The never-ending hangover of my 20s prepared me for pregnancy

A ringing endorsement for pregnancy compares it to a hangover. The entire article is pure self-absorbed party girl newly reformed into sobriety through pregnancy, with a dose of fertility bragging. No doubt it is people like this - eager to tell the world how they've changed through tedious oversharing - who like to accuse the CF of being partiers.

There are a number of moos who have kids to force themselves to grow up and be responsible. The moo in this article actually admits to being an over-sharer

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From Article
Apparently, the fact that I wasn’t drinking on any given evening was so out of character that they knew I was pregnant before I could even utter the words “lubricated vaginal ultrasound wand”.

"Party girl" is a synonym for a heavy drinker, drug user, or promiscuous woman. There may be a synonym for a guy with the same characteristics, but I can't think of it.

Bottom line: Neither are likely to make for good parents.

I am not judging anyone who needs to "reform themselves" in a major way. I am suggesting that bringing children into the world will only cause more added stress and create a greater likelihood that the person reverts back to "partying."

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cfdavep
There are a number of moos who have kids to force themselves to grow up and be responsible.

Perhaps. But in my life experience, there are quite a few who do not. They are dropping the kids off at school, and hitting the wine bottle when they arrive home. Or they are getting bombed at weddings, holidays, and summer block parties, under the justification that "everyone" is drinking heavily. "Everyone" meaning them and a few other winos.

Some even go a step further, ditching alcohol for prescription meds.

Again... people have problems and I hope they can get the help they need. However, I do think that it is immoral to bring other people into the world and force them to, by default, share in your problems. Getting knocked up =/= "growing up" and becoming responsible.

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StudioFiftyFour
Perhaps. But in my life experience, there are quite a few who do not. They are dropping the kids off at school, and hitting the wine bottle when they arrive home. Or they are getting bombed at weddings, holidays, and summer block parties, under the justification that "everyone" is drinking heavily. "Everyone" meaning them and a few other winos.

These are the kinds of people who drag their children to inappropriate adult locations like bars, and proceed to get shitfaced, because they do not think their life ought to change one iota after reproduction. After all, she gave up drinking for the 9 months of pregnancy, what more can anyone expect of her? Certainly not parenting!

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StudioFiftyFour
"Party girl" is a synonym for a heavy drinker, drug user, or promiscuous woman.

In this case I meant it as "raging alcoholic".

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Perhaps. But in my life experience, there are quite a few who do not. They are dropping the kids off at school, and hitting the wine bottle when they arrive home. Or they are getting bombed at weddings, holidays, and summer block parties, under the justification that "everyone" is drinking heavily. "Everyone" meaning them and a few other winos.

Some even go a step further, ditching alcohol for prescription meds.

See: Diane Schuler (and the media then trying to find every reason to excuse her and every unhappy mother that drinks too much).

And I've seen it too. My boss has two small children and her behavior at the employee holiday party was one part extrovert and five parts "first night out without the children since the first pregnancy."

The only wise thing Dr. Phil has ever said is that "you don't give a child a job." That's what "party girl" did. Instead of putting in the work of self-improvement herself, she basically foisted the responsibility upon a fucking baby. When she inevitably goes back to her alcoholic promiscuous ways, her child is the one who gets to feel the crushing guilt and failure because the child will be the convenient scapegoat for Moo's failings.

You see this sort of shit from pregnant women in prison who say that this will be the child that will get them to straighten their lives out, never mind their five previous children languishing in foster care because they were such a colossal fuckup they lost parental rights.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

I never understood people who had kids to "make them straighten up." If you don't care enough about yourself to clean up for your own sake, why would a baby change that? What do they expect a baby to do that will make sobering up easier in the first, or more rewarding in the second? I am suddenly motivated to write an article, I could call it "why having kids won't solve your problems," and distribute it to these idiots to stop them from breeding.

Lock him up or put him down.
Stolen from Shiny.

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paragon schnitzophonic

And I've seen it too. My boss has two small children and her behavior at the employee holiday party was one part extrovert and five parts "first night out without the children since the first pregnancy."

