Motherhood F**ks You Up

[AnaKhouri]

This news out of Haiti is making me a wreck. If this had happened last year, I would have thought, "Wow, how horrible!" and donated some money and gone about my business.

This year, every time I see the news I want to cry. I just saw some video of little babies in a hospital with bandages on their arms and started getting teary-eyed. I just wanted to go and cuddle them. And I keep thinking how all those people who died or were trapped are someone's children, and there are mothers who don't know where their children are or who saw them die. And here I am getting teary again.

Moral of the story: don't have kids if you don't want to become a giant wuss.

[Rapscallion]

Fatherhood as well.

Went to see Children of Men with a mate of mine. He's been involved in two births as the father figure. Ten years back, he'd have laughed at most of the scenes. These days it cut him to the bone.

I still chuckled at most of it.

Rapscallion

[Jack T. Chance]

Fatherhood as well.

Went to see Children of Men with a mate of mine. He's been involved in two births as the father figure. Ten years back, he'd have laughed at most of the scenes. These days it cut him to the bone.

I still chuckled at most of it.

Rapscallion

I found Children of Men to be a fascinating, thought-provoking film with some incredible sequences. That one long, continuous tracking shot stands out in my mind. I also found it to be depressingly realistic. Definitely not a "feel good" movie. It and District 9 are the type of SF movies we don't get enough of, the kind that show you unpleasant things to make you THINK. I love watching films like that, but you definitely have to go into them prepared to be on a bit of a downer by the end of the film.

[Hobbs]

And yet it's scenes like this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/TemL3O9Lk6Q&hl=en_US&fs=1&
Can make you all bubbly inside.

[jedimaster91]

You don't even need your own kids. Borrowing other people's kids will do the same thing. I used to teach the two-year-olds at church and that scene in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe where the mom is putting the kids on the train? Total sobfest.

[Kiwi]

My brother is the most macho person I know, he is 30 and he has cried exactly twice in his life and he has broken 12 bones. He is as staunch as staunch can be.

He now has a (wonderful) daughter and the other day on the phone he used baby talk to her....I was like then I was like .

Come here baba, talk to your aunty kiwi, baba, baba come here baba, your such a good girl, come on walk to daddy...my god I just about died when I heard that, he even used that cutsey coochy coo widdle baba talk.

I still can not get my head around my big tattooed, rough arsehole of a brother telling his widdle dawter how cute she is with her widdle hands and widdle legs.

[JoitheArtist]

My best friend is amazing, and asked me to be in the delivery room when her daughter (my god-daughter) was born. I was the first person outside of family and doctors to hold her. And hell yes, it has made me get incredibly weepy at times when I wouldn't have felt a twinge before!

(behold the cuteness that is Joi's god-daughter!)

[AdminAssistant]

I found Children of Men to be a fascinating, thought-provoking film with some incredible sequences. That one long, continuous tracking shot stands out in my mind. I also found it to be depressingly realistic. Definitely not a "feel good" movie.

I sobbed through the last hour of Children of Men, and I do not cry at movies, EVER.

To the OP, I've limited my news-watching here lately. It's not that I don't care about what's going on in Haiti, but I know American news media and how they play things up for emotional impact. I just hope that all of the aid that people are donating is going to those who need it most.

[BethB]

Becoming a parent really does change how you look at everything. I would watch sad things about kids and think "how horrible. poor things". Now I'm all over it. I was completely hormonal during my first pregnancy. I was watching a documentary about the killer whale in Free Willy and I started my brains out...over a killer whale!!!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Oh, it's so true. I was overly sensitive before. I am almost dead certain I am mentally ill at this point.

Although it does make me a little less freaked out when I see that I am not the only parent out there who is nearly out of their mind when they see shit like this.

[Gravekeeper]

Just do what I do. Man the disaster relief lines for an organization that sounds like Bed Toss for 9 hours straight without ever clearing the call queue while the news plays in the background reporting that Haitians are rioting because they don't think they're getting aid fast enough.

It'll clear that mercy thing up real quick. ><

[Jester]

It'll clear that mercy thing up real quick.

Try working with a dozen Haitians for the last three years, people who man one of the best kitchens you've ever worked with, who make your job that much easier because they fucking rock, and then watching these people deal with the fact that they can't reach their family or friends, or find out when they do that some of them were killed.

That'll clear that callousness thing up real quick.

Remember that the people in Haiti are cut off for the most part from the rest of the world and have no idea what, if anything, is being done for them. Also remember that the media will sensationalize things to the nth degree, especially tragedies like this. Not all Haitians are rioting, after all. And those who are are in a desperate situation, and I wonder who some of us would deal with that same situation if we were in their place.

For the record, I'm not a parent. You don't have to be a parent to feel horrible for certain situations. You also don't have to be childless to be jaded and cynical. It goes both ways.

[Rine]

The disasters I have been through are minor compared to Haiti's, but when a lot of stuff is destroyed around you, no power/water/food/communication, everything has changed, you are snapped out of your routine, you feel cut off and desperate. It can change how you react. So I understand what is going on in Haiti and they still have my full support despite riots.

I am only an aunt, but I am taking the pictures coming through on the television/internet very hard. I can't even imagine how I would react once I have kids of my own. I have always been moved very easily and now it's like a million times worse because I see those kids' faces and I think about my niece...ugh.

[Gravekeeper]

That'll clear that callousness thing up real quick.

Callousness is perhaps not the word for my current state. I should elaborate. Half of the continent is currently trying to donate, but due to a series of programming errors by our IT department for 3 days straight now we've been hit by call volume that normally requires 12 operators on the floor in both official languages.

Except its just farking ME on shift and I only speak English.

And this is the third god damn time. I don't mean 3rd day, I mean 3rd time. As in this exact same scenario played out during the tsunami and Katrina. We manned the relief lines, one of our techs fucks up, boom, call volume for 20 operators being dumped on 1-2 for 9 hours straight ( We're talking 80+ calls in queue for 9 hours ). Throttling our entire system, shutting out all our normal client emergency lines ( So they're tearing us a verbal asshole on our normal office lines because not answering their calls can mean anything from thousands of dollars of damage to people dying ) and grinding us down in the crucible.

I hate it intensely specifically because its making me resent charity. I swear I almost quit the other day. I don't want to feel this way about charity for Christ sakes.

Argh! ><

Its still broken at work ( techs don't want to come in on weekends or something ) but I've at least tracked down the flow control valves and can get our head office to stop crushing me. But its too little too late now.

[BusBus]

I'm not a mother, or an aunt, but God help me if I watch TLC. I tear up whenever I watch one of those baby shows. I hope that this does not get worse if I ever have a kid/nephew/niece.