Hi all! How are you today? As for me, still crooked, still headachey, but hanging in there.
Today I will share this diatribe by a fellow mom that is amazing in its smug condescension. Seriously, I thought it was satire, but I kept reading and realized with horror that she is DEAD SERIOUS. The subject of her judgment? Her “career woman” friend who’s not sure if she’s ready for children.
In a way, telling yourself that you’re not ready to become a parent is like saying, “I’m not ready to broaden my horizons.” Or, “I’m not ready to be humbled on a daily basis.” Or, “I’m not ready to feel my heart swell up with admiration and pride.”
I know it seems like a big step. I know it looks like motherhood is giving up yourself. It’s not. It’s just shedding the parts of you that you don’t really need anymore. There’s no guidebook that can prepare you for that; you learn through the experience of it. Motherhood is like boot camp for the soul.
And that was actually one of the least obnoxious passages. Seriously.
Reaction was swift and plentiful and universally disapproving. The comments attached to the article are equally entertaining. Give it a read and share your thoughts.
What else is on your mind today? Chat away!
Yeah…not going to go there with the whole mommy wars thing though I’ll admit this is a new twist on things. After taking care of H all last week, I’m down with what he had but a slightly different version- fever, sore throat, aches- made worse because I had to present sick yesterday. DH is all over the schlep this afternoon so I’m spending the day catching up on e-mail and drinking tea.
Hope you feel better soon!
Thanks. I think the worst part is the combination of exhaustion and anxiety. When I get sick and can’t do stuff, the monkey brain takes over and all I can think about is the stuff I’m not doing- the clients I still need to find, the book proposal that I need to revise, the two unfinished articles on my hard drive and the unread e-mails that I just can’t make myself read. Plus the dentist called- apparently I forgot to make cleaning appointments for the kids. For the last year. Oh yeah- mother of the year here.
Just telling you to be easy on yourself wouldn’t work, would it?
But yeah, that’s why all my best to do lists are created at 3:00am. And never get done.
Probably not- but I’ve had Katie’s voice in my head all day.
I keep thinking I need a white board in the shower — that’s where I figure it all out. By the time I’m done, all that problem solving has evaporated.
Thought of you today when I heard “Come on Hear the Noise” on the ’80′s station.
lol!
I spent yesterday in my office for a change. It is a long drive and it was basically nonstop meetings but it was nice to be down there. It would be tough to do every day, but it was nice to see the beautiful pink sunrise over the Golden Gate bridge.
I have been thinking about the move to texting for adolescents. My 7th grader spends a lot of time texting with his guy friends and also with a bunch of girls. He and the one sorta girlfriend broke up but he has a whole lot of other girls texting him all the time, mostly innocuous but in some cases being fairly forward. Maybe because you are writing instead of speaking, there is a greater level of comfort somehow, having a layer of separation that makes people feel freer to say things they might not say otherwise. Also, the fact that it is so brief and you can sort of be on and off drops the level of ‘commitment’ to the conversation, vs. a phone call. I don’t remember having this level of interaction between boys and girls when I was in the 7th grade, although maybe it was happening with some other kids, I don’t know. I wonder how this is going to affect social development in general. I’m sure it is probably already somebody’s doctoral dissertation, or if not it will be soon. (Come to think of it, social media director would probably be a great job for him, super social person that he is, if such a job still exists 10 or 15 years from now. Who knows what the Tubes will look like by then.)
I’ve thought about that too. Interesting stuff. My daugher (9th grade) texts a fair amount – although hardly at all with boys. I really think it varies a lot. My son is in 5th grade and his group at school is already much more mixed with boys and girls than my daughter’s ever was.
My son texts, mostly with his buddies I think, and mostly to make plans for afterschool or the weekend. I had several guy friends in 7th grade, and even a boy friend. DD’s group in middle school was very mixed, even before texting.
but I do agree that texting, chatting, FB messaging makes it easier to interact with whoever, and will definitely impact how our kiddos grow up thinking about interacting.
My plan to send birthday invites late in order to increase the chances of lower attendance failed! We’ll have 16 (!) nine-year-olds here on Saturday for DD’s karaoke birthday party. Our house is small, so I hope there’s enough room for everyone to hang out, let alone find a seat for eating.
Off to get a disco ball!
A disco ball! Awesome. Where do you get one, Spencer Gifts?
I found a double-disco-ball rotating multi-color-light thing at Party City. They actually had quite a selection!
OH my! Well, at least get them to do the cleaning up afterwards, lol… Best wishes for surviving it!
Sounds like fun, actually! I did parties at home for both of my kids, for years. It was a lot of work, and exhausting, but they both loved it and remembered for a long time afterward.
Have fun!
Yep, just had to jump in and answer that post. Imagine how much MY eyes rolled at that the thought of having kids BEFORE you’re ready…
I just about did a coffee-spit at “It’s just shedding the parts of you that you don’t really need anymore.” Bwhahahahahahahahah.
You do you, Janine Kovac. You. Do. You.
perfect. reply.
just perfect.
More like “it’s discovering the cranky bitch you never knew lived inside!”
Is this the non southern version of “bless your heart”? Never heard the expression before but I like it
. And yeah, what a completely asinine thing to say.
