Misleading Memes and shit quotes

There are plenty of lovely things to be said about pregnancy and motherhood, should you wish to read them…you’re on the wrong blog I’m afraid. That said I am a fan of thinking and saying fairly nice things about TH, yet I have never been inspired to “like” or “share” the absolute shite that clogs up social media regarding the subject.

For this edition of my blog I have decided to ruthlessly and publicly pick apart some of the ones that bother me the most. The one’s that encourage parents walk round like a dog with two dicks, have unrealistic expectations or are just plain silly.

1)

I’ve seen this again and again, particularly on the Facebook pages of companies aiming their products at new mothers. I mean seriously, where do I even start? Well there’s the uncomfortable linking of a “date” in two totally different contexts. It’s been a while since I went on one but my understanding of a “blind date” is somewhere in the range of ‘cheeky little kiss-get laid’ depending on your morals. It’s pretty safe to say, wherever you sit on the moral scale, you do not want to date your newborn baby. Don’t try and pun on it in this way, it’s weird.

Let’s carry on with the line “you KNOW you will meet the love of your life.” Do we know that though?  What about women who suffer with PND? What about women who need to take time to get to know their newborn? The expectation of instant love, not just here in this crappy quote but evident in a lot of pre birth narrative puts too much pressure on women. It’s fine and normal to not feel an instant rush of love, don’t sweat it.

The best thing I have to say about this quote though is not something I said, I wish I did! Upon telling a friend about it he replied: “what a load of rubbish, labour is the only date of your life where, unless you’re very unlucky or specialist, you know you’re likely to have your fanny stitched up.”

2)

I don’t like to brag about it but…my labour was bigger than your labour. It was probably about 40 hours bigger than yours, at a grand total of 48 hours. So I think I’m in a pretty good place to comment on what one ‘leaves’. For the sake of humour I shall proceed to use ‘leave’ in the past tense of ‘left’, flows better.
I left my pajamas at about 30 hours in, when I was just too fucking hot for clothes. On a pile, on the floor, along with my dignity.
I left midwifery led care in a wheelchair, at about 35 hours, chosing outside triage to attempt to scream my baby out, much to the delight of concerned 20 weekers and first twinges inside.
I left my manners, much to the horror of my mother, at about 39 hours…when I mistook the tea lady for the anaesthetist and screamed things at her that still make me feel guilty.
I left my confidence that I could do it, at around 42 hours and sobbed in my husbands arms.
I left my trust in the hands of the NHS, who did their best to give me the birth I wanted before consenting to an emergency c-section at 48 hours.
I left the hospital after 2 days in recovery, clutching TH, unable to walk further than the toilet and drugged off my tits on a pick ‘n’ mix of medication.
Do I even need to explain how very far from travelling to the stars I was?
Again with the quote pressure, no!

3)

This one floors me, truely knocks me down with its down right offensiveness. It implies so much about women and men who chose not to have children. Look at them, those who don’t want kids, with their less fullifilled life than us, their inabilty to know love truely as they don’t have children. Can we, parents, just get the fuck over ourselves. We don’t know love any better than those that choose to not become parents; it’s a bit twatish to act like we do.

Ooooohhh let’s not forget to twist the knife in a bit more for those struggling to concieve, by making sure shit like this is splattered over social media. Now I’m not a complete bitch, despite the tone of my blog, I really wanted a baby and love TH. I cannot even begin to understand or write about how it must feel to go through that, so I won’t, it would be patronising, just like this quote.

Now then I just have the one TH, what I’m thinking is: if I have 25 kids surely my heart will be, like, really really full? Surely that space in there can’t be infinite? Fucking hell it’s going to burst out isn’t it and get into my lungs? Then when I breathe out, I will always whisper “I’m a mother don’t you know.”

4)

Really? We’ve fought for generations to be considered equal to men and still spew this sort of shit? Now Emily Davison’s reasons for throwing herself under the horse aren’t fully known BUT I’m pretty sure she wasn’t thinking about how we should all swell with pride at getting ourselves knocked up.
I’ve simultaneously done a lot with my life and also not very much, when I compare myself to female peers. I’m very happy to be a mother but it’s not what I’m most proud of. however this isn’t my record of achievement, so I won’t list them. I just want to put it out there: you don’t have to strut round like the cock of the walk because you gave birth, women have been doing it literally forever. Maybe take more pride in achievements over adversity, patriarchal society and those that were just plain hard work.

