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Motherhood: What's the Total Price?

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Feb. 9th, 2008 | 08:44 am

I had coffee with a friend of mine yesterday I hadn't seen since she'd given birth. I was really shaken by the changes to her body and personality.

I had always admired her for her gorgeous skin tone, but she looked like she'd aged a decade. She'd also put on at least 30 pounds, but those things are just the meaningless superficial. What frankly scared me was her dyspeptic and distracted nature. She was a cheerleader in high school, but now she seemed so lifeless and without energy. Where was the woman I have done power yoga with for the last year?

It had been three months since she's had her child - is it normal for the effects of the pregnancy to still be with her so strongly? Do these things go away in time, or are you permanently sacrificing a measure of your youth? What is the true price of choosing to have children?

It seems to me that there is massive social pressure for women to have children. Our mothers ask us for grandchildren, sitcoms revolve around the idea and our closest friends take the journey and seemingly expect us to take it with them. Yet - as I've seen my friends go through this journey, their personalities and priories always change so drastically.

In my opinion, the entire point of feminism is the right to make choices. Yet - it also sometimes seems like motherhood is a part of the feminine journey that many find deeply rewarding. No matter which path you take, it seems like you're going to miss out on some of the rewards life can offer you.

Bri

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Comments {5}

Brent Kellmer

From: [info]skaldic
Date: Feb. 9th, 2008 05:50 pm (UTC)
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From what I've seen with my wife and a number of friends, I think it hits different people in different ways. It's sounds like it's hit her particularly hard in those ways. Post-partum depression is also sometimes an issue, and it's very possible that she's experiencing that, even if she didn't seem down at the time. That could very well account for a good deal of her lifelessness.

As well, even if the baby doesn't have something issues such as cholic (I'm not even thinking of serious issues), depending on the sleep/activity patterns of the baby, they can have a tremendous impact. For example, for both our boys, I was the nighttime parent, because I can wake up in the middle of the night, do something, then go back to sleep. My wife wakes up in the middle of the night and can't. If she's like that and has to deal with the baby at night, she'd be seriously sleep deprived. Or she could be sleep deprived even if that isn't the case -- that could account for the behavior very easily.

On the other hand, it simply might be dramatically different than what she expected and she's uncertain if she did the right thing. That's pretty common as well.

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martianmooncrab

From: [info]martianmooncrab
Date: Feb. 9th, 2008 06:27 pm (UTC)
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there is a lot of sleep deprivation the first few months, and lifestyle adjustments. No more just hopping into the car and going, but you have to pack up the kid and all the baby crap before you even hit the door.

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Suzanne Rachel

From: [info]slurketta
Date: Feb. 9th, 2008 07:26 pm (UTC)
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Everybody I know who has kids seems to be miserable. And it eats your youth, there's no doubt about that. The way our culture runs nowadays seems to be really antithetical to the process of child-rearing, so everyone with kids is already working uphill. My next-door neighbors had two kids close together, as part of a plan- they really wanted two kids- but now the husband comes home at night and says, "I feel like I'm in hell. This is like Hell." (the wife reported this to me,of course- their once-contented marriage is a wreck now). Studies show marital satisfaction and pleasure goes down with each child. I have to say it seems to me that people want kids for various social reasons,or because they like kids, but they don't realize that having kids just isn't what it used to be. Having kids in the 21st century is an expensive, stressful nightmare, and it seems to be getting worse.

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Mickey

From: [info]quaryn_dk
Date: Feb. 9th, 2008 08:56 pm (UTC)
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If your friend is 3 months post-childbirth, then she probably looks overly aged due to three solid months (if not longer, depending on how her late stage pregnancy went) of sleep deprivation. I've seen now at least two scholars who attribute the stereotype of the scatterbrained woman to the sleep deprivation caused by having small children.

If you're concerned enough about her health to actually want to do something about it, offer to take the kid for a night.

I understand the remainder of your musings, though. I went through them myself, from the philosophical level down to the personal, before making the choice to have my tubes tied.

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Mister Eclectic

From: [info]howeird
Date: Feb. 10th, 2008 09:19 am (UTC)
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It depends on so many factors, books have been written. Having kids didn't make a mess out of Jane Fonda. One of the engineers I work with came back from having her first child about two months ago, and looks fantastic - better than she did before she was pregnant. She's been in a pretty good mood, too. It helps to have help taking care of the baby, and it helps to have a career to get back to.

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