I know one of these, too, except she is a SAHM. I see her fairly regularly at select events, and she is always in a state of insobriety to some degree. You name the occasion... wedding, funeral, birthday party... random Thursday morning in February... she's got a drink in her hand.

She routinely brings up how lucky she is that her husband earns a good living... and I do agree with her on that point. Those comments are usually followed up with, "So when are you having kids?" or "When are you having more kids?"

She's like a female, unfunny version of Dean Martin.

People believe this myth because popular culture promotes it heavily. Every movie plot involving a woman ends with her getting married and sprogging, often as a resolution to her earlier "I'm such a hot mess/who will ever love me?" ways. Rarely are things like abortion presented as an equal option with adoption or keeping the baby. It's all about glorifying motherhood, even single motherhood in less-than-ideal circumstances. As long as the woman becomes a mom so she can "grow up" and fulfill her purpose as a golden vessel of new life.

Oh, whatever. They all say that. Then when reality hits and Moo realizes that life with kids is not the fairytale she thought it would be, she'll go right back to the booze, and if that's not enough she'll pop prescription pills like candy. And she'll end up taking all her shit out on the kid, because Junior had to be a human being with needs instead of this angel that was supposed to rescue her from her so-called "party girl" ways.

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electricfire
Oh, whatever. They all say that. Then when reality hits and Moo realizes that life with kids is not the fairytale she thought it would be, she'll go right back to the booze, and if that's not enough she'll pop prescription pills like candy. And she'll end up taking all her shit out on the kid, because Junior had to be a human being with needs instead of this angel that was supposed to rescue her from her so-called "party girl" ways.

Yep. "Party girls" usually don't get "rescued." They may, by their late 30s, find a man to marry who is willing to put aside their drug abusing, alcohol abusing past. However, this stable man likely be the type that they'll soon grow bored of, and things won't last.

Meanwhile, while the kid(s) desire a stable home, the "party girl" will blame those kids for interfering and making the mother "grow up," just as you mentioned.

It's truly a toxic situation. For you young folks out there, girls and guys, I strongly advise you to stay away from substance abusers, single parents, and those who have lots of "drama" in their lives. It is not your job to "fix" a party girl or party guy.

I now have a job working in mental health crisis support and I work with a lot of so-called "party girls/guys". Most of them lurch from one crisis to another, use substances to avoid what's really wrong in their lives (usually some kind of trauma from childhood in the most serious of cases, i.e. the ones who have major or multiple addictions). These are not people who should be having children and they need to have enough self-respect/self-esteem to want to change their own lives before they think about bringing another one into the world.

Many of the people I work with have lost custody of children because they could cope with portable babies but not wilful toddlers or kind that need to be up and out and fed for school in the morning. Having kids just doesn't work with a chaotic lifestyle. I saw this article and felt pretty stabby about it, because as others have said it just reinforces the idea that all a woman needs is a good man and some kids to sort her out, but also because I have seen first hand the effects on children of growing up in chaotic homes where the parents abuse alcohol, drugs or both. Many of my work clients grew up in those kinds of environments or were resented for their very existence and that does not make for happy well adjusted people.

Some years back there was a 48 Hours special about a woman named Krystal Surles who, at age 10, watched her best friend be murdered and have her own throat slashed by a serial killer. As they were recounting everything that transpired before and after, it turned out that this then-ten-year-old had to be a parent to her younger sisters because both her parents were drug addicts and her mother actually essentially abandoned her three daughters with their drug-addled father so she can go get sober. The girls were living with family friends in another state when the attack happened and Krystal's father was actually in prison when she was attacked and couldn't be there for his own child as she was hospitalized and testified in court against Tommy Lynn Sells.

These people had three kids and still couldn't get their shit together. It took nearly losing their oldest child and surrogate parent to the other two girls to a random, uncommon act of violence for them to finally go, "Oh, maybe we should get on board with this parent thing, yeah?"

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan