I used to think that having a baby would be a breeze; my mom used to tell tales of strength and glee at having had four babies in five years. "I just loved being pregnant. I never wanted to stop!"
Weird.
Now I'm starting to realize that 1) I have neither my mom's tolerance for pain nor her childbearing hips, and 2) fun pregnancies are probably less common than I had thought. Few and far-between. I wrote a post last year about how cute this pregnant woman at work was. Now that she's back from maternity leave, we're learning just how tough it really was for her. Looking back, she took and awful lot of bathroom breaks.
Behold: The truth about pregnancy!
In a nutshell, pregnancy is rough. It's a huge physical and emotional responsibility. As I type, I am watching a childbirth special on TLC, with a woman wailing in pain after having missed the epidural boat. Yikes. I can't imagine subjecting unwilling women to this. What about young women? Girls? Torture! Childbearing is not for the unwilling. Stupid anti men.
If you could get pregnant, would you still be an anti?
You know, just yesterday this came up in the 3-guy group in my art class. I suspect that art classes attract a more liberal group than the population at large, but I usually avoid politics all the same, especially the mine field of abortion.
ReplyDeleteBut I was pleasantly when we all agreed that: A) If we (against biology, ala Sims 2) became pregnant today, at age 17, we would get abortions and B) If men could get pregnant birth control and abortion would be widespread, easily available, and have no stigma attached to it. If we have the technology, might as well use it.
Yeah, and anti-abortion women pretty much baffle me. YOU may be ok with your pregnancies in the midst of them or in retrospect, but it may not be the same for everyone else!
ReplyDelete(On the other hand, I also know women who have become newly pro-choice, or become even more strongly pro-choice, after having their first child: they say things along the lines of "Raising a child you really deeply wanted is hard work enough - you shouldn't force parenthood on someone unwilling", which makes a lot of sense to me.)
Although I agree completely that pregnancy is rough, can be dangerous and is not simply some "inconvenience,"- I think we also have a duty to remind people that pregnancy (and childbirth!) can be enjoyable and pain free (even without the drugs).
ReplyDeleteIt's extremely difficult to balance between "pregnancy is a breeze" and "pregnancy is hell." I think the best way to go about it is to say "pregnancy is ____ for some people," and "pregnancy is ____ for other people." This would just be a beginning, since even one person can experience pregnancy in different ways! Or perhaps, instead of saying pregnancy IS something, we say pregnancy CAN BE something.
It all goes back to being fully informed. I never want to see the day where a woman chooses abortion because she heard rumors that pregnancy is always too hard for every woman, or that childbirth is always painful for every woman. Each woman needs to make choices and decisions based upon her personal situation.
Ha! While we're at it, here's a handy guide for those among us who have made their decision to pass on all that pregnancy biz for now: http://jezebel.com/5120848/a-girls-guide-to-treating-symptoms-of-unwanted-pregnancies
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder how much of your mom's "love" of pregnancy had to do with the type of indoctrination, whereby she could not actually be honest about feelings. Often, a kind of reaction formation (Freud) takes over and one says exactly the opposite of their true feelings. Kinda like right wing homophobes preaching about the sanctity of marriage. . .they are often subliminally fighting those urges in themselves. Your mom may have actually hated birting and raising bellie fruit.
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