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Jun. 6th, 2005 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaIn the comments to my last post an anonymous commenter asks, under the header "why are you surprised?":
Given that I haven't been posting anything along the lines of, "My God, why didn't anyone tell me it would be like this?", it's hard for me to read "why are you surprised?" as anything other than "why are you complaining? You should've known what it would be like." I did know, yes. I complain sometimes because, well, early motherhood is hard. The fact that I expected it to be hard doesn't, in fact, make it any easier.
It's ironic that this comment was left in a subthread about Andrea Buchanan's book Mother Shock, because a major theme of that book is how upset our society is by any hint of maternal ambivalence. Moms (in the popular imagination) can be divided into two categories - the good mother, who is a continual fount of giving and unconditional love and adores every minute of it, or the bad mother, who abuses or abandons or screws up her children. There's no middle ground to contain mothers who are basically competent and loving but are sometimes sick of it all. Buchanan notes that any brief conversational excursion into what she calls the "shadow side of motherhood" results in an anxious rush to assert that of course it's all worth it, wouldn't change a minute of it, no real complaints.
So I wonder if the anonymous commenter was made uncomfortable by the references in my last post to the fact that, on that particular day, I wasn't enjoying motherhood very much. I wonder if the reminder that I knew about the difficulties going in was supposed to prompt me to minimize them, and instead declare my delight in every last one of Alex's tiny little toesies. I wonder if the enumeration of my many fine qualities was supposed to evoke the feeling that I ought to be more competent at all of this, so maybe I should fake it a little better.
I also wonder if I'm reading too much into an anonymous comment, of course, but it did get me thinking.
(Look! This is also a Gratuitous Icon Post. More Alex pictures available in the June 05 album.)
Rivka, you are one of the most intelligent, sensitive, and articulate persons I've ever had the privilege to encounter. Nonetheless, you've apparently been at least somewhile surprised by how difficult it is to care for a tiny baby. If I'm correct about your being surprised, I'd love for you to comment on why.It's often hard to read the tone of an anonymous comment, lacking the benefit of history, but this one got under my skin a little. See, I don't think I sound very surprised when I talk about the difficulties of parenthood. I pretty much expected the sleep deprivation, the crying (hers and mine), the pacing the floor, the spitup on all my shirts, and the diapers which appear to contain an entire bottle's worth of French's mustard. The only thing that truly surprised me was our inability to breastfeed. (I had expected it to be challenging, but I thought we would eventually succeed.)
Given that I haven't been posting anything along the lines of, "My God, why didn't anyone tell me it would be like this?", it's hard for me to read "why are you surprised?" as anything other than "why are you complaining? You should've known what it would be like." I did know, yes. I complain sometimes because, well, early motherhood is hard. The fact that I expected it to be hard doesn't, in fact, make it any easier.
It's ironic that this comment was left in a subthread about Andrea Buchanan's book Mother Shock, because a major theme of that book is how upset our society is by any hint of maternal ambivalence. Moms (in the popular imagination) can be divided into two categories - the good mother, who is a continual fount of giving and unconditional love and adores every minute of it, or the bad mother, who abuses or abandons or screws up her children. There's no middle ground to contain mothers who are basically competent and loving but are sometimes sick of it all. Buchanan notes that any brief conversational excursion into what she calls the "shadow side of motherhood" results in an anxious rush to assert that of course it's all worth it, wouldn't change a minute of it, no real complaints.
So I wonder if the anonymous commenter was made uncomfortable by the references in my last post to the fact that, on that particular day, I wasn't enjoying motherhood very much. I wonder if the reminder that I knew about the difficulties going in was supposed to prompt me to minimize them, and instead declare my delight in every last one of Alex's tiny little toesies. I wonder if the enumeration of my many fine qualities was supposed to evoke the feeling that I ought to be more competent at all of this, so maybe I should fake it a little better.
I also wonder if I'm reading too much into an anonymous comment, of course, but it did get me thinking.
(Look! This is also a Gratuitous Icon Post. More Alex pictures available in the June 05 album.)
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Date: 2005-06-06 02:18 pm (UTC)-J
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Date: 2005-06-06 02:29 pm (UTC)I knew that writing a dissertation would be hard. I had seen plenty of people write dissertations, and they talked about how hard it was. I was aware of the difficulties inherent in the process. I knew this intellectually, but not personally. And then I started writing my dissertation, and all of a sudden I knew how hard it was personally and emotionally as well as intellectually. It wasn't that I didn't know what it was going to be like; it's that for me there was a difference between knowing that "dissertations are hard" and experiencing exactly how hard they are to write by writing one. The map is not the territory.
So I've never read you as surprised by parenthood, but as more fully aware of the dimensions of parenthood in ways that you weren't before. And, well, The fact that I expected it to be hard doesn't, in fact, make it any easier.
Gratuitous Baby Praise: The hair! Eee!
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Date: 2005-06-06 02:34 pm (UTC)In any case, yes, one of the great ways to get flamed online is to admit that sometimes motherhood inspires anger rather than rosy clouds of love.
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Date: 2005-06-06 02:46 pm (UTC)Any comment ventured forth on any subject whatsoever can be misconstrued as an expression of "surprise" and then chided from that standpoint. What it really means is "What makes you think your feelings are special?" The whole point is to subtly flatter the speaker (tough-minded, hard-nosed, unsurprised) while belittling and deflating the person being spoken to (naive, foolish, unworldly, surprised).
There are in fact times when it's legitimate to ask someone why they're surprised, but at this point I tend to start reading with heightened suspicion the moment I encounter the phrase. It's an extremely reliable marker for rhetorical bad faith.
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Date: 2005-06-06 05:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, this.
I don't think my feelings are actually all that special, except that they're mine. I expect that my reactions and experiences are probably pretty typical of first-time mothers. However, anyone coming to my journal on purpose, just to read about my feelings? Is expected to think they're special, and to refrain from chiding me about acting like my thoughts are worth bothering with. Otherwise they could just move on to one of the other zillion LJs out there.
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Date: 2005-06-06 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 03:14 pm (UTC)I have to admit, I'm a little bit like your mother in that I often react with some version of "terrible terrible" to people I care about being very public about their feelings and personal experiences. I think this is actually a failure of empathy on my part--I think about how it would feel for *me* to be that public about such things, and I project that onto the other person. It makes it particularly uncomfortable when people I care about get *burned* for being public about such things, because I know how awful that would be for me, and I think: "see? you shouldn't *do* things like that!" Which isn't fair, but it's always my first reaction.
I also understand the "wanting to fix them" reaction, and the inherently selfish motivations behind that. It's very hard for me to see someone I care about being sad, overwhelmed, or scared, and if (see first paragraph) I see those reactions as being a result of something I'm already uncomfortable with them doing, the immediate gut reaction is to try to put a stop to those things. Since I know it's important for people to decide things for themselves, I usually react to this sort of conflict by needing to step back and not hear about their sadness/overwhelmedness/fear since I can't do anything about it anyway, and I WANT TO. It sounds like your mother doesn't take that last step.
And now I'm hoping you don't think less of me for being just a little bit like your mother ... ;-)
-J
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Date: 2005-06-06 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 03:59 pm (UTC)"I thought that comment was weird too. I wonder if this person hasn't previously encountered someone like you who writes about feelings and experiences as part of managing them, and writes evocatively for a semi-public group at the same time.
"If my mother got hold of my writing about dissertation-writing, or about Shad problem students, or about being stuck in a strange airport in Belgium, she would totally over-react and think it would have to be terrible terrible for me to be broadcasting my feelings, and she would also want to fix them so she didn't have to share the burden of knowing I was sad/overwhelmed/scared or whatever, and she would remain convinced forever that everything about that experience was bad for me and I shouldn't have done it."
I actually don't know why I brought up the example of my mother; I was just trying to think of someone I know who would misunderstand an impulse to document my feelings. I really liked
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Date: 2005-06-06 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 02:52 pm (UTC)That is all. :)
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Date: 2005-06-06 03:05 pm (UTC)(Ahem. I'm a bit cranky this morning. Sorry.)
However, for the record, I haven't seen you as even complaining, so much as describing. Even if you were complaining, the right to complain should be handed out with every single hard duty that a person understakes, and mothering certainly counts.
As a non-mother and man, though, I read the comment as "could you explain why it exceeded your expectations for how hard it would be? What is it that was the biggest surprise about this?"
