(no subject)

[rivka]

In the comments to my last post an anonymous commenter asks, under the header "why are you surprised?":

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.)

Comments

[purplepaisley.livejournal.com]

Gosh. I'm surprised that the commenter would be surprised that you or anyone else could be suprised by how damned difficult it is to care for a tiny baby, if in fact you experienced or expressed any surprise.

:-)

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.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Last time my ex was over to visit we were talking about his adorable nine-month old daughter, and he actually said, "Nobody told me babies were this much work."

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.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Er... Just to be clear, I'm not implying that's the case with rivka.