Today I went on a walk around the Silverlake reservoir with a friend I hadn't seen in 10+ years who I reconnected with on Facebook. She has a seven-year-old and a new baby. We chatted about French vs American parenting, judgment by other mothers, preschools, our bitchy anti-kid former selves. It seems like an ongoing theme that women formerly super judgmental of other women and their kids then live to regret their attitude when they have kids themselves. I know I have thought about this a lot lately - how I now get the impulse to bring your baby everywhere because you just don't want to/can't afford to shell out for a sitter, how you can't talk about anything but baby stuff, how you can't stay on the phone for more than a few minutes. In some ways I hate that I've become *that* parent; but since I am I now understand and have empathy for *those* parents. Life with a newborn is all about fluids - your leaking breast milk, his or her spit up/vomit/poop/pee, and your whole day centers around managing and controlling said fluids. This is something you can't possibly understand unless you're experiencing it. But now that I'm there I do feel a bit sheepish about my former intolerant self.
I may have a solution to my health insurance woes. Since I will *likely* either qualify for Healthy Families or Medicare, as much as I'd rather the baby be on HF because then he can be at Kaiser with me, if I only show enough income for Medicare, I think I'm going to take it. I'll use it for emergency/catastrophic, and instead find a kick ass pediatrician and pay out of pocket for basic visits. It will certainly be way less than $330 a month. A friend had suggested this some months ago and I kind of filed it away in the back of my brain. If anyone has any experience/opinions on this, let me know. Just trying to figure out the best thing to do here, preferably one that won't break the bank. Then I can also downgrade my own policy to save a little $$. Every little bit helps.
So true about formally intolerant/judgemental selves...I was horribly judgemental of my SIL & now deeply regret it since I now realize she is a better mom that me in many ways.
ReplyDeleteI started watching the news once or twice a day when Elena was a few weeks old because I wanted to have something to contribute to a conversation besides "fluid talk" but it was always a relief to be with other moms because they too only wanted to talk about babies!