Read other letters about this article

• Sunday, January 29, 2006 09:21 PM

  The consequences of childbearing

  Yes, I agree that it's long past time we had an honest dialogue about the physical and emotional consequences of childbearing, because expecting women to look and behave the same before and after is completely unrealistic. I know that celebrity moms do, but they have personal trainers, dieticians, plastic surgeons and full-time nannies.

  The rest of us are left to muddle through with what we have, and we are rarely prepared for it. Nor are our husbands. Years of idealized, televised visions of motherhood clash violently with reality, which is in fact a changed body and a changed set of priorities. Both have to change if the baby is going to survive, because human children are born while they're still essentially embryos. It takes a lot of work to care for an embryo. A new baby is not an idle amusement or a plaything, nor is a growing child. Seismic shifts in the relationship should be expected when partners becomes parents.

  We also tend to think of women as objects of physical beauty whose primary purpose is to provide sexual gratification. This is fundamentally warped. We are not window dressing for our vaginas. Men who marry for beauty tend to be less content in their marriages, as Neil Chethik discovered. Something to keep firmly in mind when choosing a wife.

  We also have a distorted notion of marriage itself. It's as if we assume that we are entitled to a person who will gratify our every need for the rest of our lives. I can't imagine anything less realistic. The notion of a happy marriage as one in which nothing has ever gone wrong is even more warped.

  Is any of this easy? No. But when did we get the idea that life was supposed to be easy? I know I sound like my grandmother, but jeeze!

  —Ann Regentin
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel