One thing I've been fascinated by ever since my friends started having kids about ten years ago is jealousy and reproductive/sexual competition among women. Here are some thoughts from my 3/15/11 journal:
Been thinking a lot lately (even more than usual) about jealousy & reproductive competition among women. As you know this has been on the forefront of my thoughts for years now, probably since the first of my friends started getting married and having kids around 2002 (nine years ago!). Jealousy has been a HUGE problem for me as you know; I seem to suffer from it in this area more than most people, although according to some chat rooms I am certainly not alone. Why is it? Why am I so hateful when one of my friends gets engaged or pregnant? Why am I not happy for them AT ALL and even wish awful things to happen to them? Why this violent reaction when someone gets something I want? It’s really awful, and as much as I can try to explain it away by my childhood, my mother, etc etc, in the end I end up wondering if it’s just plain because I’m a bad person. Am I just a hateful, vengeful person? Has 25 years of unsuccessful dating, no sex, and a lot of alone time turned me into a bitter, dried-up old hag? What is wrong with me???
The worst about all this is it makes me wonder what OTHER people are thinking, or will think, about me. Those that know I’m trying – are they secretly hoping I’ll fail? If I do succeed, will I become the object of loathing and hatred that pregnant women currently are to me? I’ve often imagined myself visibly pregnant in my community (the dance community); what people will think, what their opinions will be. People will talk smack, and I may hear about it, and will I confront them? Will it ruin friendships? I can only imagine how people will react to my situation, considering the bizarreness of it and the fact that everyone has known me one way for so long and they are counting on my situation to never change so they can feel secure. One thing I promise to do is shut up about it. I just remember X’s violent reaction to Y's pregnancy and baby updates on Facebook, how we commiserated on this, and how it annoyed me, too, but only out of jealousy and I knew this. I have thought a lot about how to handle it on FB, and have made a (preliminary) course of action as such: a) no sonogram pictures as profile pictures, b) no daily pregnancy updates. I intend to mention it but only occasionally and hopefully humorously, c) no big announcement – after what I went through with the Z debacle, I think I’ll just assume people know and/or not mention it until way late in the game. But no big “I’m pregnant!!!” announcement. I’m way too public a person to put myself in the position of having everyone know if I miscarry late, etc. And once the baby is here, no baby picture taking the place of my profile picture. This is MY profile, not the baby’s. If people want baby pics I can make a nice album people can look at. But any profile picture will have to at least have me in it somewhere.
It’s funny now when I think of my plan a couple of years ago to live my single life to the fullest in an attempt at making my mom friends jealous. To travel, to shop, to (think about getting or having) an awesome two-seater car, to enjoy down time. And you know what? It dawned on me not so long ago that guess what, none of those women are jealous of me. You know why? Because they’re too busy looking at the cute thing their baby just did. While I sit here stewing and tearing my hair out at yet another profile picture turned to an engagement ring or yet another birth announcement, when I mention the next exotic trip I’m going on, no one gives a shit because their baby just said “dad da”. See, these people have their priorities straight. As Fran Lebowitz said in her documentary about women being at a disadvantage for wanting babies, “because once a woman has a baby, she seems to be so interested in it. You put a woman in a room with her baby and guess what, she’s looking at that baby.” So true, oh middle aged old school anti-kid lesbian, so true!
So I have a terror of people being jealous of me, while simultaneously wanting people to be jealous of me. One of my favorite fantasies lately has been announcing my pregnancy to X and then having her have all kinds of hideous infertility issues. But the reality is they will probably get pregnant the first time they try and have no issues. Shit, by the time I announce it she’ll probably already be pregnant!!! But still I cling to the sick dream that I will be able to pull this off easily whereas the women with the fairy tale marriages will not. Unfortunately I think both of these statements will prove to be not true.
Maybe the fact that people have seen me alone & struggling with singleness all these years will cause people to be happier for me than they would be. Anyone who knows me at all knows that despite the fact that yes, I have a successful business and a home, that I have been through some real hellish situations in my life – lawsuits, natural disasters, horrible family issues. And no relationships at all since my late 20s. You’d think people would cut me a break when the time came. I think I will be surprised by how supportive people may become.
Will I be one of those annoying people who talks non-stop about pregnancy, birth, and parenting? Will I be one of those annoying people who brings their kid EVERYWHERE, out to dances, to adult parties, to dinners & brunches so they can suck up all the attention and ruin everyone’s time? God, I hope not. But there’s financial considerations (can I afford an extra $50 every time I want to be social?) and also the fact that you do need your kids to be socialized – they do need to learn early how to be in groups of adults. And to some extent people will want to meet my kid, and I will certainly want them to know their aunties and uncles. I guess it’s a question of picking my moments – 2 AM at Denny's, bad. Kids birthday party, good. Out dancing with adults, bad. Camping with moms and babies, good. We’ll see.
I have to say of all the negative thoughts & feelings I have, the one truly wonderful thought I had was having my kid(s) grow up with some of the other (dance) kids. Even though most are going to be 2-3 years older than my kid, still, there are lots of little ones right now, and lots more to come I’m sure (X wants more, as does Y, and Z has been posting cryptically on FB about everyone keeping their fingers crossed for the family, so I’m thinking she may be pregs again), and the idea of being able to get together and watch our kids grow and play together makes me so happy I can hardly stand it. I love the idea of regaining some of the friends I lost to motherhood, and taking distant friendships to a whole new level of closeness. For this reason I can’t wait to go to Z's reading Monday night, I hope to tell her of my plans (I had wished I’d be in the 2ww, but no) – here’s someone I never knew well but now that I’ve read her book I feel very close to her and hope I can share some experiences with her.
I picture beach trips, camping trips, sleepovers, all kinds of awesome stuff in our future. Unlike most kids, my kid will have a huge set of instant friends even before he/she starts school. I think it’s going to be just wonderful sharing all this with these people.
No comments:
Post a Comment