I don’t usually talk about current mayhem, but this one’s been killing me lately. I had to write something.

Going in from the top.

What am I talking about? Nursing. Public nursing.

Oh yeah. You know it. There are two ways to get to the boob:

1. Pull up your shirt.

• Advantages: Shirt covers top part of boob. Baby’s head covers bottom part of boob. People don’t see much of anything at all.
• Disadvantages: Bra must be removed, unclipped. Muffin-top exposure. Belly hanging out. Stretch-marks. Possibly drafty and cold. Potential ass-crack visibility.

2. Go in from the top. (Pull your boob out the top of your shirt and let the kid nurse.)

• Advantages: No belly fat or ass crack showing. Quick. Easy. Bra can stay in place (just pull the boob out of the bra and pop it back in when you’re done).
• Disadvantages: People see the top of your boob and this may make them afraid, uncomfortable, sexually frustrated, confused, appalled, disgusted and/or livid. You may end up on national news.

We’ll get back to this in a moment. But first, background.

I read about that professor who brought her sick baby to class and then – wait for it – nursed that baby while giving a lecture. And now, of course, it’s national news. Everybody keeps saying the “real” question is “why is she bringing a sick baby to work with her,” but let’s get real for one minute, please….

If she had bottle-fed her baby during that lecture, would we all be hearing about it?

Probably fucking not.

So the issue is that a grown woman decided to bring her baby to work so she didn’t miss the first lecture of the semester. Whatever, lady. Your call on that one.

(However, don’t you know that one of the beauties of having kids is that you get to get out of work when they’re sick? Whatever. That’s not the point.)

And during that class, the kid got hungry or restless or whatever, so she nursed her. And evidently, some dim-witted fucktard in the class crafted the following tweet: “Sex, gender, and culture professor, total feminist, walks in with her baby, midway through class breast feeding time #wtf”

And now, everybody’s talking about it. Because it’s newsworthy. Because feeding a baby while doing your job is newsworthy.

Because 40 college students can’t handle the image of a woman feeding her child?

NEWSFLASH, college kids: WOMEN HAVE BREASTS. Breasts serve the biological purpose of feeding a woman’s offspring. Oddly, their sole purpose is not to fascinate the senses and turn people on.

And now, kindly, remove your head from your ass and grow the hell up.

Is it that? Or is it that this society tells me that breast is best, but then dictates to me how and where and under what circumstances I may engage in this good, wholesome, nourishing act it allegedly supports…?

You should breastfeed, but not at work.

You should breastfeed, but only with a blanket.

You should breastfeed, but not in a way that exposes too much skin or (GASP) the nipple.

You should breastfeed, but privately, discretely, quietly…don’t draw attention to that womanly shit…it’s wonderful, but nobody wants to see it.

In other words, breastfeed, but do so in a way that doesn’t offend the sexually frustrated Puritan misogynists.

Yeah. I said it.

And I meant it.

You want to use a blanket? More power to you. You want to wrestle a 9-month old into one of those tent things? More power to you. You want to walk 15 minutes or 2 minutes to sit in a “quiet room” or car to nurse your baby, so nobody sees you? That is all good. I’m serious. If a woman has personal preferences of modesty, I hold that in the highest regard and respect that completely. Every woman has the choice to breastfeed how she feels comfortable.

And I happen to feel comfortable with my tits out.

Kidding. Sort of.

So don’t tell me, America, land of the fucking free, how I should be doing it. Don’t beam your lights of derision on me – calling me a slut, an exhibitionist, a radical rabid feminist – because I go in from the top, because I don’t mind 2 inches of breast flesh being shown to the world. (It’s okay in Playboy or Hustler or People or Victoria’s Secret, but not in public for life-sustaining purposes! NOT THERE!! It’s indecent! It’s wrong! Cover yourselves ladies!!!).

Check this out. I don’t give a rat’s ass if it makes you uncomfortable.

It’s how I enjoy nursing my baby. It’s what feels best to me.

And no, I will not use a blanket if I don’t feel like it.

No, I will not walk to a private hallway.

No, I will not feed my baby in a damn bathroom.

I will not accommodate your archaic arbitrary demands. You also once told me I couldn’t vote, and my life would probably be best spent pregnant at home serving my man – so forgive me, America, if my trust in you is a bit, um, unstable.

Am I making a production of my breastfeeding?

Yep. Abso-fucking-lutely.

Why? Because it’s time.

Because the assault on women has been going on for years, and it’s only through “bad behavior” that anything, ever, changes.

