Motherhood is a competition, but I refuse to take part
I thought the competitiveness between mum's began at the playground, I had never anticipated how early it would actually start.
For me, the start of the competition began in pregnancy. Constantly hearing from other women, "I was sick the whole way through, I had bleeding gums from day 1, it's going to be so much harder yet...". Yes it's good to share all of our experiences but it's also important to just listen and understand how someone is feeling right now in the moment.
It got worse the further the pregnancy got. Especially if I ever mentioned that I has a sleepless night... "Get used to it because you'll never sleep again". Why do other women think this is a good thing to say? What happened to encouraging new mums to be!? How do you know my baby won't sleep through the night? We cannot compare our own experiences to others, we are all different, and each pregnancy, birth and child is unique in it's own right.
Then you get told the whole load of quite frankly crap that your relationship will be over, you'll never have sex again and that baby weight will never go. Well I'm 3 months down the line, my relationship has never been stronger, I still have sex and my weight is shifting, so ladies if you're reading this and worried what the future holds after babies, I can report that so far it's all good!
The amount of people that spoke negatively of pregnancy and motherhood made me begin to wonder why they even had children in the first place? It was a breath of fresh air to speak to my small number of friends who didn't make me feel this way and actually shared their positive experiences with me, a good thing to do when your friend is heavily pregnant and childbirth is looming (nobody wants to hear your labour horror story - unless someone asks for it!!)
Now, once the baby has been born the competitiveness really begins. Oh can your baby not sit up yet? Alex sat up when he was 2 minutes old and did a handstand... Oh, are you not breastfeeding? I've been breastfeeding for 12 years!! Oh, are you still wearing maternity clothes? I lost 2 stone in a week. Oh, is your baby crying again? Alex has never shed a tear, never ever cried.
Do you know what I have to say to these mums? A big why don't you just fuck the fuck off. Yes it's lovely to share how proud you are of your child, I actually do love to see how well other babies are progressing and I'm proud of all of my friends little ones. But please don't purposely bring somebody else down or rub your babies achievements in when you can see someone hasn't reached that milestone yet. It doesn't matter, all children reach milestones at different ages, and that's ok.
P.S, I don't actually know a baby called Alex so apologies to all Alex's out there.
Keep doing your own thing, fuck the competitive mummy's. You've got this.
For me, the start of the competition began in pregnancy. Constantly hearing from other women, "I was sick the whole way through, I had bleeding gums from day 1, it's going to be so much harder yet...". Yes it's good to share all of our experiences but it's also important to just listen and understand how someone is feeling right now in the moment.
It got worse the further the pregnancy got. Especially if I ever mentioned that I has a sleepless night... "Get used to it because you'll never sleep again". Why do other women think this is a good thing to say? What happened to encouraging new mums to be!? How do you know my baby won't sleep through the night? We cannot compare our own experiences to others, we are all different, and each pregnancy, birth and child is unique in it's own right.
Then you get told the whole load of quite frankly crap that your relationship will be over, you'll never have sex again and that baby weight will never go. Well I'm 3 months down the line, my relationship has never been stronger, I still have sex and my weight is shifting, so ladies if you're reading this and worried what the future holds after babies, I can report that so far it's all good!
The amount of people that spoke negatively of pregnancy and motherhood made me begin to wonder why they even had children in the first place? It was a breath of fresh air to speak to my small number of friends who didn't make me feel this way and actually shared their positive experiences with me, a good thing to do when your friend is heavily pregnant and childbirth is looming (nobody wants to hear your labour horror story - unless someone asks for it!!)
Now, once the baby has been born the competitiveness really begins. Oh can your baby not sit up yet? Alex sat up when he was 2 minutes old and did a handstand... Oh, are you not breastfeeding? I've been breastfeeding for 12 years!! Oh, are you still wearing maternity clothes? I lost 2 stone in a week. Oh, is your baby crying again? Alex has never shed a tear, never ever cried.
Do you know what I have to say to these mums? A big why don't you just fuck the fuck off. Yes it's lovely to share how proud you are of your child, I actually do love to see how well other babies are progressing and I'm proud of all of my friends little ones. But please don't purposely bring somebody else down or rub your babies achievements in when you can see someone hasn't reached that milestone yet. It doesn't matter, all children reach milestones at different ages, and that's ok.
P.S, I don't actually know a baby called Alex so apologies to all Alex's out there.
Keep doing your own thing, fuck the competitive mummy's. You've got this.
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| We had a family photoshoot a few weeks ago and typically at the start Freddie cried (lol), but I wanted to share this because he is not a prop, he's a BABY, and this is normal. |
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