Trust me, if she thinks the baby is perfect, that is bad too. because you know, you really aren’t good enough to raise a perfect baby.
{{{{{Mouse_Maven}}}}}
Know who else got someone pregnant with less than ideal timing? Albert Einstein. Interestingly enough, he didn’t finish high school, either.
Lots of perfectly bright people get sunburns, too. Mr. Neville is smart enough to get a PhD in astronomy and get a job as a professor. I’m pretty sure he’s smarter than me. And he gets sunburns, from forgetting to wear a hat and sunscreen.
Mouse_Maven, just adding my good thoughts to the others here. You know your mom is the one with a problem, not you. It’s not easy to act on that knowledge, or to keep her behavior from hurting you, but try to keep it in mind.
And I’d suggest the avoidance, too.
Of course, I’m kinda confused, myself - what’s the linkage between not wearing a hat and pregnancy? (Of course, that might have been something I would have learned if I got an advanced degree…)
This is related to one of my first posts ranting about Mother. We were talking, I told her that Mouse_Spouse and I would like to have children one day. She responded,“Well, Spouse is smart, and your brother is very intelligent. You’re children should be smart.”
I was sitting there thinking, WTF? Two men can’t make a baby.
Mother is a card alright. The one with game instructions written in small print that everyone throws away when they open a new deck.
Nahhhh. No formal explanations will ever be required; you won’t need to say a thing. Kids are surprisingly attuned to sometimes very subtle adult cues and you-thought-he-wasn’t-paying-attention-so-you-went-ahead-and-discussed-it-in-front-of-him adult conversations. They pick up real fast on these things (“Every time Grandpa gets drunk, he promises to bring me a pony, but it’ll never happen”, “Uncle Bob always wants to borrow money from me, but I shouldn’t let him have any because he’ll never give it back”, “Grandma has issues and keeps telling Mommy she’s stupid, but she’s not”) without having to be told.
Just be yourself.
Mouseling will figure out what the Fucked-Up Family score is by the time first grade rolls around. Six-year-olds are strong, smart, and resilient, and if by that time contact with Grandma has been kept to a bare minimum, so she can’t mess with the growing little mind and burgeoning self-image, then Mouseling will be savvy enough to be able to roll with the punches and shrug, adult-like, in mystification when Grandma lets off a good one, “Ehhh, Grandma’s got issues…”
Hat=condom
Suncreen=spermicide (?)
I chuckled at least.
Mouse, I’m sorry to hear this conversation took place. I recently had a somewhat related conversation with my mother in which she brought up the half-filled out application to Indiana University I had left in my father’s truck. She noticed I hadn’t sent it in and the deadline was overdue so she mailed it anyways - along with the application fee - and said I should thank her and pay her back.
It was in the truck because it was in with some other trash I accidentally left in there. It is trash because I’m not moving my wife, and our new baby (by the time I would be going the baby would be 3 months old) to Indiana to pay more for a Masters program I could get online at home for half the price. I told her that.
She got angry - pretty much said “well, if you kids were smarter…” and “too young to have kids anyways…” along with “neither of you can take care of yourselves and how do you expect to do anything…” and the wonderful “why would you ever move back toward home, you will never get jobs or a house or…”
It was ridiculous. She’s right, we are young, and we are having kids, but not too young (ok, in our 20’s, but she’s finished college and is almost done with her MA, I’m 12 classes away from graduating) and jobs? I’ve worked at least one job since I was 16, for two years I worked 2 jobs, and Mrs. Small always has worked, and now she is making about 22k a year (not the best money, but the job has great benefits) - we should be fine to be grown ups. Especially because we have no real debt, decent credit, and both are taking steps towards careers more than anyone else in my family has. For some reason, mothers (or some of them) think that only Nobel winners are intelligent, but I promise you - mousling, husband, and you will be great. Maybe you will have to distance yourself from her, but it’s not a guaranteed thing. We thought the same about my mother, and other than a few indiscretions recently, she’s gotten 50 times better about the comments, mostly because she is trying to be better about these things (she told my father about that). You’ll be fine. Irrational is ok, but don’t let any mother push you around…
Brendon
Yanno, checking out the website for Coppertone, they say nothing about the effectiveness of their sunscreen as a spermicide. Maybe we’ve got the wrong end of this after all. 
(Yes, I’m snickering, myself.)
Mother does have an identical twin sister! Was your MIL born in Louisiana?
I’m very sorry this happened to you. It seems like when ever there is a change in a family’s population - wedding, birth, funeral, divorce - some the the members go completely insane. They hide behind “I only have your best interests in mind” when in reality, they are frightened by a change in the status quo.
