If you’re a mommy martyr, what’s behind it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wished my mom had friends (still do!), wished my mom took more care of herself, wished she put her marriage above children. I do love my mom, but she was lax on discipline and it shows with my sibling.

I've tried hard to not be a martyr and would disagree with a lot of your items that you think are "better". I think CIO has enabled my kids to be wonderful sleepers, which is a life long benefit. DH and I have had more time to reconnect at night because of it. You don't need exercise as much as you just need to eat less. You can't outrun the fork. Eating less won't take anything away from your kids or take up any more time. My kids and I hike and walk to playgrounds a lot. I also think that marriage should be prioritized first, not girls trips, but couples trips, date nights and caring for each other. The more love and caring I pour into our relationship, the better a father DH is too.

YES. I feel the same way. My mom would tell us how she washed the floors every day when we were very little, because it was The Right Thing To Do. She didn't seem to weigh how much effort it cost her. My mom devoted so much of herself to her kids, but there wasn't much left. At her funeral, I struggled to say something about her as a person rather than just as a devoted mom. And she was very needy with her kids even once we grew up, my sister became emotionally dependent on her, whereas I had to actively break away, which caused a lot of unnecessary heartache.

It is SO SO IMPORTANT to have balance, OP. And it is definitely not too late to change your approach, especially as your kids are getting older. I'm wondering why you are worried about the slippery slope? Do you have control issues or an addictive personality? What does your DH think about all this?

Why do you have to know your mother as a person? She was your mother. That was her role in your life.

And CIO is shirking your responsibility as a parent for selfish reasons and then pretending it's actually a healthy choice for your baby instead of for you. As if human kind had it wrong for thousands upon thousands of years, feeding and comforting their babies at night. CIO is barbaric.

Oh wow this is classic mommy martyr! Dramatic and highly emotional response about how “CIO is barbaric.”

Who cares about sleep, right? You should sacrifice sleep and your marriage so that your precious baby never cries at night. Make sure to not have a job so you can wake up throughout the night for your baby who doesn’t require a middle of the night feed. Then make sure to talk to your husband about how much you’re sacrificing for your family. Even though your husband never asked you to quit your job so you can stay up all night with a baby. Whenever your friends have careers and kids who sleep make sure to tell them how “lucky” they are that they have a good sleeper.

If you didn't realize having a baby meant you would be sacrificing sleep, you must have been living under a rock. It's universal. The only reason you do CIO is because you have a job. You can say, "We can't afford a baby so let's not have one" but you just can't say, "We can't lose sleep because I work full time." If you can't do the job, don't have a baby, or hire a night nanny to do the job for you. Don't pretend it's okay to let a baby scream because you need to go to work the next day.

NP. I didn’t do CIO, my kids are all teens now, and you are INSANE.

[Anonymous]

Classic DCUM: A thread about “mommy martyrdom” devolves into a CIO war.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are my mother. She thought she was GREAT. I found her suffocating as hell. Physically and emotionally, even though I couldn't articulate it for the first ten or so years I felt that way.

+1. I had a similar mom. She gave up her career and prioritized raising kids over everything else. Few interests or friends. She thought it made her terrific. I felt incredibly smothered and uncomfortable. I rebelled as a teen and likely because I needed space to breathe.

I have a few friends who are the mommy martyr types. No social life outside of kids. SAHMs. Everything for the kids. They have young kids and I can see how much they already pull away from their mom. It’s very obvious their moms need to step back and have their own life.

You are pigeon-holing these mom. Some of them identified too much with their work before having kids. I cannot be good at both simultaneously. When I worked it my work was my priority. Unfortunately my spouse never contributed to family while I worked. Constant barrage of calls. It was like having three jobs — one that paid me, one that I was married to and one that had to do with my kids.

That sounds like a serious spouse problem.

[Anonymous]

I coslept with my third child because it was so much easier for me. I refused to be a mommy martyr who is going to try to stay up all night tending to the child rather than doing what work to get us both the most sleep.

I don’t live in a big house so a separate nursery was not an option. While cosleeping isn’t technically the “safest” choice, I followed the LLL advice and all was fine. He transitioned very nicely to sleeping on his own by four months, some gentle fuss it out, and maybe about 10 minutes of crying.

Choices about infant sleep don’t have to be such a extreme set of practices, i.e. cosleeping martyr who never actually sleeps or letting infants scream indefinitely

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wished my mom had friends (still do!), wished my mom took more care of herself, wished she put her marriage above children. I do love my mom, but she was lax on discipline and it shows with my sibling.

