Blog, blog, blog . . .

After my first child was born, I often had the urge to beat up little old ladies.  It wasn't that I hated them; it's just that every time I was at the market, my newborn and I were accosted by at least two.  After some shrill cootchie-cootchie-cooing, they would inch just a little too close to my face and ask, "Isn't motherhood wonderful?"

In my head, my response was always, "No. It fucking sucks.  I haven't slept in over a month. My nipples are constantly dripping. I'm never alone, and all I want to do is go to Starbucks, drink a latte, and read a book.  Now get out of my face before I run you down with my cart, you old bat."  In reality, I just nodded, faked a smile, and became extremely interested in the cantaloupe mound to my left.

Unfortunately, little old ladies are not the only ones who’ve assaulted me with this isn't-motherhood-wonderful hooey.  Mothers’ groups are filled with women who seem to have no problem adjusting to their new roles and actually enjoy spouting blissful clichés to one another.  “I’m so in love with my baby.” “I could just eat her all up.”  Either these women have urban-myth-babies who’ve slept through the night since birth, or they’re just really good actors.  Whatever the reason, I was soon ousted from these groups because, while they sat around competing over how “in love” they were with their new babies, my husband and I were devising a plan to sell ours on Ebay to finance a convertible Porsche.  A white newborn boy from a well-educated middle class family can garner a lot of money these days, especially at auction. 

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that I didn’t love my newborn.  I just couldn’t honestly say that I was "in love" with him.  After all, I had just met him.  When I pointed this out at the various mothers’ groups, I was met with silence and then promptly dropped from the email loops.  I was bewildered.  Why is it that when a childless single woman announces that she's in love with someone she’s just met, her friends reply with "you-don't-even-know-him" rolling eyes.  But when a new mother announces she's "in love" with her newborn whom she’s just met, everyone says, "Awwww," while cocking their heads to one side. 

I couldn’t even get solace from my childless friends.  “What did you expect?” was their common question, as if they somehow knew firsthand about new parent trials and tribulations.  Well, first I didn’t expect to be so bloody tired.  Now I know why sleep deprivation is used on POWs.  Second, I didn’t necessarily expect to instantly fall in love with my newborn, but I wanted to feel at least some inkling of a bond.  Instead, I felt like there was this strange little person living in my house who with each passing day I realized would not be leaving for a very, very long time.  Fortunately, there was one person who understood my feelings.  Lying in bed one night with the covers half over our heads to muffle our voices from our son who was sleeping only a few feet away, my husband whispered, “There’s a little person living with us.”  And, when that little person cried, my husband said, “Shhh. Pretend we’re not here.” 

Let’s face it.  Our 6 pound 14 ounce baby – our planned baby – traumatized us.  If he’d been unplanned, he’d probably be lying on a mountainside with a bunch of unwanted Chinese daughters.  Obviously, not everyone has warm fuzzy feelings when they come home with their new “bundles of joy.”  Some moms, like me, need time to ease into their new roles.  We need to throw tantrums in front of our husbands to mourn our former selves.  We need to get used to someone needing us nearly every minute of every day.  We need to get to know our children before we fall in love with them, and eventually we do. 

But what is all this “we” talk?  The reality is that I’ve only met one other woman who willingly admitted that becoming a mother traumatized her, and, frankly, I haven’t seen her since that conversation.  Maybe she’s afraid I’ll rat her out to some neighborhood mothers’ group or something.  In any case, left alone once again to deal with my morphing process, I decided to start this blog.  That way, if there are others out there like me, they can know they’re not alone.  And, if you are out there, could you send me a note?  I wouldn’t even mind hearing from some little old ladies.

Comments

[Jessica]

Hi - me again. I think that I'd be a healthier person now if I'd been able to admit how hard motherhood was at the beginning. I thought it was supposed to be wonderful and figured that if it wasn't something was wrong with me. I wish your blog was around 7 years ago! I might have realized that it's ok to be pissed off about not being able to get any sleep for ridiculous periods of time. I laughed out loud reading your POW comment. That's exactly what I used to point out to my husband to explain my insanity. My kids are nearly 8 and 5 now and I still haven't caught up on my sleep. But things are better and motherhood really is wonderful, sometimes, and not so wonderful other times. I'm better able to accept the not-so-great times as par for the course and not get so caught up in trying to fix things that aren't broken.

