Having a Baby Ruined My Life - On tonight's telly

[Earlybird]

On Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.

Evidently this "refreshingly honest account of modern parenthood...states that having children makes you poor, old and bad-tempered".

Anyone planning to watch?

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I didn?t watch all of this but agree with earlybird, what a joyless lot of parents. They kept going on about how their life would never be the same - well duh! It?s not the same after you marry, move house, change jobs etc. Do you really want yr life to be the same for ever? (impossible anyway because other people will change).
The essence of life is change and surely the best thing to do is to find the positive and enjoy it.
I was baffled why the woman with the twisn seemed to spend all her time feeding them and with just one bowl as well poor mites.
Don?t they each deserve their own yogurts? AN dhow abotu a chance to self feed? That?s why they were creaming imho. Mind you twins must be such hard work.
Some of the babies were so cute, wern?t they, and that black mum with the fingernails was so gorgeous????
Yeah tinygang, that 4yos parents were so miserable, and imagine saying all that stuff in front of him!
I missed the end, glad to hear that the pg woman lved her baby in the end, thought she might.
Yes we have all had feelings of quiet desperation but I have never wished I hadn't had my children.
Good post as ever triceratops

I agree with ragtaggle & screwyslittlegobblins.
The programme was badly titled and a bit OTT.
But you guys are being too harsh.
We too laughed & laughed.
DH & I love ds 21 mths to bits.
But we often wonder if we did the right thing.
I don't mean that we regret having him - that's different.

But i could see, through, to some of their sentiments, and felt just like them !!

ooh and flamebat, agree about toddler in trolley. Just put her in there fgs!
Woman in pink was anna pasternak, very annoying.

I quite liked her, thought she was quite funny, is she famous, she sounded quite well to do!!!

Perhaps a better title would have been "Having a baby CHANGED my life" but it wouldn't have had the same impact nor attracted more viewers.

Whilst marriage, house moves and all other life events do change your life I firmly believe nothing is as dramatic as being totally responsible for another human being.

The woman with the twins summed it up for me when she spoke about how she used to "pop" out everywhere. You have so many things to think of now such spontaneity is lost.

I wanted to tell them to hang on in there life gets better! I found the first few months the hardest as I was an isolated mum, no family nearby, moved when ds was little as well so no friends either, and totally related to how they were feeling. Now my ds is 2 and I am loving loving loving him despite the tantrums. It turned a corner when he got mobile around 7 months and has been getting better and better ever since. I had a feeling the mum of the twins was ticked off at her dh for not helping out enough and this was coming out when she humiliated him over the nappy change. Those twins were soooo cute. I missed the first half hour so missed the 4 year old - good job too by the sounds of things.

K

Sorry -haven't had time to read whole thread but agree re parents talking about four year old in front of him - poor wee soul

The thing that did strike me was half way through the programme (can't remember who brought it up) I realised that the reason I have been so bloody grumpy for the last four years is that I haven't had any adult company! Okay - so I go to playgroup etc but in terms of being respected, valued, professional etc - nothing. That realisation (very belated as it is!) made me feel a whole lot better. That makes me sound a bit barking that I hadn't realised that before - I had to a degree - but hearing someone else say it made me realise what a big deal that is! Not that it stopped me being grumpy today.....

I thought it was about time that a programme dared to challenge the assumption that all women adore motherhood, infat I was disapointed by the sickly sweet ending.

I find motherhood hard, although that has been coloured by the conditions under which I became a mother. From an outsider and to myself somedays becoming a mother has wrecked my life, I gave up my friends, my career, my health, my home, my social life just about everything I knew, loved and valued when I became a mother. I rarely voice these feelings as I am know I would be made to feel like some kind of freak of nature.

I hated the whole period when my dd was a baby, perhaps if I had been able to voice my sheer boredom and unnhapiness I would have coped with it better. Infact now that she is 4 I quite openly say I don't much like babies, especially if they are my full time responsibility.

I do understand what people's point when they say this programme will be difficult and disturbing viewing for the children in years to come. My dd is completely unaware of how I feel, perhaps to make up for the guilt about my feelings she has an idyllic life and I ahve become the world master at playing the Domestic Goddess Super Mummy role. But when she is older and thinking of starting her own family I will tell her honestly how I felt during the early years of motherhood so that is she ever feels the same way she knows that she can come to me and I will not think any less of her for being honest.

Brave words TSAP and well done for voicing them. With my first child I was quite the adoring mother and very judgemental (wrongly) of folk who did not feel the same. With another child in quick sucession I take it all back, I'm knackerd, bored and generally fed up most of the time. I can't wait for DH to come home to break the monotony but sometime I pin too much on him being all happy and jovial after a bad day at the office so communication is lacking somewhat.
I'm terrified that once the kids have grown a bit that we have nothing in common but the kids anymore and just grow apart

Thanks Pagan, I m sure we go throught things for a reason. Before I had my dd I was a quite pompous judgemental teacher who was fiercely ambitious and very scathing about anyone who struggled at anything in anyway, everything had always come easily to me even though I had come from a very tough background. I believed that anyone could do anything if they put in the effort and hours.I have had to go through a lot of the things I ridiculed or belittled and seen first hand that to provide your child with the "perfect" cereal box family can be very hard.

I keep being told that I should write my experiences down as a book as although some of it has been wild and extreme there are parts of it that I am sure many mothers could relate to and would feel better knowing they were not alone.

You should do! I certainly felt a lot better seeing that the woman with the twins' big day out was a cup of tea at the garden centre. I'm just back from a busy shopping centre with my two and a friend to help and I still got a tad stressed up.

PRoblem - mine are DD aged 2 and DS 9 months. REally for such outings I should be using the double buggy but it weighs a ton and doesn't go in and out of shops easier. Took single one and DD on a leash thingie since my friend was coming with us. But still too much hassle and all those lovely twinkly things in shops just have to be pulled off the shelves.

Is it any wonder that it's easier to just stay at home in your child proofed house and do your Xmas shopping on the web?

There was an interview with the mother of the twins. She had an early menopause which is why she had IVF. Even if you have iVF you still don't know what you're letting yourself in for and probably feel doubly taken in because you've worked so hard to get your babies. I think some of the comments on this thread are really harsh

interview was in Grazia ag (forgot to say)

I was going to watch this - saw about 5 minutes and thought 'hang on a minute' the programme is called 'Having A Baby Ruined mY life' then they go to a woman with 4 children - er didn't you realise after one?