Baby Farm: I'm not here to supply you infants!

by Quercus

When I started The ACoN Society, I wanted to start something quite different than a personal blog. And yet here I am, with another angry self-centric rant!

I think it must be part of the ACoN experience to need to vent, to have your pain validated. So forgive me another "Me-Me-Me" post - hopefully it'll spur on an important discussion for everyone to benefit from!


I am NOT your Baby Farm

"You have certain expectations for your daughter," said my NM when she accused me of being a lesbian. For starters, this really hurt because I'm not gay and anyone who knew me at all would know that. My mother should have known this - how many times did I open up to her about man problems? Guys I liked? Issues regarding heterosexual sexuality?!

Her issues, it turns out, seem to have stemmed from her fear that if I were a lesbian, I wouldn't choose to have children of my own. Her callous comments also hurt because I sensed that I would have been loved by her even less were I a lesbian (could it be possible for her to love me any less?! Would I simply cease to have any intrinsic value whatsoever if I didn't reproduce? Is that all I am to her? A baby farm?!).

I wouldn't have kids so that they could grow to supply me with anything; raising a child is the whole reward! My children's choice to become parents in their own right would be completely, utterly, wholly their own decision (and a huge decision with major and far-reaching implications at that!). I wouldn't even offer my opinion on the subject of their starting a family unless it was explicitly asked for. I can't think of anything that could be considered less of my 'business'!

A major decision - a life-changing decision for you, your spouse, and the innocent you brought into the world without its express consent. This is not a decision to be made lightly. It's not one I'm going to get bullied into. It's the needs of the future child I'm concerned about, not me and my husband's, and certainly not my evil NM's wishes!

But if I were to view babies as commodities - things I was entitled to - then the decision-making process and the implications of having one will be relatively minor. In that instance, I'd care mainly about stretch marks and how my body would look post-baby. In the meanwhile, I'd have a cute little thing to dress up, breast feed, coddle and parade around in an expensive designer stroller. A thing to brag about. A prized possession. Something to make me feel a certain way - like a real woman or some such crap. And I'd have an excellent, captive source of narcissistic supply!

Here's the trouble - babies are people, even though many people seem to want to overlook that fact. They are the infantile stage of a human being - and one capable of having their own babies in just 12-14 years! 'Babies' grow up fast; 'babies' are a fleeting first phase in the life cycle of a person. Every 80 year old man shuffling along the sidewalk was a baby once. So was I. Everyone you see was once somebody's little 'bundle of joy'.

I don't know if it's the maternal instinct, or our society, that causes the baby-lust and objectification of people as goods, but "I'm having a baby" and "This is my baby" and all other such statements seem to belie the fact we collectively view 'babies' as objects or pets at best. Something warm and cute and cuddly; a possession. A toy.

What is essential is that we remember that any given infant - the screaming, pooping, laughing, crawling, nursing pile of cute - is, in fact, a latent adult. And babies don't stay 'cute' forever either - they quickly become belligerent toddlers, tots, tweens and teens. They are a person, with rights, value, hopes and dreams. The brain they have now will carry them forward for the rest of their lives. Same heart, same organs, same eyes. The memories they form, the beliefs they acquire, the personality they develop - it all starts when they are a baby, but it lasts a lifetime.

I don't think narcissists quite see babies as anything but 'babies' - something to use. Something for them to pick up, carry around, make faces at, talk about, keep them company, etc. How many articles have I read about narcissistic mothers where the NM preferred the child when they were small? Too many to count. Small and mirroring and easily manipulated - that's what NM's enjoy. Any older than that, and you're a unwanted burden. And I have REAL issues with this.

I don't doubt for a moment that I was born a commodity. I was the cause of stretch marks, unwanted hair growth, hormonal imbalances, an emergency caesarean, mastitis and post-partum depression (and this is just in the first few weeks of my life; my NM's own reflections of that time). I came at a great price - I was expected to perform and give unlimited love and validation to the owner of the surly uterus that gave rise to me.

