Notes from a Non-Breeder: TMI
The new honesty around parenting has made me scared to have kids.
by Emily Matchar
June 23, 2009
So here are your choices: 1) Move to France, 2) Get your tubes tied, or 3) Prepare to spend the rest of your life wiping diarrhea off your forehead and listening to something called "The
Wiggles" on infinite repeat . . .
You might ask why I, a childless twenty-something, need to read these mommy confessionals — what
the blog Jezebel delicately terms "torn-vag tell-alls." Shouldn't I be reading
Cosmopolitan and focusing on Skill #3 on the "57 Ways to Drive Him Wild" list?
Well, as someone who hopes to have kids within the next, oh, decade or so, I'm curious for the glance into my own potential future that magazines provide. And beyond that, I like the candor and biting wit of mommy lit, a kind of dark honesty about everyday
life that's hard to find in mainstream non-motherhood-related publications. Even in this day and age, most women's magazines are still all about how to be, or at least appear, perfect: "11 Perfect Swimsuits to Minimize Your Trouble Spots," "701 Tips for the
Perfect Summer Wedding," ad nauseum. Blechh!
Motherhood seemed more appealing when all I saw was the
US Weekly version.I appreciate that the current tell-it-like-it-is movement is a reaction to the kind of repressive feminine ideals that have dogged women since long before magazines were even invented. Still, sometimes all this honesty freaks me out. Did I really need to
know what an umbilical hernia looks like, or hear about how
mastitis feels like your breast is being chewed by a vole? Frankly, the whole motherhood thing seemed a lot more appealing back when all I saw was the
US Weekly version — you know, the one in which Angelina Jolie totes a cherub straight out of a Renaissance painting on her slender, Versace-clad hip before handing it off to an adoring Brad so she can jet to Cambodia to shoot
Tomb Raider 17.
I could just stop reading this stuff and stick to US Weekly instead. But I won't. Yeah, it might scare me off having kids, at least for a few years. But when I do, I'll be confident that I've already heard the worst, that there will be no ugly surprises
around the bend, that my experience can't possibly be as terrifying as hers, or hers, or hers. Right? Right?
©2009 Emily Matchar and Babble Media
About the Author
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Emily Matchar is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Outside, Gourmet, CHOW, AOL Food and others, and in various Lonely Planet travel guidebooks. Find her at emilymatchar.com or (sometimes) in Chapel Hill, NC. |
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