*Cough* This chain letter is dreadful!
I'm going to mangle it.
🙎Meme: Thoughts on being a mother
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* Urgh.
🙎Meme: Author Unknown
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: of course, everybody knows good ol' Anonymous is the best of the very best among writers! He/she writes chain letters! *Sneer*
🙎Meme: We are sitting at lunch when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of starting a family. We're taking a survey, she says, half-joking. Do you think I should have a baby?
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Ugh. Quotes, please! And don't ask me, lady, it's your decision. I don't care what you do just as long as you really want a child, but not so badly that you just can't accept if it turns out you can't for whatever reason…
🙎Meme: It will change your life, I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Ugh. I guess I'm just going to have to deal with the lack of quotations where they ought to be. But then again, it is chain mail after all, written by the best writer in the world!
🙎Meme: I know, she says, no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations....
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Lady, if that's all you think having a kid is gonna set you back for, you are seriously underestimating things. Kids don't let you sleep in on week days either. They wake up really early until they hit school age, when they'd like to start sleeping in more than you will, but neither of you can except for weekends because school means you get your reluctant kid up and hope s/he gets to school on time and with all of their stuff.
Vacations - well, you can still do those. It's just a bit more annoying with a screaming kid on a plane, or in the back of the car asking "Are we there yet?" every minute. You could always get Grandma to babysit for a few days or have the kid stay at his/her friend's, if the friend and family like the idea.
🙎Meme: But that is not what I meant at all.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: of course. You just set up your own daughter in this crappy chain letter story plot to look like a much shallower bubblehead in an attempt to wow us all with the mush coming from the supposedly more profound-thinker in this thing - you.
I'm not buying it. You could've given your own daughter at least a little more character and thinking power so that she could at least say something about finances and whether or not she feels she and her hubby can afford medical expenses, feeding and clothing a growing child, not to mention toys, safety concerns,later on, tuition for school and other activities, presuming all is going well.
But you stuck her with this 'no more sleeping in and vacations' bit, deliberately making her look like a real brain-dead ditz so you could puff yourself up by looking all deep next to her. Aaaggghhh!
🙎Meme: I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Well you can't actually put her through it before it happens, you know.
🙎Meme: I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal,
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Unless she has a very problematic birth that leaves her damaged, comes close to or actually does kill her, the baby, or both.
🙎Meme: but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Oh that's just great, then if she had any real thinking ability she would probably be shocked and appalled to realize she must've had that effect on you! Nice going, Mother Supreme!
🙎Meme: I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* Yeah yeah yeah, enough with the melodramatic sap already! Not all mothers let themselves get so bogged down with troubles that are not their own. A lot of them, the ones I know, do worry a bit too much at times IMO, but not to the extreme you apparently do. Did you used to go to pieces every time your daughter broke a nail too?
🙎Meme: I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Gah, staring contest? or are you trying some form of hypnotism? You keep looking at her and looking at her as if you want to transmit your own ideas right into her head just by gazing hard enough. and your continually telling me how you keep looking at her is way too much self-analyzing or something. It's weird, it's creepy, it's annoying. cut it out already!
and I really don't care how stylish she is or how she looks. It's not like she can't get manicures any more when she has a kid. But come to think of it, maybe the reason she looks that way now is because you had a hairy every time she broke a blasted nail! So, to keep you from becoming unglued all the time, it was just easier to start being super careful about her nails. Lol. Pathetic.
🙎Meme: and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Argh! Okay, somehow I see this as being so wrongly expressed that it has me flabbergasted!
Sophistication and maternal instinct are NOT mutually exclusive, lady, and I do not see going from a prissy primping little airhead worried about sleeping in and vacations growing into a woman who actually loves and cares for her child and wanting to protect him/her as being 'reduced'! It goes in the opposite direction!
🙎Meme: That an urgent call of Mom will cause her to drop a souffle or her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Followed immediately by an exclamation of "Oh, dang magnet!" or something a bit stronger.
Hehehehehehe! *Tries to collect self and stop laughing*
🙎Meme: I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: ! Oh, please! This must've been written or borrowed from something that was written back in the bad ol' days when women still weren't allowed to have a career and raise a family! Give me a break!