Does seeing the top of my breast make you feel funny inside? Ah, honey. I’m sorry. But don’t worry about it, cause after you’ve seen it 50 or 200 or 1 million times, you’ll be okay with it. You’ll grow accustomed, I promise. Or maybe your kids will.

Until then, you’ll find me going in from the top, wherever the hell I feel like it, giving a milky “screw you” to your searing eyes and hateful gaze.

Trusting that someday, it won’t be national news.

oh my god. BOOB FLESH!!!!

[For the sake of accuracy, I’m not breastfeeding anymore, since Georgie weaned herself a few months ago, but I wrote this post in the present tense because I still feel like a breastfeeding mama, and it’s how I’ve breastfed all 3 of my kids…so it’s very “present” to me, still.]

Have you ever noticed that some of the most terrifying mothers out there are the super-pumped eco-friendly ones? They’re like MEAN. But not with their mouths. Only their EYES…

But they still say it:

What? You don’t dress your kid in all organic hemp?!?!? What is wrong with you? They should call CPS.

Are you driving a freaking EXPEDITION? What are you, Satan? Where are your horns? Where’s your hybrid? Your Prius? Your bicycle, Goddamnit.

Do I detect a PLASTIC BAG in our presence? I’m sorry. We can’t be friends.

Um, your baby is holding a non-wooden rattle. Aren’t you going to DO SOMETHING? DO SOMETHING NOW BEFORE SHE DIES!

Not all of them. Obviously. But some. You know what I’m talking about.

Sometimes I feel this grip of fear when I pack plastic Pampers in my bag, headed to a mother’s group, for fear of the eyeballs that may bore down into my soul — oh my god. The landfills. THE LANDFILLS PEOPLE.

And I know they’re right. But still. No need to be a dick.

Some of us are horrible people who can’t be eco-friendly ALL THE TIME.

And some of us are perfect.

You know who you are.

Recently I Googled “eco-friendly party favors” because Rocket’s 7th birthday is coming up and I would like to not buy a plastic goody bag full of plastic crap made in China that costs too much and nobody wants or plays with anyway. I’m trying to do my part, people. I am.

Anyway, I found a blog post on the topic and read through the comments. One of the comments was this one:

“NO, my son does NOT come home with green favors, not even from parties given by hybrid-driving, organic eating folks. And, I’m somewhat well known for my “Just Say No to Cheap Plastic Crap” post about environmentally unfriendly party favors. So I just stand there at the parties, trying not to look too exasperated or to be impolite…judge not….but yikes, it makes me crazy what my son brings home.”

And I was thinking “holy hell, lady. That’s so uncool. But I know you. I’ve met you. And you suck.” and then I thought ” Mother Earth called. She wants you to stop being such a douchebag.” But I changed it to “asshole” because I thought maybe that’s more appropriate.

Ha.

Because here’s the thing. Even if your cause is hip and noble and right, if you walk around belittling and dehumanizing people for not backing your cause completely – or not doing it well enough – you’re still a dick.

And in my opinion, there is nobody more annoying than an enlightened dick.

Because it’s the jerk shrouded in education, depth, profundity. It’s Asshole with an Edge. It’s mean people with data and goodness and “progressiveness” backing their game.

I just vomited a little in my mouth.

Standing there at somebody’s birthday party clothed in an impenetrable air of superiority, looking down on the miserable specimens handing out crap plastic party favors, makes this woman part of the very problem she claims to be working against. To me, there is no difference between the snobbery displayed in the materialistic label-whoring types who figure earth can go fuck itself because we’re all here to grab what we can and die… and that of the super-powered eco-friendly attachment parenting Nazis. It’s self-centeredness and judgment and superiority. Period.

Allow me to illustrate:

Woman 1: “Oh my God. Your purse isn’t Prada. Your car is cheap and old. Your kid is dirty and dressed in Old Navy. I’m so much better than you.”

Woman 2: “Oh my God. Your purse isn’t recycled materials. Your car is not a Prius. Your kid is eating non-organic food and wearing Old Navy. I’m so much better than you.”

You see? Same damn thing.

New label. Same douchebaggery. New angle. Same ego.

And I happen to have evidence that the good Mother Earth thinks these people are douchebags. How do I know? Because she told me.

She told me by pouring her rains on the eco-friendly and the polluters alike. Her flowers don’t shun the faces of those who choose “plastic” at the check-out line. Her oceans cool people who eat fast food and Whole Foods, without regard. And her mountains call to the SUV drivers just as clearly as to the Prius drivers in North Face and Tevas, eating homemade granola from locally sourced oats. Or whatever.