Glad your meeting went well yesterday!
I think I first saw it on Jezebel. So I can’t take any credit!
Shedding the parts you don’t need any more … like sleep or having any interest in the world outside your front door.
And perky boobs.
no, you know what I miss more than the perky boobs? I miss being able to drink more than one glass of wine/beer or a cocktail without getting tired. That’s what I miss.
I’m not sure I ever had that ability.
I’m sure I used to be able to have at least two beers without falling asleep. I’m sure of it.
I miss perky boobs the most.
Whoa. Maybe your friend doesn’t know if she’s ready to have kids because she’s afraid of becoming whatever THAT was.
I am AMAZED this woman posted this under her real name and also posted other places where she’s writes and blogs in her bio. This is a woman who has gone off the rails. I can’t imagine she hasn’t hurt her personal and professional reputation pretty badly.
One of the comments under the original posting said “this gives womanhood, motherhood, and female friendship a bad name.” WORD.
Hi all, I’m around, doing well, very busy in a good, fun way (for the most part
.
Oh, c’mon, don’t we all need a friend who will tell us the truth about being attentive while we’re preparing for that great boot camp of the soul, motherhood?
Hi, nice to see you, btw, darling. How are you? How are the boys?
Good holy mother of God. I’m one of those mid-30s career woman who eventually felt the clock ticking and had a baby, and I love him to death and am nothing but thrilled to have him (seriously, I love being a mother SO FREAKING MUCH), and I *still* want to slap her silly.
Also, you are all free to compare your dogs to my baby. Hell, I compare my *own* dog to my baby.
I loved how she said having kids make you aware of the weather forecast. I have no idea what weather is forecast anymore until I look out the window and make a guess.
yeah, because if the TV is on at our house in the mornings, it’s going to be on kids’ shows, not the news…
Not going down the mommy-wars rabbit hole….but here’s how MY day started.
My work-distributed Blackberry wouldn’t turn on. I was working off site today, and had to email my boss and assistants that I didn’t have a phone.
While I was bending over to unplug the Blackberry, I tripped. Since I was bending over, I had no center of balance and landed on my elbow and knee…pulling the Sirius radio to the floor (ah yes, tripped on the radio cord).
Then, pulled myself together to go to work, trying to look dignified after the clumsy trip, walking to car and noticing the ice that DH should put salt on and I SLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDD onto my butt on the icy sidewalk. UGH.
and OUCH.
I called DD from the car to vent and she listened to it all patiently, said the right soothing things, and then said “it can only go up from here, right?”
Which it did. Today I sat on the Incident Review Committee, which has to review any serious incident involving one of our consumers/participants. It was a range of minor-serious incidents, but a really great way for me to get a sense of the bigger agency and how it operates.
OMG, Sue! That seems like a sitcom kind of story, you told it so well! Glad DD was right that it only could go up from there.
One of those days!
I’m glad it went up from there, because whoo, boy, that’s a hard start to the day!
Hey you fitness types out there… anyone ever used a fitbit or some other kind of electronic fitness tracker (nike fuel, jawbone, etc)? I am thinking of getting something like this for DH’s bday, but don’t have any first hand experience with them. And since I’m not much of a fitness buff, I’m not sure what I’m looking at when I compare them. If anyone has any insight, I’d appreciate hearing it.
I had a fitbit – destroyed it, actually, and I don’t know how. I used it just about daily for a year and then the housing cracked and the thing split apart, never to be whole again. I liked using it, but since I couldn’t figure out why it broke (was it me?), I didn’t replace it.
I think I read about the Nike one but I didn’t realize there were others. I use Nike+ to track how far I have run/walked, which I like having, and might not mind the accelerometer aspect for daily movement, but I am way too lazy to enter everything I eat online.
Memo to DH: If you wear your old t-shirt that says “Guns don’t kill people, crazy ass motherfuckers kill people,” you’re going to have to handle some questions from your 6 year old whose reading is above average. Time to retire that one for awhile, especially given that you are pro gun control and don’t really endorse the message but just think it’s hilarious.
So I have 2 happy things from today–
(1) We are going to the Taj Mahal when we go to India! I didn’t think we could make it there because it’s so far away from Bangalore, but they are planning a 2-3 day trip up that way for our visit!! I can’t believe I’m going to see the Taj Mahal fer realz!!!!
(2) The guy I met for drinks last night e-mailed and we both want to see each other again, so squeee
Now if we could only find some free time …
How exciting! The Taj Mahal is spectacular in real life. I missed that you were going to India. Is it for vacation? work + fun?
Going to visit family there–my kids’ aunt, uncle and 2 cousins are living there for a 2 year corporate stint. Figured this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me, so my son and I are going in March.
Going to visit family there–my kids’ aunt, uncle and 2 cousins are living there for a 2 year corporate stint. Figured this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me, so my son and I are going in March.
Yay for another date! Can y’all swing a lunch?
Yay for another date! Can y’all swing a lunch?
To give you some idea of how crazy our schedules are, we are planning for March. No way we can do lunch since he lives and works 40 minutes away and there’s nothing between us except corn. Oh well! C’est la vie.