🙎Meme: She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's sweet smell...
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: So freaking' what? that won't keep her from her important meetings and job any more than a man at that same meeting being excited and thinking about the smell and feel of his new car. I think of pleasant things on the job too, that have nothing to do with my work, and it doesn't stop me from doing my job. That's just life.
🙎Meme: She will have to use every ounce of her discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Again, that's life. And I've had times too when I couldn't wait for work or church or something else I was at, to end, because I was concerned about something back at home, or wasn't feeling well, etc. I'm sure anxiety hits men the same way, when they're concerned about a loved one, a child, a lover/spouse, even a parent. especially if their loved one is in the hospital.
What I'm saying is, these big overwhelming feelings about other people don't just hit mothers.
🙎Meme: I want my daughter to know that everyday decisions will no longer be routine.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Some will be. you must get up and feed your child every morning, again at lunch, and again at supper along with yourself. You must feed him/her during the night as an infant. diaper changes are routine until the kid is being toilet-trained. and there are the other things like helping him/her dress and undress. Also done on a daily basis, sometimes more than once per day when there are spills and other messes. With school age kids come even more routines, packing lunches every day comes to mind.
🙎Meme: That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: so? Who said you had to take him to McD's by yourself anyway? I mean, where's the dad in all this? Let him take the kid to the washroom. He's definitely ready for the men's room in public by that age anyway. they don't have co-ed washrooms at school, and at 5 he should be in kindergarten.
🙎Meme: That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: 'Gender identity' Huh? He knows he's a boy, doesn't he? I hope he knows that much by 5 years of age…
🙎Meme: will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Facepalm* if you're so petrified, seeing child molesters everywhere, then maybe you're not the right person to go to for any advice on whether or not to have kids. and again, picking on McDs. I can't express how freaking' sick I am of everybody doing that! That pervo could just as easily be hanging out somewhere within the walls of the priciest gourmet 5-star restaurant, you know. In fact, it was all over our local news when a chef at a restaurant on the posh side was charged with assaulting a waitress in the ladies room.
🙎Meme: However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* Besides that being so common, I'll bet that would be especially true for your daughter since I can just picture you storming around, traipsing in and out of her house, making sure she does right by her kid as far as you're concerned. You have permanent emotional scars just from her breaking nails as a kid, I don't see you being any better when you have not only her to worry about, but her kid as well. And your constant meddling is sure to make her second-guess herself as a capable mother…
🙎Meme: Looking at my attractive daughter,
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: ! AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! Again with the stare! And I don't care how attractive she is, or you think she is, okay?
🙎Meme: I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy,
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes in extreme annoyance* Cut the superficiality! And again with the obvious. of course when the baby comes out you loose weight! Duh! But that's nothing to even care about. What matters is that you're healthy and happy and so is the baby. People need to stop being so blasted obsessed with weight and skin color and trying to look forever young and all that crap - just shut up already!
🙎Meme: but she will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: that is absurd! "Oh, I've had this kid, now my life means nothing." If anything, your life would mean more, because you'd want to be around for your kid at least. Your kid, provided all is well, would bring you a lot of joy, along with a bunch of other stuff in the negative, but when all is as it should be, there's plenty of positive. Again, that's life.
🙎Meme: That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years-not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: wait a gosh darn second! Hold it!
Yeah, I know about the maternal instinct and all that. Normal, natural, human.
But -
I thought having this kid WAS her dream!
Anyway, having a kid won't woosh, snuff out all the rest of your dreams. Oh, but then, this is you. Maybe your emotionally-damaging daughter with her broken nails did snuff out all your dreams. Wow, it must suck to be you.
🙎Meme: I want her to know that a caesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, for the love! Cut theover-blown purple prose over the stretch marks and scars and that! They are just what they are - all part of the human condition. they are not "badges of honour" or "marks of shame" or anything like that. they are just what some people get in life, that's all! Nothing to give a second thought or glance over. what I'm trying to say is - so you got stretch marks and scars, so - who - the - heck - gives - a - flying - hot - darn? Other than maybe you?
Not me.
And neither should anyone.
So shut it already!
