This is for reals satire, I promise – it’s based on the shitty shit people say to each other in parenting forums/Facebook/what-have-you
It’s not that I think you’re a bad parent, per se. It’s just that, like, you chose to have kids, right? Like, you got pregnant and you decided to go through with the pregnancy and now you’re having to deal with all these really common kid things. So I guess I’m a little confused about why you’re complaining? Like, you kind of asked for all of this, didn’t you?
Oh, you’re tired? Gee sorry I didn’t realize that no one had bothered to tell you that babies disrupt your sleep. I mean I just kind of assumed that you knew what you were signing on for when you became a parent. Jesus Christ, of course you’re fucking tired – that’s what having kids is all about. If you didn’t want to live in a chronic state of exhaustion, maybe you just shouldn’t have had a baby.
Wow, that’s amazing that you had an epidural! I mean, it’s amazing that you were able to think only of yourself at the moment of your child’s birth. I guess I’m just not sure why you would bother gestating a baby for nine months if you’re only going to drug yourself when they’re born? And, like, I’m not saying that epidurals are bad for babies – although I could happily provide you some literature about that if you want – but I am saying that the women who gave birth to Einstein, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton didn’t have epidurals. I’m not sure why you would have a kid if you weren’t willing to give them the best, most natural birth possible, but hey that’s just me.
You don’t use cloth diapers? Like, have you never heard of climate change? Maybe your high-powered office job doesn’t leave you a lot of time to look up basic information on the internet. Probably you’re too busy wearing suits with shoulder pads and heels and lipstick to do a little bit of research on how you’re fucking up the environment. I guess I’m just not entirely clear on why anyone would have kids and then wilfully contribute to the destruction of the planet their kids have to grow up on, but what do I know?
I’m sorry, let’s just cut the bullshit about how you “tried” to breastfeed but had “supply issues” and your baby was “losing weight” and all that other enabling crap Big Formula fed you and just call a spade a spade: you chose not to breastfeed. And while I’m all about women having choices, I think that if you choose to have a child then you should also be choosing to provide that kid with the best life possible. To be honest, I’m just a little confused that you decided to not to terminate your pregnancy, but then made all kinds of other choices without your child’s best interests in mind. I’m not saying you should have had an abortion! Just maybe you didn’t think this whole kid thing through?
If you didn’t want to be sprayed with literal shit, I don’t know why you bothered to have a kid. Did you think they’d be born potty-trained?
That’s really nice that you want to have your baby on a schedule – that’ll make it so much easier for them to adjust to life in the Employment Industrial Complex. What a good little worker bee you’ve got on your hands! Yes, mommy’s little darling will settle right into the routine of working for eight hours and sleeping for eight hours and taking eight hours of simple, plebeian pleasures in between. Seriously, though, if you wanted a cute little thing that you could feed and cuddle and put to sleep on a “schedule,” maybe you should’ve chosen a Tamagotchi instead of a kid.
I think it’s great that you have a job, especially in today’s economy, but apparently I mistakenly believed that your child would be more important than your professional aspirations. I mean, I always thought that parenting meant making sacrifices, but maybe I’m just old-fashioned. It’s so nice of your husband to go along with your ideas about having a “career”! I hope he doesn’t leave you for someone who’s willing to put their kids first.
I’m sorry to hear that your toddler is defiant and unreasonable. I guess I might understand why you would complain about that, except for how it’s a totally normal part of child development which you would know if you had ever read any kind of book about children. When my children were toddlers, their defiance made me incredibly joyful because I knew that boundary-testing was evidence of their budding autonomy. But maybe some parents would prefer that their kids remain entirely dependent on them forever, because that would just be so much easier. Personally, I’m proud that I have kids who question authority.
It’s too bad that your five year old had a tantrum in the candy aisle, but honestly this is the kind of thing that you should have thought of when you decided to have kids. Like, it’s kind of hard for me to feel sorry for you when this is apparently what you wanted for your life. Or did you think your kid would be some kind of unicorn who never threw a tantrum?
Huh, yeah, I guess that for some people it’s fine to let their kid watch half an hour of Netflix while they make dinner or whatever. I just sort of thought that people who had kids maybe actually wanted to spend time with them, but apparently I was wrong.
I’m glad you found a really great nanny, but honestly I just literally don’t see the point of giving birth to children if you’re only going to turn around and let complete strangers raise them. Why not just give them up for adoption at birth if you weren’t prepared to actually be a parent?
I can’t believe you would go to all the trouble of having children only to turn them over to the fascist snake pit that is our public school system. Like, I seriously can’t believe you’re going to allow the state to poison their brains for the next fifteen years. I mean, I don’t want to sound judgmental, but you probably shouldn’t have had kids if you weren’t willing to home-school them. You know, for some people parenting is actually a commitment.
