Atomic Flea, you have the right idea in continuing with the pretense. One slightly negative word to a doting new mom, and that pretty cool friend inside will never be yours again.
I guess it’s all about the whole miracle thing. You walk around for nearly a year with this beast growing amongst your organs. It makes you hurl, it makes you pee when you least expect, and it makes you fat. During this whole time you are a stark raving bitch, who will stab a person in the eye with a spork if they eat the last of the ice cream, and bawl like a baby if someone puts the toilet paper roll on backwards. This all comes to a grand finale when you finally squeeze something the size of a watermelon out a hole in your body that is normally snug for a tampon.
And what do you get for all these long months of agony? A beautiful, living, tiny human that you created. And of course, in every mother’s mind, THIS one baby is by far THE most beautiful, most intelligent and perfect child ever born. EVER. And they must share this joy with everyone.
Some new moms think everyone is waiting anxiously for the next visual installment of the perfect child. It’s the pride to end all other forms of pride. Even poodle owners pride. There’s not much you can do about it except wait it out. She’ll get over it eventually, as soon as a newer mom starts slamming her with never ending photos and potty talk of her own perfect baby.
As much as you would like to gift her with a gilded nasal aspirator or a truckload of empty photo albums to house her shrine of the chosen one’s photos, you must play along. The slightest grimace or furrowed brow will set off a warning alarm to this woman that you HATE her beautiful, perfect child. You will NEVER be forgiven.
I have still not forgiven the friend who told me that my firstborns 4-month-old picture looked like Yoda. He is dead to me. Still, after 26 years.
Uh, yeah, ok; sorry, you really are piece of work. Get the fuck over yourself. Still, after 26 years. Christ, there better be more to this story or you sound like an idiot.
My sister-in-law and I went shopping a few weeks back. We ended our shopping “spree” at Wal-mart, where we had to wait for a while. No big deal, though, she was enjoying not having a 3 year old and a 5 year old with her while shopping, and I was enjoying spending someone else’s money.
There have also been comments from my brother and his wife that the Grandparents seem a lot more interested in visiting with the kiddies than they are with their grown children–it’s ok, and yet it isn’t.
Word. I just got off the phone with my mother. Right now I am virtually voiceless and a bit wheezy from some kind of plague or something, so I can barely squeak out a hello. Our conversation began: “You sound terrible, you better not get the baby sick, maybe she should stay with us for a few days and you can stay at home.” Um, thanks for asking, Mom, and no, I’m not dead yet.
You got the plague too? I thought it was just in Calgary. Damn. I guess I’ll have to stop calling it the Calgary Wet Rot and think of something else for it. (I get two mild colds per year - this crappy thing, I’ve been sick for two months on and off.)
Dunno … did the Flames play in Philly lately? Or did the Flyers play out there? Maybe we both have the same thing after all. I think “Calgary Wet Rot” is a fantastic name for a flu strain. Or a punk band.
Thankfully she is not a friend, she is my husband’s first cousin, and as such, family. She’ll be around regardless. I don’t offend her out of fear for her reaction-I just happen to have manners.
Women have birthed children since the dawn of time. Not that it isn’t a personal miracle for that woman, but it’s not rocket science. It’s as annoying as going on and on about your new boyfriend. Listen: I’m glad you’re happy, but conversation is an exchange, not a soliloquy.
Honestly? That almost makes me want to do it. I bet your friend felt relieved.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but what the hell is the point of having a friend that you can’t laugh with? Her sister has two newborns, and we joke about them all the time. It’s not Calvary. If having children is truly a joy, why are you spreading misery?
I’d agree that anyone harping on anything too much becomes pathological, but really “women have birthed children since the dawn of time”? Isn’t that the equivalent of telling someone who has just lost a family member or friend that “people have died since the dawn of time”? It may be true, but it is a bit - cold, either in reation to the joy of birth or the sorrow of death.
Certainly, every human experience has been experienced by others, but that does not thereby make them unimportant or trivial for those experiencing them. Having a kid is one of the biggies, and excuses a certain amount of obsession - for a while. After a certain point of course any obsession, however understandable, becomes pathological, whether of grief or joy.
I’ve never understood the whole “LOOK HOW CUTE HE/SHE IS!!!” thing. I volunteered in an infant nursery at my church for several years, and not only are there very few actually remarkably cute babies, most of them have something more important to remember about them. For example: that one is most likely to have explosive poop, brace yourself before you pick up that one as he is like a sandbag, that one will fall asleep anywhere, that one is whiney, that one will happily sit and play with her own feet for an entire hour… Granted, most of these things are not traits you want to brag about. Anyways, the point I was trying to get at is that being the cutest rarely (only if you put your kids in commercials or something) makes any material difference to their lives right now, and being a cute baby will mean absolutely bupkis in later life. So why brag?
I seem to recall some kind of opinion type news segment on CBS, I think, where the reporter took pictures of his kid, and made them progressively uglier with photoshop, just to see if anyone would say his kid was ugly. No one did, even after he morphed the face to look like the result of looking in a funhouse mirror and added warts. His point was that most parents think that their kid is the cutest thing ever, but even if they are wrong, no one will tell them.
(I get two mild colds per year - this crappy thing, I’ve been sick for two months on and off.)