Oh yeah, I said it. I geeked out on you, completely. Damn hippie. But I love this planet. I believe the earth is the source of my soul and my spirit and someday I’ll return to her arms. To me there is no division between the words “god” and “earth” and “love.”

What? You didn’t know I was a total and complete freaking hippie? That’s probably because there’s Dawn on my kitchen sink and not the biodegradable stuff. Whatever. Dawn gets the stains out of my wool carpet. DON’T HATE.

Is it hypocritical for me to say I love the earth while driving an SUV? Maybe. But check this out. I’m also just a flawed human. I am hypocritical and contradictory and confused and lost and just trying to make small changes one minute at a time, slowly do a little more a little better. And in the process, I’m trying not to be an asshole.

I have a friend, Penny, who is very passionate about her family not being exposed to chemicals. Rather than use plastic bags, she like made these wrapper things out of muslin and beeswax…she’s created all these super inventive ways to not use chemicals. But you know what? When she tells me about the shit she’s doing I feel inspired, enlightened, empowered. Like I’m being taught something, shown something new and exciting and compelling. She doesn’t judge me for using Ziplock. She doesn’t stare at me in disdain when I whip out the Cheetos. She has chosen to live her life in a certain way and if I want to hear about it, she tells me about it, without hatred or pretense.

And that, I think, is what makes change. We do our best in our small circles, create ripples in the waters around us, lead by example, teach with patience. And when we’re standing there at a party and some kid hands our kid a goody bag full of junk, and he’s smiling and proud to be giving that gift, we take it, with genuine joy in our hearts, because we get to be there with humanity and live and receive…and we redouble our efforts. We love a little harder. We devote ourselves more to the cause we know to be true and right. And we trust that our efforts are making some difference, somewhere. Or they will, someday.

Cause I’ll tell you what. I want to be more like my friend. I hear about her super interesting solutions for bathing and cleaning and eating and I’m like “Dude. Janelle. You should try that. She’s telling you how to do it. Try it. See what happens.”

Mother Earth called about her, too. She said “Rock on, sista’. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Really, it all gets back to my trusty comment policy and life philosophy: Try not to be a dick.

And by the way, I found a great idea for cheap, “green” party favors. We’re painting little clay pots during the party and putting plants in them for the kids to take home.

BOOM.

Take that, evil party-favor lady.

I used to stop by blogs like SouleMama. I would gaze at the beautiful pictures of gorgeous kids in handmade clothing doing soul-nourishing activities. I ogled at the gardens and hills and trees and lakes. My jaw fell in wonder at the knitted creations and felted little dolls, the gorgeous linens, wooden push toys and fireside gatherings…comforted by the earthy hue of their existence…all these beautiful people doing beautiful things in beautiful places. It all just seemed so mellow, so wholesome and good. like soul food in blog form. And for a moment, while reading, I’d think “Maybe I could do that, too.”

But then one day I read this post, and I haven’t gone back, because I can’t take it. It’s like a mirror to my own parenting deficiencies. Even though SouleMama specifically states that her blog is just a PIECE of her life, and there’s “raised voices” and messes in her house, I don’t believe it because I don’t see it. It’s my problem. Not hers. I mean that. If she pulls off the shit she seems to pull off, mad respect.

As the classic line goes…”It’s me. Not you.”

Only in this case, it’s actually true.

Here was the deal-breaker for me…

“On a recent day in December, on a day much like any other day this year, I watched as Calvin rose earlier than anyone else in the house to take care of his chickens. He opened the coop, changed the water, freshened the food, brought them scraps, and gave the bedding a stir. Coming back in, with his littlest brother just toddling into the kitchen, Calvin made them both breakfast. There was some reading after that in front of the fire, and a game of chess with his other brother. At midday, he volunteered to help his Papa   butcher the remaining turkeys, taking breaks here and there to work in his treehouse, and target practice on a bale of hay with his handmade bow and arrow. As evening neared, we left the house…stopping first at the local natural foods store where he sells his eggs. Proceeding into the city, my little guy joined his friends backstage and donned his black tights, ballet slippers and stage makeup and danced his way onto the stage.

In between those moments, I am certain that he also held the baby while I took a shower, likely knit a row or two on his scarf, probably ‘polished’ his Converse (yes, really), may have made his little sister an orange fleece hat, and definitely listened to some hip-hop.” (www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2012/01/a-day-in-the-life.html?cid=6a00d8341c4ea853ef0162ffffffad970d)

And henceforth, in my head, every time somebody mentions SouleMama I think to myself…JOKINGLY, sarcastically, just for funsies…”You mean, Soule-Crushing Mama?”

