for going on......

I have lost my intelligence since having kids.

Hey EBAB

I am soon to turn 21 and have just had my second child with a man with whom I am planning to get married next year.

I have all the A-levels I need to go to Uni and do the degree I want when the time is right for me.

I lived in sheltered accomodation for teenage mothers for the first 10 months of my babies life, not by choice, me and DP went to the council to ask for some help with housing and they said at the time that the only way to do so was to say we were apart and live seperatly for a while ( Yes, you read right, we went to the system for a little help and they told us to diddle the system completely... I was outraged) so really we had no choice!

I remember friends telling me what other, small minded people from college/school had said about me being in that situation and was so upset. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, and at that time it was have children and I don't regret it for one moment.

Anyway, whilst in the accomodation one of the support staff really wasnt getting the response to her work that she wanted from most of the girls and turned round to us one day and said "Well I've got my degree, what have you got? your just stuck with a baby for the rest of your life" I just turned round to her and said, " I have someone who will love and support me for the rest of my life, when I choose to go to university and when I am old! there is a time limit to having children, not to when you can get an education" she was 40+ and evidently bitter that she had not yet had children.

People should think before they speak, I CHOSE to have my children when I have, and feel I have made that choice correctly, I have enough energy at this age to chase after 2 toddlers! lol.

Sorry for rambling... this is something I too feel strongly about, people seem to think that I just went out and got myself "knocked up" for want of a better phrase. I have ambition. I now have two very important reasons not to let them go unfulfilled

i think being a mom is the most rewarding job (perhaps that's the wrong word?, maybe vocation is better - that suggests non-payment as well!) in the world the rewards are more plenty in being a mom, first smiles, all the cuddles in the world, and knowing you are amking a real difference to someone's day.

i can't believe there are some people who think that being a mom is easy - they obviously haven't heard of the colic at 1-4 a.m., the screams of terror when they have a bad dream (again) just as you were dropping off to sleep, the snotty noses, the stinky nappies, the leaky nappies, all the bad things....... but you know what? i would swap my 9-5 job in an instant for the most difficult job in the world because i love my little daughter

i forgot to say that i think you have more intelligence when you have children because being a mom makes you think in different ways, you have to be adaptable, and thinking of how to entertain a little one takes more inborn intelligence than any academic intelligence. hope that makes sense, i can waffle a bit

Hi Eggy

Your post will resonate with many I'm sure, and the main thing that struck a chord with me was the general feeling we get of motherhood not being an acceptable use of our time. And not being a damn sight harder and more demanding than most jobs...I wish we could celebrate mums / parents caring for their kids more in this country! I hate how inflexible most jobs are - I'm applying for p/t work at the mo and most wouldn't have a start time that enabled me to take my own child to school - in society the needs of kids to have parents available at important times are just pushed aside completely.

It's this that makes us feel we are NOT acheiving when we are stay at home parents.

If it helps, I think it's this general attitude that makes you feel the way you do but I think also it could be to do with your age - I think in my twenties I was still getting to know myself, and who I was and who I wanted to be. You're doing this along with being a mum and working out your place in the world aside from that...not easy. My thirties are great! I agonise less and value what I value, not what society at large thinks I should.

Have to agree with Greensleeves though, HAVE lost many brain cells since giving birth!!!!

Hi. I know just what EBAB means. I am a teacher and, against my intial plans when pg with DD (now 7), I have continued to work part-time, just how things at my school worked out. I love it and look forward to returining to it full time. When asked what I do, I always say a teacher and somtimes add part time, with small children. Why do I feel more validated as a teacher than a mum? I don't know and have agonised over it for years. But it is true. I know there is no more important job in the world than raising children but I cannot find it in me to feel fulfilled by it. It has made me feel like a crappy mum plenty of times!

hm, interesting.
I dont feel that my intelligence is in question but i do feel like people have a strange presumption that all i do is be a mum.
I work part time in a job which is challenging and needs concentration and comitment.
I have always felt that people do not understand what my job entails and involves. Even pre child my closest friends do not and cannot even begin to imagine the realities of my job and so to them i simply go to work and do funny hours, beyond that they are clueless.
My point is that they are unable to give me any credit for the work that i do, so to them i am the same old me but now with a limpit toddler in tow!!
I dont mind, work is work...completely seperate from home. I switch off totally from "mum mode" the moment i walk through those doors to work and switch to "professional", this is how i am seen by my coleagues. To my friends i am still me, not much different out of work to how i have always been.
Its a bit depressing though for you i think dealing with the attitudes that you have encountered regarding your life choices.
You actually have nothing to prove to any one, you need not justify your choices because they are yours alone, you sound like you think that you have failed in some way and you most certainly havent.

I really liked your post Eggybread.
Unlike you, I am not that bright - just a 'b' grade plodder.
I am a part qualified accountant, with a BA and an MA.
Yet, as a mum, people talk to me as though I am dim.
Saying that, like Greensleaves, I HAVE totally lost it, since ds (2.2)
But, my part-time job is a breeze, compared to the hard work that looking after ds is - and he is no trouble really - why does no one( as sparklemagic & fransmom say) ever give credit for what a hard 'job' being a mum is ?

Do you feel under-valued or appreciated in your job ? - maybe focusing in one one particular aspect that interests you and stretches you - rather than the 'jack of all trades', would make it all easier - you are obviously bright enough to do anything that you set your mind to - maybe it is just thinking about and focusing on one particular area - HTH
Go girl - I'm sure that once you put your mind to it, this is easy solveable.

Thank you all. Am going to bed with a smile. :)

Like other posters, I do actually think my brain has "changed" a bit from having my son - it's really much more alert and switched on in some ways, and yet in others ... well, sometimes I can barely string a sentence together. Doh!

