| A word to the wise | | Print | |
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People mean well, when they offer you advice, prod your stomach, smile knowingly and give you warnings of sleepless nights, mortifyingly painful labour, and men being useless. Don't they? Well, whether they actually do or not, it is certainly what I have to tell myself through a gritted-teeth smile when, throughout every stage of my pregnancy, I found myself bombarded with not-asked-for advice. If I wanted advice, I had a favourite website, two favourite books, and a mum who had five healthy babies who I would turn to. If I wanted to bitch, I had a sister, partner and friends. In other words - plenty of people to form a support crew for me, as well as a distraction, because sometimes, you really, really want to forget about being pregnant and talk about ANYTHING ELSE. But still, I found people in checkout queues, clothes shops, at weddings, work functions, work meetings, even strangers who sat next to me on the train, all had something to say about every aspect of my, and every other person in the world's pregnancy. Whether it be about foods to eat and not to eat, pain relief during labour, immunisations, exercise, breast versus bottle - anything baby related, in fact -everyone has an opinion, and everyone is right. I was surprised to hear that unless I saw a person to align my chakras before the birth, my baby would be traumatised for life by the experience. Also that eating a ham sandwich was seen as some as tantamount to murder, ditto for any takeaway food. And that if I chose not to breastfeed my child, I would be condemning him to a life of obesity, disease, and a sense of alienation. (This came as a surprise to me, being a bottle-fed baby myself). Some felt I should not do any exercise throughout, others felt that jogging a few k's a day was fine up until Week 38. Some immediately told me I had to think about siblings, to avoid rearing a spoiled child with lesser social skills: others said I was being irresponsible if I did not stop at one, what with the cost of kids, Earth's overpopulation, etc. Usually I take people's opinions with a grain of salt and am good at smiling and nodding, but when hormones are rampaging around my body with free reign, I repeatedly found it could be a little dangerous to be around these self-appointed experts. I could cry, get defensive and snap, argue, get frightened and believe them - depending on how my mood was that day. Please, please, people: unless expressly asked for them, please keep your opinions - and your hands, come to that - to yourself. First-time mums are probably among the most uncertain and terrified people you could meet, so don't make it worse. Second, third and fourth-time mums probably already have their own ideas, opinions, methods and philosophies, so best leave them alone too. Just let us all get on with it!
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