I've tried hard to not be a martyr and would disagree with a lot of your items that you think are "better". I think CIO has enabled my kids to be wonderful sleepers, which is a life long benefit. DH and I have had more time to reconnect at night because of it. You don't need exercise as much as you just need to eat less. You can't outrun the fork. Eating less won't take anything away from your kids or take up any more time. My kids and I hike and walk to playgrounds a lot. I also think that marriage should be prioritized first, not girls trips, but couples trips, date nights and caring for each other. The more love and caring I pour into our relationship, the better a father DH is too.

YES. I feel the same way. My mom would tell us how she washed the floors every day when we were very little, because it was The Right Thing To Do. She didn't seem to weigh how much effort it cost her. My mom devoted so much of herself to her kids, but there wasn't much left. At her funeral, I struggled to say something about her as a person rather than just as a devoted mom. And she was very needy with her kids even once we grew up, my sister became emotionally dependent on her, whereas I had to actively break away, which caused a lot of unnecessary heartache.

It is SO SO IMPORTANT to have balance, OP. And it is definitely not too late to change your approach, especially as your kids are getting older. I'm wondering why you are worried about the slippery slope? Do you have control issues or an addictive personality? What does your DH think about all this?

Why do you have to know your mother as a person? She was your mother. That was her role in your life.

And CIO is shirking your responsibility as a parent for selfish reasons and then pretending it's actually a healthy choice for your baby instead of for you. As if human kind had it wrong for thousands upon thousands of years, feeding and comforting their babies at night. CIO is barbaric.

Oh wow this is classic mommy martyr! Dramatic and highly emotional response about how “CIO is barbaric.”

Who cares about sleep, right? You should sacrifice sleep and your marriage so that your precious baby never cries at night. Make sure to not have a job so you can wake up throughout the night for your baby who doesn’t require a middle of the night feed. Then make sure to talk to your husband about how much you’re sacrificing for your family. Even though your husband never asked you to quit your job so you can stay up all night with a baby. Whenever your friends have careers and kids who sleep make sure to tell them how “lucky” they are that they have a good sleeper.

If you didn't realize having a baby meant you would be sacrificing sleep, you must have been living under a rock. It's universal. The only reason you do CIO is because you have a job. You can say, "We can't afford a baby so let's not have one" but you just can't say, "We can't lose sleep because I work full time." If you can't do the job, don't have a baby, or hire a night nanny to do the job for you. Don't pretend it's okay to let a baby scream because you need to go to work the next day.

NP. Excuse me, I work full time and so does my husband and we most certainly did not do barbaric cry it out. Don’t act like all working parents do CIO. I agree that it’s a selfish and lazy thing to do, but plenty of SAHMs do cry it out and plenty of working moms wouldn’t dream of it. So stop with the generalizations.

If you didn't do CIO because you had to get up for work the next day, then the post was not directed at you. I wasn't generalizing -- I was addressing the post directly above the response (which is a common excuse for CIO).

Dp. I’m a working parent who didn’t have to do cio, but I would have at least tried it. Why? Because I’m a human being who needs sleep, regardless of jobs and babies. I know you don’t view mothers as people, but that’s your warped view of motherhood that, thank goodness, most people don’t share.

+1000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wished my mom had friends (still do!), wished my mom took more care of herself, wished she put her marriage above children. I do love my mom, but she was lax on discipline and it shows with my sibling.

I've tried hard to not be a martyr and would disagree with a lot of your items that you think are "better". I think CIO has enabled my kids to be wonderful sleepers, which is a life long benefit. DH and I have had more time to reconnect at night because of it. You don't need exercise as much as you just need to eat less. You can't outrun the fork. Eating less won't take anything away from your kids or take up any more time. My kids and I hike and walk to playgrounds a lot. I also think that marriage should be prioritized first, not girls trips, but couples trips, date nights and caring for each other. The more love and caring I pour into our relationship, the better a father DH is too.

YES. I feel the same way. My mom would tell us how she washed the floors every day when we were very little, because it was The Right Thing To Do. She didn't seem to weigh how much effort it cost her. My mom devoted so much of herself to her kids, but there wasn't much left. At her funeral, I struggled to say something about her as a person rather than just as a devoted mom. And she was very needy with her kids even once we grew up, my sister became emotionally dependent on her, whereas I had to actively break away, which caused a lot of unnecessary heartache.