Cause I read those lines and my mind goes like this:

Wait hold up. Your child got up by himself to do chores, cooked his sibling breakfast, volunteered to work, all by noon? He then played with a homemade bow and arrow, sold “his eggs” at a “local natural food store,” did ballet, built a treehouse, all while intermittently holding a baby, knitting, polishing his shoes and MAKING A FUCKING HAT?

And he did this in ONE DAY? And this is a day “like any other day?”

Holy mother of God I am doing something seriously WRONG.

Soule-Crushing.

Where’s the yelling? Where’s the cajoling? Where’s the mayhem? Where’s the bickering, exhaustion, whining?

I mean the sheer LOGISTICS of my life negate any possibility for a day like that one.

Are my kids the only ones acting like hyenas? Are my kids the only ones who chuck themselves on the floor in existential anguish when approached with the prospect of house work?

Where are the bad attitudes, the intermittent apathy, the “kids, please, just stop talking for ONE MINUTE because mom’s about to lose her shit” moments? Where are the temper tantrums, the messes, the screaming-matches? What about racing out the door, late one more time, and the baby takes a dump and you want to weep and the older kid won’t stop asking complex questions and the middle kid STILL doesn’t have his shoes on…?

Soule-crushing.

So I conclude “Either those women are super-powered, or they’re lying, or I’m so deficient it’s ridiculous and my kids are horribly behaved and I’m an even worse mother than formerly thought.”

You see the only part of that day I can even remotely relate to is the killing turkeys part. My husband does that. He’s a butcher. On his family’s ranch. However, I can promise you people, my kids sure as shit aren’t volunteering to help work out there. In fact, they’d pretty much rather recite lines out of 17th-century metaphysical poetry. I mean it’s hard work, it smells like ass, and it’s generally either freezing or like an oven.

When I ask Ava to cook for the younger kids she acts like I just asked her to donate her hair.

We have all kinds of wool we could felt. It’s sitting on a shelf in the craft closet, where it’s remained for the past two years.

We knit. Bi-annually.

The other day I asked the kids to help me plant some flowers in the front yard. Ava responds “you mean, so we can NOT water them and they can die like all the other ones and we can do it again in 3 months?”

Well, yes, smartass, that’s exactly what I mean.

Even the 10-year old gets it.

And this, my friends, is the best I got, and it sure isn’t much – a fact that’s compounded in my brain when I read about a “day like any other” that strikes me as some sort of homemaking ethereal existence of joy.

And she’s like “It ain’t no thang.”

Now don’t misunderstand me. Not only do I have nothing against women like SouleMama, I’m so freaking JEALOUS I COULD CRY.  I support the over-arching values being conveyed by bloggers like that. I admire their work, their devotion and the ethics they reinforce. I admire their LIVES. As she says, they’re only sharing a part of their lives – not the whole story.

But there’s this whiny child in me….”I want my life to be that beautiful!!” I want my kids to wake up knitting shit for the baby and crafting archery tools out of native woods. I want to spin yarn and make jam from berries I’ve grown, sew bonnets out of organic cotton and sell eggs at local stores. That shit is wonderful. It’s beautiful. It’s GOOD.

But the reality of my life is that I live in a small, unimpressive agricultural town in a small, totally unattractive 1970s house next to a dude who drinks Budweiser in his garage all day, smoking Marlboro Reds and doing drunk yardwork. On the other side of me is some gathering of individuals who enjoy marijuana, screaming at their dogs and bad country music. I work. My husband works. All the time. And yet, WE DON’T HAVE ANY FUCKING MONEY for Amish pushcarts. Everybody on my street works, all day. My kitchen floor is linoleum. You can hear the freeway from my front yard.

But I TRY, people, I TRY. We got rid of our T.V. We don’t eat many processed foods. Almost all our meat is raised and killed by my husband, I hate American consumerism, we read lots of books, I breastfeed and cosleep and use cloth diapers (um, along with the “other kind”)…I try to engage my kids in imaginative play…I take them outdoors, camping, swimming…but check it out:

I recently came home to a note from Mac, regarding our dogs. It read “Laser needs to poop. Odie is constipated.”

BEAUTIFUL.

You see, no matter what I do, my life just isn’t that beautiful. No matter how hard I try, it just isn’t aesthetically pleasing. It isn’t calm, wholesome or carefully crafted in gorgeous wood. It’s loud, messy, stinky and a little frenzied. It’s plastic and metal and occasionally, it’s frozen food. It’s a few successes and glorious days scattered among hours of messiness and rushing and struggling and flailing.

Those are the rhythms of my fucking day. Not exactly what the Waldorf dude had in mind, I don’t think.

Not because I love it that way, but because it just is. I read those blogs and I think “We should sell everything we own and move to Vermont and grow lavender.” But then I remember that this is where my people are, and I can’t leave my family, and my whole life is here. So this is it for me, for now.

Plus, we can’t afford a big old farm house in the country. Shit, we can’t afford to move anywhere. We can’t afford all wooden toys. And somehow, I can’t get my act together to even do ONE crafty project, let alone 6 in one day. And my children are pretty much always bickering and one day rushes into the next and I’m excited if I get two rooms clean or set up a little play room, or clean bags of crap toys out my house, or turn on some Jimi Hendrix while I clean, so my kids get cultured.

Basically, the women on these blogs are actually DOING the shit I pin on Pinterest and dream about.

So I don’t read that stuff anymore. Because even though it makes my heart smile, and I appreciate it, I just have to accept that my life isn’t that life, no matter how many Waldorf playstands I “pin.”

I am not talking shit about them.

I’m talking shit about me. About the fact that I can’t take it. About the fact that I can’t read those things and believe myself when I say “Janelle, it’s a BLOG. Nobody’s THAT PERFECT.” But they seem that perfect. They seem that capable. Their kids seem that good. All I see is pretty shit.

And clearly, my insecurities are just too big to expose myself to so much beauty. I should find it inspiring. But honestly, you know what I find inspiring? Going over to my lovely friend Kristi’s house, a Montessori teacher, and seeing the way she has crafted these simple, wonderful play spaces for her toddler, out of $10.00 Ikea items.

Because that, my friends, is within my reach.

And I like to stay within my reach. Well, at least close.

And I guess in the end, we do what we can do and appreciate our small, slightly pathetic attempts to nourish our souls, and those of our children.

Right where we are.

So that whole Push Present post, along with the brilliant comment by Stephanie over at Momma Be Thy Name (if you aren’t reading her, you should), got me thinking about “playdate calling cards.” So of course, like any sane human, I Googled that shit. I know, I’m a thinker.

I found out all sorts of interesting things. Not really. To be honest, it’s a rather insipid topic (which fully explains why I’m writing about it, right?).

I pretty much only learned that they go by multiple names: “mommy calling cards,” “mommy playdate cards,” and, for those into the whole brevity thing, “mommy cards.”

First of all, don’t call me “mommy.” I thought we’ve been over this.

Secondly, do these things exist because it’s too difficult to put somebody’s number in your fucking cell phone? Or is it just to be cute, even, perhaps, what I might call Excessively Cute? and you know how I feel about The Excessively Cute.

These are deep questions. Can’t be answered at one sitting.

However, while contemplating this inane topic, I realized that I could perhaps get behind the whole “mommy card” thing, were they not called “mommy cards,” not quite so damn cute, and didn’t imply that my ENTIRE IDENTITY can be conveyed by the words “mommy to Ava, Rocket and Georgia!”

So basically I pretty much can’t get behind them. Or I could, if they were recast into some totally inappropriate, renegade version, you know, something we might call “Cards to weed out the women who wouldn’t want to hang out with me or my offspring anyway.”

Not particularly catchy.

But alas, all the “mommy cards” I saw said variations of the aforementioned statement “mommy to ____” followed up with contact information. Some of them said “Let’s have a playdate!” at the top.

Now these simply will not work for me, so I figured I’d make a few that would.

I could hand these to women who chat with me at the park, seeing the in-public, well-behaved (more or less), not-saying-“fuck” version of me. [I try not to say the F word around other people’s children. Or my own, though that’s always a bit sketchy. Let’s change the subject.] And then, they would have fair warning that I am THAT type of mother with THOSE types of children…and then, she can run.

FYI, I don’t drink anymore, on account of the last one being TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY THE WAY I USED TO ROLL.

Sorry for the all caps. It’s a disease.

You know, now that I really think about it, I think I really, really like the idea of these things.

They are just so damn versatile. Don’t you think?

But seriously. Stop calling me “mommy.”

xo

What the hell happened up there with all that alliteration? How cute.

Anyway, let’s talk about “push presents.”

