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I Was a Rotten Mother With a Lousy Baby
I bought in to the delusion that my baby and I would be “naturals.”
Preparation
When I preparing for my baby, years ago, it was in a Kool-Aid culture in which your work on the little clothes, the special artistic touches, the classes, the over-the-top showers, all promised to enhance your “bonding” with the baby.
It hasn’t changed. The “infant industrial complex” is burgeoning. New rituals have been added, like gender disclosure parties which make me a little crazy.
It’s one thing to have a party celebrating the coming of a child. But to go through the idiocy of announcing 1) that the newborn will have a gender and 2) it will be one out of two possibilities — either way, it’s a done deal and a huge waste of time and money. If it is such a damn big deal, why are we going to great lengths to tell boys and girls that gender is not such a big deal?
On top of this, as a psychologist, I had the weight of my knowledge of the critical attachment between mother and child, and the nightmare of results if things don’t go well.
Waiting
On my due date, I was ready.
She wasn’t. So I had to wait 24 hours, during which my doctor and husband focused 50% of…
