“Just wait till that second baby comes. You’ll be begging for help!”
“Hope you don’t like sleep. Having two kids means that you actually get four times less sleep.”
“If you thought that you didn’t have any free time before…”
For some reason, people feel the need to try and scare the shit out of other people when they are at their weakest.
I don’t know if its that the people doing the scaring want to be “helpful” and “warn” pregnant women or if they are just sadistic douche bags.
Whatever the case, I always hated it when I was pregnant with Cara and random women would “warn” me about sleepless nights, labor pains and the horrors of teething. When prodded for positive things to say about pregnancy and motherhood, I would usually only get, “You’ll never love something so much” right after an hour of ranting about how much motherhood sucks ass.
I think I’ve written before about this type of helping being almost like hazing.
Heaven forbid a pregnant woman or new mother find herself in a group of experienced mothers.
Very quickly she will be bombarded with horror stories of every sort; things that are sure to scare the granny panties right off of any mom or mom to be.
Why do we do this to other people? It’s not necessary nor is it helpful.
Right on the heals of that comes the two kid horror stories.
I really wish that I could bring five month pregnant me to right now for about twenty minutes. Even if those twenty minutes are during a “bad” time, they are NO WHERE near as bad as my brain had pictured it.
I do in fact possess the wherewithal to parent two children. Well, let’s be honest. I possess the ability to parent one child while boobing the other. [But that's something, right?]
My world has not crumbled with the birth of Oliver. Cara has NOT turned into a horrible devil child. Quite honestly, nothing has really changed.
I still get up in the morning at about 6am. I still go to bed around 9 or so. I eat a couple of times a day and go to Target WAY TOO OFTEN.
If you’re pregnant right now, take a deep cleansing breath.
Are you breathing?
Things are NOT going to be as bad as you’ve imagined. Take this from someone who had a VERY high needs infant for #1, now has a high needs toddler and has a three week old.
In a very short period of time, you will look back at all of the things that you feared right now and you’ll realize that your pregnancy hormones had blown everything out of proportion.
Trust me.
6 Responses to “Hazing and Parenthood”
LazyCrazyMama
1 year ago
I’m with the “they are sadistic douche bags”
I also have a high needs #1 who is a high needs 3 year old now. My baby girl just turned a year in august. It’s not a breeze, but it is nowhere near as hard as people will tell you it is. But that didn’t stop me from telling my sister (while expecting #2) that it was going to be harder than she imagined 
Evil. Just plain evil.
LazyCrazyMamas last blog post..More on the Grocery Store Bit…
fruitlady
1 year ago
Amen! I have lots of pregnant and new moom friends right now and all I ever tell them is to trust themselves. Women have been doing this since time immemorial. We can do it. We do do it. And we’re good at it. It’s okay to be a mom and to like it :!:
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fruitlady
1 year ago
BTW…what’s a moom? I have no idea and I typed it…
Jennifer Walker
1 year ago
HMMMM…… is that true for #3??
Earth Muffin
1 year ago
I had an easy-breezy #1 and a high-needs #2 and still managed to sleep, enjoy a little time alone with my husband and not lock my kids in the closet. I vote that the parenting alarmists are sadistic douche bags!
Earth Muffins last blog post..Have a little chuckle on me…
Hollyn
1 year ago
My kids rock! #1 was so easy, that I thought there was something wrong wiht him. #2 is a bit harder, but it’s been lots of fun. When I put Jack in the crib with Lexi in the morning, for just a minute, he takes her hand. She always stops crying. In a few short months, they already have a bond. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
And, contrary to popular belief among local douchebags, you don’t go through 20X more diapers. You’re not going to go broke buying diapers.
Why is that the first thing people ALWAYS say to you, when the find out you’re having #2?
I agree… Douchebags…
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