Of course, I don't know if that's a question that can be answered. There are few things I can imagine that go exactly the way you expect them to. There's always going to be a difference between thinking about something, and actually doing it.
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Date: 2005-06-06 03:48 pm (UTC)ahem.
on another note, at this point there may be times when it is a moral victory to not set the baby out with the recycling. i applaud the fact that you have not yet figured out if the baby would go in with the pop cans or the white paper. or if you have, that you haven't tested the theory.
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Date: 2005-06-06 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 06:02 pm (UTC)I'm honestly surprised we kids didn't drive our parents to drink or to selling us off to the highest bidder. (a'course, now it's *their* turn to drive us to drink now that we're all out of the house...)
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Date: 2005-06-06 03:48 pm (UTC):-)
I don't think I have *ever* talked to a mother of a young child who didn't find it unimaginably difficult at times. Most also find it very joyous at times, but some few don't even have that to help them through.
I've been a childbirth educator for many years. I long ago reached the conclusion that it was impossible to fully communicate the reality of life with a baby to someone who hasn't been there. It is more difficult and exhausting than most of us are capable of imagining until we're in the midst of it.
I *often* hear women say, "why didn't anyone tell me", and I think there probably is a conspiracy of silence in some social circles, but equally I think the social unacceptability of negative emotions around motherhood renders many pregnant women incapable of really hearing or understanding the tough stories. The word "ambivalent" is important here, too. I also see pregnant women who secretly think that the struggling mothers are not competent. They don't realize that you can be quite competent overall and still have really crappy days when you are *not* enjoying the project. It may not be that no one told them, it may be that they were not able to hear.
And the icon is incredibly cute.
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Date: 2005-06-07 02:50 am (UTC)My mouth fell open, and the only thing I could think of to say was, "R, everybody told you they were this much work!"
So yeah. Some people are not ready to hear.
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Date: 2005-06-07 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 04:04 pm (UTC)I'm in favor of honesty. And also of little tiny baby overalls, which are the cutest thing ever. I also like to see babies in bright red. So maybe put a bright red t-shirt under the overalls? Unless you don't like the red with her hair, or unless she bats the t-shirt away and threatens to call CPS.
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Date: 2005-06-07 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 04:05 pm (UTC)2. As someone else pointed out, it's one thing to know how hard it is. It's another entirely to experience it firsthand.
3. It's really freaking hard, and it's okay to admit that - no one wins points for stoicism. It doesn't mean we aren't glad to be doing it, or that we love our children any less because of it.
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Date: 2005-06-06 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 04:19 pm (UTC)I'd always wondered where French's got their mustard from. I learns something new every day, I does ...
Anyway, on the somewhat seriouser note of your anonymous commenter, I'm going to firmly stifle my own "OMG! pain! suffering! must fix!!!" impulses. I will note, just as a bit of feedback for you, that I don't have any impression of you as complaining - even though I'd argue that you've got valid reasons for doing so. I'm not sure how Mr./Ms. Anonymous got the impression that you're "somewhile(sic) surprised by how difficult it is to care for a tiny baby"; but that's his/her problem, not yours or mine.
Oh, and as far as the Gratuitous Icon goes? Extreme Cuteness! :-)
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Date: 2005-06-06 05:51 pm (UTC)You an' Rivka, honestly. I will never be able to look at the bottles of cheap mustard the same way again. *hee*
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Date: 2005-06-06 04:33 pm (UTC)Nevertheless, I'll undoubtedly be surprised when my turn comes - when the little person inside me gets out, tries to communicate by gestures, looks, and cries alone and expects me to IMMEDIATELY understand what s/he's on about. This baby was three years in the making, and I'm still scared sometimes.
(FWIW, I think that your commenter didn't assume you might be riled or offended by his remark.)
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Date: 2005-06-06 04:46 pm (UTC)The really amazing thing is how quickly you figure it out. When we were expecting, some friends who were 6 months ahead of us told us that the baby would teach us everything we needed to know, and that really has turned out to be true!
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Date: 2005-06-06 04:44 pm (UTC)And it seems obvious to me that you'd write more about the bad bits, because while you're being overwhelmed by the *good* bits all you'd want to do is revel in it. Being overwhelmed by the bad bits is less fun.
