One of the most common advices I received from other moms during the early weeks of my pregnancy was, “Filter everything you hear.” 🙉🙉
I didn’t really grasp the need for this until the recent couple months when things really started to pile up and accumulate – and my little one hasn’t even entered our world yet! 😧
While I want to believe that everything I hear come with good intentions, I always thought having good intentions alone was never good enough. If you’re unable to actually be of anything positive to the recipient you claim to have good intentions toward, then you’re incredibly selfish. It just means your good intentions were good enough for you, even if they weren’t conveyed to the other party. Ergo, the other party is actually better off without your good intentions, hardly making them actual good intentions at all.
So, if you have your wonderful good intentions, but haven’t actually thought through about how the eventual result would be – please, leave me alone. I’m better off without your good intentions. 👋😌
“Don’t you want the best for your child??”
I’ve heard this too many freaking times these past months. 😵😵
I got this when I share about how I planned out my maternity leave. “You’re not choosing to have enough time with your baby! You’ll regret it!”
This person actually kept repeating herself over a few occasions, no matter how many times I said I thought it through and am firm with my decision. One day I just exploded and responded with, “The only thing I regret now is letting you believe I care about what you think.” Best part? She had the audacity to somehow be offended that I didn’t appreciate and accept her good intentions. 🙄
I got this when I take hand-me-downs from other moms. “It’s not like you and Mark cannot afford it. Why are you being so cheap with your firstborn??”
Simple. Just because we can ‘afford’ something, doesn’t actually mean it’s affordable and makes economic sense. Babies outgrow everything in practically 2 hours. It not only doesn’t make sense financially, it’s also a waste of environmental resources. Why you being so stupid about basic personal finance and environmental sustainability?
I got this from salespeople when I’m shopping for baby stuff and choose to go for the cheaper options. “Mommy, your child deserves the best!!” (Which always translates to the most obscenely expensive…)
Typically I just ignore when they say this to me, but there was once I was feeling particularly annoyed and asked her, “Are you saying this because you, a complete stranger, somehow have my child’s interests at heart? Or because you have a sales target to hit?”
In the beginning, I started questioning myself and my decisions – am I really making the right choices?? Why are these people saying these things? Does it seem like I’m actually not making the best decisions for my baby??
But, over time, I learned to filter and think with my brain – not respond with my emotions (that are currently hyped up with hormones too).
“If you’re a loving/good mom, you must breastfeed.
You know right??”
This is probably one of the most insensitive and cruel things anyone can say to a new mom.
Why?
For those who don’t know, not every mom is able to breastfeed. No matter how much she wants to, her body just doesn’t produce milk for her baby. And that feeling SUCKS.
As a new mom, you have absolutely no idea if you’re able to produce enough milk… or any milk at all. So, to have such expectations that you have practically no control over, and tagging it to how you are as a mother – is downright diabolical! 😡
Of course, there are some mothers that choose not to breastfeed at all. And if that’s what she wants, she should be respected for her choice. It’s her baby, her body, her life.
At the beginning when I was told them quite a few times (especially by older aunties), I allowed myself to get unnecessarily stressed. 😥 I even started tearing up one day when I felt my breasts weren’t getting larger with milk. 😭 But then, I sat myself down and forced myself to think logically:
- If I could provide ample breast milk, then great! 🤗
- If not? Well, it’s not the end of the world. Thanks to modern day advancements, babies are still able to get all their nutrients through milk formulas. 🍼
- More importantly, it’s not my fault if my body is unable to produce sufficient milk for my baby. As much as it’s a desire, it’s also not within my control. 😌
- This, therefore, cannot be used as a measure of how much I love my baby, or how good a mother I am. ❤️👶🏻
- My body is already put through so much change and pain to bring my child into this world. I should be thankful to it, instead of imposing others’ expectations on it. 👍🏻
“You’re making your child live with your cats??
The fur isn’t good leh…”
B*tch, please. You know really what isn’t good?
People who think that pets are dispensable.
My cats are my family. And it’s incredibly important to me that my child is kind to animals. (Preferably to humans too, but even I find that a challenge sometimes…)
Just so we’re clear, Mark and I have already made our own arrangements during his early stages. So, our son gets to grow in a ‘cleaner’ environment. However, the cats are going to be very much a part of his life, as they’re a part of mine. 😽
What I think really isn’t good is for us to ditch our responsibilities to the cats we rescued and adopted. What sort of example will we be showing to our child?
We’ll be showing him that living things are dispensable. We’ll be showing him that promises and responsibilities can be broken and thrown aside. We’ll be teaching him to be a real asshole – like those wanks that actually told me I should rehome my cats, for the wellbeing of my child.
And this is just to me alone; I’m sure that there are other mommies who had it worse. 😣
Many mommies get so guilt-ridden that they fall into an abyss of depression and that is what affects how they are as mothers. It isn’t so much about what they did or didn’t do – it’s about how they’re made to feel about what they did or didn’t do.
What really intrigues me is how much we seem to care about the opinions of people who clearly don’t care about our feelings at all. 🥺 When I thought through of all the people that said such things to me, they’re actually people I hardly know or don’t even like. So, therefore, their opinions shouldn’t be worth a single f**k, especially over something so personal in my life.
And I hope other mommies can realise this for themselves too! 😇
It might be easy for us to just say, “Don’t care about what they say.” But it actually takes a personal journey of self-discovery, awareness and strength to actually not care about opinions shared – especially when it’s related to something you genuinely care about (like your baby).
Through all this, I learned:
- Contrary to what I’ve always hoped, not everyone is nice and kind. Sometimes people say/do things that hurt you, simply because they can. And that sucks, but it is what it is.
- Empathy is a rare skill that you REALLY cannot expect from everyone.
- Not all advice come from genuinely good intentions. They sometimes come from self-seeking desires to feel superior, instead of actually being helpful.
The world always tend to get a bit bleaker the more milestones I reach. 🥺 But at the same time, my life seems to get brighter. 🤩 Because I can identify and appreciate the ones that genuinely love and support me, through it all. Because I get better at seeing through emotional blackmail, manipulation and all that bullsh*t 💩, and I also get better at not letting them touch me.
All this telling assholes to f**k off is incredibly liberating and happiness-inducing, you should try it some time too. I highly recommend it! 👍👍
Thanks for taking the time to read my post! 😘 Till next time.
XOXO, G.
Gera Shen 