MOMS: Ever feel alone in how you perceive this role? I swear I feel like I’m surrounded by women who were once smart & interesting but have become zombies who only talk about soccer and coupons.
This was an opening gambit on UrbanBaby this past April. It could have devolved into a sanctimommy pile-on. It didn’t.
I totally feel this way.

I am a f/t wohm—Work Outside the Home Mom—have a career, and I don’t feel smart or interesting anymore! I don’t talk about soccer or coupons, but just feel too tired to talk about anything that interesting.

I freely admit that I have gained “more” than I have lost by becoming a parent, but I still miss aspects of my old life.

[…] But one of the most sobering declines documented in Changing Rhythms of American Family Life is the amount of time married parents spend alone together each week: Nine hours today versus twelve in 1975. Bradbury, who was involved in the UCLA study of those 32 families, says the husbands and wives spent less than 10 percent of their home time alone together. “And do you think they were saying, ‘Gee honey, you look lovely. I just wanted to pick up on that fascinating conversation we were having earlier about the Obama administration’? ” he asks. “Nope. They were exhausted and staring at the television.”
– NYMag
Ha. I always said, from the time I was old enough to have the capability of producing any, that I never wanted to have kids. The best-laid schemes of mice and men being what they are, of course, I ended up raising my stepson from the time he was two, doing so for several years after his mom and I split (we were never married, and I never adopted him, so “stepson” is just convenient shorthand) by myself. I say unto you, I had no problem at all with him once he got to an age where he could be more or less reasonable and actually share adult interests with me. And while he was never a bad kid (slightly hyper in his younger years), I still would not care to do it again, biological offspring or not.
From a selfish perspective, I have to agree with the above sentiment. I can’t count how many of my peers are currently in the thick of nurturing toddlers while living in one of those godforsaken cult compounds devoted to worship of The Children Who Are The Future (you might know them as those cookie cutter McMansion subdivisions, where everything is sterilized, sanitized and perfectly manicured to provide the optimal childhood experiences for the little dears). And yes, they never have time for anything else, especially books or conversations. I’m surprised they had the time or energy to fuck long enough to make the second or third kids! They’ve become so insanely boring it pains me, which is really saying something.
As we contemplate this grim state of affairs, let us take a moment and heed the wise words of America’s greatest modern philosopher, George Carlin.