Yep, am in agreement with a lot of you re: raising my son is sooo much more rewarding, challenging, stimulating, stretching, etc, than any job I've done. I think someone hit the nail on the head when they said about childless friends' comments: almost all our friends are still kid-free and ascending their respective career ladders. I've lost count of the number of times they just haven't "got it".

Like one poster said, it does seem as though there's a kind of boo-to-mums culture at the moment. Probably the result of feminism going too far the other way - going beyond the ideal of women having choice, to creating a climate where we feel we must prove ourselves career-wise and be as financially independent as possible. It's this that we're measured by these days, not by being great mums and raising great kids.

I went to quite a strict, success-hungry girls' school. Looking back, it's interesting to reflect that even though the one thing all the girls in my class would probably one day do - have kids - was never mentioned, and it was all talk of becoming architects/doctors/lawyers, etc. No one ever mentions in those formative years how you're going to fit the profound experience of motherhood into the big career plan.

My little man is just delighting the socks off me at the moment. His manners are amazing - I give him tea and he says voluntarily, "Thank you for making tea, Mummy." And if we're upset, he instinctively hugs us. And when he climbs out of the bath, he says, "Mind your goolies!" He's turning out to be such a charming, sensitive and funny little chap and I feel so proud. So career or no career, qualifications or none, I think we have job well done - so far, anyway. :)

Enjoy the long weekend, ladies, and thank you all again.

eggybreadandbeans

I've lost my intelligence since having kids too - but if anyone said that to me I'd punch 'em in the mouth

You're right, ebandb - it is about feeling confident and secure in the decisions you've made and in how you choose to live your life...though how you actually put that into practice I don't know. I've been a SAHM for...oh good grief...over 9 years now (well, I work from home now but that's by the by) and I've sometimes felt I have to justify my decision. I've been on the receiving end of some pretty crass comments - "what do you do all day?" was one such, "I couldn't stay at home with my child - I've met too many brain dead women who can't talk about anything other than little Johnny cutting his first tooth etc." was another...

But, you know, sod 'em. My life, my choice - we all try and make the right decisions, don't we? And I console myself with the thought that one day I will write my critically acclaimed and commercially successful novel, which will win the Man Booker, Pulitzer, and Nobel prize for literature...and that'll show 'em

I think people stopped treating me as if I had any intelligence the moment I started needing a 34C bra, tbh.

being a parent is seriously hard work. i can't wait until my male boss has children. ha haa haa haaa ha ahaaa haa haa haaa.

so let me get this right, you have your own businees - with STAFF! and people are looking down their noses??

now either
a) you have an inferiority complex
b) you hang around some seriously shitty people
c) maybe a bit of both

I don't feel I have lost my intelligence but do find I am treated that way. It's not uncommon for people who work with my dh to assume I am an uneducated breeding machine (the kitchen wench I call it ). He loves telling them my former profession (I am sahm now). I find people in stores or on the street sometimes will lecture me in a condesending way like I am some dumb mom, not in that helpful way, but more like I am a stupid child (obviously as I have no career and only can manage to breed kind of way. My worst moment was after my first child was born and I was in a restaurant chasing my toddler who then blocked the aisle as a woman came down. I looked up anad realized I had worked with her a few times and smiled and said a friendly hello planning to ask how things were going etc. She gave me a tight smile, didn't say hello, said "Please move that child" and walked off. Iwas stunned. She had not even recognized me in my new mommy look. That was when I realized how some,(and only some) people see women with babies.

It did hurt. But really, in the end, what do Icare what they think. I am happy with my choice to stay home and have as many good stories of people telling me how lucky I am to have this time, How they admire me for staying home, etc. My favorite is a young man in his twenties who was watching me with 3 little ones in the grocery store. I didn't know it but came up and said " I was watching you go through the checkout and it was brilliant. Make sure you put those skills on a resume some day!). Made my day!

Eggybreadandbeans, I so know where you´re coming from. I hope you know what a successful and happy life you are leading and can (sensitively ; ) ignore snide comments from folk who are probably JEALOUS of your situation. I was having a little moan to a friend the other day, who pointed out that people are jealous of me, and I´m in not such a different situation to yourself. Perhaps the main difference between us is I would eat alive any of my staff who implied I wasn´t competent enough to work in my own business. Should you work on your assertiveness skills?

As a SAHM, I´ve had a few comments, both from other (jealous?) mothers funnily enough... one from a stranger criticising me for being in a cafe on a workday, drinking coffee while DH had to work (DD was 5 months old!) and another from a working mum who asked what on earth I DO all day. She went back to work 6 weeks after the birth of her DD (a lovely girl I have to say) and couldn´t believe that I had chosen not to work.

What I know of being in the job market is that most people just want OUT of what they´re doing. We have CHOSEN what we want to do and are very lucky!

Sorry for the ramble, I´ll stop now.. All the best!

A friend and I work together, we had babies within a month of each other and when we returned to work we both felt as if people thought we'd had a labotomy rather than a baby. I'd been doing my job for three years, went back to the same work, and found that the people who had covered my work while I was off would say things like "are you sure you know what you're doing with this?". Its very annoying that people assume that you lose your intelligence when you have a baby.
I know my circumstances are different to yours in that I have gone back to work, but I can imagine it being the same as yours if I didnt work (even worse than it is now I guess).
I was also given the "bright" label, the "this one will go far". The thing that annoys me is that if I did pack up work (cant at the moment due to money), it would be because I want to, and being at home with my child is something I enjoy, not because I am too stupid to have a career. People just dont understand that the satisfaction I get of being with my daughter, watching her do something for the first time, is far, far more satisfactory than being at work.
Just a shame I dont get paid for it!!

I don't feel like I have lost my intelligence...never had any anyway