From my own experience, there never is a “right time” to start a family. In the past ten years or so, studies have linked age with fertility. The older you are the less you have to work with gamete-wise. (I’m using a broad brush here, folks. In biology, rules are made to highlight the exceptions.) I’m 30. At work, I am a very young mother. In my extended family, I’m rather old. My cousins range in age from 10 to 28 - I was the first grandchild. Most of them marry in their late teens/early twenties and have children not long after. I was surprized when my brother (28 now, a father at 17) told me that everyone thought that I’d never have kids.
You and Mrs. Small will be fine. Just hang in there. Best of luck to you both!
I hereby grant you full and complete license to use my mother’s patented phrase for explaining family mental illness to small children.
Immediately before a visit, she would sit us down and very solemnly explain:
“Now, remember children, we love your Aunt K, but we don’t listen to anything she has to say.”
This is because my father’s sister is Jerry-Springer-esque poor white trash in all the stereotypical glory. This includes moving once a year, right ahead of foreclosure/creditors, alcoholism, membership in the KKK (they have their membership certificate framed on the living room wall), incest, and contributing to the delinquency of minors (my aunt routinely purchased beer and cigarettes for her then-13 year old grandson).
I had the vast misfortune to get my very first period ever at her house. She wept and moaned and wailed about how now I had The Curse and my life would never be the same again. I was really confused, because I’d been on a werewolf and mummy story kick lately. It made me wonder when I was going to sprout fur and howl at the moon. She actually broke down crying for my loss in the feminine products aisle of the Piggly Wiggly. My mother actually did this : :smack:
Ahh, good times.
I think menstruation might be cooler if this was what did happen… 
Your mom is a genius, Mouse_Maven. I’ve finally figured it out- pregnancy is actually caused by sunburning!
It explains why the population is growing so fast now- it’s the hole in the ozone, so more people get sunburned, and therefore pregnant. It also explains why societies in tropical climates tend to have higher birth rates- more direct sun rays, more sunburns, more babies.
It even explains why the student health center at my college never asked me if I might be pregnant, even though they usually ask female students that to the point of being ridiculous! I was pale from spending all my time in the computer labs, so there was little possibility of me getting sunburned and pregnant!
Does this mean that arctic tribal peoples are actually a different subspecies, with different hormonal triggers for pregnancy? I mean they couldn’t exactly count on sunburn the way the rest of us can. 
Nah, they probably just have all their kids in the spring- they get pregnant from the midnight sun nine months earlier, in the summer. It also helps that snow is good at reflecting UV.
Hmm makes sense. Explains a lot of my family’s reaction to my getting pregnant (though they had points that were truthful, thankfully they realized that I was serious about keeping my son and haven’t given me trouble about it since before he was born).
Irrational seems to be a place that pregnant women visit, but repeat this after me.
Just because I’m pregnant, does not mean that I can’t have valid complaints.
It can be easy to blame hormones for reactions, it can also be easy to let hormones dictate how you react (heck, even when you’re not pregnant it can be), but if it is a valid problem, it doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant/PMSing/whatever, it’s a problem that should be dealt with. (I HATED my roommates because they’d brush off my concerns or annoyances as ‘She’s just pregnant’ with the undertone of ignore her and nothing will come of it.
Sounds like you’ve got a plan there, and I figure you’ll be a good Mom. From your posts I’d say you’ve got a good example of what not to do.
Me, I thought it was too much booze that made people get pregnant, not too much sun!
Nah, it just goes to show the purpose of very light skin in us northern folk, sunburn easier = prenancy easier!
Mother called last night. I let it go to voicemail. When Mouse_Spouse asked why, I told him,“Exposure to a cell phone may effect the baby’s nervous system. I’m sure Mother will understand.”
I think I’ll stick with this excuse for the next 17, 18 years.
Great answer.
Also, thanks - I appreciate the positive comments made upthread - the best part is, if we ever have a Small Mouse Dopefest, it will be full of babies! haha!
Brendon Small
Sounds like fun! Looks like there are a lot of Doper babies.
Mother sent me an email. She wants to know what’s going on. She also wants my best friend’s physical address. Years ago, BF dated my brother and they had a child together, and broke up when the kid was three. BF and I remained friends because, as much as I love my brother, he was not acting like a responsible parent and BF was. (Once you’re a parent, spending money on booze and concert tickets instead of diapers and food is a bad idea!) Their kid is now 10. Apparently, Mother wants to send BF a mother’s day card because she’s “trying real hard to forgive her for breaking up with your brother.”
:rolleyes: Bro has had several girlfriends in the seven years since he and BF broke up. Mother’s “to forgive” list must be loooooong.
At least the rest of us would have fair warning.