My wise and esteemed colleague Trine wrote last week about the many (17 if she is to be believed) advantages to being a millennial mum and I (negative Nancy that I am) feel compelled to write a riposte.
10 reasons why life is harder for millennial mums:
1. Baby-led parenting
Okay, baby-led parenting is not exactly a new thing but it is an art that sort fell by the wayside in our culture for the last few centuries. My grandmother, by all accounts, adopted a style of parenting more akin to baby-less parenting – as in she would be in one room and the baby would be in another most likely being tended to by one of her other seven children. Don’t get me wrong I’m an enthusiastic proponent of baby-led parenting (a baby-follower, if you will) but sometimes (when I’m very, very tired) the baby-less approach looks quite appealing.
2. MILFs
In my granny’s day this is what a 40-year-old mother-of-three looked like:
Now they look like this:
I know it’s not a competition (and I’m too tired to try anyway…) but still… C’MON.
3. Children should be seen AND heard (AND encouraged)
Up until the 1960s the notion of childhood was barely a thing, never mind a thing that needed to be cherished and preserved and made into an unforgettable magical experience. Back then the benchmark for a good childhood was Angela’s Ashes. As long as you were doing better than Frank McCourt et al., you were doing all right.
4. Family planning
Family planning (in this country at least) didn’t exist, so parents of old never had to put up with the constant question of when, how many and with what age gaps they would be producing children. Sure the lack of questioning came from perhaps a more puritanical, repressed place than simply respecting the privacy of others but repression is something our current society needs just a shade more of in my opinion. And yes I’d like virtual strangers to refrain from asking me about my plans for future copulation.
5. The Internet
In the good old days, you only had your mother, your mother-in-law and Mrs. Caughlin from across the road second guessing your parenting efforts. Now there is an entire online community of ‘perfect parents’ out there waiting to pounce on your every misstep.
6. Accessories overload
The pram comes with a coffee cup holder attachment. Do I need a coffee cup holder attachment? Should I even be drinking coffee while breastfeeding? And, if so, should I then be suspending the hot coffee above the child as it lies in the pram? Does a millennial baby not come with a coffee cup holder attachment? *Draw breath* There’re too many baby-related gadgets these days. I am absolutely confident that we don’t need 87 per cent of the gadgets. I predict future ‘enlightened’ generations will scoff at how millennial mums relied on Scandinavian smart design in much the same way that we baulk at this space-saving baby cage.
7. The iMummy baby apps
Millennial mums can receive an update to their phone to remind them to feed, to change the baby, to give the baby a nap, to basically nurture their loin-fruit. This is all convenient and everything but sometimes I can’t help but feel like my smartphone is a better mother than I can ever be. Every time I receive that email from Baby Centre I feel a pang of failure. “Your baby is now 17 months” reads the subject box. I am no longer able to keep track of his age in days, weeks and months. I’ve been saying that he’s a year and a half since Baby Centre told me he was 13 months. Every time my phone tells me how to raise my child I feel my maternal instinct eroding just a little bit. Soon mothering will go the way of handwriting, we’ll have forgotten how to do it through lack of practice.
8. Social media
Not only did one not have to manage their own online presence pre-internet, but they also didn’t have to manage the online presence of their offspring. No uploading of cute baby outfits or life-affirming “I feel so blessed” status updates to post (or read). Heaven.
9. Judgement
Back in the day, motherhood just didn’t seem to be as much of a ‘thing’. The open letter of the “Dear mum running into the shop and leaving your baby in the car” variety didn’t exist. My granny and her friends, according to my mother and aunt at least, didn’t pay much heed to their own children never mind what others were doing with their offspring.
10. Yoga pants
It has become completely socially acceptable, nay actually fashionable to saunter around wearing workout wear and yoga pants in everyday life. Not everyone looks good in yoga pants. I don’t look good in yoga pants and I believe that, statistically speaking, it is unlikely that you look good in yoga pants… so I would prefer not to have to see you in yoga pants and you don’t have to see me in yoga pants. Let’s all just wear real pants again.
That is all.
