Grieving my prebaby life and it's been 17 months since birth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to travel a lot for work before the baby came. We moved from dc to a college town while I was pregnant and I catch myself grieving my old life. I'm a stay at home mom now. I miss being able to jump on the train and go wherever I want or lazy weekend afternoons . I know this post is kind of stupid but does anyone else feel this way? It doesn't help me being in a college town. I do check out some of the young hot guys as they run by the house sometimes haha

Are you totally stuck at home with no car? What state do you live in now? I think that you're grieving your old life because you're bored and are having trouble thinking of ways to resolve your boredom without reverting exactly to your previous life. Consider that there are other options. If you can drive, you can get out of town for the afternoon. Maybe there isn't anywhere interesting to drive to, but my guess is that there's probably at least SOMETHING somewhere near you that's not totally boring. College towns also have a variety of things to offer entertainment-wise as well as a constant supply of babysitters.

[Anonymous]

Your life is going to get a lot more fun/flexible when baby is 3 or so. The kid has more stamina and develops more of a personality as opposed to just being something to take care of with little feedback.

Consider stopping at 1. It's lot easier to keep part of "you" with one child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to travel a lot for work before the baby came. We moved from dc to a college town while I was pregnant and I catch myself grieving my old life. I'm a stay at home mom now. I miss being able to jump on the train and go wherever I want or lazy weekend afternoons . I know this post is kind of stupid but does anyone else feel this way? It doesn't help me being in a college town. I do check out some of the young hot guys as they run by the house sometimes haha

I don't see why you can't give the 17month old to his father and jump on a train for an afternoon? Here sweetie, bubba is down for a nap, see you at dinner time

I moved out of state. We don't have public transportation here.

Don't you drive? The train is not the key element of this suggestion.

[Anonymous]

If you don't like it think about moving. I moved to a college town from D.C. and we both hated it and moved to an intermediate sized city one year later.

[Anonymous]

Work or. Have a good caregiver come in several days a week and go to gym or do something on your own. Therapy? Antidepressant?

[Anonymous]

OP, i'm 6 years out and just lamenting to my DH about not feeling like we have our own life. I think it is weird that some people don't feel this way. Honestly, i assume they had a way less interesting pre-baby life than me. My life IS *objectively* shittier and more boring than it was before my son was born. That said, around age 4, he became a lot easier and self-occupying and i feel like things have been better since then. It's ridiculous that people are suggesting you need therapy or drugs to deal with the reality that the best-case life with kids is less enjoyable than a good life pre-kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, i'm 6 years out and just lamenting to my DH about not feeling like we have our own life. I think it is weird that some people don't feel this way. Honestly, i assume they had a way less interesting pre-baby life than me. My life IS *objectively* shittier and more boring than it was before my son was born. That said, around age 4, he became a lot easier and self-occupying and i feel like things have been better since then. It's ridiculous that people are suggesting you need therapy or drugs to deal with the reality that the best-case life with kids is less enjoyable than a good life pre-kids.

That is just such bullshit. Some people enjoy being parents, and the reward of the joy and seeing your child grow and change outweighs the things sacrificed to have that.

Seriously, if you are this unhappy as a parent, you need some help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, i'm 6 years out and just lamenting to my DH about not feeling like we have our own life. I think it is weird that some people don't feel this way. Honestly, i assume they had a way less interesting pre-baby life than me. My life IS *objectively* shittier and more boring than it was before my son was born. That said, around age 4, he became a lot easier and self-occupying and i feel like things have been better since then. It's ridiculous that people are suggesting you need therapy or drugs to deal with the reality that the best-case life with kids is less enjoyable than a good life pre-kids.

That is just such bullshit. Some people enjoy being parents, and the reward of the joy and seeing your child grow and change outweighs the things sacrificed to have that.

Seriously, if you are this unhappy as a parent, you need some help.

I disagree. I think it's more likely that you and PP have a different outlook on life.

Most parents have dozens more points of conflict in their lives when they have children: someone cries, you have to stop doing this to do that, you repeat yourself 10 times, put on your shoes, stop hitting Johnny, eat this, go to bed, stay in bed, etc...

If we engaged in that type of relationship with a spouse or friend we'd ditch them. But we don't do that with our kids because we love them. Sure, the good outweighs the bad and it's overall a very valuable and enriching and rewarding relationship. If you're not having that kind of existence than I'd guess you either have an VERY easy child, or you don't parent much, or you don't value rules and consistency and are very free-range/laissez-faire (which seems problematic to me, and I do have friends who feel less stress because they take this approach, but whatever). But to say that people who recognize the hard and unpleasant aspects of parenthood are flawed or need help or are bullshit is probably not fair.