It is SO SO IMPORTANT to have balance, OP. And it is definitely not too late to change your approach, especially as your kids are getting older. I'm wondering why you are worried about the slippery slope? Do you have control issues or an addictive personality? What does your DH think about all this?

Why do you have to know your mother as a person? She was your mother. That was her role in your life.

And CIO is shirking your responsibility as a parent for selfish reasons and then pretending it's actually a healthy choice for your baby instead of for you. As if human kind had it wrong for thousands upon thousands of years, feeding and comforting their babies at night. CIO is barbaric.

Oh wow this is classic mommy martyr! Dramatic and highly emotional response about how “CIO is barbaric.”

Who cares about sleep, right? You should sacrifice sleep and your marriage so that your precious baby never cries at night. Make sure to not have a job so you can wake up throughout the night for your baby who doesn’t require a middle of the night feed. Then make sure to talk to your husband about how much you’re sacrificing for your family. Even though your husband never asked you to quit your job so you can stay up all night with a baby. Whenever your friends have careers and kids who sleep make sure to tell them how “lucky” they are that they have a good sleeper.

If you didn't realize having a baby meant you would be sacrificing sleep, you must have been living under a rock. It's universal. The only reason you do CIO is because you have a job. You can say, "We can't afford a baby so let's not have one" but you just can't say, "We can't lose sleep because I work full time." If you can't do the job, don't have a baby, or hire a night nanny to do the job for you. Don't pretend it's okay to let a baby scream because you need to go to work the next day.

NP. Excuse me, I work full time and so does my husband and we most certainly did not do barbaric cry it out. Don’t act like all working parents do CIO. I agree that it’s a selfish and lazy thing to do, but plenty of SAHMs do cry it out and plenty of working moms wouldn’t dream of it. So stop with the generalizations.

If you didn't do CIO because you had to get up for work the next day, then the post was not directed at you. I wasn't generalizing -- I was addressing the post directly above the response (which is a common excuse for CIO).

Dp. I’m a working parent who didn’t have to do cio, but I would have at least tried it. Why? Because I’m a human being who needs sleep, regardless of jobs and babies. I know you don’t view mothers as people, but that’s your warped view of motherhood that, thank goodness, most people don’t share.

People have been waking up in the night to deal with crying babies for literally an eternity. For some reason some parents now think it's asking too much of them as "people" to do that for their own offspring. That's what's warped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Classic DCUM: A thread about “mommy martyrdom” devolves into a CIO war.

It’s hilarious! I haven’t read a thread fighting about sleep training in years … and I have a 2.5 year old so we were in the baby years not so long ago. It’s just so quaint and dated! Like we’re back in 2015 or something, Obama is still president and there was never any Covid … what a flashback, lol.

[Anonymous]

I think there is a Mommy Martyr who is feeling overly seen by OPs post and so is lashing out and trying to derail by making insane anti-CIO posts.

- SAHM when kids were little who did not do CIO (only providing these details to prevent a cycle with the derailing mommy martyr)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wished my mom had friends (still do!), wished my mom took more care of herself, wished she put her marriage above children. I do love my mom, but she was lax on discipline and it shows with my sibling.

I've tried hard to not be a martyr and would disagree with a lot of your items that you think are "better". I think CIO has enabled my kids to be wonderful sleepers, which is a life long benefit. DH and I have had more time to reconnect at night because of it. You don't need exercise as much as you just need to eat less. You can't outrun the fork. Eating less won't take anything away from your kids or take up any more time. My kids and I hike and walk to playgrounds a lot. I also think that marriage should be prioritized first, not girls trips, but couples trips, date nights and caring for each other. The more love and caring I pour into our relationship, the better a father DH is too.

YES. I feel the same way. My mom would tell us how she washed the floors every day when we were very little, because it was The Right Thing To Do. She didn't seem to weigh how much effort it cost her. My mom devoted so much of herself to her kids, but there wasn't much left. At her funeral, I struggled to say something about her as a person rather than just as a devoted mom. And she was very needy with her kids even once we grew up, my sister became emotionally dependent on her, whereas I had to actively break away, which caused a lot of unnecessary heartache.

It is SO SO IMPORTANT to have balance, OP. And it is definitely not too late to change your approach, especially as your kids are getting older. I'm wondering why you are worried about the slippery slope? Do you have control issues or an addictive personality? What does your DH think about all this?

