Why are people so negative about parenting?

[youbuggerz]

Apparently I'll not have sleep for another 18 years, never have any money, won't celebrate my birthday, won't ever have time to have my hair done, won't be able to have nice furniture, will be fat for years, my career will end, I won't be able to have the same hairdresser, I'll never have sex again.....the list goes on and on of things I'll

Surely if it was that bad people wouldn't reproduce or would stop at one?

I actually find dresses with tights more comfortable than jeans. I hate jeans, even not pregnant.

Oh right, that's one I haven't heard.

I still wear what I wore before birth and what I find comfortable, which just happens to be jeans and t-shirts :o

I think one of the funniest things I was told was that my livingroom would look like a nursery playroom for the next 18 years. Strangely with both DC's I've managed to contain the toys, nappies and muslins (ooh muslins, do you have muslins? Marvellous things BTW :o) within a plastic storage tower in the corner when they dont go to bed and I can't say I've noticed a huge change in the space.

When I mentioned people being a cow, I was referring to one poster who left a sarky nasty comment to the OP about her having it all figured out and wanting to read her childcare book as she was clearly an expert etc etc. I'm
not referring to the comments about the downsides of motherhood, which I think even us first timers in waiting do understand. The main point from the OP wasn't that her life wouldn't change a bit, just that people can take glee in telling you that it'll be incredibly hard and all the things you like doing are gone gone gone! Timescale is important here, when I say I hope to be able to have a meal out, night out and occasional time away from the baby when he's with DH or out parents, I mean within the first 3 years, not the first 3 weeks! One thing pregnancy has taught me is to have a totally different way of looking at time, had you told me last summer that I couldn't go to the pub or bar for a night out for a week I would have found that difficult! But now I can happily think of 'ooh, think I might get out next summer!' because now I don't expect things to be instant and I have other things to concentrate on other than gratifying myself. So when I say I want to keep doing some things I do now (well, before I was pregnant) I fully understand they'll be few and far apart, I just maintain it's not necessarily 'impossible'.

I had the friend who told me I'd never wear a dress again :) I always find it far easier to stick a dress over some leggings and they hide a multitude of sins, which will be very handy after the birth! Seriously it was like I was planning on wafting around in Chanel, not H&M! Vomit and poo can be washed off dresses too!

PS. Can i clarify that i do think my life will change.

I just wish people wouldn't (a) try and be negative about absolutely everything to do with parenting (b) make assumptions about what i will and won't do following having a baby. This includes what I will and won't have/buy/afford etc.

Totally agree with the OP. I get lectured on this all the time. It's impossible to argue with people who insist you'll never sleep again/your house will be a mess/it will be harder than work blah blah blah because if you don't have kids they give you an arch "you just wait" smirk.

The reality is that we are lucky enough to have enough money to have a cleaner; I have a very bloody stressful demanding job so while I'm under no illusions that mat leave will be easy it will be a nice change/respite; I've seen the difference in approaches between friends who haven't slept in years and those who seem to have settled babes and I'll be doing my best to fall in the latter category ... you can't say any of this to one of these lecturers without sounding like a smug git riding for a fall.

aaahhhhh felt good to get that off my chest!

Gennz - Precisely! "Just you wait!". Ok I will wait, but let me find out for myself rather than trying to be negative about everything. If I do find it hard then there's no need to be smug "I told you so". That's just mean and unhelpful.

Dresses don't cut into anything in my experience!

Also agree, OP and other first timers. We aren't idiots, we are going into new parenthood with our eyes open and clearly it isn't going to be all sunshine and butterflies.

However.... No need for all the negative rhetoric. About the first comment from my MIL was "well, of course you won't be going on holiday anytime soon, will you?". Of course people with babies travel - it will be different, not impossible!

And if you don't have family members living in the next street you're doomed to never leave the house again after dark.... What do babysitters exist for?!

It's funny reading a thread like this all cuddled up with ds resting his head on me. He's at that age where they decide they don't need a nap anymore so you get cuddles from about 5pm til bedtime.

The Important thing to remember as a first timer is there are different stages. So if for some reason you're not enjoying a stage in their development.. it'll be over soon!

I'm 18 weeks pregnant with my first and bracing myself!

Bit of a shameless plug (sorry ladies! ) but I blogged about this today... it's called 'things that annoy me when I'm pregnant' and this was one there!

Have a read and please tell me your for part two!

hypocmumtobe.blogspot.co.uk/

Greenstone She hasn't got a wide network of friends and we've known her for years (like 20+ years) ... looking at it that way I wonder if she's 'projecting' her own worries/resentments on to me. I had some health problems which meant the possibility of childlessness and she was really nice then - I wonder if on some level she needed to be the 'lucky one' for once and now the only way to be that is if I turn out to be very needy/flaky as a parent.
Another regard in which I'm lucky is my parents live 5 min away and my DH is quite hands on in the home (very different from her situ) so it might wind her up a bit? But TBH I'm hardly going to tell them to NOT help am I?