I keep expecting Shirley to pop in here with one of her insightful posts about motherhood not being all baby cooing. Something that involved exploding … ok, I’ll try. Don’t expect Shirley.
One of my girlfriends had a daughter who would get very constipated as a baby and then do all her pooping in one huge dump at bedtime every five days or so. This megapoop would overflow the diaper, fill the sleeper and emerge out the neck of the adorable jammies. The baby would always wait to do this until laid in the crib.
This meant that every few days, bedtime would be interupted while one parent bathed baby (and themselves) while the other stripped the crib, wiped it down, wiped down the walls, and remade the bed. And then took a shower.
Babies are adorable. But they are an incredible amount of work and responsibility. A committment that continues long after they stop being adorable and when they are three year olds who have two hour tantums. Nine year old boys who can’t take their muddy shoes off after you’ve just cleaned all the carpets. Sullen teenagers. (All who have their adorable moments). They make you realize how mortal you are, how weak. Once you have a child, every time you hear a horror story about someone elses child (lost, hit by a car, dying of cancer) part of you feels like you’ve lost your child.
I like the idea of babies. But then, I like the idea of cookware too, despite the fact I don’t enjoy cooking or eating what I’ve made. I like stories (reading and writing - like this one http://www.geocities.com/mulderscreek/calmbright.txt- them both) and tv shows about babies, and I tune into Baby Story on occasion too. I collect adorable dolls that are depicted as little babies.
Which is all very odd considering I’m not terribly fond of real babies. Real babies are a lot of work, even if you only see them for a couple of hours. It’s far harder to get sucked into the ideal of rhapsodizing about the wee ones once you’ve gotten some experience other than baby-sitting them while they sleep under your belt. (supposedly working with babies and toddlers is supposed to make you want one, but it doesn’t work out that way for a lot of people. Me, it just made me more sure that while I love other people’s kiddos, I don’t want one)
If you have a couple of free hours in the morning a month, I suggest you call up your local Community Action and ask them if they would like a volunteer for a WIC (women, infants and children) clinic. There’s always a shortage of volunteers, so they’d probably be happy to have you there to do something, perhaps read books to kids or help women with paperwork. There you’ll see your fill of cuddly little babies, screaming toddlers, hyper preschoolers, and exhausted mommies and daddies. You’d be surprising how much you can observe in a short period of time there, and it makes parenting look real, with all that entails.
Actually, babies aren’t the hard part. That only lasts for a year to 18 months or so. The hard part is the other 16 1/2 TO 17 YEARS, FOLKS, before you send them off to college – the cost of which, I might add, will bleed you DRY.
Lots of folks seem to dread babies. Me, I dread 3 year olds and teenagers. Yes, babies can scream all night – BUT THEY CAN’T (at least immediately) MAKE MORE BABIES WITH SOME ILLITERATE IDIOT, THE BABIES OF WHICH WILL ALSO SCREAM ALL NIGHT.
(Sorry for yelling. Nightmare overriding politeness there).
I have two little Furthurs, 7 & 4 year-old-girls. Love 'em a lot. Am I having fun raising them? Heck, no. Here’s why:
Even with no babies in the house, I am still constantly exhausted.
Thanks to the tag-team parenting Mr. Furthur and I have undertaken to keep the kids out of day care, I see my husband, for any length of time, about once a year.
Children are horribly expensive, even when you’re not outfitting them in Tommy Hilfiger and buying them every toy at Toys R Us. I could not possibly have imagined how expensive. So we’re constantly broke.
I get a day to myself, if I’m lucky, about once every six months, that is not ENTIRELY filled with housework, homework, yardwork, or something else I need to do.
The upshot? Have fun while you can. In fact, get all the fun possible out of your system before you have kids. Raising kids may be rewarding – in fact I think it is – but the moments of FUN are very, very few & far between.
This is going to sound wierd coming from someone with no-respawn drive whatsoever and no desire to have a baby ever.
But don’t think your life has to fit everyone else’s ideas of life. A baby needs love, a home, and enough food to eat on a regular basis. A baby does not need it’s own color co-ordinated room, a Ford expidition or dinasaur-shaped chicken nuggets. For generations having a kid was considered the right way to for a young woman to begin her adult life. It’s only in the last twenty or so years that having a baby before thrity became unthinkable. While I wouldn’t rush right out and reproduce, don’t think that you can’t just because thats not what everyone else is doing.
My mom had me when she was young. While it wasn’t easy and we were certainly poor, there are advantages to being a young mother. You have more flexibility (no high level job to use or mortgage to pay), more energy and as your kid gets older you’ll be better able to understand them. While you’ll have to give up some of your early-adulthood fun, you’ll be free at 40. My mom is having a great time now that I am out of the house. She’s got tons of disposable income that she didn’t have at twenty, but she isn’t anywhere near her “senior discount” years. Practically, that means she can travel, buy clothes and have fun, expensive hobbies.
Belieeeeeve me, I see all kinds of families who don’t have college degrees who are able to raise kids. I think those kids are wearing hand-me-down clothes sometimes, and playing video games on the obsolete systems that were sold in the thrift store, but you know what? That doesn’t make them inherently unhappy.
I’d say, find a great husband, and don’t be entirely stupid about your financial situation, and then remind yourself that telling a child he/she can’t have everything he/she wants is actually being a good parent.
But about ths sleep thing, yeah, my brother told me they had to start sleeping at different times so that his wife could have more than a couple hours at a time when the baby was new.
Come on over, I got two that would change anyone’s mind. OK though seriously, for years I was told I’d never have children. I felt the baby urge so bad I’d cry. My sister went through three pregnancies and it hurt. I would borrow my friends babies for weekends and babysit anyone who would sit still and let me put a bib on them. It didn’t help me. When I finally had my son I realized I didn’t want babies, I wanted him. Same with my daughter. The thing to me is, babies are over-rated. Sure holding your baby for the first time is great but I still get teary over this first time my son looked at me with my own eyes and said “mama”. Don’t rush into having a baby, when and if the time comes it will be perfect.