I’ve had several conversations with several different friends that all end up back at the same conclusion – perspective. Example – a friend’s friend’s child was recently diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. He isn’t even 2 and his prognosis isn’t good. As a parent, who among us can imagine much worse. Then you get started thinking about how the parents of this young boy wake up every day and face the reality that he might die and it just seems so much to take.

Then inevitably, conversation drifts onto something mundane, possibly even a complaint or venting about something frustrating a child did that day.

Which then leads back to this – how can we be complaining when this other mom has a child with cancer?

Here’s the thing – who said that we can’t appreciate what we have and be so grateful for what we have – but that we still can’t vent or complain about smaller things in life? I think no one said that. It’s all about your perspective and if you are balanced with it.

So then I found myself reading theNYT Motherlode blog, there is a guest essay about Infertility. The author candidly explains her struggles with infertility, her profound disappointment and how this has impacted how she views herself as a woman. I respect her candor and I cannot imagine how exhausting the path of infertility is. Having grown up in a house where my mother was very honest about the five years and countless miscarriages she had, however, this is a subject that I was exposed to for as long as I can remember. The path my parents took ended with them adopting my older sister. My mom later went on to have three more girls.

So when the guest author of the NYT so forcefully slams the door on adoption, I began judging her. As one of the many commenters to this piece pointed out, pregnancy is not motherhood, raising a child is motherhood – and how you get that child isn’t what makes you a mother. How you raise the child, how you love the child, how you support the child – that is what makes you a mother – and a good one or a bad one.

The she goes on with resentment towards parents who talk too much about their children – how we should keep others’ feelings in check – for we don’t know what they’ve been through or how badly they have wanted a child.

Is this code for – hearing about your kids is boring – or is it – be sensitive because I wanted a child and never had one?

What I appreciated again from the comments to the piece were the people who said without apology – I’m going to talk about my kids, they are a part of my day – just as having a bad day at work or getting stuck in horrible traffic – are parts of the day.

And I totally agreed with this point – furthermore, sometimes parenthood makes you want to throw yourself off the roof of a building – and you can say that and still love your kids and be grateful that you were able to have children.

But again – if you have the financial means for years of infertility treatments – then you have the financial means for adoption – so don’t claim you can’t be a parent because you can’t get pregnant.  Choosing not to adopt is a totally different story – and not a decision to be judged – but by choosing not to adopt – you are choosing not to be a parent.  

So how does this fit back in to perspective? I think that’s what this is all about. Something bad or challenging or unexpected happening to one person, doesn’t then mean that the rest of us seem ungrateful or uncaring for talking about, cheering about, or complaining about the smaller things in life. I think it is naive and selfish to assume otherwise and went from empathizing with the author of the guest post to genuinely disliking her and her pity party.

An otherwise typical playdate last week resulted in some great blog fodder. We were at the preschool playground, getting the kids together before the new school year (FINALLY) starts. A friend and I just met a mom who is new to the school. Her older one is in DD1’s class and she mentioned she had a two week old at home.

At this point, we’d known her about 90 seconds. I couldn’t have told you her name if my life depended on it.

My friend remarks on how good this woman looks, she  said she herself looked so butt 2 weeks post baby.

I echoed the sentiment, I was so fat and bloated and blah blah, she looked great.

Abruptly she says “I should let you know, I had a surrogate.”

Dead silence.

My friend’s mouth gaping open a bit.

AWKWARD is the only word fitting for this situation.

Now, let’s get a few things straight. I am in full support of surrogacy, have a baby any way you can get one. There is no judgment going on here. It was just so unexpected and awkward and seeing as how I couldn’t even remember her name, it just seemed strange that she busted out with that statement. Why not just accept the compliment and move on?

So I tripped around saying how she still looked really good, not tired at all, my eyes were so puffy and swollen 2 weeks home with a new baby.

Meanwhile my mind was racing with the following questions:

How did you find the surrogate?

How much did it cost?
Is your older child also from a surrogate?

Same one?

How come you chose that route?

Did you buy the woman a gift for delivering you a healthy baby? (recall: i am not a minimalist. i like things. if i’m ever your surrogate, i want a nice present. and a personal trainer.)

I mean, if she’s going to offer up something so personal, can I follow up with equally as personal questions? Naturally my equally nosy older sister has tasked me with finding out the answers to these questions as soon as possible.

But see, I think  there was so much more to this exchange than the awkward moment and wondering if she shared  just a bit too much information 90 seconds into meeting one another.

It’s about our need to comment on women’s bodies. Aren’t we all guilty?

The chorus of anger towards those who comment on our bodies and growing size while preggo can be heard loud and clear here on KT. We want to pillage the homes of the offenders. We want to respond with mean comments on how much bigger they’ve gotten since the last time we saw them too. We want to claw their eyes out. We hate them. Those commenters.

But what about after we’ve had the baby? Do the same rules apply? I, for one, love being told how great I look post baby – even when I know the person doesn’t mean it, because I crave my old body so much. You know, because my old body is so hot.

Seriously, I hope someone will compliment me. I’m open for business and practically soliciting body comments. Many of us love to show off our cleavage post baby because our boobs are big and round. We are screaming out – comment.

So all it takes is our placenta coming out for our perspective to shift?

Did we have a right to tell this woman she looked great? It’s really none of our business, we were just saying what we like to hear 2 weeks later.

And how fascinating that we assume that because a woman has a newborn, she has just given birth to that baby. We all know dear friends, if not ourselves, who have had trouble getting pregnant and had to take many paths to get to this point, so why the assumption that she has given birth?

Do we have a double standard with body comments pre and post baby?