What the hell's wrong with me?
I've got two children - a perfectly respectable family size - whom I love to bits. I feel more or less fulfilled in life, and even if I didn't, I realistically couldn't afford any more kids or fit them into my busy existence. So why do I have these terrible pangs of cluckiness? Pangs that make me forget two hideous, sickly pregnancies, followed by two dreadfully traumatic births? And the stress, the mess, the never having a moment's time to myself?
Most of the time I'm reasonably sensible about such things, but I have phases where the sight or sound of babies make me melt. I want to pick up other people's infants and subject them to extensive bouts of senseless smooching. I wonder if, in my case, coming from a Catholic family of five kids is a factor. Being from a big family is, for me at least, a blessing, and something I would have liked my own children to share. Is my cluckiness just my subconscious telling me I've chickened out - failed to complete my breeding mission? Will I eventually turn into one of those parents who nags their kids to provide me with grandchildren?
Sometimes, I have vague, compensatory ideas that I'll offer my home to foster kids when I'm more financially settled, older, wiser, and generally have my shit together. But I believe it takes a very special kind of person to care for these kids, and much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I'm not sure I'm up to the task.
Of course, I'm hardly alone in my bouts of cluckiness. For some women, it can actually be quite upsetting - I know women who've realised that the reproductive part of their lives is coming to an end, and have felt quite distressed that more kids is no longer an option. But I don't for a moment think cluckiness is an inevitable part of being female. Plenty of women I know don't experience it at all. And I know the odd bloke who's even more hopelessly clucky than I am.
How many THM readers share this strange affliction? Can anyone recommend an effective treatment? (And don't suggest having more babies!)
9 comments:
you couly try an iud called mirena? you can get as clucky as you like but getting it removed is not as easy as as just not taking the pill.
I have no answer, we have three and are planning number four. I am so clucky its not funny. but at least hubby is too so its not a problem.
I go through phases on it, but they are getting less and less frequent, perhaps as a side effect of my children getting older, and me realising that I don't want to go back to the toddler years now. Baby yes, toddler no! And I am enjoying my girls so much now - they are all very good at being kids, and they are so much fun.
There's probably also an element of getting older myself; at 43, I just don't want to buy into the risks attendant on another pregnancy.
But I love babies, love seeing them, cuddling them, playing with them. So I do still get the clucks every now and then.
Go visit my friend with twins! Honestly, a day at their house and it puts you right off going back to all that!
Otherwise, find someone else's baby to play with in short bursts - enough to satisfy the clucky factor, but then you give them back. :)
I'm exactly the same. My objective brain knows that more children wouldn't be prudent, but my heart just wants babiesBabiesBABIES NOW!!
It's that soft, small, snuggle smell and warm milky sucky sucky goo goo that makes my brain dribble out of my ears.
Sigh.
I never really liked babies much, except Wriggly of course. I didn't mind them, I just didn't get clucky to have a baby. I got clucky to have a pre-schooler, so when my kids get past that stage that's probably when I will be at the most danger of over-breeding.
Although I do love cuddling Wriggly, and he may have converted me to a secret baby clucker. Time will tell!
Go visit my friend with twins!
Actually, Keely, I do have twins. And an older child.
But you are right. If anything drags me out of the euphoria of cluckiness, it's the memory of just how hard it was when my twins were tiny.
I have to admit that the prospect of twins nearly scares the cluckage right out of me. I've often wondered, is there just so much work associated with twins that you don't get the same opportunities for fun stuff, bonding and snuggling?
Start hanging out with the childless. Avoid those who are pregnant/trying to get pregnant/have cute kids.
I was clucky as hell a little while ago but then realised it was because I was spending a lot of time around people adding to their families. Now all of a sudden I'm not at alllll clucky!
But then my situation is a tad different as most of my friends haven't even started having kids.
Post a Comment