Why do you have to know your mother as a person? She was your mother. That was her role in your life.

And CIO is shirking your responsibility as a parent for selfish reasons and then pretending it's actually a healthy choice for your baby instead of for you. As if human kind had it wrong for thousands upon thousands of years, feeding and comforting their babies at night. CIO is barbaric.

Oh wow this is classic mommy martyr! Dramatic and highly emotional response about how “CIO is barbaric.”

Who cares about sleep, right? You should sacrifice sleep and your marriage so that your precious baby never cries at night. Make sure to not have a job so you can wake up throughout the night for your baby who doesn’t require a middle of the night feed. Then make sure to talk to your husband about how much you’re sacrificing for your family. Even though your husband never asked you to quit your job so you can stay up all night with a baby. Whenever your friends have careers and kids who sleep make sure to tell them how “lucky” they are that they have a good sleeper.

If you didn't realize having a baby meant you would be sacrificing sleep, you must have been living under a rock. It's universal. The only reason you do CIO is because you have a job. You can say, "We can't afford a baby so let's not have one" but you just can't say, "We can't lose sleep because I work full time." If you can't do the job, don't have a baby, or hire a night nanny to do the job for you. Don't pretend it's okay to let a baby scream because you need to go to work the next day.

NP. Excuse me, I work full time and so does my husband and we most certainly did not do barbaric cry it out. Don’t act like all working parents do CIO. I agree that it’s a selfish and lazy thing to do, but plenty of SAHMs do cry it out and plenty of working moms wouldn’t dream of it. So stop with the generalizations.

If you didn't do CIO because you had to get up for work the next day, then the post was not directed at you. I wasn't generalizing -- I was addressing the post directly above the response (which is a common excuse for CIO).

Dp. I’m a working parent who didn’t have to do cio, but I would have at least tried it. Why? Because I’m a human being who needs sleep, regardless of jobs and babies. I know you don’t view mothers as people, but that’s your warped view of motherhood that, thank goodness, most people don’t share.

People have been waking up in the night to deal with crying babies for literally an eternity. For some reason some parents now think it's asking too much of them as "people" to do that for their own offspring. That's what's warped.

Yes and literally all parents still wake up in the middle of the night to deal with crying babies. Even the ones who do CIO.

[Anonymous]

Wow this devolved! I have one child who needed some sleep training (we did the most gentle method we could find but there was still crying, just like other times in the day when she didn’t like something) and one child who we could coach gently into STTN. I was literally worried I would have a car accident either one who was not sleeping

[Anonymous]

I haven't read the comments but I was like you, OP. I'm not sure exactly what I should have done differently. I had no family help, my kid wouldn't sleep no matter what, DH had a big job, and I was very driven to raise my kid according to all the best parenting books. I think this was generally okay until my second came along because I still had time to take care of myself when DD was on a consistent nap schedule. But I went crazy when I had a three year old and a five month old. Literally, I went to the mental hospital.

That was ten years ago and I'm doing better now, but I am still struggling with this.

Just this morning, I was on my way to the gym because I really, really needed it for my mental health. But then there were some hiccups in my husband's schedule and he couldn't do an activity he had planned with DD, and he asked me to take her. I knew that in order for me to have a day where I felt confident and productive and mentally stable, I needed to go to the gym first thing. But DD looked sad so I took her on this outing instead. And then that turned into something else, and then into something else, and I lost momentum to go to the gym. I did eventually go but I missed on a several hours of mental clarity and calm just so DD was a little more comfortable.

in the grand scheme of things this is not a big deal, but it's just a reminder that I once again put DD's wants ahead of my needs. I should have worked out and then done the activity, even if she looked bummed about it.

But at this point I'm so used to being flexible and putting my needs last, and it's a really hard habit to break. My kids are older and I should be at the point where I easily prioritize myself, but it's like I'm an elephant who grew up tied to a post and my brain hasn't figured out that the rope is no longer there. I see my husband just say no to the kids when they ask for something but he has something else going on, and he can just do that with no inner turmoil or guilt. I don't think I'll ever get to that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there is a Mommy Martyr who is feeling overly seen by OPs post and so is lashing out and trying to derail by making insane anti-CIO posts.

- SAHM when kids were little who did not do CIO (only providing these details to prevent a cycle with the derailing mommy martyr)

You're projecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I coslept with my third child because it was so much easier for me. I refused to be a mommy martyr who is going to try to stay up all night tending to the child rather than doing what work to get us both the most sleep.