I didn't have any choice in the matter; I was born because my parents intentionally left off the condom that night. I knew nothing - I came out completely helpless. It wasn't my fault that I was a week or more overdue, or that I slept through the full first night when "babies aren't supposed to do that". It wasn't my fault that I was female, either. Or that I had a giant head. Or that I got unbecomingly 'chunky' and was put on a diet in my first year of life!

And yet, somehow, I have been made to feel horrible for all these things. I was a source of immense worry and anxiety, a constant pooper, a 'real pig' with food. I was supposed to be different somehow, and yet, looking at this scenario through the lens of an adult, I don't think I would have constituted a particularly high-maintenance neonate! I wasn't 'special needs', I didn't have any health or feeding issues, and apparently I was quite the sleeper.

Why did they have me, exactly? What was the motivation there? To fill a yawning emptiness in my mother's soul*? To be the envy of their peers? To have someone to push around? Who knows - all I do know is that they've entirely missed the point of having children; they didn't seem to enjoy having to raise us when we were small, and we don't 'do enough' for them now.
*there's no excuse in my mind for her not seeking therapy prior to having me; I was planned.

Why did they have me, I will never know. But I know what's expected of me: grandchildren. NOW.

My NParents are always trying to catch me by surprise (the at-home or at-work 'pop-in'; happened as recently as last week!), and as far as we can tell it's for two reasons: to prove that they can decide when they see me (I don't get to tell them 'no'), and also to make sure I'm not pregnant without telling them (hence the straining to check my waistline!). They send flying monkeys over the internet to ask me if I'm expecting, and even this morning an old friend who may or may not have been in contact with my parents texted me out of the blue and without pretext to ask if I was "preggers", an expression I simply loathe. When I said I had no plans to do so in the near future, I got a sarcastic response hinting that this decision was undesirable or abnormal.

Here's the thing - my "view" of the sacred state of "Motherhood" is a dark one, mostly because of my experiences with my own mother. I read the book, "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood; though it's meant to be a futuristic thriller about a dystopian totalitarian society where rich old couples are assigned 'handmaids' to become surrogate mothers (the rare fertile women are captured and taken into captivity, their husbands and children torn away from them), I saw so many parallels to the NM in the 'wives'. You can read the plot synopsis on the hyperlinked Wikipedia article, but I recommend the book. It's a very creepy read, be forewarned.

I enjoyed this book because it so completely encapsulated my feelings on my own fertility; the old hag that owns me will have her own little 'birthing' party, fake labour pains, have people rally around her and congratulate her on becoming a (grand)mother! Meanwhile, ignored in the corner is the actual mother giving actual birth to a real live baby, her baby, which is taken away and given to someone else. The real mother is in essence a farm animal for breeding purposes. No rights, no compassion, no nothing. Used and abused. And used and abused to give rise to a child she can't protect. This inability to 'protect' my child from my NParents may even keep me from ever conceiving. I can't risk exposing an innocent baby (who is my precious God-given responsbility) to their toxicity.

I do want to have a family one day. I have actually always had a real soft spot for adoption, something my NM has criticized with hostility over the years (now I know why). Clearly, the sole reason my additional X chromosome has been tolerated is because one day I'd supply her with freshly laid, genetically-related offspring for her to manipulate. And that day has, according to them, come.

This is the single most frightening aspect to me about my parents. It isn't all the awful, verging-on-the-criminal things they've done to me, or the emotional abuse and neglect of the past and present, it's this. That they are somehow entitled to dictate what I do with my own internal organs! They are able to tell me what the remainder of my adult life should be! But worst of all, they are able to possess my children.

I don't know if anyone else has these issues/fears - it sounds like many of you already had children well before coming to grips with your parent's narcissism. Being on this side of the equation scares the living daylights out of me. It might even prevent me from having children outright, though my real friends have urged me to not allow my mother to take my fertility, too.

Any thoughts or comments? Is this just a concern of the engulfed-ACoN and not the ignored-ACoNs? I hope someone can relate to what I'm writing.