Sorry for the long comment!

[Chocolate Chip Charlie]

Ummm... I'm in. I'm not exactly a "mom" in the "female parent" sense, but I'll take what I can get.

[Scone]

It is hard. Way harder than those "preparing for motherhood" books tell you. I remember vaguely (because that whole newborn period is a total blur of exhaustion) whining repeatedly "Why didn't anyone tell me?!" I'm kicking around the idea of getting some other (possibly blogging) mamas (and possibly papas) together and writing a "What Will Actually Happen When You Don't Expect It" book. It probably wouldn't do very well among pregnant women, but I bet singles will eat it up.

[Leslie]

Hi there! This post is too, too funny! And hits a little close to home.

When I had my first baby I went NUTSO staying at home ALL DAY LONG with her. Like you mentioned I was too busy "mourning my former self" to enjoy the moment. Whenever I hear young women say, "I can't wait to have a baby so that I can be a SAHM...." I can't help but wince a bit. I still work so that I can maintain my sanity......makes me enjoy the "loving my baby" moments more!

Oftentimes I've felt like the oddman out. But now that I've read this post, I know I'm not alone! Whew!

[joleen]

I found your blog through a link from someone else's blog. I am so glad I read this. I totally understand you and I'm not a mom yet. I'm a nanny and while a lot of people think this will "prepare me"- this is it! I am, in a sense, a stay at home mom. I am with her 11+ hours a day with many overnights. I am with her in health and sickness. When I first got married (a year ago in March) I thought I wanted children right away. Now, I know it's a LOT of work. I've since asked my husband if we could just have one but he says I'd spoil it too much. Anyway, you're funny + honest. Thank you.

[the weirdgirl]

Pregnancy traumatized me. It really did. And everyone I knew had these wonderful, easy breezy pregnancies. Recovery took a while too. Fortunately, I knew a few women who had no desire to be SAHMs. Now I'm at home but I don't feel bad when it drives me nuts; and I don't feel like keeping up with the uber-mom crap either just because I AM at home. Work, school, being at home, I figure whatever fits schedule-wise and to keep me sane will work itself out.

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to tell you about a book. One of my friends gave it to me when I first gave birth and I've been passing it around to other moms since then. It's called Operating Instructions, by Anne Lamott. It's a journal of her first year with her son and she really talks about what it's really like. No bullshit, no holding back. It's a great book.

P.S. I found you through MetroDad

[AdventureDad]

W waited a long time before we had kids. We just werent't ready. We lived in NYC for many years and had an amazing lifestyle. But we wanted kids one day. The first time my wife got pregnant she cried when she got the results. And it was not of joy. She was unsure how everything would turn out and we were of course spoiled. That pregnancy ended in a miscarriage but the next time she felt better about it.

I would say that our expectations were pretty low. God, that sounds awful but we really didn't expect to fall in love witth the baby or thought it was all going to be just wonderful. We counted on many sleepless nights, a cranky baby, sore breasts, no sex life, and difficulties continuing our fun lifestyle. But we were really positively surprised. Of course some hard work and little sleep for a while. Especially for my wife. But I have taken time off work 9 our of 18 months and helped Hot Wife out. That has been great but is definitely harder work than "normal" work.

Did we fall in love straight away? Nope. But we were not traumatized at all. We had done our homework and were ready. I see no point in making this baby stuff romantic and all wonderful. It's great but being a good parent means hard work. You can of course be a bad parent and that will be easier but that never appealed to us.

Overall our expectation has been better than expected but like I said, we had realistic expectations and never bought into all the bullshit. I do think we got a bit lucky with our son since he has so far been an "easy" kid.