I guess I just think that having kids is sort of like making a pact with yourself that you’re only going to buy organic foods as long as they’re living under your roof.
The Belle Jar 
Wow, I’ve had so many of these said or implied to me, it actually made me really anxious reading it. (To be fair I probably thought some of them, too, before I actually had kids!) Sheesh if we really had a scoobie what it meant to be a parent, the human race would have died out eons ago!
Aw, I’m sorry it made you anxious! I’ve heard my fair share of these too. Man, parents love to rip each other apart, don’t they?
Unrealistic expectations. Just another way to make mothers feel like crap. As if the industries don’t it enough already.
Is this satire? Please tell me it’s satire.
Well, one of the tags is “humor,” so I’ll let you decide!
that’s interesting. I only just noticed this – I don’t see the tags! I always tag my posts, but I never looked for them before . . . where would I see them?
never mind . . . I’m blind, apparently
I can’t decide whether to comment on the humour or the serious aspects . . .so I’ll just “like” it . . .
I had a ‘geriatric’ pregnancy at the old age of 36. I waited to have children and I am glad I did. I EBF, cloth diaper, plan to homeschool, etc… and while I wanted a natural birth (I even hired a doula) after 16 hours of back labor, I begged for an epidural and never regretted it. It wore off as the baby’s head began to crown. Three and a half hours of pushing to get her out and I would not change a thing (24 hours of labor). And just when I feel frustrated and wish she would stop crying or to please just take a nap… my little ladybug smiles at me and in that moment I know nothing else matters – the dog could crap in the house, dinner could burn to a crisp – and it doesn’t matter because the one thing that does matter is sitting there smiling at me and I know that it’s not all about ‘me’ anymore.
We were over 30 too. You know, I hope someday that when someone says “I want a child,” that we might apply a little healthy suspicion to it. It smacks a little of ownership, or at least self-interest. I know that’s normal, but I’m not sure t should always be . . .
😉
This is spot on, though I have a different list of things people judge me for (biking with my son, etc). But I do think that we’re all feeling so defensive down here that we hear a lot of these things when they’re not being said. Like it’s easy to take other people’s birthing/parenting decisions as judgements on our own.
These things get very muddled because (IMO) our culture is so individualized that it’s really hard to talk about collective problems without people feeling attacked. When you say “A 30% C-section rate is completely messed up” or “Hospitals and a lot of doctors can really disrupt your breastfeeding” people who had C-sections or breastfeeding difficulties often hear “YOU PERSONALLY SUCK AND ARE TERRIBLE” and bang the conversation is over.
Tl/dr the personal is political, by which I mean that personal problems require collective (I.e. political) solutions.
In my defense, I urged my children to not have children, rather than push them to give me grandchildren. Well, they’re 50ish now, and have never had a child. Of course, I would have loved to have grandchildren, but not at the expense of my children’s personal liberty. I’m the luckiest man on earth, ’cause I later married a woman whose son later married and had a daughter, so I have a grandchild. My good luck goes even farther: to enable both parents to continue their careers, grandma and I volunteered to be day care, pre-school, and generally raise her. After three years with us, she’s started school, and even though she’s been ours for fifty hours a week, we miss her during the school day. We still have her before school for a short time, and after school ’til supper time. Happy and lucky. So don’t have children… marry someone with children when you’re sixty, and her/his children will be yours, too, if you want. I’ve dedicated my life to mine, ’cause it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.
Well either way you got what you wanted oldmine. I am not accusing you of anything but if your children want to have children now they should. Anyone mind can change at any time. One may want to not have kids once then later want them or visa versa. You should encourage them to do what they like for children are first and foremost their kids and then your grandkids so if they want a kid now they should have so. Everyone wants different things at different times.
what;s the picture at the end about? where’s it from?
It’s one of the Victorian “Hidden Mothers” pictures: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/dec/02/hidden-mothers-victorian-photography-in-pictures
Some of those are super creepy! Glad we don’t have to do that.
thanks for the pic 😀
Great piece. I am always stopped by your writing and end up reading it all.
I have thought of the too-many-people argument. I think what colors my view, in general, is that my mother had to raise us after my father died. She never went back to her commercial art and that deeply saddens me because she was so good at it. I always wanted her to live her life and be happy, but she only thought of us. I told her last night how good a mother she is and it affected her. I remember how terrible I was with her boyfriends, who were gypsies, drunks, and contractors who built things using stolen equipment. As an artist/writer, it remains my greatest fear to have to raise children. I can barely keep the dirt wet that my cactus sits in. I am surprised it hasn’t died.
