(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

???

[(Anonymous)]

Well the reason that post as well as this one is anonymous is there are only two choices and I'm not a Live Journal user. I'm 64 years old, a long-time liberal, and well remember the early days of the Women's Lib movement which gave me the courage to go back to grad. school when I was 30 and going nuts staying home with one son 4 and a half and the other 2. However, I did want to have children and have always been grateful that I was able to have them, that they were healthy babies, and that they are still the joy of my life.

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: ???

[caille.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you wrote this. I can't speak for anyone else, obviously (especially since this is Rivka's LJ), but I'm satisfied. I get the point people were making; I had a similar reaction. That this wasn't your intention is equally credible.

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

[(Anonymous)]

I am not the above writer, but I wanted to add that I believe that most people do not find it inappropriate to read a public journal, and while they completely respect the writer's feelings, respond with the occasional comment that is something different in tone than "I completely agree with you."

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

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, of course. I don't require a constant stream of uncritical adulation from my readers - I suspect that, if I did, I'd have a lot fewer readers. I was merely commenting on why one particular comment got under my skin.

Re: Also

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I think how you take the comment is based upon how you read it. Have you ever done any playing around with acting, where you're supposed to make a word or phrase mean a dozen different things by changing tone, posture, and other things?

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: ???

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Hey, no problem. As I said, it's hard to read the "tone" of an anonymous comment, because there isn't any previous context with the person. With what you said here, I instantly recognized you as someone who had left other anonymous comments. Putting all of the things you've said in my journal together, I have a bigger picture of who you are - and, if I'd known to connect that particular comment with the others, I would probably have never read anything negative into it.

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.