🙎Meme: My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: How do you know what she thinks? Other than the vacations and sleeping in, what else did she tell you about her husband?
🙎Meme: I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Wrong again, lady. You don't love your husband any less because he doesn't powder the baby or he seems to be a bit awkward around him! if that's all it takes to make your love go away then you are very very sad. what you actually love more when he does this stuff is not him but the whole shared experience you, he, and the baby are having. The togetherness bit. It can't always be that way, though, so don't crash into despair when it isn't.
🙎Meme: I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Facepalm* what's with this "fall in love again' crap? You're either in love or you're not. Don't confuse the idillic new baby highs between hubby and wifey with 'falling in love again' as if they somehow fell out of love somewhere along the way and then suddenly bang! This new kid comes along and magically makes them love each other again! I mean, did you forget you loved your husband so easily until every time he did something sweet for your daughter?
🙎Meme: I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Somehow I don't think having a kid will give her your supposed super-think powers. She'll be too busy looking after him for years.
And I'm really sick of all this "rah rah we are women bonded in solidarity!" chain letter claptrap. Women are just as divisive as men, and a lot of them are prejudiced, drunk drivers and so on. Why should your daughter feel a bond with people who are peace-makers just because they belong to the same gender? That's stupid!
🙎Meme: I hope she will understand why I can think rationally about most issues,
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Oh wow, thanks for coming right out and telling me you think rationally. I never would've guessed it otherwise, except that you sure know how to pour on the mush to get people, especially women, right in the hearts so they'll spread this chain letter!
🙎Meme: but become temporarily insane when I discuss the threat of nuclear war to my children's future.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah right, because a lot of paranoia is totally good for the soul…
🙎Meme: I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Followed shortly by the trauma of a fall and skinned knee.
🙎Meme: I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or a cat for the first time.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Or the recoiling, even shrieks of terror from a tiny child who is terrified by the animal.
Or the baby becoming too curious and rough, pulling on the creature's fur, resulting in being scratched or bitten, thereafter, the animal eventually learns to hate being around children.
🙎Meme: I want her to taste the joy that is so real, it actually hurts.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Bleck! I never cared much for the use of what just seems to be such wrong words in certain contexts. tasting joy, how does one do that? You can taste something, and if you really like it, the joy or bliss is the feeling that results. But you can't literally taste joy. And taste it so much it hurts? Joy hurts? Uh, no. I don't get that one either. Intense joy can overwhelm a person to tears, but I wouldn't call it hurt.
🙎Meme: My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Holy smokes! You wowed yourself with your own dang chain letter story!? Oh…My…Gosh! You are too much!
🙎Meme: "You'll never regret it", I finally say.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: You've just come up with a pile of excuses for regretting having your daughter, combined with a few gushy sweetnesses sprinkled throughout and now you say she'll never regret having a kid?
🙎Meme: Then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter's hand and offer a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Blargh! This drivel is making me sick!
Look, lady, don't go overboard! Your daughter hasn't actually announced she is pregnant yet, she only said they were considering it! And motherhood is not for every one, and some women who are mothers, should never have been. What I'm saying is you are silly to wax all sweetness and light over people for 1. being women, and 2. for being mothers, because being a mother and being a woman does not make you any more of a human being than the next person who isn't.
And, motherhood isn't a "calling" it's part of nature that many but not all women experience.
🙎Meme: This blessed gift from God..... that of being a Mother.
🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Can it already!
Look, I believe in God, and I do not like seeing his name get dragged into cheesy chain letters!
More to the point, motherhood is by far not the only gift God bestows on women! And certainly not the best for every woman, that's why there are some of us about who have decided not to have kids. And the reasons some women choose not to have children are extremely varied - I won't go into them here.
To a loving mother, her child is a gift, unless and until s/he grows up to be - a con artist, a crook, one of those child molesters you mentioned earlier, a killer, a terrorist, he/she could be a real bully and terror long before reaching adulthood, even if his/her parents are doing their very best to raise hher/im right. Every bad person started out life as a beautiful bundle of "sweet-smelling" baby. And, to some children, their mothers certainly aren't gifts from God because they are unloving and abusive. But this meme never goes anywhere near that subject.
Over and out.
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