Masochistic Mommy

In last week's post (get your butt over here y'all), I explained the self-serving mechanisms involved in mommy guilt: the ways in which guilt forms an addictive cycle. In this post I'm going to explain the guilt-triggering mechanism in more depth and - most importantly - suggest how to crack the cycle. Seat-belts, people! Let's begin with a radical consideration:  If you don’t want to feel a certain way, just don’t feel it . I know that’s far easier to say than to do, especially after a long time of forming habitual butthurt to certain things. Your brain has spent months, maybe even years, beating a neural pathway to butthurt, and you’ll need to retrain it. Let me explain.. The Voluntariness of Guilt We humans are happy to take full responsibility for  some  of our emotions no matter how unbidden, so long as they fit into our personal agendas (pride, love, compassion, whatever). We deny responsibility for others (guilt, envy, lust) due to the most self-serving of reaso

Everyone loves Roosevelt's motivational mantra: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. It adorns fridge magnets and keychains the world over. But it seems, there is one group of people who don’t appreciate this sentiment. In fact, they argue exemption from it. Yup, I’m talking about mothers. For a group of people who celebrate so passionately their prerogative of choice, it is bitterly ironic that mothers are keen to dispose of this belief when their emotions are involved. “Stop being judgemental, I should not be made to feel guilty” is their mating call. It’s so common that almost everyone takes heed, lest they be seen as a kind of evil Morton Downey Jr. Yet contrary to what some mothers and stand-up comedians may claim, women are not fragile simpering wallflowers at the mercy of iron-tongued tormentors. They are not passive pawns pushed around by the force of others’ words. The image of the female as a boiling pot of feelings, a puppet to her emotions, easily t

Mother Nature is a hypocritical sod. Check this out: The raison d'etre of your existence is reproduction. So why then, does good ol’ Mother Nature muzzle our fertility while we’re lactating? And is there anything we can do to get pregnant without pulling the plug on breastfeeding? In this post I will answer both questions in turn. What gives me the confidence to speak about this issue? Firstly, I've been there (conceived under 6 month postpartum whilst exclusively breastfeeding), secondly, I've conducted a shed-load of academic research into breastfeeding fertility. A word of warning before we begin: As a result of reading this, you may find yourself up the duff, toot sweet. Want closely-spaced siblings? Dream of tandem-feeding? Read on! Aunt Flo takes a vacation While breastfeeding a lot of mothers notice that ‘shark week’ no longer occurs every month. Yet, as with many physiological happenings that appear idiotic, Mother Nature has a plan. You see, every time you bring yo

If you’re been alive for the fast five or so years, you may have noticed something peculiar: the emergence of a new zeitgeist of contempt for breastfeeding. Even a cursory look at the lifestyle section of many online newspapers reveals a contemporary back-catalogue now groaning under the weight of the collective bitching of a vocal minority of failed breastfeeders. In this post I question the motives of these failed breastfeeders, let’s call them ‘formula apologists’ – the folk who make it their raison d'etre to criticise breastfeeding - that is, to criticise its promotion and its significance. You see, nobody comes immaculately to the infant feeding debate. Its discussion can never be abstract. As I discussed in the chapter of my book  aptly titled ‘Defensiveness’, the agenda of these people is not as transparent as they would hope. Ask yourself this question: by virtue of being failures, do these people really qualify as noted dispensers of feeding advice? Do they have the well-b

How many children should I have? It’s the question that plagues many of us breeders. Some never fully resolve the budding uncertainty of the “What If…” conundrum. What if I have just one more? What if I stop at the traditional two? What if I don’t give my child any siblings at all? This article will help to alleviate those concerns using leading sociological, economical and even physiological research. 1 CHILD: The pros: The percentage of women having only one child has nearly doubled over a generation ( Kelley 2007 ). In fact, only children are America’s fastest growing family demographic ( Hass 1999 ) so your kid will not be as unusual as they would have been a generation ago. Much of the stigma has been consigned to history ( Blair 2013 ). Only-children tend to have more successes in life. Only-children tend to have a higher proportion of successes in life and that they tend to have higher I.Q.'s than any other family setup ( Goleman 1985 ). Parents outnumber children. Your exis