I actually managed to kill a cactus. And yet, my kid’s still around. Probably helps that, unlike a plant, he can let me know when his needs aren’t being met!
Reblogged this on Athena's Antics and commented:
“It’s not that I think you’re a bad parent, per se. It’s just that, like, you chose to have kids, right? Like, you got pregnant and you decided to go through with the pregnancy and now you’re having to deal with all these really common kid things. I’m not saying you should have had an abortion! Just maybe you didn’t think this whole kid thing through?”
Oh my word – this is perfect.
Why, what an incredible series of thoughts! Of course people don’t take parenting seriously these days, or these genteel folk wouldn’t have had to show irresponsible parents their place.
Childbirth gives you glory! It’s all there is to your life! Stop running to the boardrooms and retire to the bedroom to take care of your husband and child. What? You’re still waiting for a prince charming to sweep you off your feet? Oh but isn’t sweeping your job?
I had so much fun with this one! 😀
Employment industrial complex!
Not sure whether to laugh or cry at this! Much easier to ignore all of this when it comes from strangers or other parents at toddler group or whatever, but much harder when it comes from your own family. Oh, and you forget the one:
‘In our time we had to wash nappies by hand, we didn’t have a washing machine and all these other time-saving appliances, and we didn’t complain all the time about how hard it is to have children, when all you have to do is drive them to school.’
At least we live far away from both sets of grandparents… but my husband has been known to repeat these words of wisdom (and some of yours) as well.
OMG, yes. According to my grandmother, all her children were potty-trained by 3 months, and it was sheer laziness (and disposable diapers) that caused me to wait until my children were, you know, biologically capable of being potty-trained.
In my experience, this general kind of shittiness comes *mostly* from women and is directed at women. Dads are great! Mothers are just women who’ve given up on life. F**k that noise.
I call it the “mommier-than-thou” syndrome, usually engaged in by women who clearly have nothing better to do with their time than monitor how other women raise their children.
That is a perfect term for this phenomenon. And in addition to what you said, I’ve noticed that the women who engage in this behavior often tend to be the ones who seem to derive their entire identity from being mothers and don’t appear to have much of a life outside of that. Any mother who wants or needs to hold down a job while raising her children is immediately suspect as far as those folks are concerned. It’s sad, really. We should all be cheering each other on, supporting each other, rather than criticizing each other’s choices.
The email it did not come up as satire it just showed the post…. I knew it HAD to be satire but I came to the website just to make sure 😉
All that being said… I am a mother of three. I had my oldest daughter when I was 22 ( she is 11 now ). I was the only parent of all my friends ( single mother going to school ). I have to admit I have participated in some of this shitty bullshit of putting other mother’s down. The breast feeding stuff in particular I was so defensive because I had so many comments about the fact I WAS breast feeding. Perhaps I was retaliating? I felt like it was a cause I was fighting for….the ‘perfect mother’ visaud that someone somewhere had told me about…I was doing it for the children…..or was I? Regardless …no excuses, I did that shit and I am not proud of it.
Parenting is a lifelong journey of guilt trips ( amongst other amazing things, mind you ) but I have found myself always feeling guilty…not doing enough, not being enough etc. and then for some reason unbeknownst to me, have projected this shit onto other …mothers. It’s fucking sad really. I had to grow up. But in that process I had to read stuff like this and become humbled. Critical self awareness about the bullshit I was spouting only to make myself feel better.
Luckily, I was young and can forgive my past self, as I spend THIS time rallying for all the mothers around me.
I am always drawn to your posts. Always meaningful, educative and relevant. Keep ’em coming.
I’m guessing the people who say this don’t have kids and have no idea what it’s like to have kids. I’m also guessing they’ll get what they give in a few years.
Love the satire and like all good satire this piece carries an interesting illumination and commentary on complex cultural and personal attitudes that warrant further frank and respectful discussion. I was sent the following article today by a friend that I think adds to the layers of this conversation, one that is important for any woman who might see themselves as a feminist, mothers and non-mothers alike, to be engaged in. How women are viewed and judged (including those “assholes”, assuming some of them to whom you refer are women), in almost every sphere of their lives, is a feminist conversation worth having. Let’s get curious about each other’s individual circumstance and world view before being reactively judgemental. We all have so much to learn from each other if only we would all dig just a little deeper into the complexities and paradoxes that are ever-present within the human condition, and in this case within the broad-sweeping term “motherhood”. Anyway, always love your articles! Keep up the great work. x
http://jezebel.com/we-need-to-talk-about-women-who-regret-motherhood-1635470629?utm
So. So. Good. Ooh make a comment about single mamas!! Love your blog babe, love from Australia ★♡★