Tuesday, May 19, 2015

You can('t) do eet!

I know I've written something along these lines before, but I just read the umpteenth nasty comment on a nice blog post about things you can do for your friend who just had a baby. I commented on it a while ago and keep meaning to unsubscribe, but then oh shiny!

It goes something like this: "I don't know what's wrong with all you people. I did all this and more after kids, and I never complained!"

This is another thing we need to stop doing.

Repeat after me: "I can do a lot of things you can't do. You can do a lot of things I can't do. Let's not scratch each other's eyes out."

Well. I might scratch your eyes out if you're good at murder, and you find me in an alley.

Here's what I'm really good at:

-Imitating a monkey call. It is loud and extremely accurate.
-Imitating various other animals' calls. Also loud, not necessarily as accurate.
-Predicting the bad guy on TV shows.
-Crossing my eyes.
-Staying awake long past the limits of normal human physiology.
-Lining things up the way they are supposed to go. NOT LIKE THAT YOU IDIOT.
-Having huge feet.
-Learning a new language. Unless it's German. I dropped out of that after 2 weeks.

I expect that every other human being on earth can and should do all of these things because I can do them.

Obviously, I'm being silly. There are real life skills that everyone should have nailed down eventually. I would never think very highly of an able-bodied 30-year-old who can't use the bathroom without assistance. But I don't think doing All the Things immediately after having a baby is one of those life skills. After Grace, I was pretty much useless. I felt like I was trying to juggle 20 hammers at once. She was 6 months old, I think, before we ever had dinner before her bedtime.

It was a totally different story after Emmy. I was able to do just about everything that needed to be done after having her. At no point did I look back at my brand new mom self and say, "You were such a lazy complainer. You could have done so much better." No. Because I couldn't have.

I've been on both sides. I'm sure there are women who use their new-momness as an excuse to be lazy. But most of us just do whatever we're capable of at that moment. So stop being a jerk.

1 comment:

  1. I love this so much. And I love you for writing it. I love it so much I would kill an army of raining Australian spiders for you.

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