I don’t live in a big house so a separate nursery was not an option. While cosleeping isn’t technically the “safest” choice, I followed the LLL advice and all was fine. He transitioned very nicely to sleeping on his own by four months, some gentle fuss it out, and maybe about 10 minutes of crying.

Choices about infant sleep don’t have to be such a extreme set of practices, i.e. cosleeping martyr who never actually sleeps or letting infants scream indefinitely

This was me. Agreed. It’s not a stark either or.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always wished my mom had friends (still do!), wished my mom took more care of herself, wished she put her marriage above children. I do love my mom, but she was lax on discipline and it shows with my sibling.

I've tried hard to not be a martyr and would disagree with a lot of your items that you think are "better". I think CIO has enabled my kids to be wonderful sleepers, which is a life long benefit. DH and I have had more time to reconnect at night because of it. You don't need exercise as much as you just need to eat less. You can't outrun the fork. Eating less won't take anything away from your kids or take up any more time. My kids and I hike and walk to playgrounds a lot. I also think that marriage should be prioritized first, not girls trips, but couples trips, date nights and caring for each other. The more love and caring I pour into our relationship, the better a father DH is too.

YES. I feel the same way. My mom would tell us how she washed the floors every day when we were very little, because it was The Right Thing To Do. She didn't seem to weigh how much effort it cost her. My mom devoted so much of herself to her kids, but there wasn't much left. At her funeral, I struggled to say something about her as a person rather than just as a devoted mom. And she was very needy with her kids even once we grew up, my sister became emotionally dependent on her, whereas I had to actively break away, which caused a lot of unnecessary heartache.

It is SO SO IMPORTANT to have balance, OP. And it is definitely not too late to change your approach, especially as your kids are getting older. I'm wondering why you are worried about the slippery slope? Do you have control issues or an addictive personality? What does your DH think about all this?

Why do you have to know your mother as a person? She was your mother. That was her role in your life.

And CIO is shirking your responsibility as a parent for selfish reasons and then pretending it's actually a healthy choice for your baby instead of for you. As if human kind had it wrong for thousands upon thousands of years, feeding and comforting their babies at night. CIO is barbaric.

Oh wow this is classic mommy martyr! Dramatic and highly emotional response about how “CIO is barbaric.”

Who cares about sleep, right? You should sacrifice sleep and your marriage so that your precious baby never cries at night. Make sure to not have a job so you can wake up throughout the night for your baby who doesn’t require a middle of the night feed. Then make sure to talk to your husband about how much you’re sacrificing for your family. Even though your husband never asked you to quit your job so you can stay up all night with a baby. Whenever your friends have careers and kids who sleep make sure to tell them how “lucky” they are that they have a good sleeper.

If you didn't realize having a baby meant you would be sacrificing sleep, you must have been living under a rock. It's universal. The only reason you do CIO is because you have a job. You can say, "We can't afford a baby so let's not have one" but you just can't say, "We can't lose sleep because I work full time." If you can't do the job, don't have a baby, or hire a night nanny to do the job for you. Don't pretend it's okay to let a baby scream because you need to go to work the next day.

NP. Excuse me, I work full time and so does my husband and we most certainly did not do barbaric cry it out. Don’t act like all working parents do CIO. I agree that it’s a selfish and lazy thing to do, but plenty of SAHMs do cry it out and plenty of working moms wouldn’t dream of it. So stop with the generalizations.

If you didn't do CIO because you had to get up for work the next day, then the post was not directed at you. I wasn't generalizing -- I was addressing the post directly above the response (which is a common excuse for CIO).

Dp. I’m a working parent who didn’t have to do cio, but I would have at least tried it. Why? Because I’m a human being who needs sleep, regardless of jobs and babies. I know you don’t view mothers as people, but that’s your warped view of motherhood that, thank goodness, most people don’t share.

People have been waking up in the night to deal with crying babies for literally an eternity. For some reason some parents now think it's asking too much of them as "people" to do that for their own offspring. That's what's warped.

NP. You think that human women have been more or less entirely responsible themselves, as new mothers, for waking up all through the night to take care of their infants on their own?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there is a Mommy Martyr who is feeling overly seen by OPs post and so is lashing out and trying to derail by making insane anti-CIO posts.

- SAHM when kids were little who did not do CIO (only providing these details to prevent a cycle with the derailing mommy martyr)

You're projecting.

You want her to be projecting. That's true enough.