Help Issue 4 - Part I

Motherhood:
Hobby or Career?
by Mary Pride

Several HELP readers have recently sent me articles from baby and parenting magazines featuring the topic, "Should we have a second child?"

I could say a lot about the tone and angle these articles take. All reminded me of a phrase from a recent article in Chronicles magazine: "If they loved children, their joy was well-hidden, for they discussed children with all the humor, all the joie de vivre [French for 'joy of life'] of a collection of hypochondriacs."

What struck me the most, however, was not the mercenary spirit with which the writers totted up the financial costs of child-raising. Nor was it the poor relationships they seemed to have with their husbands (one writer's husband's first reaction to the suggestions of a second baby was "You want it, you raise it!") What stood out the most, at least to me, was the appalling ignorance of the writers, and the people they interviewed, of what children are and what children need.

The list of expenses couples incur when they have children printed in one article read like a laundry list of needless waste. Starting with the hospital birth and proceeding on through disposable diapers and designer clothes (how else could anyone spend $700 clothing a second baby?), they finally wound up at that great necessity of modern life, daycare. The cost, one found, of adding a tiny seven-pounder to the family added up to $7,000 in the first year alone: a thousand dollars a pound.

But the author, a careful researcher, did not stop at assessing financial costs of a second child. She also interviewed friends who had had or who were contemplating having second children, to find out what emotional costs children added to a marriage. The bottom line, it appeared, was that life practically went into limbo when a second baby appeared. No longer could a couple do anything, go anywhere, have any time together.

Are these people from outer space? No, they are just amateurs. They have been taught to approach motherhood as a hobby, and as hobbyists they lack the skills of seasoned pros.

Almost everything written on the subject of child-rearing today comes from parenting amateurs-yuppie moms of one or two. Naturally, their tone is negative, since they don't know what they are doing and resent children interrupting their freedom. That's probably why just about everything written to first-time moms is either negative about children ("Here's advice on how to avoid having another baby . . . and how to survive the miserable time you're about to have with your first") and/or ignorant ("Babies should never be taken to bed with their parents because you will probably roll over on them in the night and smother them to death").

Now you have a chance to change all that!

What I'm asking for are your ideas, stories, quotable quotes, and so on as to what motherhood is really like and how to do it. Write as if you're talking to women who know absolutely nothing, because today so many do! Keep it short and simple, as if you were writing instructions in a manual. Some possible subjects: childbirth options, the joy of breastfeeding, taking care of more than one child at a time, teaching a child to feed himself and change himself, potty training, sibling rivalry, life with your husband after baby is born, night feedings, life with a second or third or tenth child-in other words, all the subjects covered in typical baby magazines, only this time from the viewpoint of experience.

My goal is to produce a booklet that can be given to first-time moms. They need help in order to face down the relentless anti-child propaganda they will be facing the minute their baby is born. We may print it ourselves on our new second-hand printing press, or possibly work it into a small book.

If your work is used, I will acknowledge your contribution in print, so those of you with a secret ambition to become writers will have something to quote on your resume.

Want to help? Then write on your submission that this is for "The Booklet." If you want me to acknowledge that I have received your submission please enclose a postcard. And please include permission to quote you!