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I have a baby, I want a baby! I have serious baby fever and it’s completely irrational. I crave baby deliciousness 24-7, as if I didn't have enough (I do; he's 100% delicious). I want to be pregnant; I have a seven month old. I hated being pregnant. I remember, when I had a wailing newborn, my mother in law warned me that at around six months, I’d want another baby. I laughed and said I wasn’t so sure I even wanted the one I had, much less another one. My own mother warned me of many couples who had children about fifteen months apart and said we’d really have to be careful not to get pregnant.
I asked my mommy group friends about my craving.
Of course, said my friend, “We’re in the “golden months.” According to the video caption of adorable little Aidan (7.5 months) on YouTube, "The Golden Months" are those few months in a child's life when he or she can consciously interact with others (smile, laugh, garble, etc) yet doesn't talk back or need to be chased around the house.”
While my love for my son is so intense that my husband “finds it disturbing,” I worry about raising a boy. The author of my new favorite website, Mothers Raising Boys, notes that when she is out with her four sons,
These people... make comments, also always feel the need to tell me about how wild and destructive their sons or their friend’s son or their neighbor’s sons are. Like I care. They say this useless information in a way that almost seems cruel. Like here I am with FOUR boys. What am I suppose to say in response? I’m certainly not about to join in on the bashing session!
Also, what does their ignorant comments mean to my sons when they hear them. I’ll tell you…my oldest has commented to me when someone has said something about me wanting a girl or talking down wild boys. He once said that it didn’t sound like the lady likes boys, why not?
And I realized: I do it too. If I meet a woman with more than one boy, I’ll say, “God love you,” or something to that effort. I sound like Joe Biden (weird!) but I’m attempting to express empathy and respect for what I’m sure are her trying times with wild charges. But what if she just hears a judgment? If you encounter someone with three girls you don’t roll your eyes or say, “good for you,” do you? With girls I envision pony rides and giggling and shopping, not toy guns and video games and chaos. I need to change my mental map if I’m going to raise a solid boy!
I’m just starting play dates (the babies all kind of look at each other and occasionally someone lunges for another’s face). Mostly, they offer us moms some sanity and an ability to reality check. So I love the (brilliant blogger) MamaBee’s critique of Emily Bazelon’s “Defending the Playdate.”
Why on earth is she perpetuating this tired canard about mothers sniping at each other over playdates?
This post particularly got to me because it presents such a negative vision of high-achieving mothers interacting with each other. It’s telling that most of Bazelon’s examples are from the world of fiction, the only place where these women really exist in large numbers. This stereotype of the educated, over-thinking mother who spends playdates alternately judging others and feeling mortified about her own failings as a parent is pervasive in the media, but at least in my experience, much less so in real life.
Actually, in considering much of the DoubleX blog coverage, I think it’s more about driving page views than presenting a more reasoned portrait of the average driven, well-meaning, and yes, anxious American mother. Hyper-aware, hyper-critical yet wry parentblogging has become the norm for many socially-conscious and hip parenting sites (see Jill Lepore's fantastic piece in the New Yorker on this front). Mama Bee, you’re inspiring me to create non-mommy war oriented, non-caustic mom-blogging. I’m just not sure anyone will read it.
