When you get there, you will understand

So today I meet with a friend who is now pregnant after a few rounds of Clomid.  I’m thrilled to have a face to face “chin wag” with someone who has dealt with fertility issues (and won) – she recently e-mailed me the following: “Until you've held a pee stick up to a light bulb close enough to burn your fingers you are just not in the club” so I know she knows what the f’s up!  Then tomorrow I have the big summit meeting with the new RE.  Apparently it’s going to last an hour and a half, which is great.  Currently I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of taking Femara instead of Clomid.  It doesn’t have the lining thinning issues, has far fewer/milder side effects, and appears to be more successful for people.  It also leaves your body right away unlike Clomid which sticks around.  I figure if we can eliminate one possible reason to cancel June – the thin lining – it’s worth it!  Although the ladies at the clinic had poo-pooed it and I can’t remember why; it may have been because they don’t have access to it.  But I bet this guy will.  We’ll see what he says.

In the meantime yesterday a well meaning friend forwarded me this link thinking I would get a kick out of it.  And I did…until I had read all three posts on the subject (scroll to the bottom, there’s more) and began to sit with the information.  Then I felt myself slowly, subtly, begin to freak out.  Now I understand this is a blog and it’s meant to be over the top and funny, and it’s all in good humor, and it’s certainly nothing I haven’t read before (or seen on that “Mom Confessions” Oprah episode).  And it is a relief that moms are finally getting real about the pitfalls of parenting and admitting they’re not perfect.  But when I read stuff like this the first thing I think is, “Seriously?  This is what life is like with kids?  Ugh….suddenly it doesn’t sound so appealing!”

The thing that freaks me out the most is the general attitude these mothers *seem to* have towards their kids.  They call them monsters, refer to them as “The Little Terrorists”.  Again, I know this is all funny and I know they love their kids.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that these are the same mothers who consider their baby’s crying as “manipulation” and probably deep down consider their kids an inconvenience, and the thing that’s standing between them and their dreams.  Of course this is my “filter” because that’s how my mother felt about me.  But I find the general attitude kind of appalling.

Then there’s the description of the homes/food/cars.  As my friend V and I talked about last night, we did not grow up in homes strewn with toys, nor did we ride in cars with books and toys and Cheerios all over the floor.  We didn’t talk back to our parents, laugh at them when they tried to punish us, or swear at them.  We didn’t DARE.  And most kids I knew (with a few exceptions) were the same.  What’s the difference between parenting small children in the 70s and parenting them today?  Why do today’s kids run the house?  What, exactly, is going on here?

Then, finally, the description of what happens to the mothers in those early years.  How often have I heard, “oh, you won’t even have time to take a shower,” or, “you’ll live in yoga pants with greasy hair and no makeup.”  What?  So you mean to tell me a baby never sleeps?  I guess some babies, like colicky ones, are more difficult than others.  But really, you never get a shower, even after that early adjustment period is over and you start to get a routine going?  Is it that you don’t have time for a shower, or that you’re just not motivated to take a shower because you’re hormonal, in pain, having post-partum depression, or just plain disorganized?  I can understand putting your own hygiene on the back burner because you’re so consumed with the baby that you don’t really give a damn about pedicures or waxing.  But that should be in a joyful, happy way, not this sort of miserable lack of self respect that these blogs indicate.  Personally, I think these mothers are depressed and just won’t admit it.

Still, it’s the easiest thing in the world to not be a parent and stand around judging everyone else’s parenting skills (I try to do this less now, but I still fall into it, sorry).  You’re right – I haven’t been through it; I don’t know what it’s like.  I’m trying not to say “I’ll never…” because I know how easy it is to eat those words later.  To me parenting is kind of like the tagline for the movie The Abyss – “when you get there, you will understand”. 

But I do know that despite whatever issues my mother had, our home was always clean and organized, I was a good kid (I don’t remember ever being punished for anything, because I didn’t have to be), and I understood she was the boss and was never to be disrespected.  And my mother had plenty of mental health issues, and yet she managed to at least get that part of parenting correct.  I hope I at least inherit this part (the “I’m in control” part) from her.