Everyone says that what you eat and do while pregnant affects the baby, but this new science of fetal origins has discovered that everything, absolutely everything--from the air we breathe (most likely polluted) and the food we eat (which can harbor psychoactive drugs like L Dopa) to the stress we feel--truly can determine whether our child will be fat, have heart problems or be schizo.
Why am I freaked out??? Well, when I was preggers, I wasn't exactly religiously taking my prenatal vitamins and I ate a lot of fast food. I live right along the busiest highway in the city and pass a group of smokers every day when I walk to work. I watched World War II documentaries and crime stories on TV. I was juggling work, marriage, impending motherhood. In short, I basically lived!
Then I read things like that Time story. That motherhood guilt everyone warned me about just went into overdrive. Vito, forgive mama for living her life!
Oh please. As if you can control EVERYTHING: sickness, death, happiness, future job satisfaction...
ReplyDeleteArticles like this are stupid.
Life is fatal, you know. It all ends in one thing. All the Puritanical, vitamin-taking, organic-food-eating, yoga-doing people are all going to die like the rest of us, and their children aren't guaranteed to have perfect lives either.
Just be happy and don't read dumb shizz.
P.S. I would think the majority of the world's people have in the past and do currently grow up to have either happy or sad, successful or unsuccessful, healthy or sickly lives...basically some kind of unpredictable life...without their mommies having taken a single prenatal vitamin.
ReplyDeleteI know, WendyB!!! I knew, I just knew I shouldn't have picked up that magazine. I almost couldn't sleep last night. Then I looked at my son, saw how perfect he was and just said, "Fuck it. I'm not going to stop living!"
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with everything you said. Especially this: "All the Puritanical, vitamin-taking, organic-food-eating, yoga-doing people are all going to die like the rest of us, and their children aren't guaranteed to have perfect lives either." Sounds like something from a Kenneth Cole ad =)
We were born to mothers who smoked and drank
ReplyDeleteOur cribs were covered in lead based paint
No child proof lids no seat belts in cars
Rode bikes with no helmets and still here we are, still here we are
We got daddy’s belt when we misbehaved
Had three TV channels you got up to change
No video games and no satellite
All we had were friends and they were outside, playin’ outside
"A Different World" by Bucky Covington. It's so true.
But I understand the worries. I think that's why I don't want to have kids. ;) Scared shit of doing things wrong, even if unintentionally.
But you, I'm sure you're a fab mom!