I’m Still Me. Just with a Baby.
I am five months pregnant. I also have about two to three glasses of wine a week.
I have no problem with women that don’t drink during their pregnancy. If you have made an educated decision for yourself, then more power to you! But because I have made an educated decision for myself, one in which many don’t approve of, I’m automatically labeled as selfish.
As women, we are already viewed as baby making machines. Every single one of our choices is judged and scrutinized in a thousand different ways. You don’t want to have kids? What is WRONG with you! You want to wait to have kids? Don’t wait too long, your biological clock is ticking. You want more than the socially prescribed 2 children per household? How selfish can you be - don’t you know the planet is already overpopulated?
I’m selfish because I drink alcohol during my pregnancy. I’m selfish because I want FOUR children (cue the gasps). I’m selfish because I plan on hiring a nanny so that I can continue working AND a babysitter so that I can still have date nights without the baby.
Frankly, it’s ridiculous. It’s expected that we automatically lose our identity when it comes to having children. We aren’t women anymore, we’re mothers. People expect to see messy homes and messy lives, and for some reason, you’re expected to be miserable all the way through it.
No, I don’t have children, and I do know that I am in for a wild roller coaster of a ride when our first comes along in February. But that the same time, I refuse to lose the essence of who I am as a person, as a woman, just because I gave birth. My body, my choices, my life don’t automatically become public domain because a human being tore through my vagina.
My son is already precious to me. The most precious thing I could have ever envisioned for my life. But I’m afraid that our culture of giving everything to our children, including our own identities, is in no way for the best.
Teaching children boundaries is not going to stifle their curiosity. Teaching them to respect all people, including their parents, isn’t going to somehow turn them into drones with no personality. Teaching them how to deal with frustration won’t hinder their creativity.
We somehow feel indebted to our children, but letting them walk all over you doesn’t mean that they are going to become good human beings.
We are also under the impression that babies somehow can’t think for themselves. They’re helpless. They don’t understand language and don’t have the capacity to learn. This mindset is SO detrimental to the development of our children. Give them a little more credit than that, please.
All of this is part of the overarching theme of being selfless for our children because they deserve it. They need it. The thing is, I really don’t want to be miserable for anyone, even my own baby.
There are things that I believe aren’t good for me or my pregnancy. I don’t lift heavy objects, I drink a lot of water, and I’m not exactly spending any time in the sauna lately. But there are so many cultural taboos that are unfounded or based on a sense of primal fear, when in reality, there’s no real reason to worry as much as we do.
I firmly believe that a healthy and HAPPY mother is the best thing you can do for a child, both inside the womb and out. It’s up to us to define what those two words mean; not because of any article telling us one way or the other, but by doing our own research and making decisions that are right for us.