Myth of motherhood: Yes, but I've found real mothers more sympathetic than expected, eg on the night I walked out at midnight because I was afraid I'd hit Linnea. In my experience it's not people with actual knowledge of the job who condemn other mothers' human frailty. I find this a great consolation - it gives me leave to think "clueless fuckwit" with as much vehemence as I need at the time.
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Date: 2005-06-06 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 05:10 pm (UTC)I don't, in any case, see you as complaining, either. The tone I get is far more like "This is the record. This is the historical record. Insofar as words will encompass it, it was like this."
P.
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Date: 2005-06-06 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 07:08 pm (UTC)You are doing good writing here. You are talking with clarity and love about a time in your child's life when I was lucky to be able to form a coherent sentence with my kids. My suggestion is to ban anonymous posters.
And, well, Excelsior!
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Date: 2005-06-06 09:41 pm (UTC)???
Date: 2005-06-07 03:24 am (UTC)I certainly had no intent to cause anyone to be upset. My reaction to the pregnancy posts on this site was that I was charmed by how much Rivka was looking forward to the baby and was reminded of having felt the same way and at the same time I was remembering how extraordinarily difficult life had been for the next few years. I haven't read any experiences here that weren't utterly familiar.
So then I come upon the post that starts, "Sweet Jesus, what a night" and it made me smile. And I simply wondered if the author had reflected on whether two months had changed her perspective about motherhood. I'm not sure how my post was read as, "why are you complaining." I'm very sorry you took it that way--it wasn't at all what I meant.
Rivka, if there is any way to contact you privately I'm glad to tell you anything you'd like to know about me. I'm just an ordinary person who apparently has an awkward way of putting things. I meant the complimentary things I wrote. I meant to be saying that I'd like your answer to my question because I've learned a lot from your insights on a variety of issues and I was (and still am) genuinely curious whether having a baby is interestingly different from what you had imagined.
Re: ???
Date: 2005-06-07 04:47 am (UTC)I think that part of the problem is the nature of on-line communication. We can't see each other's faces, and we can't hear inflection. In real life, if you'd asked Rivka the same question, she could have looked at you funny, and you'd have said, "What? What'd I say?" and she would have told you, and you would have clarified, and very quickly you'd both have sorted it out and come to an understanding. Also, there wouldn't have been hundreds of people listening to the conversation and having a few days to formulate responses.
I don't have any solution, obviously. It's the medium. I think the way we work it out is the way we just did: by careful, detailed, sometimes awkward analysis.
Anyway, hi.
Also
Date: 2005-06-07 04:04 pm (UTC)I am not talking about rudeness. But, I do not think that the anonymous poster sounded rude in the first place. She sounded inquisitive to me.
Comments that suggest other views can be thought-provoking and offer the journal writer greater insight.
In my opinion, a journal that talks back to you in comments every now and again can be even more helpful than a dozen different versions of "Go, you!"
Re: Also
Date: 2005-06-07 07:43 pm (UTC)Re: Also
Date: 2005-06-07 10:16 pm (UTC)Personally, I think Rivka explained, pretty darn carefully, how and why she felt the way she did, and made it clear that she might have been taking it wrong.
This did show one of the potential problems in online forums... there were several comments that weren't very charitable towards the anonymous person who left the comment, but that's because those people care about Rivka, and don't want someone to say something nasty to her.
This is something that's bugged me a long time, too. A simple miscommunication can blow up to something that seems a lot larger, because of people talking about it in a discussion group setting. The discussion can seem more real than the actual event itself. In fact, do you think it's possible that you felt overwhelmed by the discussion, and didn't remembered what, exactly, Rivka had said by the time you were making your comment?
I'm asking that because I think she handled it gently (giving plenty of opportunity for the anonymous person to say that s/he was being misunderstood), and emphasized that she understood she could be misreading the tone.
Re: ???
Date: 2005-06-07 07:41 pm (UTC)One thing you might consider is signing your comments with your first name or a nickname - just to help make it clear that it's the same person each time.
As for whether anything has surprised me: other than (as I've already mentioned) the breastfeeding difficulties, I've been surprised by how often it's boring to be home all day with a baby. That's lessening somewhat as Alex and I are getting out of the house more, and as she's become increasingly interactive and playful during the times she's awake. But wow, that first month was pretty damn boring.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 05:17 pm (UTC)Oh, yeah. And