Unclear on the concept? Doubting the little voice in your head whispering the likely definition? Can’t quite grasp the implications? Well, just for funsies, let’s borrow Wikipedia’s definition (this is a BLOG, after all, not some academic research paper)… “A push present (also known as a ‘push gift’ or ‘baby bauble’) is a present a new father gives a new mother when she gives birth to their child.”

Setting aside all criticism of the heteronormativity being displayed in the aforementioned definition, let me just say that if I hear the words “baby bauble” ever again I’m going to vomit on my keyboard without restraint.

Anyway, before I looked it up – you know, delved deep into investigative journalism for the sake of this profound post – I suspected I would hate the idea of a “push present.” Just call it a gut feeling. However, after reading the following drivel from “Linda Murray,” this gut feeling materialized into a concrete disdain for the entire concept of “push present,” and the distinct awareness that I would punch my husband in the nuts if he attempted to give me one.

I mean seriously, if THIS is what it is, I don’t want anything to do with it:

“According to Linda Murray, the executive editor of BabyCenter.com, ‘It’s more and more an expectation of moms these days that they deserve something for bearing the burden for nine months, getting sick, ruining their body. The guilt really gets piled on.’ Other sources trace the development of the present to the increased assertiveness of women, allowing them to ask for a present more directly, or the increased involvement of the men in pregnancy, making them more informed of the pain and difficulties of pregnancy and labor.”

OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD do you really think some GIFT is going to make up for the fact that I now pee on myself when I sneeze, my tits kick it near my belly, and my stomach  bulges like an overflowing cupcake? (Also, Linda Bite Me Murray, “ruining their body?” REALLY? Screw you.)

Oh, honey, yes, I just endured morning sickness, a pin-sized bladder, waddling and back pain for nine months, culminating in the most excruciating few hours of my life, during which time I rallied the strength of 10,000 women to push a gigantic baby out of a barely-participating vagina – I shit on a table, got hemorrhoids and rips in inhumane places, and I now face cracked nipples, dripping breastmilk, emotional turmoil, no sleep and a lifetime of guilt and responsibility [having just become somebody’s MOTHER]… but that white gold ring you got me? Oh, yes. That makes up for it. I now see how appreciated I am. I see that you totally “get it,” sweet cheeks. Thank GOODNESS I’m appreciated.

What do they think we’re fucking stupid?

On what planet does the purchasing of a trinket or furniture or jewelry indicate a man’s “involvement in pregnancy” or make them “more informed of the pain and difficulties of pregnancy and labor?”

You want to show me you care? You want to give me a “push present?” Here. How about one of these:

Love me. Go to work. Don’t cheat. Wash the fucking dishes. Take the newborn OUT OF THE HOUSE so I can actually sleep (cause the living room ain’t cuttin’ it sunshine). Understand that I need my mother more than I need you right now. Realize I won’t have sex with you for at least 2 months and possible 6 more after that. Let my friends come over. Don’t ask me what I “did all day.” Hold your baby. Wear your baby. Learn to put him to sleep. Stand by my side.

Love your child. Be a father. Sit with me for a moment and gaze at this perfect creation.

Spend the rest of your life as my partner and friend and lover, raising this little being we just created.

How’s that for a damn push present?

Parents.com suggests some “amazing” gifts for women who “rocked Labor & Delivery,” [and they suggest we should “start dropping hints” to our “hubs” – What is wrong with these people?!] such as rings with the kid’s birthstone, necklaces, a fancy rocking arm chair, a family vacation, a big screen TV, and, my personal favorite: PLAYDATE CALLING CARDS.

I can’t even inch near the topic of “playdate calling cards.” Not enough time.

As often happens, I believe I can best summarize my feelings about receiving one of these items as a “push present” with a graph, or two.

First of all, it appears that a push present is intended to show the mother what a badass she is, to congratulate her on a job well done. Well, here’s my thought on that:

And really, here’s the bottom line: there’s nothing wrong with buying somebody a gift. I get that. HOWEVER, the reality of the situation, for me, is as follows: I don’t care what my husband were to buy me, it would not mean shit next to the newborn baby I am holding in my arms.

I made a pie chart to demonstrate.

You feel me here? I almost find it demeaning…as if some item, some material good, some PURCHASE could “thank me” for carrying and birthing a human being, for becoming a mother, for the courage and strength and power contained in a woman giving birth, could recognize the sacrifice I have made and will make for the rest of my life…and, perhaps most offensively, that this item would do so more powerfully than the child herself.

So yeah. For now, I’ll just stick with the baby, as the greatest fucking “baby bauble” in the world.

wretch.