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[peggy]

Thank you!! I'm not sure if this will be hard to believe or not but I can count on about three fingers the number of moms I've "met" who don't spend their every waking moment hovering over their baby in anticipation of each and every fart just so they can record it in the baby book. I don't even HAVE a baby book. I love my son very much but even now, 10 months later, I honestly don't know that I'm IN love with him. It took me a long time to get where I am right now in my feelings towards him and motherhood; let's not rush it.

Thanks for the honesty. I think I'm going to bookmark you.

[Michelle]

Found you on DotMoms. Thank you for saying the things that most new mothers wouldn't ever say. I am incredibly nuts about my kids and I'm overall happy with my decision to be a SAHM, but I often have days where I miss taking off on my motorcycle and going 100 mph, or lingering at the bookstore for three hours and spending $100 for the hell of it, or driving two hours to see a band. And I miss the intellectual stimulation of my old profession (librarian at a high school). None of the popular "expecting" type books out there ever addresses the incredible psychological changes that can happen to you. Furthermore, I just had twins, and nothing I read anywhere helped to prepare me for the incredibly taxing and hard pregnancy I went through. Most of us are lucky enough to have good prenatal care, but I often think that part of that prenatal care should include counseling of some kind.

[Leann]

I hated it. For the first year it was something I had to do, rather than something I wanted to do. I alway blamed hating being a mother to having preemie twins, but I now realize it was because I lost who I was so quickly. More women should know that it's not necessarily post partum depression (don't get me wrong, I'm not Tom Cruise, ppd dues exist) that causes the overwhelming feeling to yell in the middle of the night when a completely helpless child hasn't yet slept for more than a few minutes; it's being a new mother.
Lean

[Mama C-ta]

This is so true. I must admit I was "in love" w/my son immediately but it didn't mean I wasn't miserable or hated this new roll I got myself into. It also practically tore my marriage apart, we're much better now though. Then all of our endless breastfeeding troubles began so I became even more isolated and 6 months later we are just starting to get out of the woods. I was never one to sugar coat the truth though, it sucked and I said it to whoever would listen. But I had friends that would never dare say what they felt except for a few slip ups during our conversations. Everything you said is exactly the same reason why I blog but I started mine during pregnancy so I could bitch about my hemmroids and pissing my pants. I like to think these blogs do help at least one person out there!

[Jen]

It's so wonderful to have a place where you can say, without fear of the horrified "I must call child protective services and take the adorable child away this instant because if you don't love every single minute of this you're insanse and an unfit parent" that sometimes being a parent absolutely sucks. Love the blog and the wonderful comments and community.

[Celeste]

Well then color me a mother-traitor, too. I found birth and recovery to be traumatic, and the whole idea that now you had to be on call 24/7 for a demanding barbarian when you couldn't even SIT DOWN...well it's all a bit much. The placenta hit the floor and cosmically the rug was pulled right out from underneath me.

There was a great episode of Designing Women where MaryJo has a talk with an older lady she admired in her youth and asked her if she missed when her children were young. The woman said, "God NO! Those were the hardest days of my life.". Yeah, I get it.

The lamest thing anybody told was, "Don't you just wonder how you ever lived without a baby?". Four years later, I still have perfectly vivid memories of it all. So much for maternal amnesia setting in. :roll eyes:

Really loving these Cynical Mama posts. ;o)

[Martha]

I wish I'd known about blogs when my first son was born, because it would have been such a relief to know other people weren't relishing the ordeal of the new baby.

[tanyetta]

You said:

The babies crying, Shhhh...let's pretend we're not here. That was hilarious.

You said everything I felt about being a mommy especially after all these years.

I'm here from GGC I'll be back!

[Dawn Isaac]

Awesome post. I was 21 when I had my son Jeremy. I remember that it took me a few months to start calling him by his name instead of baby. I think he was about 2 months old when I started "bonding" with him. He is 5 years old now and we are extremely close. Well maybe I am exaggerating a little...lol. It took time for me to be able to get to know him. I was scared when I could not immediately identify what his different cries meant. I thought that it was something every Mother just knew instinctively. Been reading other posts on your blog and I like your writing style. I added you to my blogroll too. Take care.