The First-Time Mom Problem

This is yet another rant about the horrors of my birth board. I do believe, however, it is a valid rant.

There seems to be this disdain, bordering on hatred, for First-Time Moms (FTMs) from Been There, Done That (BTDT) moms on my birth board. Sometimes it’s as benign as saying “I hate getting advice from FTMs. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They think because they read a book or an article or talked to their OB that they know more about pregnancy than I do.” Ok, that’s fine. I find it annoying when people who’ve never been pregnant give me advice, too. I especially hate it when MEN give me advice. So I get that, I really do.

But today I just wanted to reach through the computer and strangle this self-righteous BTDT bitch. It was a thread begun about a lady another mom saw at her OB’s office who was bragging about not knowing who her baby daddy was. This lady (not the original poster) was also allegedly cussing up a storm in front of other people’s children. The self-righteous BTDT bitch was the first commenter. And she said, verbatim, “No doubt shes a FTM. She will be in for a rude awakening when the baby gets here. She has no idea how much her life is about to change.” (Spelling error is hers, not mine.)

Oh, so some woman who’s proud of not knowing who her baby daddy is and who cusses in front of kids MUST be a FTM??? Have you ever watched an episode of Maury? Or Springer? Have you read some of the atrocious grammar and spelling of some of these BTDT moms on this VERY BOARD? And the stories! Oh, the stories about getting accidentally pregnant for an Nth time because they still haven’t figured out how to practice safe sex! Or they cheated on their significant others and don’t know who the father of their Nth child is! My definition of what makes a suitable mom doesn’t include a woman who’s proud of sleeping around a lot, but to blame it on an entire category of women who have absolutely nothing to do with that is asinine. Some of the BTDT moms are a LOT nastier folks than the FTMs who are there for support, advice, and to just complain about being pregnant and having other people around them.

I don’t understand all the animosity towards FTMs. Anyone who has a baby or two or twenty or however many was a FTM at some point. So popping out more than one child suddenly makes you a superior human being? It makes you infallible or absolutely immune to the possibility of being trashy? I think not. While I may not know tricks to help a child sleep, and while I may struggle to breastfeed or change a diaper or potty train my child, I bet I’ll learn it the same way the BTDT moms did: experience. And when a FTM expresses some kind of concern or opinion or, Hell, complains about someone else’s parenting or offers advice to me on my second pregnancy (when I’ll be a BTDT mom, if we choose to have more children) I won’t dismiss the entire population of FTMs as being inferior people. As the first woman in my peer group to go through pregnancy, I imagine there will be a few questions from friends. Stuff like “is this normal?” to “what was your opinion on this issue?” I’m sure my friends will roll their eyes at me when my child acts out. I’ll just smile knowing that their child will probably misbehave just as much. Unless their child is a space creature. Like a Vulcan. Or a robot. Or a sociopath. But in any of those cases, they’ll face their own challenges. And while I probably won’t be able to relate to those, I’ll at least be sympathetic and not judge them from a high horse of having reproductive organs actually complete their biological function before theirs did.