5)

IT’S NOT A FUCKING JOB. OK? It’s just not. It certainly wouldn’t be the best job even if it was. That’s reserved for those people who get to be chocolate testers, puppy strokers, panda cuddlers and holiday destination seekers.
The dictionary definition of job is “a paid position of regular employment” or “a task that is paid.” Don’t even and try and come at me with that ‘paid in love’ shit, paid means cold hard cash and we all know it.

6)

Oh joy, we are promoting mothers guilt I see! I’m going to split this into sections in order to spit my vitriol.

“a choice you make everyday” It’s not a choice, once you’ve had the baby you’re kind of stuck with it.

“to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own” Whoever wrote this has clearly not hid in the toliet, on Facebook, while listening to their baby whinge in the cot (he was napping five minutes ago….surely he’ll just go back to sleep?) They have also probably never shouted at same whinger “you’re just going to have to wait I need to fucking eat too!” It’s OK to put yourself first still, even if its just for a few minutes. If you can do it for hours, hell a full day and/or night, I salute you! I’m not advocating neglect here but just saying, you’re happiness and well being still matter as much. As one good midwife said to me “happy mum means happy baby,” I personally need to put myself first sometimes for that to happen.

“Do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is…” that’s just confusing and surely written to make the reader feel even worse? “Do what’s right, in your reasoned opinion” would have been better.

“forgive yourself over and over again, for doing everything wrong.” I mean, come on? Why? Please please stop putting this sort of guilt shit on mums. TH is five months old today, I’ve done stuff that’s gone well, I’ve done stuff that’s not gone so well. None of it is bloody wrong. It’s a well worn cliché that these things don’t come with instruction manuals, you can’t get it wrong, just do it at least adequately (I don’t say best because, honestly? Some days you just won’t have it in you) each day and that’s fine.

7)

And some clean up, or pay their happy kids to do it. Neither is a bad mum. Fact. I don’t know where this narrative comes from, that your house has to be a shit tip, when you have kids, but it pisses me off. There’s more stuff in my house now but it’s not turned into a hell hole. Anti competative parenting is just another tool to pit parents against each other and I don’t buy into it. My house is tidy still, yours might not be, let’s just get off our high horses about it.

8)

This one was picked by Mr Gobshite, in line with us both having a special place of hate regarding most views on men and parenting. I’m not an idiot, there are some terrible fathers but there are also terrible mothers. What there isn’t, are demeaning quotes and Memes about it. Mr Gobshite will be TH’s primary carer from 7 months onwards, yet he is still plagued by the narrative of ‘daddy daycare’ wherever he goes. ‘HARK, LOOK YONDER AT SIMPLE MAN CARING FOR HIS OWN CHILD, SURELY HE CANNOT OFFER THE SAME LOVE AND NURTURE AS THE MOTHER?’ Sorry to dissapoint but yes, yes he can. Dare I even say it? Yes, yes I do…sometimes he’s better than me at it! I take great pride in the fact I never forget all the ‘bits’ for going out but I have pretty much zero patience for repetative play, which TH loves. Mr Gobshite not only remembers everything to feed and clothe our child but can enthusiastically play the same thing for hours and fucking hours.

Now at this point I could publicly praise him for that but I’m pretty sure he would find it patronising. Like the time the health visitor at weigh in, held TH up like a golden prized piglet and declared “look how well he’s doing in daddy daycare, well done Daddy.” As if she somehow expected to find TH had regressed, having spent the morning in the company of his father.

Should you chose to co-parent a child, you should also chose to live in the modern world and do it together. Stop belittling the role of a father and putting on a pedestal that of the mother.

I could go on forever but I’ll stop now. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my second entry. Please feel free to add your own “favourite” quotes below. Don’t forget you can also find me on Facebook by searching “Gobshite and Tiny.”