metaphortunate: (Default)
metaphortunate son ([personal profile] metaphortunate) wrote2013-06-26 08:31 pm

mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be mamas

Don't have kids, guys.

Seriously. Just don't do it. Have long lazy afternoons puttering around. Have inventive, acrobatic, energetic sex that you're not too tired for and don't have to get finished before the baby wakes up. Have good relationships where you can pay attention to each other. Have relaxed lazy evenings in bars with friends and interesting cocktails. Have a career you can put your heart and soul into. Have hobbies. Have political interests that you can do work on. Have good friends, that you can stay close to. Have conversations that don't get interrupted four times a minute. Have parties. Go to parties and don't leave at 7. Go to parties that don't cost $60 for the babysitter. Go on planes and don't spend fifteen hours with someone crying and trying to climb up you by hanging on to your nipples. Don't spend your life wiping poop. Don't spend your life wiping noses. Don't spend your life wiping someone else endlessly. For the love of god, don't put yourself through pregnancy. Don't fill your house with plastic crap. Don't fill your life with worry about whether the baby's doing all right and getting everything it needs. Don't shift yourself down to about #12 on your own list of priorities. Don't get yourself stuck in a situation good and hard. Don't spend all your time having to tell someone "no" literally every 2 minutes, all day, every day. Don't spend all your time fighting with someone about every single thing that has to get done in a day, from going up stairs to eating dinner. Don't do it. I'm telling you: don't have kids. Let other people send you pictures of their kids and feel a bit wistful about it, before you move on to your latest book or TV show or project or pet or trip or job or nap. Have a life. Have love. Have yourself.

The Junebug continues to be wonderful and adorable. He continues to be the easiest baby ever. I don't regret having him. But I can sort of tell that I can't. It's not biologically possible right now, apparently. Which I'm sure is for the best. But if you haven't gotten yourself into this yet? Run. Run now. Run away from anything that might get you into this and never look back.
wordweaverlynn: (child)

[personal profile] wordweaverlynn 2013-06-27 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Either answer has a high price. Over the years of my fertility I repeatedly chose the No for good reasons. It was the right choice, and it let me say Yes to many other big things. It still hurts like hell. And yeah, it helps to hear that a good mother with all kinds of advantages I never had still has a hard time with it. Not in a schadenfreude way -- just that it's easier to bear my own No. Because far, far worse than saying No is living with the consequences of saying Yes and then doing it disastrously.
wordweaverlynn: (Default)

[personal profile] wordweaverlynn 2013-06-30 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
True enough. But the other side is the joy you can take in the delightful antics of the Junebug and sibling-to-be (which I genuinely love hearing about, because I adore kids), and the joy I take in my freedoms: little ones like keeping weird hours without having to worry about baby feeding schedules, medium-sized ones like driving alone at night fast on country roads, and giant dysfunctional-family-sized ones like NEVER HAVING TO DEAL WITH MY EX-HUSBAND EVER AGAIN. And his family, who make my family look normal. Do you realize how scary that is?

Seriously, I refused to have a baby with that man because his parents were so insane and he refused to get any help. In times of emergency or horror, I cheer myself up by thinking, "Although I have to deal with these seventeen crises, at least I am not also dealing with my husband's reaction to any of them. Or his mother's. Or his father's" although my father-in-law was dead before I left my marriage.

How crazy were they? When the grandkids (aged 4 and 2) got slightly different toys in their gift baskets, my MIL stole the "better" toy from the younger child to give to the older one. In her world, the oldest child (like her) must always have the best -- she was quite open about it. Which explains why she was so nasty to her second-born, my husband. I knew the nastiness would be spread to our kids.

Anyway, this started out as a celebration of the joys inherent in each decision, not an explanation of my weird in-laws.